Allegiance of Honor

Chapter 33

MIDMORNING THE DAY after the unsuccessful attempt to rescue Leila Savea, and Dorian had tracked down the ship involved in the abduction attempt against Naya. Lucas had just authorized the plan the sentinel had put together for the capture of the ship’s captain when Devraj Santos arrived in DarkRiver territory with his wife, Katya, and a boy named Cruz.

The leader of the Forgotten had become a stronger and stronger ally over time, the relationship between DarkRiver and SnowDancer and the Forgotten such that he’d asked the packs to offer sanctuary to gifted Forgotten children and their families. That sanctuary was needed because the world had more than one mercenary individual who wanted to control the children’s unique new abilities.

Lucas had known Dev was coming, and now the two of them stood to one side of a small open area in the forest, where Naya, Keenan, and Noor were playing with Cruz. The older boy was good-natured about the younger children’s enthusiasm; nothing about him betrayed that he was a telepath of cardinal-level power, his eyes near-black with unexpected flickers of dark gold rather than night sky. Because Cruz was one of the Forgotten, not Psy.

As Lucas watched, Cruz went to say something to Sascha before he smiled and returned to the field of play. Lucas’s mate was standing with Katya and Ashaya, the three women having a quiet discussion. Dev’s wife and Ashaya had once been scientists in a lab controlled by Ming LeBon. Both had helped children even when they couldn’t fashion an escape for those children, and both had paid a price for that help. While Lucas didn’t know Katya as well as he did Ashaya, he had a soft spot for her.

Katya, in turn, had a giant one for Noor and Keenan, the bond between them formed out of bleak despair that had been transformed into incandescent joy.

His and Dev’s current conversation, however, had nothing to do with either the children, the Forgotten hidden in DarkRiver and SnowDancer, or Cruz. It involved a Forgotten teenager who Lucas had claimed as part of his pack.

“I’ve confirmed the rumors your Rats first picked up,” Dev said to him, the golden brown skin of his face all harsh lines. “There’s a bounty out on Jon. Five million to anyone who can capture him alive.”

Lucas’s claws pricked at his skin. When the Rats reported the rumor over a month earlier, he’d immediately gotten in touch with Dev. Both because the Forgotten had made it a point to infiltrate networks that might pose a threat to their people and because if someone was after Jon, it was possible he or she—or they—would also attempt to snatch other Forgotten children.

Such abduction attempts had already occurred more than once.

“Our message wasn’t an empty threat,” he said in a tone that held the panther’s harsh rage. “Anyone hurts or tries to hurt or take one of DarkRiver’s young, and they’ll die by claws and teeth.”

“You haven’t heard the best part.” Dev’s voice was both approving and amused.

Lucas went to answer, was distracted when Cruz came running over.

“I forgot my juice,” the boy said, his face hot from exertion.

Dev picked it up off the picnic blanket Sascha had brought, on which she’d placed snacks and drinks for the children. “Here you go,” he said, bumping fists with the eleven-and-a-half-year-old. “Don’t let those three”—a nod at where a ferocious and tiny black panther was pretending to bite Keenan while Noor tried to tackle him—“give you too much trouble.”

Cruz rolled his eyes after taking a drink. “They’re babies.” A put-upon sigh. “But I better play with them so they don’t get bored.”

Lucas’s lips curved as Cruz ran back to enthusiastically join in whatever game it was the three DarkRiver cubs and one Forgotten boy had thought up. “Kid’s looking much better,” he said to Dev. “Sascha says his shields are phenomenal.” Lucas’s mate was the one who’d helped create those shields, Dev having asked for her help after discovering that Cruz had no shields of his own, his mind naked to the world.

“She gave him the base.” Dev slid his hands into the pockets of his black pants. “And fuck she’s good, Lucas. The more we study Cruz’s shields, the more we realize what she built, and it’s extraordinary.”

Lucas’s panther stretched out in pride inside him. “Yes,” he agreed. “But I can tell she’s pleased with the progress he’s made on his own.” That checkup was part of the reason Dev and Katya had made this trip.

“He’s a tough kid.” The pride was Dev’s this time. “Resilient doesn’t come close to describing it.” The other man was quiet for a moment before adding, “He’s still mourning his mom and dad, but he’s not dwelling on the horrific way he was diagnosed as schizophrenic and drugged. The nightmares are all but gone.”

Lucas knew it wasn’t only Cruz’s resilience that had permitted the boy to heal; it was the fact that he was surrounded by a shield of love and fierce protectiveness. Cruz had the air of a child who knew nothing could get to him. A lot of that fell at the feet of Katya Haas and Devraj Santos. Which brought Lucas back around to the protection of the children in his care.

“The bounty,” he said. “Details?”

“I’ll send you what we have. The offer was sent directly to a number of for-hire black ops and mercenary units. The best of the best across racial lines. Whoever it is means serious business.”

Folding his arms, Lucas said, “It also means we can’t play the client by creating a fake team to take up the offer.”

Dev nodded. “We tried talking around our contact into playing the client, asked him to send in fake images of Jon bound and gagged.” A shake of his head. “He’s too terrified of the retaliation from his own team if they find out he’s been feeding us intel. They don’t know he’s Forgotten.”

“Shit.” Lucas unfolded his arms before he clawed himself. “Contact details on the offer?”

“Throwaway e-mail address. No way to trace it—and we’ve tried.”

“So what’s the good news?” This time, he had enough of a snarl in his tone that Naya’s ears pricked up, but she was soon distracted by Noor calling for her.

“No one is eager to take up the offer.”

Lucas glanced at the leader of the Forgotten, his panther looking out of his eyes in disbelief. “Five million and no one’s eager?”

“Our contact says his own group was considering it, and we have indications that two others were as well, but all of them pulled out last night.” Dev’s eyes glinted. “It was a stroke of genius to follow up your statement by leaking images of that bloody room where you executed the alpha who came after your cub.”

It wasn’t Lucas who’d leaked those photos. He hadn’t even been aware they’d been taken. It had been one of the ocelot soldiers—the female. She hadn’t done it in defiance or rebellion. No, she’d done it to make it clear to other changelings that the surviving ocelot dominants had witnessed the execution and that it had been a righteous one. Her act had been one of solidarity with her new alpha.

Despite her unauthorized actions, Lucas had to admit he liked the young ocelot. Especially when she accepted her punishment for those actions without complaining. He hadn’t hurt her, but he had put her on the worst duty shifts for six months.

“Worth it, sir,” she’d said when he’d shaken his head at her afterward. “I didn’t want any rumors out there, just the cold, hard facts. You don’t deserve to have anyone questioning your actions.”

Hugging her against his chest, one hand cradling her head, Lucas had pressed a kiss to her hair. “You’re going to be trouble, but it turns out this pack likes trouble.”

She’d left with a dimpled smile, Rina by her side. The twenty-four-year-old DarkRiver soldier was helping the younger girl settle into the pack, and it wasn’t a chance partnership. Rina had made more trouble than most of her yearmates combined before Lucas put Dorian in charge of her training and development. Faced with a trainer who accepted zero bullshit, she’d exceeded all expectations without losing the edginess that made her Rina.

Lucas knew she’d be good for the high-spirited ocelot soldier.

“A bloody room,” he said to Dev now, “wouldn’t normally put off the kind of mercenaries who kidnap children.”

“Maybe not, but the idea of having their entrails clawed out and tied into knots in front of them, or having their dicks cut off while they scream, or their eyes plucked out before they’re released, just so you can hunt them and tear them apart with your teeth, isn’t sitting well with most. Especially when the failed attempt to snatch Naya has skewed the risk of capture into the ‘ninety-nine-percent certainty’ category.”

Lucas stared at the other man. “Knotted entrails and dicks being cut off? Blinding people so I can hunt them?”

Cheeks creasing, Dev angled his head. “Yeah, I didn’t think that was your style. Looks like someone’s been embellishing on your behalf and doing a damn good job of it. You’ve now got a reputation as a scary motherfucker with no limits when it comes to your kid and your pack.”

The Forgotten leader leaned back against a tree. “Oh, and the rumors make it clear you’re also brutally intelligent and your pack has the smarts to dig out financial connections, no matter how deep a mercenary team might bury those connections in an effort to avoid retaliation.”

Dev smiled at Naya when she padded over to growl playfully at them before making her way back to her playmates. “It’s also gotten out that you confiscated the captured assault team’s money—mercenaries hate working for free even more than they do being subjected to torture.”

Lucas had put that money into a trust for the ocelot children, with the unanimous agreement of the adult ocelot survivors. He’d have put all four million of SkyElm’s money into that trust, but the survivors had been adamant that they wanted to contribute to their new pack, so one million had gone into the DarkRiver fund used for the education of cubs.

None of the adults had wanted to take any of the remaining million, but he’d made each one accept an amount that would give them room to breathe while they settled into their new lives. The rest, at their request, would act as the capital for a scholarship for young inventors. Named the SkyElm Grant, it would ensure the pack’s name lived on as part of something good, not simply in memories of horror.

“Huh,” he said in response to Dev’s revelations about his own apparent reputation for meting out horrific torture.

