Kirby’s shoulders shook as Lia Smith glared at each man in turn. “I gave you both beautiful names. Use them.”
“Yes, Mom.”
Kirby didn’t stop smiling the entire time she was in the Smith house, was the same when she spoke to her grandparents on the comm later that night. “Our future babies are going to be utterly spoiled,” she said to her mate afterward, delighted at the idea.
“In case you missed it,” Bastien muttered, “they’re also going to be demons.”
Kirby laughed, pleased with the idea of her own little red-headed demons. “If Mercy and Riley are having pupcubs,” she mused, “what will we have?”
“Lynxpards?”
“Doesn’t have the same ring to it.”
“Hmm.” A long pause before Bastien began to laugh so hard he almost fell off the bed. “We’ll have little birbys, that’s what we’ll have.”
She slapped his chest. “Don’t you dare say that in front of your brothers or we’ll never hear the end of it.”
Of course he let it slip and of course the future birbys became part of the family lexicon. Sitting around the table being teased about it for the umpteenth time two months later, her visiting grandparents laughing as hard as the Smiths, Kirby knew she’d want it no other way. “I think we should visit Vera tomorrow and take her a great big cake.”
Bastien smiled. “Yeah. I think we should. She gave us the best gift, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
Keep reading for an excerpt from ALLEGIANCE OF HONOR, the “unparalleled romantic adventure”* of Nalini Singh’s New York Times bestselling series continues as a new dawn begins for the Psy-Changeling world . . .
*Publishers Weekly on SHARDS OF HOPE
Lucas Hunter, alpha of the DarkRiver leopards, ended the comm call with a touch of his index finger against the screen. The outwardly calm action belied his current state of mind: his jaw was a grim line, his claws shoving at the insides of his skin as the black panther within snarled.
He was still battling the urge to release that snarl when one of his sentinels stuck his head into the room. That room was Lucas’s private office at the pack’s Chinatown HQ, from where they ran their myriad business enterprises. Pitch-black hair and dark green eyes vivid against the deep brown of his skin, his shoulders solid, Clay was officially the Chief Construction Supervisor at DarkRiver Construction, but before that, he was one of the most trusted members of the pack, a man Lucas knew would always have his back.
Today, the sentinel was dressed as if he planned to go to a site, his pants of a tough black material appropriate for the outdoor environment and his T-shirt wild green with DarkRiver Construction in white on the back. But when he spoke, he said, “Jon and his friends found something down by the piers.”
Lucas scowled, not in the mood for juvenile high jinks today. “Why aren’t they in school?”
“Half day off. Some big citywide teachers meeting.” Clay’s right T-shirt sleeve lifted as he braced his hand against the doorjamb, revealing the slashing lines of the tattoo that echoed the hunter marks on the right side of Lucas’s face. Lucas had been born with those jagged, primal marks that identified him as a changeling hunter, born with the ability to track down and execute changelings who’d gone rogue, submerging totally into the animal side of their nature.
Unlike wild animals, however, rogue changelings couldn’t be left to roam, because despite their animal skin, they weren’t animals. Rogues always came after the people they had loved when whole, as if part of them remembered who they’d once been and envied their packmates and lovers for still living that life. Lucas hadn’t had to execute a rogue for over seven years, and he hoped that record held for another seven and another and another.
No alpha wanted to kill his people.
Clay’s tattoo denoted something far different; like the rest of DarkRiver’s sentinels, he’d had the mark inked as a silent symbol of his loyalty to Lucas. That loyalty was a truth Lucas never took for granted. An alpha who didn’t value the respect of such strong men and women shouldn’t be alpha.
“Anyway, I’m heading over to see what’s up,” Clay said now. “Kid sounds worried.”
“I’ll come with you.” Lucas walked around his desk, shrugging his shoulders back to loosen muscles that had bunched up at the start of the comm call and stayed that way. “Could do with the fresh air. You want to walk?” It wasn’t far to the waterfront.
Clay glanced at the heavy black watch strapped to his left wrist. “Better drive. I have to be at a work site within the hour.”