Allegiance of Honor (23 page)

“The children,” Lucas said in a gentle reminder when the ocelot male could finally breathe again.

Nodding jerkily, his new packmate left, to return with a boy of about seven and a girl who looked at least a year younger.

So young.

And so scared.

Hunkering down in front of them, Lucas simply opened his arms. They came instinctively to him, knowing from the stances of their packmates that he was safe . . . and feeling his strength. From the way they clung to him, they needed that strength as badly as the courageous man who’d watched over them until this instant.

Lucas squeezed both children tight, rising to his feet with them still in his arms. “You’ll be coming home with me,” he murmured and knew he couldn’t leave tonight.

To do so would be to break their fragile hearts.

So be it. He’d figure out a way to adjust his plans.

•   •   •

LESS
than twelve hours later, DarkRiver had six new members, no one had noticed Lucas’s absence, and Vasic Zen had agreed to teleport Naya to visit her maternal grandmother in the coming week.

“As long as I’m not needed for an emergency,” the Arrow said, “you can contact me when you’ve set up the meet and I’ll do the teleport.” Icy
gray eyes holding Lucas’s. “You’re sure you want your mate and child within the territory of one of the most dangerous women in the world?”

“Nikita knows not to cross me.” Lucas didn’t have the emotional connection to Nikita that Sascha did, would eliminate her without hesitation should she prove a threat. “Has the squad heard from BlackSea? Any progress on locating Leila Savea?” It had been well over a week since Tanique Gray’s psychometric vision.

Vasic shook his head. “Nothing.” A glance at the small jade clock on Lucas’s desk. “I’d better head home. Ivy’s planning a special dinner for Grandfather for his birthday.”

“Ashaya mentioned it was today.” The scientist deeply respected Zie Zen, and to Keenan, the elder was his grandfather, too. “She said Keenan made him a gift.”

Vasic’s smile was slight, but for an Arrow, that equaled a giant grin. “It’s a portrait of Grandfather done in rainbow colors that he has solemnly promised to place in his study—I teleported him to visit with Ashaya and her family earlier today.”

That promise, Lucas thought, said a great deal about Zie Zen. A powerful man who’d surely made many ruthless decisions in his long lifetime, he’d nonetheless not lost his soul. “Please give him DarkRiver’s best wishes. We will always be in his debt.” Without Zie Zen, Ashaya would’ve never escaped the Psy Council’s clutches, and without Ashaya, Dorian might still be furiously angry at the world, his leopard trapped in a clawing scream inside his body.

That, however, was simply the most obvious example of how Zie Zen had influenced the pack in a positive way. Lucas knew the Psy elder had his fingers in many other pies and, like Nikita, he protected those who were his own. In this case, that included DarkRiver, since Keenan and Ashaya called the pack home.

“I will,” Vasic promised before teleporting out.

Alone, Lucas turned to his desk and slid his computer screen back into the body of his desk. He’d only arrived home at close to one this afternoon, wouldn’t have minded a few hours’ rest, but he’d come into the
office instead so people could see he was in the territory. Once here, he’d spent the time wisely and cleared a backlog of tasks that fell to him as the head of DarkRiver’s business enterprises. Not everything, however—that would take another three hours at least.

Walking out to where his admin sat at her own desk, he said, “You going to shoot me if I head out?” He could finish up tomorrow morning, but he needed to know if there was something urgent he’d overlooked.

Ria rolled her eyes. “Like I could stop you.”

Grinning, Lucas tapped her on the nose. “We all know you’re the boss of this office.” Ria might be human but she was one of the strongest members of the pack, her status in the hierarchy that of a senior maternal dominant.

Now, her scowl was thunderous. “Tap me on the nose again like I’m a cub and I’ll break your hand.”

“Boss of the office,” he reiterated before ducking back inside his own space to grab his leather-synth jacket. He’d borrowed Vaughn’s jetcycle, and at those speeds, even a panther felt the chill. Shrugging into the jacket, he walked back out to Ria. “I heard Mialin caught a cold.”

Her face softened. “Only a sniffle. Emmett’s got her with him today.” Eyebrows drawing suddenly together over the silky brown of her eyes, she said, “How do you even know that? She just developed it this morning.”

“You might be the boss of the office,” he said as he zipped up the jacket, “but I’m the alpha of DarkRiver.” Every packmate was his responsibility, especially the littlest of them all. “Tamsyn had a look at her?”

Nodding, Ria got up to give him an unexpected hug, the scent of her small, curvy body deeply familiar to his panther. “You’re a good alpha, Luc.”

