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"Likewise." Elise's gaze drifted down to their joined hands and a tender light came into her eyes. "Maybe after the ceremony, I can show you around the house and grounds?"
Tavia smiled. "Sure, I'd like that."
"I should go back and take a seat now. We were just about to begin."
As she and Tegan started to turn away, Chase reached out to take a light hold of Elise's arm. "Wait."
Tegan's answering growl was low and dark, well within his rights. His eyes flashed with amber sparks. Chase let go and blew out a hasty apology. "I just wanted to say congratulations. To both of you. About the baby. I'm happy for you both."
Elise beamed up at Tegan, then turned her joy on Chase. "Thank you. That means a lot to me, Sterling. It means a lot to both of us."
Tegan grunted and took Chase's offered hand in a firm shake. The blond warrior's hold hesitated, no doubt reading the emotional truth of Chase's words with the power of his touch. Chase didn't recoil under the extrasensory probe; he truly had nothing to hide. Tegan nodded, then drew his hand away and clapped Chase's shoulder. "Good to have you back, Harvard." The pair walked off to take their seats near the front of the small sanctuary.
Chase turned back to Tavia. "She and Tegan have been mated for just over a year. I should've told you she was part of the Order now."
"It's all right. I was surprised to see her, but it's okay." She held his gaze, not with jealousy or anger, but with genuine care and concern. "What about you? Are you okay with Elise being here, and being mated to one of your friends?"
"Yeah, I am." He nodded, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the back of Tavia's hand, their fingers still entwined. "She's mated well. They both have."
For one insane moment, he pictured himself mated as happily as Tegan and Elise. It wasn't something he'd ever wished for himself, but now, with Tavia's hand enveloped in his, his mind was swamped with imaginings of what his future might hold if she were his blood-bonded mate. Impossible dreams.
His hope for any kind of future with Tavia would expire the first time he let his thirst rule him. He told himself it didn't matter as the ceremony got under way and he and Tavia found their places by themselves in the last row of pews.
With Gabrielle holding the baby at the front of the room now, Elise and the other Breedmates lit eight white candles arranged in a large circle around Dante, Tess, Gideon, and Savannah - an infinite ring connecting them in this moment. There were no white-hooded tunics for the four of them; it was doubtful there'd been time to gather much of what they needed between the evacuation of the Boston compound and the ceremony tonight. But they had the eight thin lengths of virgin white silk, and as the candles were being lit all around them, Dante, Tess, Gideon, and Savannah braided the pieces together into a woven cradle they held suspended between them, a symbolic link between parent and guardian.
Lucan stood front and center, sober in his duty as officiant of the ceremony. "Who brings this child before us tonight?">"These are real dermaglyphs," said the first boy, his hazel gaze suspicious under the fall of his drooping bronze hair. "So, you're really Breed, then?"
Tavia nodded. "Apparently, I am."
Mira rolled her violet-hued eyes. "I told you so, Kellan. He didn't believe me."
The boy shot her a sullen look. "I wanted to see it for myself, that's all."
"You said you needed proof, like you thought I was trying to trick you or something." There was a note of hurt in her tone. "How come you never believe anything I say?"
Kellan looked uncomfortable under the public accusation. When he finally spoke, his voice was quietly defensive. "It's stupid to take anyone on faith alone."
"Even your friends?"
He didn't answer, and while their argument faded into a silent standoff, the other boy, who was still studying Tavia's glyphs, moved closer. He had pushed up his own sleeve, revealing a similar pattern that swept around the lean muscles and tendons of his forearm.
His name was Nathan, and aside from his introduction as Corinne's son, the inscrutable young teen was a mystery. Tavia watched his long-lashed eyes take in her skin markings, cataloging them, one by one. He was serious and strangely detached, seeming vastly older than his years and nothing like any other boy she'd ever seen before.
When he glanced up at her, head cocked to the side, his blue-green eyes pierced her with the cool dispassion of a blade. "You are Gen One. Born in Dragos's laboratory."
She nodded.
"So was I."
The softly voiced confession sparked an instant kinship in her, and Tavia felt the absurd urge to hug the child who'd also been a victim of Dragos's evil. She wanted to talk with Nathan some more, ask him about his experience with the monster who created them, but the hauntedness of his gaze deepened, then was shuttered behind his dark lashes and gone altogether when he looked up at her again.
At that same moment, from a room down the corridor, Tegan and another warrior emerged and strode into the gathering in the foyer. Simply by breathing, the dark-haired male with Tegan commanded attention and respect, and there was no question that he was the leader of the Order, even before Tegan introduced him as such.
"Lucan, this is Tavia Fairchild."
She accepted the warrior's large hand and felt herself immersed in the stormy scrutiny of Lucan's shrewd gray eyes as he clasped her fingers in a firm, callused hold. "Mathias Rowan has filled us in on the basics, but I'm sure you understand we'll have questions for you now that you're here."
"Of course. Whatever I can do," she replied. "I need some answers myself."
