Free Allegiance of Honor by Nalini Singh Page B

close with one arm around her waist. Her body was softly curved and lithely muscled both—Brenna was a tech rather than a soldier, but aside from her lupine love of running under the moonlight, she attended certain compulsory training sessions alongside fellow packmates who weren’t submissive, but who weren’t dominant enough that a protective security role in the pack was a driving force.
    They had the combat training so they could provide backup should SnowDancer suffer an assault that broke through the ranks of aggressive dominants. The training was intense and regular, and it satisfied thedominance of the wolf within while permitting Brenna to continue to work in another field.
    Because her true asset was her dazzling mind.
    “How was the meeting?”
    “Good. The university wants me to teach a class.”
    Judd felt no surprise. Young though she was, Brenna was at the forefront of her field, her ideas cutting-edge. “You want to?”
    “I’m considering it.” Mind clearly on other matters, she smiled and wrapped her legs around his waist, having already linked her arms loosely around his neck. “Do you think we’re far enough away from the White Zone not to be interrupted?”
    He knew that tone in her voice, slightly husky and soft at the same time. His body responded as if it had been conditioned. Unlike the brutal suffocation of Silence, however, this conditioning was chosen, was wanted.
    Gripping her lush lower curves, he opened to the kiss she claimed, felt his erection harden further as she licked her tongue against his. His hands flexed on her, his body hers to command. His mate had taught him pleasure after a lifetime of cold discipline engendered by torture that had forever ended his childhood, and now he craved that pleasure. Craved
her
. Only with Brenna could he be this man, a man who demanded and gave and who sank into sensation.
    Sliding one hand up her back, he was about to deepen the kiss when he heard voices, felt the thunder of pounding feet. He broke the kiss just in time to witness an invasion, as all the adults who’d been in the White Zone jumped into the pond en masse, most with loud whooping and hard splashes. Brenna threw back her head and laughed as she was splashed, broke free to splash back. Judd watched her grin, watched her sparkle . . . and he played.
    It was no longer a foreign experience.
    As he stole a kiss from his mate a few minutes later, he hoped his friend Xavier would have the same chance at happiness, that he’d find his Nina. Of the three of them who had come together to form their ownsmall rebel cell—Judd, Kaleb, Xavier—the priest was undeniably the only one who was good to the core of his soul. He might’ve struggled, might’ve looked into the screaming depths of the abyss, but Xavier Perez had never fallen into that darkness. He deserved joy, deserved to find the love he’d lost under a hail of bloody telepathic strikes over nine years earlier.
    Good luck, my friend.

Letters to Nina
    From the private diaries of Father Xavier Perez
    July 8, 2073
    Nina,
    I’m sitting surrounded by the phantom image of what was once our village. A bare three months since the Psy attack and there’s nothing here anymore. The bodies are all gone, as are the houses. No sign remains of the vibrant place that was our home.
    I can hear you laughing at the idea of me writing a letter. I never did write you romantic love notes like Jorge did to Fiorella, even after you hinted so hard you may as well have hit me over the head with a hammer. Why should I write letters, I thought, when my Nina is here beside me, and I can love her with my voice, my hands, my body?
    But now I’ve lost you and all I have left is paper and ink.
    I saw you go over the cliff into the river. I made you jump. I thought you’d be safe, that the waters would carry you away from the carnage.
    The silence here is ugly, obscene. A heavy shroud.
    In the months since the Psy murdered all those we loved, I’ve