The out-of-the-blue words hit him hard after what he’d seen in SkyElm.

He wrapped his arms around her, held her close. “Thanks, Ri-ri.”

Elbowing him for using her endearing family nickname, she released him to go over to one corner of the office. “Don’t forget your helmet or Sascha will brain you.”

Lucas accepted the gleaming black thing. “I’ll be at Dorian’s, then home if you need me.”

His light mood only lasted until he hit the road out of town, his face turning grim inside the helmet. Because he wasn’t just swinging by to see how Dorian was healing. The sentinel might be off active duty, but he remained one of Lucas’s most trusted people. And as of last night, he had a new task: to find the ship that had been meant to take Lucas and Sascha’s cub from San Francisco to
Australia.

ZIE ZEN SAT
in a chair outside Ivy and Vasic’s home, his left hand on his cane, and listened to a young brown-haired boy play under the fiery light of the setting sun. Tavish was laughing more and more as the days passed, and today as he chased a small white dog through the orchard, he hadn’t stopped. The sound was joyous music.

Sunny,
I wish you were here to see this.

The only woman he had ever loved had wanted hope for their people, wanted joy. Instead, she’d been worn away by their need until her heart no longer beat, until there was no strength in her to breathe. His sweet, gentle Sunny. An empath during the time when the PsyNet turned against empaths, when it wanted only cold Silence. That choice had killed her, and in so doing, killed the best part of him, too.

“Grandfather.” Another empathic voice, sweet and hopeful and with a generous warmth that sank into his aching bones. “You’re cold. Here.”

Only when Ivy put the afghan over his knees did he see that his hand was trembling on the cane despite the sunshine that poured down on him, his wrinkled skin bearing the marks of age. “Thank you, Daughter.” He touched his hand to Ivy’s soft tumble of curls as she bent over to arrange the afghan, this woman who had brought his son alive.

Vasic might not be that in absolute terms, their relationship two generations removed, but he was Zie Zen’s son of the heart. And he’d done what Zie Zen couldn’t—Vasic had saved his empathic mate, kept her from
being crushed under the endless need of their people. A people who had finally remembered that the Es were treasures to be cherished.

It eased Zie Zen’s century-old pain to feel her touch, to know that Sunny’s dream was on the road to coming true.

Ivy smiled, the translucent copper of her eyes luminous and her affection and love for Zie Zen an open caress against his senses. Empaths—they had no sense of self-preservation. Never had. Probably never would.

“Would you like a hot drink?” she asked as the sun kissed the gold and cream of her skin.

Sunny’s hair had been yellow cornsilk, her eyes blue, but she’d been this way, too, always watching out for others. It was a need in an empath, this nurturing drive. “No,” he said. “The throw is enough.”

“Ivy!” Tavish rushed pell-mell toward them, the knees of his beige corduroy pants stained with grass and dirt. “Ivy! Ivy!” The seven-year-old all but ran into Ivy’s legs, throwing his arms around them in wild affection.

Laughing in a way that told the child he was loved, his affection welcome, she ruffled his hair. “Careful, speedy.”

Tavish tipped back his head, looked up. “Did you finish Grandfather’s birthday dinner?”

“I did.” Ivy met Zie Zen’s eyes. “I hope you’ll like what I’ve chosen.”

“You could do nothing that would displease me, Daughter.”

Ivy’s gaze shone wet before she was distracted by two words from the Arrow child who now called the orchard home, and who looked to Ivy and Vasic as family. As parents who wouldn’t reject him the way his birth parents had done when he proved to have a dangerous telekinetic gift. “Wanna play?” Wariness was a sudden intruder lurking in eyes of hazel mixed with brown.

Then Ivy leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead. “Why not?”

Wariness wiped away with a smile that was a burst of starlight, Tavish went to run back to the ball the small white dog, Rabbit, was guarding. He paused midstep, came to Zie Zen, his pace far more sedate. “Grandfather,” he said respectfully. “Would you like to play, too?”

Zie Zen raised his hand to the boy’s cheek, touched the innocent
warmth of it, and thought of the children he and his Sunny might’ve created had they lived in another time. “I will enjoy listening to you play, Grandson.”

Tavish made an aborted movement forward, seemed to decide to do it, and threw his arms around Zie Zen. Zie Zen closed his own around the boy, this small, bright spark of life who had learned to laugh under Zie Zen’s eyes.

“I’ll be over there, Grandfather.” Tavish pointed toward the start of the orchard after the embrace came to a natural end. “You can call me if you need me. Okay?”

