Allegiance of Honor

Chapter 52

LUCAS WAS PLAYING outside with his cub the afternoon of the joint celebration when Sascha called down to say he had an urgent call from Bastien. Shifting back into human form, he caught the phone she dropped down—along with his jeans—then kept an eye on Naya while Sascha climbed the rope ladder to the ground.

“Come on, Naya,” she said with a loving smile, her voice drenched with the happiness she found in being with their child. “You get to teach your mama how to stalk like a cat.”

Excited, Naya began to pace deliberately, showing Sascha what Lucas had been showing her. She was gorgeous and so was his mate, but Lucas knew Bas wouldn’t have interrupted him during his rare time off unless it was important, so he moved a short distance away to take the call. “Bas, what is it?”

“I’ve found the end of the money trail,” the other man said. “To the captain who was going to take Naya to Australia. You know that. Shit. I’m punch-drunk from the success and slightly sleep-deprived.”

Lucas’s panther had gone hunting-still inside him at Bastien’s first words. “Who?” he asked quietly.

“Psy named Pax Marshall.”

The fingers of Lucas’s free hand curled into his palm. “You’re dead certain?”

“Without a shadow of a doubt. Money came from what looks like a personal slush fund used for various off-the-books activities.”

Lucas consciously stopped himself from growling, held his claws in. He had to think with crystal clarity right now, couldn’t be blinded by the primal instincts of his panther. “Could anyone else have accessed that account?”

“Sure, but they’d need to know every single one of Pax’s passwords. I couldn’t get into the account itself, that’s how secure it is, but the trail definitely dead-ends there.”

“Send your report through to me.” He knew Bastien would’ve been adding to that report as he went, setting out the complicated financial maze in a way Lucas could easily process.

“Give me one second. And . . . done.”

“Thanks, Bas. Now get some rest before the party or your mate will have my head.”

Chuckling, Mercy’s brother signed off. Lucas stood in silence for a minute, thinking through Bastien’s information. Then he thought of everything he knew about Pax Marshall and made another call, asking Aden a single question when the leader of the Arrows answered. “Has Pax Marshall ever been categorically fingered for even one of his rumored illicit activities? Any proof at all?”

“No,” Aden answered without asking why Lucas wanted to know. “That’s part of why he’s considered so brilliant. Everyone knows he’s crossed lines, but no one can prove it. Not even the squad.”

“Thank you, Aden.” Hanging up, he put away his phone and went to join his mate and child. It was only after Naya curled up for a nap in the sun that he told Sascha what Bastien had discovered and what Aden had said.

His mate’s gaze was intent. “You think it’s too easy?”

“But that’s just it—it wasn’t easy. It was brutally hard from Bastien’s perspective, and he’s a genius at this stuff.” Lucas leaned back against the aerie tree, Sascha in front of him and Naya napping a few feet away. “When I say Bastien’s a genius, I mean it. Other companies, including major Psy ones, have tried to poach him from us over and over.”

Sascha chewed on her lower lip as her eyebrows drew together in thought. “If it took Bas days to track this transaction, then it was well hidden. So well hidden that most people would’ve never found it.”

Another long pause. “On the flip side, if DarkRiver was meant to find it, then knowing Bas was on our side would’ve been a guarantee of eventual exposure.” She blew out a breath. “And why would Pax pay the ship’s captain directly when he’s rerouted all other payments through patsies?”

“Exactly—but on the other hand, if he wanted control of Naya, he might not have wanted to involve anyone beyond a not-particularly-intelligent captain who could be disappeared with no one the wiser.”

“Proof on both sides of the line.”

“Yes.” Lucas’s panther didn’t like that. It liked black and white, enemies and friends. It also wanted the threat to its cub eliminated once and for all.

He saw the same frustration on Sascha’s face.

“If DarkRiver moves against Pax and it’s not him,” she said, “we’ll have done someone’s dirty work for them, removed a power who might be standing in their way.”

“But if we don’t move and he was behind the kidnapping attempt,” Lucas said on a growl, “then he remains a deadly threat.”