Lucas would savage the world for those who were his own—but he wasn’t into torture. Never had been. Still, it was a useful reputation to have if it helped protect the most vulnerable members of DarkRiver. “That explains the sudden wary respect I’m seeing in the eyes of Psy corporations we’re working with on business deals.”

“Business gone down recently?”

“Up. Appears the Psy respect that kind of merciless retribution.” Lucas smiled, his panther amused as it realized the identity of the person most likely behind his new reputation.

Nikita Duncan was more than deviously intelligent enough to figure out how to protect her daughter and grandchild long-term and what would scare even the most hardened men and women. The fact that his reputation would also protect other children was a side effect that wouldn’t matter to her, but it mattered a heck of a lot to Lucas.

“So it’s done?” Dev asked. “The trail ended with the ocelots?”

Lucas shook his head. “No, the alpha was just a useful weapon to point in our direction. Someone else was driving the operation.” Hopefully, the captain of the ship Dorian had pinpointed would provide further intelligence.

Jamie was leading the op to intercept the ship in question, which involved taking a flight to one of BlackSea’s floating cities in a craft capable of water landings. Miane had made one available for their use after DarkRiver and SnowDancer allied with her pack. From that point, Jamie would get on a BlackSea underwater craft and sneak up on the ship, then climb up and into it with a small team of water changelings.

It seemed an appropriate operation for a cat who’d taken up deep-sea diving.

“We’ll get them,” he said to Dev. “Sooner or later, we’ll find the people pulling the strings.” It was the unyielding promise of an alpha—and of a father.

Letters to Nina

From the private diaries of Father Xavier Perez

May 7, 2075

Nina,

He’s trusted me with his name, the Psy soldier. I won’t write it here—if my letters are ever found, I don’t want to betray my friend.

I know you must be thinking that this is surely a double cross, that he’ll betray me. I thought the same until I realized he had no reason to approach me, or to want me with him. I’m no one, a broken fragment of a lost village. At the time he and I first met, I was a drunk, a fool who was more hindrance than help.

No, my new friend had no reason to take me into his confidence except that he saw I needed a mission, a reason for being. In giving it to me, he has given me more than he’ll ever know. For the first time in an eternity, I feel like Xavier again. I feel like the man I was before the day murder stained our village and I saw you jump into the water.

At times, I even glimpse the rare flame of hope.

Your Xavier

Chapter 34

IT WAS VASIC who Miane Levèque most often contacted now with updates on the Leila Savea situation and Zaira with whom the BlackSea alpha met with simply to talk—one dangerous woman to another, their friendship a growing thing. As leader of the Arrow Squad, Aden might’ve been expected to be dissatisfied with that state of affairs, but he felt the opposite: his mate and his best friend were building powerful bonds of their own.

Should the worst ever happen, should Aden be assassinated, Vasic would have the skills and contacts to step in and Zaira . . . No, Aden couldn’t predict what Zaira would do except seek vengeance. And after that was done, he had the haunting conviction that she’d choose to join him. So he’d have to stay alive. That was all there was to it.

The thought echoed in his mind as he grabbed a handhold on a rock face not far from the RainFire aeries and swung over and up. A couple of meters from him, Remi, the alpha of the small leopard pack, was doing much the same. They were dressed similarly, too, in dark outdoor pants and T-shirts, boots on their feet and gloves on their hands; the only real difference was that Remi’s T-shirt was white, Aden’s olive green.

“So,” Remi said, his biceps bulging as he attempted a particularly difficult crossing over a jagged gap in the rock face, “since the wolves are keeping Ming busy for now and Trinity hasn’t collapsed, what’s on your mind?”

Aden held his position until he saw that Remi had made it safely. They were climbing separately but acting as each other’s spotters, ready to send out an alert in case of an accident. Such an accident was highly unlikely, not with Remi having claws with which he could hook into every tiny crevice and Aden a far more careful climber than his more instinctive friend. However, taking things for granted got people—and Arrows—killed.

“Did you know BlackSea holds regular gatherings of its people?” he asked after they’d both begun climbing again. “They come from every corner of the globe.” He pushed off with his feet, caught an overhang, kicked up so that he was in a crouched position vertically for a second before he managed to get himself on the overhang and ready for the next part of the climb.

Remi whistled. “Nice move.”

“Zaira taught me that one.” His lover was currently “cat climbing” the internal RainFire rock wall. She’d been press-ganged into it by the smaller, less powerful cats who wanted to know how she did it without claws.

Them, Zaira could’ve resisted. But when little Jojo had jumped up and down at the idea of watching Zaira do another climb, well, his tough commander had a mile-wide vulnerable streak there. How’s the climb going? he telepathed to her, the connection flawless at this range.

Fairly uneventful. I threw in a semi-slip to make it more exciting, but now that I’ve done it once, it’s not a true challenge.

Because Zaira climbed as much with her mind as with her body, would’ve remembered every grip, every successful move. Don’t show up the cats too badly.

Soft laughter along the black-on-black bond that connected them, his lover’s firelight hidden within the black. The entire squad needed her fire, thrived on it, whether she accepted her importance or not.

Their honor is safe with me. Zaira rarely laughed aloud, but mind to mind, he was becoming addicted to the sound of her happiness. Are you done?

Halfway.

They disconnected without need for good-byes. He and Zaira lived in each other’s minds, never intrusive, just . . . present. He loved being able to feel her blade of a mind at the edge of his consciousness, liked knowing that should she need him, he could respond within split seconds.

“Sounds like our pack circle events.” Remi’s voice brought him fully back to the here and now. “All packs have gatherings, and as different as BlackSea is, they’re still changeling, still a pack.”

“The goal is to reinforce pack bonds?” Aden was still rebuilding his own “pack,” trying to heal his broken family, and he wasn’t so proud as to ignore advice from a race that was all about family. Especially when the man giving that advice was a self-confessed “remedial” alpha who was learning right alongside Aden.

“Sure,” Remi said, as above them, an eagle flew with stately grace, circling the rock face, as if taking in their activity. “But it’s also about celebrating important events like matings, births, the achievements of our cubs.” He hauled himself over a near-smooth section of rock. “Why? You thinking of a gathering?”

Aden nodded when the other man glanced over, Remi’s shaggy brown hair damp with sweat and pushed off his face. “If a pack whose members often swim alone can do it, why not the squad?” Ivy Jane had already begun the process by inviting Arrows to her home for dinners. She’d even held an informal party of sorts—though with a guest list made up mostly of Arrows that party was never going to be raucous. However, it would take a coordinated effort to get the majority of his people home for an event.

“Hell, Aden,” Remi said, “from what you’ve told me, your people deserve a seriously epic shindig.”

Aden and the leopard alpha were now side by side, having come closer as the rock face narrowed. Meeting Remi’s eyes, the color a clear topaz striated with light, he said, “I don’t think my Arrows, child or adult, are ready for such an unstructured event.”

The reason Ivy’s party had worked was because it had been small enough that she’d been able to have one-on-one contact with her guests, easing their way into the gathering. Any bigger and Arrows would start to withdraw behind an instinctive protective shielding. They’d bury their newfound emotions, fall back on decades-long training designed to turn them into remote, inhuman machines.

For to be an Arrow was to live within a strict set of rules.

Aden could soften that but he couldn’t erase it. Not when the people in his family were some of the deadliest on the planet—the rules and structure gave them a chance to have lives, and now, to have families. A telepath who wasn’t terrified of destroying a child’s mind with a simple slip made for a far more stable and happy parent, as did a telekinetic who didn’t have to worry he’d crush a child’s windpipe by being unaware of his strength.

Those mistakes simply did not happen inside the squad.

Silence had been an ugly construct, but it had taught the squad some good along with all the bad.

“Hmm.” Remi took a grip, then grinned. “Let’s talk about it at the top. See you there, Arrow.”

They began to climb with single-minded focus. As a changeling, Remi’s greater strength and flexibility gave him a natural advantage, but Aden had mapped out the entire climb in his head before he ever started. He didn’t need to pause or to rethink. As a result, they were evenly matched—and pulled themselves over the edge at the same time.

Laughing, Remi slipped out the bottle of water he’d carried strapped to his thigh. “Fuck, that was impressive for a man with no claws.”

Aden took a drink from his own bottle. “You didn’t use your claws.” Remi’s gloves were undamaged.

The other man put aside his water to tug them off. “Yeah, well, it’s only fun if it’s a fair fight. Now if you’d been like your friend, the Tk, it would’ve been no holds barred.”

“Vasic has only one arm.” Samuel Rain’s attempts at making Vasic a working prosthetic continued to fail—the last one in spectacular fashion. “The newest iteration of the prosthetic currently in play shorted out in a shower of sparks that set fire to Ivy’s new tablecloth.”

Aden had been at the orchard during the incident, so he knew firsthand that the empath had not been happy when she saw the damage. “She took a hammer to that particular prosthetic.” And if there had been a little too much force in her blows, well, even empaths needed outlets for grief.

Not cognizant of the sadness that had driven Ivy’s incensed reaction, Remi’s shoulders shook. “Vasic might have only one arm, but he’s a telekinetic. They move in a way that’s almost like a changeling but different. Can’t explain it.”