“You are a good grandson.”

Flushing with pride, Tavish took his leave and ran off.

Ivy followed at a slower pace after picking up Zie Zen’s fallen cane and placing it against the side of his chair. She was soon caught up in the game, however, one that seemed to involve kicking the ball between two trees, with Rabbit in hot pursuit of the black-and-white object anytime it went past an invisible boundary.

When Vasic ’ported in right beside Ivy, she turned to kiss him in a motion so fluid, it was as if the two were one being. Zie Zen didn’t need to be an empath to sense her piercing love for Vasic, or Vasic’s passionate devotion to her. Zie Zen’s son of the heart loved his empath as Zie Zen had loved his Sunny.

Even as the couple drew apart, Ivy’s palm yet on Vasic’s chest, Tavish came to tug at Vasic’s hand and ask him to join in the game. Vasic touched that hand to the boy’s shoulder before turning to meet Zie Zen’s gaze.
Grandfather, you are well?
His telepathic voice was as pure as a remote lake of unbroken ice, but there was no cold within Vasic.

Not any longer.

I am very well, Son.
And he was. The sunshine was warm on bones that felt far older than his years. It was the weight of sorrow, the weight of memory, the weight of promises he’d made to himself to see through his Sunny’s dream.

Here in this sun-drenched orchard while his son played with a child
who had chosen Vasic as his father, and an empath laughed in unfettered joy, that dream came true. The Psy race was no longer a place only of chilling Silence, the PsyNet no longer a stark black-and-white landscape devoid of emotional bonds.

The time of endless darkness was over.

There, Sunny. It is done.

•   •   •

VASIC
felt his grandfather go. No emotional bonds showed in the PsyNet but for mating bonds, not yet. But Vasic knew they existed, felt them in his soul. And he knew when his bond with his grandfather snapped forever.

Grief speared him as he teleported the short distance to Zie Zen.

His grandfather’s cane lay fallen on the ground, but Zie Zen’s head didn’t loll. It simply leaned gently against the back of his chair. His eyes were closed, the faintest smile on his lips. It was as if he were sleeping, but even as Vasic reached out his fingers to check his grandfather’s pulse, he knew Zie Zen was gone.

Ivy’s hand locked around his as it fell to his side, the words she spoke breathless from her run to Zie Zen and wet with tears. “He was at such profound peace before he went. It felt like . . . like a beautiful heartsong.”

Ivy would know, not only because Vasic’s wife was an E, but because Zie Zen had been linked to her in the Honeycomb. Vasic’s grandfather had smiled at Ivy’s request for a connection, then said, “I have come full circle at last, joined once more to an empath.”

“Grandfather?” Tavish’s plaintive voice snapped Vasic out of his shock and sorrow.

Reaching down, he picked up the child, his single arm more than strong enough for the task. He needed to hold the boy and Tavish needed to be held. “Grandfather’s left us, Tavish,” he said, finding it difficult to speak but knowing that at this instant, the pain felt by the small vulnerable heart in his hold was more important than his own grief. “But he was ready to go.”

Ever since Zie Zen had told Vasic about his Sunny, Vasic had known that his grandfather was only counting time on this earth. The Psy race might not believe in an afterlife, but Zie Zen had believed his Sunny waited for him. He just had to finish his work here before he could go to her, to the woman he had always loved.

“But he can’t go!” It was a child’s angry cry. “Tell him to come back!”

Vasic felt Ivy’s love, the infinite gentleness of her, surround them both.

Reaching up to cup Tavish’s wet face, she shook her head. “We’ll all miss him desperately, but you see his smile? It means he was happy to go on his next adventure.” She was crying, too, made no effort to hide her tears.

Ivy.
Vasic’s throat was too thick to speak.
I need you.

His empath tucked herself against his chest a heartbeat later, wrapping her arms around him and Tavish both. It was enough to keep him going, so he could do what needed to be done.

He couldn’t cry, not then. He’d been an Arrow too long.

It wasn’t until deep into the night, the world silent and his mate holding his head against her shoulder, that Vasic Zen cried for the man who had made him who he was, a man who had lived a lifetime with his own grief and who had left the world a far better place than it had been before he first turned rebel.

•   •   •

ASHAYA
received word of Zie Zen’s death directly from Ivy Jane. “He would’ve wanted you to know,” the empath told Ashaya before dawn the morning after Zie Zen’s passing, her eyes red and swollen on the comm screen.

