She read the word that was carved onto each side of the precious blade. "Honor. Sacrifice." The other one, the other half of the pair, which she'd lost the day she was brought back into Kellan's life, bore another set of tenets she strove to live by: Faith. Courage. "It feels strange, just the one," she murmured. "Unbalanced. Not as strong without its mate. I never thought they'd be separated."
Kellan's eyes were tender on her, his expression sober, regretful. He clearly understood that she could as easily be speaking about the two of them. "I never wanted to take anything away from you, Mouse. Least of all your happiness. I didn't want to cost you anything, including the blade that I promised you'd have again, before everything went so wrong. Just another way I've let you down."
He reached out, gently lifted her to her feet. He stroked her face, his touch so careful and kind, she nearly choked on the sob building in her throat. "If I could go back in time, I'd change so much," he said. "I would do whatever it took to make sure you'd never be caught up in this with me in the first place."
"No," she replied, pulling herself together and giving a firm shake of her head. "No. I wouldn't trade a minute of what we just shared. Would you?"
He didn't speak for a long moment, just caressed her cheeks and brushed his thumb over her lips, before settling his warm hand along the nape of her neck.
"Would you really take it all back?" she asked, terrified of his answer.
His smile was slow as his eyes crackled with banked but still burning heat. "I'm still holding on to you, aren't I?"
He kissed her, and Mira couldn't curb the dread that rose in her when she thought of losing him again. She didn't want to let the awfulness of her vision ruin this moment, but it was there just the same, refusing to give her any peace. She drew back from Kellan's sweet kiss and tipped her head down, closing her eyes as he rested his forehead against hers, still holding her close.
"Kellan," she said, then pulled away, looking up into his amber-flecked hazel eyes. "Tell me again about the vision you saw. About the charges leveled against you."
His handsome face sobered, jaw going a bit tighter as he clamped his molars together. "They were capital charges, Mouse. Just like I told you."
"Yes, but what were they, specifically?"
"Conspiracy," he said evenly. "Treason. Kidnap and murder."
Her pulse skidded on the last one. "Murder. How many people have you killed, Kellan?"
"Too many to recall," he replied, no apology in his voice. "You know about all of them. You were there with me for far too many, when the streets were red with spilled lives."
"No," she said. "That was wartime, not murder. How many unsanctioned kills, Kellan? How many times since you became Bowman have you taken someone's life?"
He stared, considering. He stared for a very long time, then gave a resolute shake of his head. "There is no way of telling how far into the future the vision is destined to occur. We only know that it will, because your visions never fail, Mira. They haven't, in all this time." He paced away from her, raking a hand through his dark copper hair. "Besides, that doesn't negate any of the other charges that I am guilty of: kidnapping Ackmeyer, the relative of a high-ranking GNC government diplomat, and, in so doing, conspiring to disrupt a peace summit. By doing both of those things, I've knowingly led myself and my crew into an act of treason."
"But not murder," Mira stressed. Now that she had a shred of hope in her grasp, she wasn't about to let it slip through her fingers. "You aren't guilty of the last charge. That's something in your control now, from this moment forward. And if the vision is wrong about one of the charges, it can be wrong about any of them. Maybe we can change the course of this, Kellan. Together."
He came back to her, standing right in front of her but saying nothing. His eyes bore into hers, his face gone utterly still except for the sudden tick of a tendon in his jaw. She could sense the wheels turning in his mind. She could feel his pulse throbbing hotly, vibrating the air in the scant inch that separated their bodies.
He swore, vicious and raw, under his breath. Not a sound of anger but one of relief.
Of hope.
His hands shot out and he pulled her to him, kissed her hard on the mouth. Then he let go and spun away to grab for his comm unit on the bureau next to his bed. He checked the time, swung a fierce look on her. "It'll be sundown in thirty minutes." He grabbed a dry pair of boots from nearby and stomped into them. "I'm heading into Boston. I need to find Vince and bring Ackmeyer out of this alive."
"I'm going with you," Mira announced, already wearing one of his T-shirts and yanking on her black jeans. She reached for her combat boots, but Kellan stopped her with his hand coming down firmly on her wrist.
"You stay put," he said. "I'm not putting you in harm's way. Besides, I can cover more ground faster on foot."
She got right up in his face, just like when they were kids. "Either I go with you, or I go alone, Archer."
That tendon that had been ticking in his jaw before now started to pound. His eyes were blazing, searing her with their sharp flashes of amber. She didn't cower. She glared up into those dangerous eyes and held them steady. It was a look he had to recognize, one he had to understand meant she was not about to back down.
"Goddamn it," he growled. "We leave in five."
He stormed out of the room ahead of her. Mira tucked her dagger into the sheath on her belt and went after him.
The knock on the door of the ground-level apartment of the rat-infested triple-decker in Boston's Charlestown neighborhood came roughly seven minutes after sundown. Prompt, considering Rooster had been summoned there only five minutes ago by his friend's urgent, unexplained phone call.