Harlequin Nocturne February 2017 Box Set by Susan Krinard

Author:Susan Krinard
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488031069
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2017-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 43

A full day passed before everyone was sure that the cure was successful. The stricken Opiri were beginning to recover, and the last of the humans had received their injections. The Committee had managed to gather a quorum of delegates to discuss the fate of the Conclave, and of those who had attempted to destroy it.

Jamie sat with the rest of her delegation except Amos, who, like Cassius and the Erebusians, was being held elsewhere until a decision about their fates could be reached. In spite of what she’d told Timon, Jamie had expected the meeting to be boiling over with anger and accusations, but the tent was almost shockingly quiet.

She looked for Timon, who stood with the Riders at the foot of the Committee’s dais. His men were alert but relaxed, as if they, too, expected reason to prevail.

Timon had said he would believe, and he did. His gaze met hers across the wide space, and he smiled, the expression all for her.

Her heart beat so loudly in her ears that she almost missed the verdict. It wasn’t at all what she’d expected. The Erebusians, Cassius and Amos were not to be executed, as she’d feared.

Instead the Erebusians were to be taken by the Tenebrians, who promised to incarcerate the offenders, and Amos was to be returned to the San Francisco Enclave, where he would also be imprisoned as a murderer. Jamie felt only a twinge of grief now, knowing she had lost a man who, in many ways, had existed only in her own mind.

As for Cassius, he was stripped of his membership in the Riders and would join the Erebusians in Tenebris. The delegates agreed that no others were to be held to blame.

The discussion about the fate of the Conclave itself was far more complicated. There was still enough goodwill to make some kind of peace a reality, but all agreed that the Conclave could only be a beginning. News of Jamie’s revelation had to be spread and absorbed; even now, there were some delegates who refused to believe.

But the foundation had been laid. There would be other meetings, in different places; ambassadorial visits between Citadels and Enclaves; visits to the successful mixed human/Opiri colonies; acts of goodwill such as the voluntary sharing of blood.

As for the virus and its cure, there remained the danger that those who’d left the Conclave earlier had carried it with them back to their communities. Every Enclave, Citadel and colony of any kind had to be visited and a sample of the cure offered to deal with any infections that might appear in the future. Led by Eileen McCullough, scientists of the San Francisco Enclave would be responsible for producing sufficient quantities of the cure, making it available to all who requested it.

And the Riders would carry it. The Riders, led by Timon.

It wasn’t as if Jamie hadn’t seen it coming. The moment the Brotherhood had declared Timon their leader, she had known what must happen. More than ever, they needed a firm and incorruptible leader.

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