Aden didn’t need more of an explanation; he’d seen Vasic climb, knew exactly what Remi was trying to describe. “Yes, he’d beat both of us, even with only one arm.”

“Talk for yourself.” Remi’s tone was mock-insulted. “But the party thing—you need an excuse to give it structure. Anything good happen that you want to celebrate?” A pause. “I know your squad lost an elder recently. It’s even more important that you celebrate joy in the aftermath, that you show your Arrows that life, it’s got a lot of different faces.”

Aden thought of the children’s achievements, decided their confidence was too new and fragile yet to put even under a celebratory spotlight. Then he sensed Zaira at the back of his mind, happy in whatever she was doing, and knew. “We’ve had a number of bondings. Matings.” The squad had picked up and begun to use the changeling term, and they weren’t the only ones in the PsyNet.

“Ivy and Vasic had a wedding,” he continued, thinking back to an orchard dressed in sunshine and scented with spring blossoms. “As did Abbot and Jaya.” Held in the Maldives, the traditional Indian wedding had been a feast of color and sensation that made Aden doubt very much that the vast majority of Jaya’s family had ever truly been Silent. “The rest of us had no familial or cultural need to celebrate that way.”

“A mating or a long-term bonding is a big thing,” Remi countered. “It should be marked and celebrated.” The alpha’s eyes were leopard when they met Aden’s. “Your cubs have to follow rules, as do mine, but we have to balance that by giving them a chance to run wild.” A slight grin. “Your kids are probably far better behaved than ours, but give them an opportunity to realize the rules have been relaxed and I predict sweet mayhem.”

Aden couldn’t imagine the children under his care ever causing mayhem . . . but then he thought of how little Jojo had “attacked” him on his last visit, growling and snarling playfully without so much as scratching him, and knew he wanted his tiny Arrows to feel the same freedom even as they continued to learn how to control their violent abilities.

“An event to celebrate the bondings in the squad.” He nodded, his eyes on the sprawling vista of trees and mountains visible from this vantage point. “I’m going to speak to my senior people, see what we need to do to pull it off. Thank you for the advice.”

Touching his water bottle to Aden’s, Remi said, “I knew I was the brains of this outfit.”

Aden felt his lips curve at the leopard alpha’s statement, right as another mind touched his. “Vasic just asked if I have time to meet him for a sparring session.” The request had been between friends, rather than Arrow to Arrow. “I’ve invited him to join us instead.”

“Hell, yeah,” Remi said. “I want to see him climb.”

Vasic ’ported in at the bottom of the rock face ten minutes later, having returned home first to change into clothing and boots suitable for climbing.

Instead of telepathing—that would shut Remi out of the conversation—Aden yelled down his and Remi’s climbing time. “See if you can beat that!”

Vasic’s wintery eyes were brilliant in the early evening sunlight when he looked up and pointedly raised his single arm. Aden shrugged, as beside him, Remi said, “Minimal use of your telekinesis permitted—just enough to compensate for your other arm!”

Vasic’s eyes narrowed. Stepping back from the rock face, he looked at it carefully for several minutes before returning to take his first grip. Aden could tell within minutes that Vasic was actually using far less Tk than would’ve been permitted under Remi’s rule. “He’s utilizing pure muscle and intelligence.”

Remi whistled. “I told you. Man moves like a cat.”

Watching his friend, Aden thought of the endless training sessions they’d done together at the orchard, of how hard Vasic had worked to regain his balance and fluidity in movement. Losing an arm changed everything about how a person moved, but Vasic had never complained. He’d simply learned to adapt.

Because the man who had once wanted only to die now had multiple reasons to live.

“You’re getting slow in your old age, Zen!”

Vasic glanced up at Remi’s heckling and Aden saw the shadow that passed across his face at the reminder of the man whose name he bore—a name he’d chosen to bear. On its heels came determination. “Want to put a wager on it?”

Remi snorted. “Do I look mentally challenged? Only an idiot would bet against a Tk, one-armed or not.”

Laughter dawned in Vasic’s eyes before he returned to his careful yet strangely fluid climb. As Aden sat there under the light of the evening sun and watched his best friend take on what should’ve been an impossible challenge, while a new friend sat beside him, and Aden’s mate spoke with friends of her own, he felt a dizzying sense of possibility and hope.

Ming LeBon might be stirring trouble, the Consortium was waiting in the shadows, and BlackSea’s vanished remained lost and alone, but today, this night, it was a dream an Arrow would’ve thought impossible even six months earlier.

Chapter 35

CHANCE PUT LUCAS with Devraj Santos again when Jamie sent in a note the next day confirming mission success, with details to follow. Lucas glanced at the message with grim satisfaction, then slid away his phone so he could start the car. He’d offered to drive Dev up to SnowDancer territory, where the leader of the Forgotten planned to check in with the children and families SnowDancer had given shelter.

Since Lucas had business with Hawke, it was convenient for them both.

It turned out Dev was thinking of pulling his people out of pack lands. “Not that you haven’t kept them safe and treated them well,” he said to Lucas, “but the kids are starting to need more and more specialized help as their abilities develop. And while Sascha and the others here have been incredible, I think they’d do better under the training programs we’ve been figuring out with the Arrows.”

Lucas nodded. “Judd’s really the only one with the kind of skills to teach those of your young with dangerous new abilities, and he can’t handle them all.” Sienna was assisting, but her training differed from Judd’s and a lot of it wasn’t transferable.

“There’s no question of moving William,” Dev clarified, referring to a boy born with the unusual telekinetic gift that made Judd so deadly and so extraordinary at the same time. “Judd can help him in ways no one else can, but the others? I’m going to talk them through the programs we’re developing, give them the choice.”

“What about the reason you moved them here in the first place?”

“We’ve been quietly buying up land in a remote part of New York State,” Dev replied. “It’s secure but large enough that no one will feel penned in. I got the idea from DarkRiver’s Yosemite territory, to be honest—though our area isn’t as large, it’s plenty big enough for humans and Forgotten.” The other man ran a hand through his hair. “I actually wanted to run something by you in terms of our security protocols.”

Lucas listened, gave his opinion, then asked Dev if he’d had a chance to think about the dangerous disintegration of the PsyNet, an issue Sascha had brought up at dinner the previous night. While the Forgotten had no reason to love those in the PsyNet who had once hunted them, Dev and his people understood that the majority of Psy were ordinary people fighting to survive.

The other man had offered to assist Sascha in any way he could.

“I can’t figure it out.” Dev braced his arm on the door, his window down as they reached the foothills of the Sierras. “If the Es are awake and emotion is back in the Net, then it should be healing. The Forgotten didn’t do anything extraordinary when we defected.” His frown was in his voice. “We just stayed what the PsyNet was pre-Silence.”

The two of them talked it through but hadn’t come up with anything new by the time Lucas brought the vehicle to a stop near the den.

TWENTY minutes later, as he stood waiting for Hawke just outside the White Zone, Dev having already met up with his liaison, Lucas made a note to ask Jon if the teen wanted to join the Forgotten’s new training program. If he did, DarkRiver wouldn’t send him alone; he’d have a pack escort, someone who was his friend as well as being tough enough to protect him.

Not because Lucas didn’t trust Dev, but because Jon was a child of the pack.

His phone beeped right then, with the promised report from Jamie. The senior soldier had written up his conclusions and sent the result over a secure line. Everything had gone according to plan—they’d invaded the target ship without setting off any alarms, then interrogated the captain.

Jamie was certain the man had simply been another cog in the machine.

All he knew was that he had to pick up live cargo at a certain time and place. That time and place would’ve lined up perfectly had the snatch on Naya been successful so I don’t think there’s any question Dorian zeroed in on the right ship. The captain was told he’d receive further instructions for care of the cargo once it was on its way but that he was to set aside a cabin for the time being, a cabin that had been stripped of all small items and was capable of being locked.

He figured it was going to be an animal of some kind, an exotic pet “for some rich asshole.” He swears up and down that he had no idea he’d been hired to transport a kidnapped child. His exact words were: “I don’t do people. People have other people who look for them and some of those other people are fucking scary like you and your friends.”

I tend to believe him.

His record isn’t exactly squeaky clean but he’s never tried anything this ambitious or dangerous. He’s a smuggler, back and forth with low-risk goods most of the time, spiced with the occasional legal job.

He was paid twenty-five grand upfront for the transport. That wasn’t enough to buy his loyalty when his life and livelihood were on the line. BlackSea did us a solid there, threatened to ban him from all the commercial waterways they control and they control a shitload. I didn’t have to show him my claws before he started spilling his guts.

Lucas made a mental note to thank Miane, knew the alpha would say she was simply repaying DarkRiver for the introduction to Tanique Gray. Faith’s brother had brought BlackSea far closer to their vanished packmate than they would’ve been otherwise.

Jamie’s report continued:

My gut says we got everything out of the captain. He even gave up all his commercial and personal codes. I sent them through to Dorian and Bastien so they could dig through his transactions and transmissions and they haven’t found any evidence of greater involvement on his part. He was the unwitting mule hired to be the fall guy should Naya be found while he was crossing the ocean.

Bastien’s tracking the source of the twenty-five-thousand-dollar payment. It was all anonymous of course. Pretty standard in a smuggler’s line of work so the captain had no reason to dig any deeper.

