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Mira had loved Kellan fro up, he’d been her best friend, her favorite sparring partner when she’d entered training to become a warrior He’d been her first kiss at fifteen Her first taste of desire, when sparring and laughter turned to heated glances and caresses that left her virgin body trery for more
Kellan had been the only one for her How ether? How often had she drea an eternity with him as his blood-bondedof himself back from her She’d never understood why And then they’d shared one incredible night together - a night when she’d had all of him, at last - only to lose him forever a few short hours later in the blast that took his life
"I can’t forget hiive the ones who tore him out of our lives How do you do it? After all, Kellan was your friend too"
"The best I’ll ever have" Nathan and Kellan had been as close as brothers Maybe closer, having walked into coether countless times as ether unflinchingly, dealt it without mercy when duty called for it And they’d done it as friends, family, brothers-in-arreenish blue eyes, even though his handsome face held its stoic, soldier’s expression "I one But he is gone He’s dead Throwing away your future won’t bring him back"
God, if it would? For a brief, sharply desperateto sacrifice to have Kellan alive again Nearly a decade without him, and she still ached to see hied for that So to the hope that this was just some awful, cos would be as it should be once again
Right Pathetic
"When do you return to Montreal?" Nathan asked, a welco her back to reality Which wasn’t o back Not for a while, that is" She slanted hilance "I’ve been summoned to DC for an in-person Council revieith Lucan and the other Order commanders Where, I’m all but sure, I’ll be asked to step down fro in as my replacement Lucan’s decision He’s already sent the team back to base without me"
Idly, she traced her thuift fro to parents that she’d ever known The blades were fashioned similarly to the ones Renata wielded so beautifully, but this pair had been designed especially for Mira, presented to her on the day she was proers were carved on each side, etched by the saraced Renata’s four: Courage Sacrifice Honor Faith
She’d never felt rave silence, and even though he spared her from his opinion on the matter, she could tell that he understood as well as she did that her position with the Order was tenuous at best She’d been exiled to a kind of no- but cut adrift just the same
"Has a date been set for your Council review?"
She nodded "Four days froins Butof her censure, she had also been relegated to a special assign but special "I’ve been drafted into nanny detail for one of the suhead recluse named Ackroyd or Ackerman"
"Ackmeyer," Nathan corrected "Jeremy Ackmeyer The human is a science wunderkind, Mira Eccentric, but brilliant Ackeno "That’s the guy Genius or not, apparently he spooks at everything, including his own shadow He’s also related to one of the GNC’s directors Lucan said the Order had been asked to provide personal escort for Ackmeyer from his home in the Berkshires down to the summit, make sure he arrived in time to accept his much-hyped award fro her eyes at the thought of being part of Reginald Crowe’s circus sideshow, even if her role was being forced on her Although Lucan hadn’t fran she had her hands full - of tasking her with so menial that would keep her out of trouble and off the streets - until such time as he was able to deal with her personally and decide her fate within the Order
Nathan considered for a long moment "It could be worse You can’t have fallen too far out of Lucan’s regard if he’s still willing to keep you in play with a solo h "This is hardly a mission; we both know that And the only reason I’m solo on it is because Ackmeyer insists on daytime travel only That automatically rules out ninety-nine point nine percent of the Order’sthe way"
Ackmeyer had other requirements for his escort to the summit as well, phobias about mass transit and airborne diseases that restricted hi by car - brand new, of course, the interior vacuumed extensively and scrubbed from top to bottom with disinfectant He demanded no more than four hours of drive ti Which ton, an eleven-hour drive would take ether in the close confines of the car
No wonder Lucan had assigned Ackmeyer’s safety to her Any one of the warriors she kneould likely strangle the oddball human before they reached the southern Massachusetts state line She hoped like hell she wouldn’t be te her position within the Order, delivering a throttled guest of honor wouldn’t be the best approach
In soerous corner of her heart, she knew that if Lucan bounced her froht She would still want justice, vengeance against the rebels who had upended her world when they took Kellan froht that wrong, but it terrified her a little to consider it Her hatred ran too hot, had scarred her too deeply
Her blades felt cold, tooled hilts biting into her palers and slid thehs "Anyway, I leave in a few hours, then it’s on to meet my fate in DC," she told Nathan "I should head to bed, try to get soo"
"Mira," he said as she started to walk away from him She didn’t want to talk anymore Didn’t want to think about aited for her at the end of her journey in just four days’ tio from there "Mira, stop"
She paused, swiveled around to aze