“Thank you.” Ashaya’s own grief was a raw wave inside her. “You’ll let me know the funeral arrangements?” Under Silence, Psy had held no funerals, celebrated no lives, but Zie Zen deserved every honor they could do him.

He’d saved Ashaya’s son, saved Ashaya herself.

And they were only two of hundreds, perhaps thousands.

“Yes,” Ivy said. “You know more of a certain part of his life than we do. If you think there are others who should be told, please do it.”

“I will.” But first, after Ivy logged off, Ashaya needed to deal with the agony inside her. She slid down to sit on the floor of her home office, her arms curled around her knees. Sobs rocked her, when tears were things she’d never shed in the PsyNet.

It didn’t startle her when Dorian entered the room within seconds, though she’d left him fast asleep in their bed. Her mate had felt her sorrow, run to her despite the fact that his leg was still in a plascast. “Zie Zen’s dead,” she managed to say before she couldn’t speak.

Kneeling down beside her, Dorian held her against his chest and he let her cry.

“K-Keen . . .” Her son’s heart would be broken; she needed to get herself together so she could deal with his pain.

Dorian pressed a kiss to her temple. “I shut the office door when I walked in. He won’t wake.”

“I c-can’t stop,” she said at one point.

“You will when you’re ready.”

So she cried and she thought emotions were a horrible thing sometimes . . . but she wouldn’t trade them for cold peace. Never again. A life of freedom from chains psychic or emotional or physical was Zie Zen’s gift to her and she would honor it always.

•   •   •

HIGH
in a skyscraper in New York, a woman who’d once been under Ming LeBon’s ugly control hung up the phone with a thickness in her throat. Ashaya was devastated by the news of Zie Zen’s death but she’d taken the time to call Katya. “I thought you’d want to know,” Katya’s friend and former boss had said.

Katya couldn’t believe Zie Zen was gone. He was like an ancient tree in the forest. Always there, offering shelter under its branches. It was near impossible to comprehend that the tree had fallen, leaving a gaping hole in their midst. She’d never been as close to him as Ashaya, but he’d had
a profound impact on her life nonetheless—for it was Zie Zen who’d built the foundation on which every Psy rebel stood, whether they knew it or not.

Conscious her husband would want to be informed as soon as possible, she looked up his private diary and saw he was scheduled for a consult with the Forgotten’s head medic.

She knew what “consult” was code for, so instead of heading to the infirmary or Dev’s office space, she used her handprint to authorize the elevator to take her to a secret subbasement. Triple-shielded against interference, this was the space where the Forgotten ran experiments testing the limits of the new psychic abilities popping up among their people.

The elevator doors opened to reveal another locked door.

Scanning herself through using retinal fingerprinting as well as a voice code, she entered to find Dev and Glen the only two people in the cavernous gray space that always seemed cold to her.

Rubbing her hands up and down her upper arms, she nodded hello to the doctor, but stayed out of the way. Dev didn’t acknowledge her, likely couldn’t. Her husband was seated in a chair surrounded by complex monitoring equipment. Hooked up to them by multiple wires, he stared straight ahead at what looked like a computer set to solve logic problems.

As Katya watched, the computer’s behavior changed. It began to scroll data across the screen. Katya didn’t know what was happening but she knew Dev was behind it. He’d become part of the machine.

Gut clenched, she looked into his eyes. They were the same gorgeous brown with amber, gold, and bronze flecks that she loved . . . only ice-cold, no humanity, no warmth. “Dev,” she whispered, unable to hold back the visceral need to claw him back from the metallic ice of the machines.

Though she’d spoken at the lowest possible volume, his response was immediate. Lashes coming down, he said, “Katya,
mere jaan
.” A rusty voice, but his lips curved into a smile as his eyes warmed to shimmering gold on the upward rise of his lashes.

She could barely wait long enough for Glen to unhook him from the monitoring sensors. Wrapping her arms around him the instant he rose to his feet, she shivered and held him even tighter. “You’re so cold.”

Dev cuddled her to his chest. “I don’t feel it, but Glen says there’s a definite surface temperature drop when I interface with higher-level machines.”

“No need to worry though,” was the doctor’s cheerful addition. “His vitals carry on as per usual.”

Katya drew back, took one of Dev’s hands, and blew hot air on it while rubbing gently at his skin. “What about your mental state?” Her skin felt tight over her cheekbones, her heart that trapped bird that returned in times of greatest stress and fear. “What’s it do to you each time you become part machine?”

“Katya.”
Dev tipped up her chin. “You keep me human, no matter how many machines I touch.”