I made the call to let him go, but we’ve bugged the hell out of all his systems. He doesn’t know, thinks he was released with a warning. He’s promised to share any new approaches from the individual who hired him, but for some strange reason, I don’t believe him.

I’ve asked Bas to tag all his financials and Dorian is monitoring all his personal correspondence using various data backdoors. We’ll know if he’s approached again—I figured it was better to let this piece of bait sail away, see what he might attract, but if you think I should take him in, we can easily catch his ship.

One more step in hunting down their prey, Lucas thought, one more step in the right direction. It was slow progress, but it was progress. Sending a message to Jamie confirming receipt of the information and backing the senior soldier’s decision to release the captain, Lucas told him to return to DarkRiver territory.

The work on the water was done. Now it was up to Bastien to hack through the financial jungle that no doubt awaited.

“Luc.” Hawke’s voice came just as he was sliding away his phone. “Sorry for the delay—was up in the higher elevations, hit a rockfall on the way out and had to navigate around.”

Lucas shook the other alpha’s hand. “No problem.” Where before they’d both circled around each other, their animals ready to attack at any behavior that even hinted of a dominance challenge, their relationship had changed into something far different over time.

Lucas had allowed Hawke to hold Naya.

That said everything.

“You want to walk to the waterfall while we talk?” Hawke asked, thrusting a hand through the hair of silver-gold that echoed his wolf’s pelt.

At Lucas’s nod, the alpha fell in beside him, and they moved at a steady pace as they spoke about a number of matters related to the increasing interaction between the packs, as well as a construction project DarkRiver was heading, with SnowDancer a thirty-percent silent partner. They’d worked on several such projects by now, the wolves content to remain in the background, given DarkRiver’s expertise in the area.

The two of them had just completed their discussion and returned to nearer the den when Dev joined them. After explaining to Hawke what he’d already told Lucas about the better training opportunities for Forgotten children back in New York, he said, “Excluding Will’s family, it looks like my people will be out of your hair within the next month.”

Hawke nodded. “Everyone fit well into the pack, and adults and children both made friends. If they want to visit afterward, they’ll be welcome.”

“I can tell you right now that they’ll be taking you up on the offer—leaving their new friends was the children’s biggest concern.” Dev’s eyes met Lucas’s and, all at once, those eyes didn’t quite look human.

The irises remained brown but the flecks of color inside were suddenly glittering so bright they appeared like pieces of precious metals.

“Dev, what the fuck is happening to your eyes?” Lucas asked before the other man could say whatever it was he’d been about to say.

“Shit.” The leader of the Forgotten squeezed his eyes shut as he lifted one hand to grip his temples in a vice. “It comes and goes, and it doesn’t look like I can control it, though I’m trying the fuck hard.”

Hawke folded his arms. “You developing cardinal eyes?”

“Or something.” Scowling, Dev dropped his hand and opened his eyes.

The flecks continued to glitter. Eerie, but oddly compelling at the same time.

“I’m not the only one.” The other man blew out a breath. “Cruz’s eyes are changing the more he uses his ability, and so are those of a number of others. This”—he pointed to his own eyes—“it’s not what Cruz’s eyes are doing. None of the changes are the same and none of the changes are stable, but there is a definite change in the eyes of the majority of Forgotten with high-level abilities.”

Lucas whistled, suddenly understanding why Dev was so pissed off. “It’ll put a marker on the backs of all your most gifted members.”

A hard nod. “It’s like we’ve hit a default setting,” Dev said. “As if once an individual reaches a certain level of active psychic power, previously dormant genes turn on and start to fuck with their eyes.”

“Maybe Dev’s people can modify the contacts we developed for Sienna and the others,” Hawke said to Lucas. “Has to be easier to hide these fluctuations than it was to hide cardinal eyes.”

Dev looked immediately interested. “Seriously, any help you can offer, we’ll take,” he said before locking gazes with Lucas again. “I think Jon was the first to exhibit the change. When we spoke, he told me he doesn’t remember people commenting about his eyes until he turned eleven or so.”

Since the remarkable violet shade of Jon’s eyes definitely invited comment, Lucas could find no fault with Dev’s theory. “Jon was on his own, forced to use whatever he had to survive.” Ethics made for cold comfort when you were a starving child.

“No surprise his abilities woke faster as a result,” Dev agreed without hesitation.

The response further strengthened Lucas’s liking for the Forgotten director. “We’ll forward you the information on how to produce the contacts.” They were highly specialized and had to be custom-made for the individual, but the Forgotten had the resources to do that. “You ready to head down?”

Dev nodded and, saying good-bye to Hawke, the two of them were soon back in the car. They were a half hour out from the aerie where Dev, Katya, and Cruz were staying when Dev received a message on his phone that made him frown. “You know a lynx pack in Calgary?”

Lucas thought immediately of Bastien’s mate, Kirby. Her grandparents’ pack, IceRock, was the only one in that immediate region. “Yeah. What’s the issue?”

“There’s a small Forgotten population just off the pack’s eastern border. They’ve had a good if not close relationship with the pack to this point, but they’re getting nervous about vehicle movements late at night that seem to be going in and out of pack territory—black SUVs that look military grade to them, but they’re not trained.”

The information didn’t fit with Lucas’s impression of IceRock. “I’ll ask, but as far as I know, the pack’s a peaceful one.” A family-centered group that was happy to be left alone, though it was cautiously following DarkRiver’s lead in making friendships with its neighbors.

“Appreciate it.” Dev slipped away his phone. “My people tend to be jumpy, especially with children in the mix.”

“Don’t blame them.” The Forgotten had lost a number of their young in horrific circumstances. “I’ll touch base with the lynx alpha soon as we get back.”

“We’re leaving in two hours, so if you get any information after that, give me a call.”

Letters to Nina

From the private diaries of Father Xavier Perez

October 19, 2075

Nina,

I’ve been working with my Psy friend whenever possible. He appears only rarely but we’ve found ways to stay in touch while he maintains his cover. In his absence, I use the welcome provided to me as a man of God to uncover information that helps us fight the evil that rules the Psy race.

I’ve been surprised at how many of the Psy treat me with respect, despite their official disbelief in any plane of existence beyond this one. Again, it’s shown me that not all Psy are the same. They have their good and their bad, their lazy and their strong.

I’m still angry at God, still full of rage, but there are glimmers of hope in the darkness. I don’t know if I’ll ever again be a man of absolute faith as I once was, but it seems my faith is too powerful to be killed even by horror.

But one thing I know: I’ll never be fully at peace with God until the day I see you again . . . whether in this lifetime or the next.

Xavier

Chapter 36

LUCAS WAS MEETING Sascha and Naya at Tamsyn and Nate’s, the other couple having invited them for dinner, but he stopped by his own aerie to make the call to the lynx alpha. Kiya Teague was around Lucas’s age but had become alpha far more recently; the pack’s previous alpha remained strong and healthy and respected though he was in his seventh decade of life.

He’d had the support to keep on being alpha, but had decided to pass the baton to Kiya rather than see her move away from IceRock to establish her own pack. He remained available to her should she need his advice, the transition apparently seamless from what Lucas had heard. It was exactly how a healthy pack was supposed to function, how the switch had happened in DarkRiver until Lachlan died unexpectedly two years after stepping down; the loss had left Lucas without guidance when he’d been a bare twenty-five years old.

He’d never have been able to do it without his sentinels, particularly Nathan. The current most senior sentinel had been Lachlan’s youngest sentinel at the time; he’d provided a crucial link between Lucas and Lachlan’s older sentinels, men and women who were now all retired but who’d always been there for the young panther who’d had to rebuild a heartbroken pack.

“Lucas,” Kiya said with a smile that lit up her pixyish face, her skin a tawny shade of brown and her eyes shaded by lashes that reminded Lucas of a doll’s.

Petite Kiya Teague was the most cheerful alpha Lucas knew. It was mildly disconcerting. Lucas’s panther kept wanting to pat her on the head, but the human side of him knew never to try the condescending gesture. She’d probably rip off his arm because, bouncy personality aside, Kiya was a true alpha. Nowhere near as powerful as Lucas, but powerful enough to nurture a healthy pack and to hold his gaze.

“What can I do yer for?” she asked, her hazel-brown eyes sparkling. “This about our Kirby?”

Lips curving at the possessive emphasis on Kirby, Lucas shook his head. “Got a question for you from the neighbors on your eastern edge.”

“The human settlement?” Kiya’s smile faded into a frown. “Why’re they going to you instead of coming to me?”

Interesting that she didn’t seem to know her neighbors were Forgotten . . . but then the Forgotten didn’t exactly advertise their presence. Lucas sometimes forgot that he had far more information about them than the average alpha. “We have a mutual acquaintance,” he said, then grinned. “And they’re scared of you.”

She drew up the entire five feet and one inch of her body. “You making fun of me, Lucas Hunter?”

He held up his hands. “Wouldn’t dare. They really are worried—it’s to do with the late-night SUV movements in and out of your territory.”

Kiya’s scowl faded at once. “Well, damn, I could’ve put their minds to rest in a heartbeat. I’ll do that today unless you have objections?”

