CHAPTER 24
Kaya’s body felt the delicious reverberations of Aric’s lovemaking all through the solemn ritual the Order observed to celebrate the birth of Nikolai and Renata’s child the next morning.
She sat beside him in the command center’s small candlelit sanctuary, swamped with emotion as she watched the new parents present their son to the audience of their closest friends and comrades. Yet to call the Breed males and their mates anything other than family was to diminish what they all had become to one another over the years. The Order’s members were kin in ways Kaya had not fully appreciated until this moment.
Inside a circle of eight tall white candles at the front of the gathering, Nikolai and Renata stood with Rio and Dylan, all of them garbed in long white tunics. With Mira holding her tiny brother nearby, the two couples had woven eight strips of snowy white silk into a cradle they held suspended between them for the infant who would be cherished and protected by all four of them--parents and chosen godparents--for as long as any of them lived.
“Who brings this child before us today?” Lucan asked, officiating the ritual.
“We do,” Nikolai and Renata answered as one. “He is our son, Dmitri Jack.”
It was the first time the baby’s name had been announced. Kaya couldn’t help smiling at his middle name, no doubt given in tribute for the old man who’d been so kind to her when she needed shelter, but also, as Aric had informed her, kind to Renata and Niko years before her.
Lucan nodded to Mira and she brought the naked baby to Renata, transferring him carefully to his mother’s arms. Renata held Dmitri up for all gathered to see.
“This babe is ours,” she and Niko said, reciting words Mira had once described to Kaya. Hearing them spoken in this setting, in this moment, was more powerful than she could have imagined. “With our love we have brought him into this world. With our blood and lives we sustain him, and keep him safe from harm. He is our joy and our promise, the perfect expression of our eternal bond, and we are honored to present him to you, our kin.”
As one, Kaya included, the assembly answered with the traditional reply: “You honor us well.”
Now, the baby was laid in the center of the white silk cradle, and next came the vow by Dmitri’s godparents. Lucan pivoted to Rio and Dylan. “Who pledges to protect this child with blood and bone and final breath should duty call upon it?”
The couple answered solemnly, “We do.”
And with that promise spoken, Rio sank his fangs into first his wrist, then Dylan’s. Together, the pair held their open wounds over the squirming baby, their blood spilling in droplets onto his bare skin to symbolize their vow to give their lives in order to keep him safe.
Kaya watched through vision blurred with welling tears and a throat thick with happiness for the four friends and the tiny child whose life would be immeasurably blessed by their love and protection. Little Dmitri would want for nothing, Kaya was certain. How she wished she could feel even a fraction of that confidence when it came to her sister and her unborn child.
Aric caught the tear that slid down her cheek. His solemn gaze was tender on her, even though this touch was the first he’d given her since leaving her bed in the early hours of the morning. As the ceremony concluded, they rose with everyone else seated in the pews.
It was humbling to be among the witnesses of the tradition-steeped ceremony. An honor to be welcomed as one of these people, even though there was a part of her that knew she was the outsider. An interloper who would never fully belong until she had brought all of her secrets out of the shadows of her past and into the light.
Including the secret she felt certain Aric already suspected, or was close to figuring out.
She had almost told him last night. But then he mentioned the likelihood that the Order was being betrayed by a mole who had not only warned Big Mack to evacuate, but alerted Opus to the fact the Order would be moving in on Lars Scrully last night. If she told him she’d been concealing the fact that she had gone to Angus Mackie’s bar the very day of the Order’s raid, why would Aric or anyone else ever believe that she had nothing to do with giving Opus the intel they needed to come to Scrully’s place armed with UV weapons?
All Kaya knew was that the pit she had begun digging for herself by withholding her shame about her past and the people who raised her was coming home to roost in ways she never imagined in her worst nightmares.
And in the center of all her regrets for those actions was Aric.
She owed him the truth.
The vague distance she felt from him today only fortified her resolve. He had to know why she was so terrified of her feelings for him.
Particularly after last night, when she’d been all but certain he had been just a hairbreadth from sinking his fangs into her carotid. One bite and he would know all of her secrets and shame. One sip from her vein and he would be bound to her forever.
It wasn’t fear she felt at that idea. It was a fierce longing. But she could never allow it to happen while she was betraying him with her silence.
“Kaya, would you like to meet my baby brother?” Mira beamed like a proud mama herself.
Looping her arm through Kaya’s, she excitedly tugged her forward without waiting for her reply. Aric loomed beside her, flanked by Kellan and Rafe.
“Why didn’t you bring Siobhan?” Mira asked, frowning. “I hope she didn’t feel unwelcome.”
“No.” Rafe shook his head. “She was awake most of the night again. Sometimes the nightmares of her roommate’s killing are too much. She was so exhausted this morning, I told her to stay in bed and rest.”
Mira gave him a sympathetic nod. “We’re all exhausted today, I think. Losing Bal on top of all the other setbacks we’ve had lately . . . well, at least we have Dmitri to celebrate. God knows we needed something positive to carry us through.”
Renata smiled as the group of them approached the Order elders standing at the front of the sanctuary. She was radiant in her white ceremonial attire. Nikolai seemed even taller today, and unabashedly proud. The cool Russian Breed male kept his muscled arm circled around Renata’s shoulders, his icy blue gaze shining with a joy Kaya had rarely seen in him.
“It was a beautiful ceremony,” Kaya told the commander and his mate. “Dmitri Jack is a lovely name. He would be delighted, I’m sure.”
With a small nod, Renata glanced down at the dozing baby in her arms. “I hope so.”
