As for his crew, they’d quickly adapted to the relocation. After getting Candice settled and tending to her wound, Doc and Nina had gone to work sweeping out the whole place, dusting off the old furniture and appliances that hadn’t been used in years, and restocking the pantry and weapons cache with supplies brought with them from the New Bedford bunker.
The Darkhaven was a huge step up from the primitive amenities of their previous base, with a kitchen full of top-grade appliances, a fully functioning refrigerator and range, room after room of comfortable furnishings, and nearly ten thousand square feet of living space. But their stay could only be temporary. Just a safe haven to hold them for a short while, until Kellan had the chance to confront the storm closing in on him from all sides.
On that score, he only hoped his instinct was good.
He prayed it was, or he had likely risked all their lives doing what he had today.
Standing at the French doors that overlooked the thick woods outside the big house, Kellan didn’t even hear Nina approach from behind him until she quietly cleared her throat. He turned, frowning at the small white bottle she held out to him.
“Migraine meds,” she said, giving the container a little shake. “I’ve only got a few left, but you can have them if you think they might help . . . your friend.”
He nodded, took them from her outstretched hand, and slipped the bottle into his pocket. “Thank you.”
The three of them—Nina, Candice, and Doc—were all gathered in the great room with him. They’d been watching him pace for a while, and now he realized just how uncomfortable was the pall of silence that hung over the group. Part of that silence had to do with the events of the past twenty-four hours—the lab explosion that had made global headlines and the resulting public unrest that followed; the somber good-bye they’d given Chaz; now this, the sudden flight to a place they’d never even known existed.
And part of his crew’s unease had to do with the female warrior from the Order, who was quite obviously something more to him than just a captive being held against her will.
He looked at their faces now and saw their confusion, their wary uncertainty about who he truly was and what Mira meant to him.
It bothered him, those uneasy stares.
They didn’t know him, not even after eight years of living side by side. They’d protected the secret of his Breed origins, but he’d given them nothing in return. They had offered him their trust and friendship, but he’d kept them out.
No more, he decided.
These three people—these humans, for crissake—had become his friends. They’d become his family, and it killed him that he was only seeing that just now. Now, when he would soon be forced to leave them behind.
“I haven’t been fair to you,” he said, giving a rueful shake of his head. “I’ve been lying to you all this time. You haven’t even known my name. It’s not Bowman. It’s Kellan. My name is Kellan Archer.”
Doc scowled, his black brows furrowing, brown eyes narrowing, suspicious. Nina cocked her indigo-haired head in question, her look of unease deepening. Only Candice met his gaze without perplexity or surprise. The sharp-witted, compassionate young woman had probably figured most of it out for herself the other day, when she and Mira had spoken. The two of them had formed something of a kinship—what might have become a friendship, if circumstances had been different.
She gave him a mild nod, and he cleared his throat to continue. “You’ve known from the beginning that I’m Breed. That’s something I couldn’t hope to hide from you. Candice and Doc, you knew it the night you pulled me from the Mystic and saved my life. Nina, you’ve known it for months. You’ve all known my secret and you kept it.”
“We’re your friends. That’s what friends do for one another, Bow—” Doc’s voice broke off abruptly, and he shook his head back and forth, blowing out a long sigh. “Friends watch your back. You’ve had ours too . . . Kellan?”
He nodded at the testing of his name. “I’ve still got your back, Javier. As long as I’m drawing breath, know that I’ll watch all of your backs. And I want to lay it all out tonight, no more secrets. No more lies. I want you to know the truth—all of it. And part of my truth is sleeping in that room down the hall.”
“You love her.” Nina’s expression had softened to one of understanding. Wistful and quiet, no doubt because of the love she’d known not so long ago. Known and lost, taken from her by whoever it was who’d absconded with Jeremy Ackmeyer’s UV technology. “You’ve loved this woman for a long time, haven’t you?”