“No, I think they’d probably appreciate a personal response.” Lucas was guessing at the Forgotten’s reaction, but in the back of his mind he was also always thinking about Trinity; the accord would only work if friendships and relationships developed across racial lines. “So, what’re you doing so late at night?”

“It’s not us,” the IceRock alpha replied. “We were worried about those SUVs, too. They didn’t quite come onto our territory, but they were passing right by and, well, we’re not a big pack like DarkRiver, don’t have a sprawl of land. We wanted to make sure no one was setting up to steal some from us.”

Lucas knew cats, knew exactly what the lynx pack would’ve done. “What did you see when you followed their trail?” He couldn’t have asked the question so directly had he and Kiya not already developed a good working relationship built on the fact that they were now family.

Eyes gleaming, the lynx alpha said, “The SUVs are going into the massive old estate on the other side of our territory. It used to be owned by a human CEO who went bankrupt back when I was a cub. Been left to crumble into a ruin ever since—our cubs used to sneak over to play on the property until we built a fence they couldn’t climb.”

“Why?” If the place had been deserted, most alphas wouldn’t have minded cubs playing there so long as they didn’t cause any damage.

Kiya’s expression turned dark. “The CEO built a big-ass pool and even though it was emptied out, it was still a large concrete hole in the ground—and when it rained, the water gathered. Wasn’t safe and we couldn’t get the owners on record to fence it up, so we just built our own fence.”

Lucas’s pulse had kicked up at the word “pool,” stayed that way. He thought of what Miane had told him about Tanique’s psychometric readings. Saltwater and lynxes. “That pool full now?” He knew she’d know—cats couldn’t help being curious, especially about a neighbor so close to their border.

A nod that caused her ponytail to bounce, her hair dark, dark brown with glints of red highlights. “Construction folks started coming in about a year ago, when the new owners must’ve bought it. They put a glass building over the pool and cleaned up the house, which was in pretty good condition surprisingly.

“Can’t see through to the pool anymore—smoked glass. They’ve also added to our fences, put up opaque ones on their side.” Disappointment and approval vied for lead position in her tone. As alpha, she obviously appreciated the better safety measures, but feline curiosity had her itching to know what the heck was going on with IceRock’s new neighbors.

“It’s clear it’s someone with money,” she added, folding her arms. “We figure maybe a celebrity, what with the cloak-and-dagger blacked-out SUVs in the night and the bodyguards.”

“Weapons?”

Her eyes cooled. “I paid the bodyguards a visit when my dominants told me they were patrolling our border with guns, pointed out that if they so much as touched a hair on my people’s heads, I’d rip off their own heads and use them for football practice.” She smiled that bouncy smile. “They electrified their fences after that and stopped the patrols. Fair enough. All our people know not to go beyond our own fence in that area.”

Lucas chuckled but his mind was racing. “Look, Kiya,” he said. “There might be more going on than a publicity-shy celebrity. Can you get me images a teleporter can use to ’port inside the compound?”

“No problem.” She braced her hands on her hips on the heels of the confident statement, her shoulders squared. “You going to get my pack in the middle of something, Lucas?”

“It’s possible.” He held her gaze, a gaze gone the yellowish-hazel of her lynx. “But it’s also possible there’s a changeling or changelings being held captive in that compound.”

Kiya’s hiss was violent. “I’ll get the images to you later tonight,” she said, her lynx still in her tone. “If your teleporter friend needs assistance, you give him my number and tell him to call.”

SASCHA was seated at Tamsyn’s kitchen table chatting with the healer when a vehicle entered the drive. She expected Lucas to walk through the door, but it proved to be Clay and Talin with the kids. All four, Jon included, had gone to a tea shop for Noor’s requested birthday tea party, had decided to say hello to Tamsyn and family before they went home.

“We had this many cakes!” Noor held her hands as far apart as they’d go, her dark eyes shining.

Scooping up the little girl, who had on a pretty blue dress with white lace and ribbons, her glossy black hair tied back with more ribbons, Sascha cuddled her in her lap. “Let me see how full your tummy is,” she said, gently patting Noor’s abdomen. “Uh-oh, I think it’s about to explode.”

Noor giggled. “Kee got cream all over his face!”

Sascha wasn’t surprised at the news that Keenan had been present at the tea party. The two children were best friends—the fact that their psychic gifts worked in concert was a peripheral matter. It was their friendship that was most important. “Who else did you invite?”

“Ben!” Noor beamed at the mention of the mischievous little wolf. “He came with his mom. Issy and Behali came, too, but Jules and Rome couldn’t come because they went on a special date with their grandma. We brought them a big box of cake.” She went quiet all at once, her next words a worried whisper. “Will Naya be sad she didn’t come?”

Such a generous heart, Sascha thought, her own aching with love for this child of the pack. “No, baby,” she said, “Naya’s too little.” Talin had offered to take her along after Noor invited both Naya and Anu’s toddler, but Sascha knew her rambunctious cub wasn’t yet at an age where she could sit in a tea shop and behave. Anu had made the same call. “She had a party at the nursery with the other little cubs to celebrate her own birthday.”

It was DarkRiver tradition for first birthdays, with parents invited along to join in, and Naya had loved it. “We got her a cake shaped like a leopard paw, and she and her friends got to make mud pies and dance while wearing dress-up clothes.”

“That’s fun!”

Utterly delighted with this sweet girl who’d survived so much, Sascha kissed her on the cheek just as the twins, who’d returned from visiting Tamsyn’s mother an hour earlier, stuck their heads inside the open back door and yelled for Noor to come play. Wriggling off Sascha’s lap, Noor ran to join her playmates, calling out for Jon—who was standing next to Clay—to come with her. The sixteen-year-old ambled out, his phone in hand and his ball cap worn backward.

Naya was already in the backyard with the twins.

Sascha had no idea what Tamsyn’s cubs were teaching hers, but she had a feeling it involved getting into as much mischief as possible in as short a time as possible. The one thing the boys would never do was allow Naya to come to harm, and even if the kids wandered off, this was central DarkRiver territory.

Zach and Annie were the closest neighbors but other packmates roamed nearby. The children could explore in safety and freedom. She had to keep telling herself that, keep reminding herself that no one could snatch Naya while her cub was out of her sight.

Talin’s cloud-gray eyes met hers at that moment, and the tawny-haired woman walked over to touch Sascha’s hand in silent comfort. Talin knew what it was to lose children she’d sworn to protect, and that sorrow would never leave her.

“Noor and Jon,” Sascha reminded her softly while everyone else was distracted, Tamsyn having risen to make sure the children drank some water before continuing to play. “They survived and thanks to you and Clay, they’re thriving.”

Talin swallowed. “It’s tough though, isn’t it, Sascha? My heart pounds so hard whenever either one of them goes missing for even a short time. I have to physically stop myself from messaging Jon every hour when he’s out with his friends.” A shaky smile. “You think it ever goes away? This worry?”

Sascha shook her head. “Dezi’s mom used to make her check in after a night shift for years.” The only reason she didn’t anymore was that Dezi was no longer living alone; her mate would raise the alarm if she didn’t make it home.

“But she’s a senior soldier!” A startled response.

“You see my point.” Sascha’s dry response made the other woman laugh. “It sounds like the tea party was a success,” she said at a normal volume, which she knew would be audible to all the changelings in the room.

“Noor loved it.” An affectionate glance over at where Clay was helping himself to a cup of coffee from the carafe. “Jon and Clay liked the scones.”

Clay, the sentinel who’d been the most remote and dangerous when Sascha joined DarkRiver, offered a thumbs-up. His dark green eyes were feline, his body relaxed. “Good stuff, scones.” He glanced at Tamsyn, who’d returned to take her seat at the kitchen table. “You should make those.”

The healer grinned. “I do. You’ve just never been fast enough to get any.”

Moving over to perch on one of the breakfast stools at the counter, Talin stole Clay’s coffee cup when he came around. She took a couple of sips before handing it back, pressing a kiss to Clay’s jaw at the same time. Smile quiet, Clay took the mug in one hand, then braced his other one on the counter behind Talin. “I’ll work on my scone-racing skills.”

The solemn comment had them laughing.

Nathan walked in at that instant, his black hair tumbled as if he’d been running his hands through it. “Stealing all the women, Clay?”

“I can barely handle the two women I have now,” the sentinel replied. “And one of them is less than three feet tall.”

“You’re late, Nathan Ryder.” Having risen even before he appeared in the kitchen, Tamsyn embraced her mate.

Nathan kissed her temple as he held her close. “Got held up helping Emmett deal with a couple of cubs who need a little extra supervision.”

The healer and senior sentinel were the longest mated couple Sascha knew this well, and their love, it was a deep, warm pulse that existed in their every breath. There was passion, too, but that was a private thing and Sascha would never intrude. What she picked up was what any cardinal empath would pick up simply by being in the same room with the mated pair.

Watching them, she saw what she and Lucas would one day become. So very rooted in one another that they were woven into the very fabric of each other’s being. When Nathan held Tamsyn, when she placed her hand over his heart, they needed to say no words, ask no questions.

Today, as Tamsyn shifted to stand by his side, Nathan tangled his hand gently in her deep brown hair. He was a handsome man, with a face that held enough lines to be interesting, including the grooves around his mouth that said he laughed often.

