Atonement Sky by Nalini Singh

Author:Nalini Singh [Singh, Nalini]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2025-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

• • •

Adam’s mate looked as cold and as remote as always when she stepped out of her room dressed in black suit pants into which she’d tucked a white shirt buttoned at the neck and wrists. She’d scraped her hair into a tight knot at the base of her neck, her facial bones sharp and her expression flat.

But Adam saw through the wall now, and to the woman within, the one who’d been willing to lay her life on the line to help a stranger. No one truly cold of heart would’ve spent even a moment considering that.

“I would like to see Jacques,” were the first words out of her mouth.

Nodding, he led her into his friend’s room, and when she walked to stand beside the bed, she didn’t touch Jacques even though her hands were ungloved. “I wouldn’t sense anything even if his shields remain fragmented,” she said at his questioning look. “My psychic senses flatlined, will stay that way until my mind heals. I have no frame of reference for comparison in terms of a timeline for that healing.”

He took her hand because they were past the angry distance, the attempts to ignore who they were meant to be to each other. And she’d given him permission to take skin privileges—he wasn’t about to stop using that permission until she took it back.

She hesitated, her gaze flicking to his before she curled her fingers around his.

“You feel okay?” he murmured. “Losing your psychic senses, it must hurt.”

“I feel…unmoored.” She flexed her free hand flat, stared at it. “As if I’ve lost a limb or an organ of which I was never conscious, but now realize I need to breathe.”

“It’s only temporary,” he reminded her. “An overused muscle that needs to rest.”

Eleri’s nod was quiet.

“Adam?” Edward poked his head into the room, having taken over from Kavi for the day shift. “Sascha’s here.”

Thanking the nurse for the heads-up, Adam walked out with Eleri to find the cardinal E waiting in the hallway, her cub at her side, both of them dressed for the journey home—in the case of Naya, that included a tiny backpack in which Adam had once seen her stow a bedraggled stuffed wolf.

“Hello, little Naya.” Releasing Eleri’s hand, Adam crouched down to hug this child wild of heart who would always be welcome in WindHaven. She smelled of soft, sweet shampoo and candy.

“Bye, Adam,” she said with her tiny arms around his neck. “We go home. I miss Papa.”

Smiling, Adam kissed her on the cheek before rising to his feet with her in his arms. “I have a feeling he misses you, too.” Lucas Hunter was a man who loved his mate and child and didn’t care who knew it—it was exactly how Adam intended to be with his own mate and fledglings, how he’d always been built to be.

…there’s not much of my original personality left…and nothing but a gray wall in its place…

No, he would not accept that, he vowed again, as Eleri and Sascha said their good-byes next to him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.