“Is Dmitri a family name?”
“My brother,” Niko answered. “He died a very long time ago, but I will never forget him.”
Renata turned a tender gaze on her man. “Love has no expiration date. Dmitri will be in your heart forever.”
He nodded. “I want my son to grow up knowing he was named for two great men, and that he now has the responsibility to live a life that honors them both.”
“I’m sure he will,” Aric said. “Dmitri’s got some of the best parents he could hope for. Not to mention excellent backup.”
Rio chuckled at the praise. “The bar is set fairly high by a lot of others in this room, but Dylan and I will do our best not to disappoint.”
The Spaniard’s red-haired Breedmate flashed a gorgeous smile as she leaned her cheek against his thick biceps. “What he means is, we intend to spoil this child as thoroughly as Niko and Renata will allow us to.”
Kaya laughed along with everyone as the conversation continued, but it was hard to focus on anything other than Aric, who seemed to regard her in an almost brooding silence.
“What about your godparents?” she asked him, searching for a way to bring him out of the sullen mood that had been clinging to him since they’d made love last night. “You and Carys must have someone watching over you too.”
He glanced at his parents and gave a short nod. “My sister and I have the good fortune of calling Tess and Dante our godparents.”
The other couple smiled warmly at him. Then Dante smirked. “Growing up, you and Carys probably should’ve had a pair and a spare considering how wild and headstrong you both were.”
“Were?” Chase quipped drolly. “I’ve been cursed with children who proved to me time and again that they were as hard-headed as I am. They still do, more often than not.”
“And we wouldn’t have either of you any other way,” Tavia added, reaching out to squeeze the hands of both Aric and Carys, who had now joined the gathering along with her hulking mate, Rune.
Kaya looked over at Rafe. “I suppose your godparents are no mystery, seeing what close friends you and Aric are. Chase and Tavia, right?”
“No,” he replied, exchanging a look with his parents. Dante and Tess seemed a bit uncomfortable now too. “My godparents are Gideon and Savannah. And I’m damned lucky they are. They’ve been my rock more times than I can count.”
Aric’s quiet had deepened as well. A sudden awkwardness fell over the group. Kaya glanced at Chase and saw a regret in his blue gaze that made her wish for the floor to open up and swallow her. “I’m sorry if I said something wrong. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“You didn’t. And you aren’t,” Chase said. “What no one here wants to say is that I was supposed to be godparent to Rafe, but I lost the privilege. Deservedly so. I had some . . . issues many years ago. I thought I could hide a big problem from my brethren and it cost me their trust. If I hadn’t found a reason to turn it all around, I wouldn’t be standing here today.”
“Probably none of us would be,” Dante said soberly, nothing but respect and affection for his fellow comrade and friend.
“What happened?” Kaya blurted before she could curb her question. “I mean, if you don’t mind me asking, that is.”
Aric was the one who answered. “He had to come clean about the thing that was destroying him and everything he cared about.”
“That’s right,” his father confirmed. “I had a problem that was bigger than I could handle on my own. For me, it was blood addiction. But the solution is the same for anything that seems impossible to repair. The only way past a problem is through it.” He turned an adoring glance on Tavia. “So much the better if you have the right person to help you to the other side.”
He lifted his mate’s face and kissed her in front of everyone, neither of them ashamed of their devotion--or the palpable heat of their bond.
As for Kaya, she couldn’t help but see the parallel between her own troubles and Sterling Chase’s near forfeit of his place among the Order and the family he’d made there. And when she thought of family, it was impossible not to think of her twin.
As children, she and Leah had never known this kind of kinship and security with the people who bore them and raised them.
Nor this kind of love.
As much as she owed the truth to Aric and Mira and all the other people gathered in the sanctuary along with her, she couldn’t turn her back on her sister.
Although Leah claimed not to want her help, Kaya had to give her another chance at a better life.
“Speaking of problems and finding our way through them,” Dante said, his black brows knit over whiskey-colored eyes that narrowed on his warrior son. “How’s Siobhan holding up? With everything that’s happened since you and Aric picked her up, it’s easy to forget the trauma she survived.”
Rafe nodded. “She’s doing her best to put the attack behind her, but it’s not easy. Witnessing her roommate’s brutal murder and being beaten unconscious by the Opus thugs who broke in that night has taken a toll. Siobhan’s sensitive. She’s . . . delicate. She’s also the most captivating woman I’ve ever known.”
Aric shot a wry smirk at his friend. “You never could resist a pretty damsel in distress.”
“You trying to tell me I’ve got a type?” Rafe volleyed back, grinning. “Hard to recall even looking at anyone else now that I’ve met Siobhan.”
His father grunted, clearly surprised by the news. “Anyone with eyes can see how much you care for her. But I’ve gotta say, I never thought you’d find a woman to live up to your impossible standards. Did you, Tess?”
She gave the faintest shake of her blonde head, eyes the same arresting aquamarine color as Rafe’s studying her son in a curious silence.
Kaya felt a stare holding on her too.
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that private conversation you asked about,” Nikolai told her. “Anytime you want to talk, my door is open for you.”
She had to swallow past the knot of guilt that sat in her throat as she offered the commander a nod and murmured thanks. She felt the weight of Aric’s silence beside her. With dread and regret crushing down on her, it was all she could do not to bolt from the room and scream out in self-directed anger and frustration.
She had to put her past to bed and either leave her sister behind for good or find some way to bring her into the light.
All she knew was she couldn’t bear another day of holding the truth inside.