“You hear the latest odds on Mercy?” he asked the room at large. “Rumors are four girls.”

“I don’t believe it.” Clay’s eyelids lowered to hood his eyes. “I’m sure those two are playing everyone.”

Talin grinned. “Mercy’s probably having a great time dropping ‘inadvertent’ hints to start these rumors—and I bet you she’s talked Riley into helping.” She waggled her eyebrows at Tamsyn. “I don’t suppose you want to end the speculation?”

“When it’s so much fun watching you all try to figure it out?” The healer shook her head. “Plus, it’s not going to be long now.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Talin said. “Last time I spoke to Mercy, she said the pupcubs are having too good a time inside her. She’s convinced she’s going to be the first ten-month multiple pregnancy on record.”

As everyone chuckled, the children padded inside, Jon included. He was carrying a cheerfully naked Naya in one arm. Sascha’s daughter was currently smacking kisses on his cheek and saying, “Pe! Pe!”

“She’s calling you pretty,” Sascha translated for the bemused teenager.

Jon sighed. “I don’t want to be pretty. I want to be dangerous and kick-ass.”

“Pe! Jon!”

Jon blinked, grinned at Naya. “Hey, you know my name. You can call me pretty.”

Naya kissed him on the cheek again before stretching out her arms toward Sascha. “Mama.”

“Come on, baby.” Settling her little girl into her lap, Sascha went to ask if Jon could grab the baby bag turned toddler bag, only to discover the boy had already put it within reach.

“We get any news from the water changelings about the woman who wrote the message in a bottle?” he asked when she smiled at him in thanks.

“No, not yet, but they’re working hard to find her.”

Worry radiated off him. “I heard Faith’s brother helped.” The rough edge of frustration in the set of his shoulders, in the way he pulled off his cap and began to twist it in his hands. “I wish I could do something.”

“You plucked out that bottle,” Sascha reminded him. “We wouldn’t even know Leila was alive without that.” This tall, beautiful boy, he still carried a lot of hurt in his heart that made him act out on occasion, but when it came down to the bone, he was one of the good ones, with more compassion in him than the world had any right to expect.

His own scars were healing day by day, surrounded as he was by love and by pack. And by a little girl who adored him.

“Jon, look.” Leaning against his leg, her blue dress now bearing streaks of dirt and her hair ribbons threatening to slide off, Noor showed him something on her palm. “It’s a ladybug,” she whispered.

Jon hunkered down. “Wow, it’s blue.”

“Jules showed me, but we have to put it back. He says we always have to put them back.”

Tugging on a lock of her hair, Jon said, “Yeah, Clay made me put back the wolves I caught, too.” His eyebrows lowered, his tone dark. “And I had them all neatly wrapped, ready to ship to Timbuktu. I’d even stuck on the postal stickers.”

Sascha bit back a laugh, well aware she shouldn’t encourage the pranks Jon pulled against wolves his own age, even when those pranks were inspired. Not that the SnowDancer juveniles were taking it lying down. The last retaliation had involved a slime pit and a sulfurous stink so noxious he’d had to bathe in antiseptic wash to get it off.

“You shouldn’t catch wolves,” Noor scolded her adoptive big brother. “The wolves are our friends.”

Jon clutched at his chest with melodramatic flair. “But yeah,” he added after Noor laughed, “you should put the ladybug back. It’s meant to live outside and you can see it when you come again.”

He walked out with Noor as she held her hand carefully half-cupped to protect the ladybug.

Julian and Roman meanwhile had stayed in cub form and were currently being petted by their father, who’d crouched down to rub their heads. When they shifted without warning, Nate didn’t miss a beat, just wrapped them in his arms and rose to his feet as they began to talk his ear off about their adventures.

Tamsyn brushed her fingers through the twins’ hair before she went to the other side of the counter; her intense joy at having a busy home filled with packmates was a warm taste in the air to Sascha’s empathic senses.

“You’re all staying for dinner.” It was less a question and more a command.

Talin groaned. “I’m so full of cake. Don’t make anything delicious.”

“I was thinking Vietnamese chicken with glass noodles.”

“I’m going to go run laps with Noor so I can make room in my stomach.”

Smile deep at that solemn response, Tamsyn said, “Nate, honey, do you want to give Zach and Annie a call, see if they want to come over, too? It’ll probably depend on how exhausted they are. Annie said their cub’s fond of four a.m. wakeup calls.”

Having finished dressing Naya in a soft blue jumpsuit, Sascha put her down so she could toddle around. Her balance had improved in leaps and bounds since she started shifting—as if her brain was using what she was experiencing in cub form to assist her in human form. “I’ll call Lucas,” she said as Naya wobbled off after Jon and Noor. “He might’ve been held up.”

The mate of an alpha knew too well that his time wasn’t always his own.

Chapter 37

ZACH AND ANNIE arrived before Lucas. The DarkRiver senior soldier and his elementary school teacher mate had walked over with their one-month-old baby, even though Annie was currently using a cane to support the leg that had been injured in a train derailment when she was a child.

“I need the exercise,” the brown-eyed woman said, a little breathless upon arrival but flushed with health under the delicate cream of her skin. “All this baby weight isn’t going to shift itself.”

Behind her, her taller mate—their baby boy cradled in one arm—bent down to nip at her ear.

Annie yelped. “What was that for?” she asked, rubbing at the abused ear.

“I seem to remember you throwing up for most of the first half of the pregnancy,” Zach replied. “I don’t see any extra weight.” Bad-tempered words from the copper-skinned male with aqua eyes but the raw tenderness he felt toward his mate made Sascha’s heart hurt in the best way.

Annie tilted back her head to scowl at him, the deep black of her unbound hair brushing over his chest. “You need your eyes examined.”

Growling, Zach maneuvered her into a chair. “Let me massage that leg.”

Annie, who’d always been shy, blushed a little but didn’t push away her mate’s gentle hands when he hunkered down beside her after handing her their cub.

“Hey, sleepy.” She nuzzled their child. “Your daddy’s being a grumpus.”

Growling deep in his chest, Zach continued to massage Annie’s leg.

Sascha smiled. The couple was adorable.

“Did you two settle on a middle name yet?” she asked, leaning over to look into the baby’s sweet face. Annie and Zach’s first child had his daddy’s skin and straight black hair and his eyes looked like they might end up the same stunning aqua as Zach’s. But there was a sweetness to his drowsy baby smile that spoke of Annie.

“We’re going to leave it as Rowan Quinn for now,” Annie said, a stark poignancy to her. “If I ever find the boy who saved my life, I want to use his name as Rowan’s middle name.”

Sascha could understand Annie’s desire to honor that unknown telekinetic boy—if he hadn’t lifted the train off Annie, she wouldn’t be here today, wouldn’t have a mate or a child. And the world would’ve missed out on the beauty and gentleness of Annie’s spirit.

“Zach understands.” Allowing Tally to take Rowan for a cuddle, Annie ran her fingers through the hair of her still-scowling mate, who growled at her even as he continued to massage her thigh.

“What I don’t understand is why you keep overdoing it,” Zach said, then looked at Sascha. “This morning, I stumble bleary-eyed into the kitchen, thanks to the alarm clock called Rowan, and what do I see but my mate on a stepladder trying to fix a malfunctioning kitchen light.”

Screwing up her nose, Annie pulled at the hair she’d been petting. “I was being nice, letting you sleep in.”

“You were giving me a heart attack, that’s what you were doing. It’s like you’re taking lessons from Mercy.”

Tamsyn frowned from where she stood on the cooking side of the counter. “How bad is your leg, Annie?”

“Not too bad really.”

Zach spoke without stopping the massage. “In Annie terms, ‘not too bad’ equals ‘yeah, it hurts like a bitch.’”

“Zach’s exaggerating.” Even as Annie glared at her mate, she was petting his shoulders with the caressing touch of a woman who sensed her mate’s very real worry and was trying to alleviate it. “It hurts but nothing major.”

Tamsyn’s response was a “hmm” of sound.

Leaving Clay to look after the vegetables she’d put on to stir-fry, the healer retrieved a scanner from her kit and, coming down beside Zach, ran it over Annie’s thigh and lower leg. “No signs of strain or degradation in the plassteel itself,” she said, referring to the way Annie’s leg had been rebuilt after the train accident, “but I see a little inflammation in the tissue around it.”

Her eyes met Annie’s. “I can give you a localized and gentle anti-inflammatory that’ll alleviate that and make you more comfortable.”

Annie bit down on her lower lip. “Will it—”

“It won’t have any impact on Rowan,” Tamsyn promised. “You can continue to nurse him.”

Nodding, Annie allowed the healer to administer the anti-inflammatory. Afterward, Tamsyn gave a preloaded injector to Zach before talking to both Zach and Annie. “There are ten doses in there. You can use it a couple of times a week without issue—and less discomfort means less stress on you, which is good for your cub, so do use it.” The last words were an order.

Annie smiled. “Yes, Tamsyn.”

“You’re getting as cheeky as your students,” Tamsyn said, rising to her feet to press a kiss to Annie’s cheek just as Lucas arrived.

So did Dorian, Ashaya, and Keenan. The three had detoured to run an errand after the couple picked up Keenan from the tea party, then decided to swing by. Tamsyn was delighted to have so many packmates in her space, put a couple of them to work helping her prep for dinner.

“Dev might’ve inadvertently pointed me to a possible lead on Leila Savea,” Lucas told them after claiming a hot, wet kiss from Sascha that left her flushed and breathless and happy he was here, safe and strong and with his heart beating under her palm.

She felt his own protective need to be certain of her welfare in the way he held her snug against his side. The only reason he hadn’t hunted down Naya was because they could hear their cub giggling wildly as she played a game with the other young children that had them all in hysterics.

But where her and Lucas’s impact on one another was an exchange between mates, he also had a subtle effect on the others in the room. Each and every one of their packmates had become more calm and steady in his presence. For an empath, it was fascinating to witness the primal impact of an alpha—but for Sascha, a member of DarkRiver, it was simply right.

Lucas was the pack’s alpha. This was what he did.

Today, as they listened, he laid out the trail of bread crumbs and connections that had put a bull’s-eye on the estate next to the IceRock pack’s territory. “I spoke to Miane, let her know. We’re just waiting on the images from IceRock.”

That wasn’t the only news he had.

Sascha listened intently as he shared the report from Jamie. “I had a quick chat with Bastien on the way over,” he added afterward. “He says the transfer of the twenty-five thousand to the captain was as highly sophisticated as the financial transactions purportedly completed by the SkyElm alpha. He’s started pulling things apart, is hoping to get a bead on the person at the end of the money trail.”

Sascha couldn’t wait for that to happen; she’d accepted that Naya would always attract attention, some of it dangerous, but she wanted at least one threat off the table.

“Couple of Trinity things came in while you were meeting with Hawke,” Nathan said after they’d discussed Jamie’s information. “I handled it. Basically, Ming’s continuing to stir up trouble but Hawke’s keeping him too busy shoring up his business interests for it to do much damage.”

Sascha had been impressed by Hawke’s plan when Lucas first shared it. She was even more impressed by how well all the people who hated the venomous ex-Councilor had worked together to thwart him. As the daughter of a former Councilor herself, Sascha knew enough about Ming to know the combat telepath treasured only one thing more than his psychic skill—his tactical intelligence. To have that so publicly beaten would burn.

“I also wanted to discuss Jon,” Lucas said after glancing outside to ensure the kids were all still out there. “I think we should offer him the chance to attend a training camp with the Forgotten. Dev’s people have come up with techniques that might help him get a better handle on his abilities.”

Talin’s expression was tight, but she nodded. “I’ll talk to him,” she said, and Sascha knew she was having to fight her protective instincts to even consider the idea of allowing Jon to go that far away.

Pulling her back against his chest with his arm around her front, Clay nuzzled gently at her. “We can discuss it with him tomorrow. No need to mess with his mood today.”

No one argued, well aware that while the idea was a good one, Jon might well prefer not to go. He’d been lost and alone too long, tended to stick tight to his family and packmates. Today the teen ended up the de facto babysitter when the children eventually decamped to the large living area to play with toys.

He wandered into the kitchen twenty minutes after that, while dinner was still cooking.

Tamsyn pointed to the fridge without looking up. “Leftover lasagna from last night. All yours.”

A grin split Jon’s face. Taking the lasagna and a fork that Nathan passed over, he would’ve left to return to the living area if Nathan hadn’t made him heat up the lasagna. The teenager had already taken the first bite before he left the room.

“Do all teenage boys eat like that?” Sascha asked, wondering where it all went. Jon was thinner than he’d ever been.

Tamsyn nodded. So did Clay and Nathan, Lucas and Dorian.

“My foster brothers used to get hungry every two hours,” Talin shared. “Ma Larkspur bought sandwich fixings by the bucketload.”

“I once ate an entire roast chicken my mom had cooked specifically so she could make sandwiches the next day.” Dorian winced. “Boy, was she mad when she woke up to a pile of bones.”

“But he’s so thin.” Sascha couldn’t help but worry, saw the same concern in the blue-gray of Ashaya’s gaze. “Are you sure he’s not sick?”

Nathan disappeared for a minute, to return with a photograph. It was of a skinny teen with black hair and midnight blue eyes. “Is this you?” Sascha couldn’t believe it, Nathan was so strongly muscular now.

“Skinny as a beanpole until I was about sixteen, seventeen.” The senior sentinel touched her cheek with the easy skin privileges of a packmate, including Ashaya in his reassuring look. “Don’t worry about the boy. Tamsyn’s keeping an eye on him—he’s just going through a growth spurt.”

“I guess,” Ashaya murmured, “we never noticed in the PsyNet because our diet was based on nutrition bars and drinks.”

Sascha saw what the scientist was saying. “The menu plans must’ve compensated for that teenage growth spurt, allowed for extra calories when teens needed it.”

“You caught the tail end of it with Kit,” Tamsyn pointed out. “He had his main growth spurt earlier, but he was still eating the pack out of house and home until he turned twenty-one.” The last was said with so much love that Sascha knew Tamsyn would’ve fed the young male had he turned up every single day.

That was when Lucas’s phone rang. “IceRock just sent through the images,” he said after he’d hung up following a short conversation.

He checked the download, then forwarded it to Miane, giving her a call to alert her it was coming through. Simply taking over the operation wasn’t on the agenda, not when it was one of Miane’s people who was being held hostage. If BlackSea asked, Sascha knew DarkRiver would respond.

Until then, they’d wait and hope that Leila Savea’s captivity was about to end.

Chapter 38

HAWKE WAS ABOUT to hold a working dinner with his lieutenants when he received a message from Lucas updating him on the hunt for Leila Savea and on the BlackSea op currently being planned. Sliding away his phone, he decided to give his people a little more time to talk before they began to discuss that situation among others—including the unexpected wrench Lucas had thrown into Trinity by proposing an “adjunct” or provisional signatory status.

The DarkRiver alpha had sent the idea only to SnowDancer and the Arrows at this stage, for their input. Hawke’s initial reaction had been a firm “hell, no.” He couldn’t understand why the fuck Lucas would propose something that could give Ming a way in should he want to take it; it was Riley who’d made him see the reason behind Lucas’s idea.

“Trinity is about creating a world without divisions,” his best friend and lieutenant had said. “There has to be a way for former enemies to prove themselves, or Trinity fails before it ever really begins.”

Hawke wasn’t sure he was civilized enough to accept such rational necessities, but since they had Ming on the ropes, he was at least willing to listen to feedback from the rest of his lieutenants. Having Riley’s calm presence anchor the discussion was partially why this SnowDancer meeting was about to take place in DarkRiver territory.

He and the lieutenants who were based in the Sierra Nevada den had arrived a couple of minutes ago with insulated carriers holding dinner, to find both Mercy and Riley strolling outside their cabin, soaking up the red-orange rays of the setting sun. Alone with Mercy when Riley was pulled into a back-slapping hug by Riaz, Hawke leaned down as if to kiss her on the cheek.

She growled low in her throat. “Try it, wolf, and lose your face.”

Grinning, he instead gave her what he’d been holding behind his back. “A little present.”

Another growl as she narrowed her eyes. “Why are you giving me gifts?”

“Your pupcubs are half SnowDancer.”

Mercy’s eyes went to where Riley was laughing with Riaz, Indigo, and Judd, the four lieutenants apparently deeply amused by something. Expression softening, she turned her cheek slightly. “You may kiss me,” she said, like a queen bestowing a favor. “But only because you moved your lieutenant meeting all the way down here mostly so Riley could see everyone.”

Hawke didn’t dispute her interpretation of his actions because she was dead right. The agenda for the meeting offered a good excuse, but this was really about looking after a packmate who’d given so much to SnowDancer. Accepting the invitation to kiss Mercy, an invitation she’d never before extended, he drew in her scent. His wolf considered her part of his pack, especially now, when she carried the twinned scents of leopard and wolf far more strongly than usual. “Open your present.”

Gaze suspicious again, she took a seat in an outdoor chair, then tore away the wrapping paper to pick up the baby-sized item on top. It was a legless one-piece bodysuit in SnowDancer blue, with “SnowDancers Rule” written on the front in white and a wolf silhouette on the back in the same shade.

The next item was a tiny white T-shirt with wolves gamboling all over it.

Mercy looked up, her lips trying not to curve. “You’re doing this to mess with Lucas.”

“I’m astonished you’d say that.” Hawke pressed a hand to his heart. “I’m just proud of my soon-to-be-new packmates.”

Shaking her head, Mercy gave in to her smile as she continued to go through the miniature pieces of clothing, all of them SnowDancer branded . . . except for the last set, every one of which had “Pupcub” written across the front, above a cartoon of an adorable half wolf–half leopard pupcub drawn by Toby.

The thirteen-year-old had shown it to Sienna, who’d shown it to Hawke.

The rest was history.

Mercy’s face lit up. “Riley! Come look!” She held up a little yellow jumpsuit that came complete with a hood that sported two pointed ears.

Cheeks creasing in a deep grin, Riley said, “Perfect.”

The other lieutenants hadn’t seen the gift pack, came over to go through it together with Riley and Mercy, all of them laughing as they debated their favorites. Including Riaz. The dark-haired lieutenant with eyes of beaten gold had been in one hell of a good mood for the past month, stayed that way throughout the working dinner—where Mercy told them what Nathan had said about the terrible error in building Trinity on a foundation of exclusion.

The words hit hard, made them all think.

Hawke was still chewing over the implications when he and the others left Riley and Mercy’s home in the rugged SUV they’d driven down in together. Reaching SnowDancer territory, they decided to park the SUV in a lower area and run the last section home. It was such a clear night, the stars crystalline, that the wolf wanted to throw back its head and howl, but Hawke stayed in human form for now, as did the others.

It was easy enough for him to fall in beside Riaz, while Indigo and Judd ran ahead. “The idea of giving former enemies a way to prove their good intentions is never going to make sense to my wolf.”

“It took a human to stop the Territorial Wars for a reason,” was the lieutenant’s answer. “I’m fucking impressed Lucas was able to fight his own instincts enough to put the proposal together.”

Hawke was quiet for a while, the wind cool against his face as they ran. “Having a cub, being responsible for that vulnerable life, it changes a man.” He’d seen it in Lucas, only now understood the depth of that change—to give Naya an undivided world, Lucas was willing to battle even his panther’s most primal urges.

Because the cats? They were as possessive and as territorial as Hawke’s wolves, and they did not forgive anyone who’d harmed their own. “Five years is a long time,” he mused. “Plenty of room for people to fuck up if they’re trying to game the system.” Arrogant bastards like Ming LeBon would never have the patience to stay “clean” that long.

“And just because an asshole signs the accord doesn’t mean we have to work with them.” Riaz’s voice was familiar in the night, as familiar as the dark woodsmoke edged with citrus that was his natural scent. “Open communication doesn’t mean open access.”

“Yeah.” Hawke pushed his hair off his face, decided the adjunct proposal was one he’d have to sleep on. This would not be an easy or uncomplicated decision. “In other matters,” he said to the man who ran beside him, “you’re scaring people with your happy.”

Riaz’s laugh was all wolf, his eyes night-glow in the darkness when they met Hawke’s. “You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?”

“I’ve got some clue. You want to tell me if I’m right?”

“You know how I had that mating tug toward Lisette?” Riaz asked. “Like she was meant to be my mate?”

Hawke nodded, aware that lingering remnant of a relationship that had never been and never would be, had deeply frustrated Riaz. Wolf and man, both parts of Riaz had chosen Adria, loved the senior soldier with a furious passion.

“It’s gone.” Riaz’s tone was jubilant. “Like it stretched so thin it just broke.”

Hawke’s wolf opened its jaws in a lupine grin. “I’m guessing this doesn’t worry you.”

“Are you kidding? It bugged the hell out of me. I love Adria, and that tug, it was like a splinter stuck under my skin.”

Hawke could hear Riaz’s scowl in his voice.

“Lisette and I had a chance once, sure,” the lieutenant added, “but that chance passed. Adria’s my woman, the only one I want. The suggestion that it might be otherwise pissed me off every fucking day.”

“I get it.” A predatory changeling who truly loved, loved all in. “People have always wondered what would happen if a changeling found his mate but chose to walk away.”

“I don’t know that my experience would apply to everyone,” Riaz said after they’d navigated around a large rock in their path. “I mean, the whole situation was messed up. Lisette being human and madly in love with her husband, for one. That would’ve never happened if she’d been changeling. It was all off from the start.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” If a changeling was in love, the mating bond couldn’t come into play with anyone else—it was a law written in stone. Hawke knew of no exceptions. “You just did things backward,” he said in realization. “Your love for Adria pushed the possibility of the mating bond with anyone else out.”

“Damn straight.” Riaz’s tone held wolfish satisfaction.

“Hell, Riaz.” Hawke whistled. “You’re going to give the philosophers enough meat to chew over for years, if not decades. What, for example, happens to two changelings who try to walk away from a bond when neither is attached to anyone else?” Hawke couldn’t imagine why anyone would walk away from the other half of their soul, but the philosopher types tended to think up ridiculous questions like that.

Riaz shrugged. “I don’t think that would happen unless they were at war, like this couple Dalton told me about who were on opposite sides during the Territorial Wars. Even then, it’d be a two-way pull—I can’t see how that’d give you enough breathing room to fall in love with anyone else. With me and Lisette, it was a dual repudiation.”

A sudden grin as the lieutenant turned to run backward for a minute so he could face Hawke. “But really, I don’t give a fuck about the philosophers. They can philosophize all they want. I just want to love the woman who owns my heart, the empress whose name is on my fucking soul.”

Nothing more needed to be said.

RIAZ caught the scent of crushed berries and frost the instant he entered the den. Adria had passed by this way recently, as had several others. Skin aching with the need to touch her, he followed the scent—and realized Indigo and Drew were following along right behind him. SnowDancer’s tracker had met his lieutenant mate at the waterfall, run the rest of the way back with them.

Riaz stopped. “Don’t you two want to go to bed?” he asked pointedly.

Throwing one arm around Indigo’s shoulders, Drew grinned. “Nope. Wide awake here.”

Indigo’s smile was less aggravating. “I wanted to ask Adria about one of the older pups under her authority and I keep forgetting. Promise it won’t take more than a couple of minutes.”

“Two minutes,” Riaz said with a scowl. “Then scat.”

“Gee whiz, Riaz, impatient m—oof.” Rubbing at his abdomen, Drew made a pitiful face toward his mate. “Your elbow’s really sharp, Lieutenant.”

“I’ll kiss it better.” Indigo’s tone was dry but she had her hand on Drew’s back, was probably petting him under his T-shirt. “Now stop provoking Riaz. He hasn’t seen Adria since this morning.”

Drew’s expression turned sympathetic, that of a man who understood what it was to adore a woman. Riley’s younger brother might be the most irreverent wolf Riaz knew, but under the playfulness was a man who knew what it was to love, what it was to be loyal. “Best behavior,” the tracker said. “I swear.”

As it turned out, Drew hadn’t needed to make that vow. Adria was up and awake and at an impromptu party thrown by the senior soldiers to celebrate the birthday of the man who held the leadership position among them. Elias was grinning and having a beer when Riaz walked in, his mate Yuki by his side. The hard-nosed lawyer had her hair down and was dressed in a white shift dress with wildflowers on it. Her eyes were only for Eli.

“Hey, how come we didn’t rate an invite?” Drew groused while Riaz made a beeline for Adria.

“Riaz.” Eyes of deepest blue-violet filled with delight. “Did—”

He cut off her question with a hot tangle of a kiss that made her claws dig into his nape as a moan formed in the back of her throat. A split-second later and his possessive lover was kissing him back with equal hunger as her scent heated up.

The others around them were predictably whistling like a feral pack of wolves when Riaz and Adria came up for air. A few had thrown back their heads to add a howl into the mix.

Ignoring the lunatics, he savored the taste of the strong woman who was his by taking another kiss, his heart thundering in his ears. “Drew’s right,” he said afterward. “Why no invite for us?”

Lips swollen and pupils dilated, Adria ran her hands down his body to the bottom of his T-shirt, so she could slip her hands underneath. He shivered.

“We threw it together after you’d all already left for Riley’s,” Adria told him with a smile that cut him off at the knees. “D’Arn found out it was Eli’s birthday and sweet-talked Aisha into baking a quick cake.”

“Sakura with friends?” Eli and Yuki’s pup was a little slip of a girl.

“She’s having a sleepover with Marlee.” Leaning up, Adria nuzzled at his throat. “How was the meeting?”

“Good to see Riley and Mercy.” He told her about the baby clothes Hawke had gifted the couple, drank in her pleasure. “Rest was business.” A nip at her lower lip. “We can talk about it once we’re in our quarters.” No one expected mates or couples in committed long-term relationships to keep secrets from each other, and Adria was senior enough to have a right to the information he’d share regardless.

“You must be tired,” Adria said with a soft, luscious brush of her lips over his. “Ready for bed?”

The golden-eyed black wolf that was Riaz’s other half wanted to growl an assent. Wolf and man, Riaz’s intent had been to steal Adria away, lick her up in the privacy of their quarters, but he could taste her own wolf’s happiness in this gathering of those she worked with most often—the maternal cabal’s lures notwithstanding.

And Adria’s happiness was Riaz’s.

“Let’s stay,” he said with a smile, his hunger sated enough to take the edge off. “I’ll pet you later.”

The gold streaks in her eyes going night-glow as her wolf rose to the surface of her skin, she grazed her claws teasingly over his neck. “Deal.”

Indigo and Drew came over shortly afterward, and while the two women spoke about a teenager Adria was supervising as part of her secondary maternal dominant duties, Riaz and Drew went across to wish Eli a happy birthday.

Not surprisingly, Hawke, Judd, and their mates turned up bare minutes afterward, as did a number of others, word clearly having gotten around that a party was in progress.

Riaz was with Hawke a quarter of an hour later when his alpha’s phone gave a sharp ping. “It’s time?” he asked.

Hawke nodded, his husky blue eyes holding the wolf’s hunger for the hunt. “BlackSea’s going in.”