Thrusting her hands through her hair, Sascha spun away to stomp to a tree on the other side of the clearing below their aerie and back. “I wish I wasn’t an E sometimes, that I didn’t have a conscience! I’d go to Pax and torture him until he broke.”

Lucas let Sascha blow off steam. His mate would never do any such thing, but he understood the raw edge to her emotions. He wanted to tear Pax Marshall apart right now, but the human side of his mind was still thinking. “Pax has also embraced Trinity,” he said. “Eliminate him and suddenly, there’s a power vacuum, a powerful family left anchorless. Major disruption in the Net and Psy turning away from changelings because of our violent tendencies.” That’s exactly how a DarkRiver attack would be spun.

Eyes starless, Sascha walked into the arms he’d opened and hugged him with passionate strength. He held her close, giving her the skin privileges she needed to find her center again, even as she stabilized him in turn.

He knew the answer long before he could trust himself to vocalize it. “We can’t move.” It was a bitter conclusion, but Lucas wasn’t about to be played, not by Marshall or anyone else. “We watch him through every method available to us, including the deal he’s doing with SnowDancer. The Arrows will help us, if only to protect Trinity, so we’ll have eyes in the PsyNet.”

“We can’t tell Nikita.” Sascha took a deep breath, exhaled, her eyes midnight-still when she looked up. “She’ll kill him or insert a virus into his mind.”

“Your mother is cold, calculated, rational,” Lucas pointed out. “Killing Pax Marshall right now would be a mistake.”

“Lucas, my mother is all those things, but she only has one response when Naya or I come under threat.”

Lucas thought about it, nodded. “We don’t tell Nikita.”

Walking over to Naya’s sleeping body, Sascha took a cross-legged seat on the forest floor and carefully transferred Naya into her lap. Their cub purred at her mother’s touch but remained fast asleep, adorable little snores occasionally breaking up the sound of her steady breathing.

Watching the two of them was a forcible reminder to Lucas not to let the evil and darkness in the world taint the happiness he’d been given. He went to join them, sliding in to sit behind Sascha with his legs out on either side of her and his chin on her shoulder. If he kept turning to caress her neck with licks and kisses until she melted into him, well, he was a cat.

“I’ve got it,” Sascha said suddenly, while he was kissing his way along her jaw. “The silver lining.”

He bit her earlobe gently, tugged.

Shivering, she ran her hand along one of his thighs, her other hand on Naya’s back.

“Trust an empath to find a silver lining.” The joke was an old one between them. “Hit me with it.”

“If this was a setup”—she angled her head to kiss his jaw—“then the work is done and the people behind the attempt have no more reason to come after Naya. And if it wasn’t a setup and Pax Marshall tries again, we’ll have eyes on him the entire time.”

Lucas’s growl was one of satisfaction. “Here’s another silver lining—we have a lot of friends now, people we can trust to watch him for us, people who’ll work with us to protect our children as we’ll protect theirs.” No more would they be isolated targets.

“That’s a good silver lining,” Sascha murmured just as Naya lifted her head on a feline yawn that had Lucas tugging playfully at his cub’s ears.

Grumbling sleepily, she butted his hand until he scratched her behind those ears.

Her purr was that of a cat five times bigger.

Lucas’s panther purred deep in his chest in response. “That’s my girl.”

Smile carved into her cheeks and Naya’s tail wrapped around her wrist, Sascha lifted her free hand to his jaw. “Enough of Pax Marshall or the shadow behind a power play. They’ll still be there tomorrow.” It was an order. “Tonight is a time for pack and for family, whether of blood or of the heart.”

Chapter 53

TEIJAN AND HIS people weren’t used to walking so blatantly into a predator’s territory. Yes, the Rats had a business agreement with DarkRiver, and DarkRiver had stepped in more than once to save the lives of those who lived Below, while Teijan and his people had stayed and fought rather than run when war rained bullets on the city.

However, when it came down to it, Teijan’s Rats simply did not and could not play at the power levels held by the leopards and wolves.

He was proud of his people and all they’d achieved, but he also understood that their lives would always be at the margins of normal society. Only in their world in the disused tunnels below San Francisco did they feel free to laugh, to live. But this, tonight . . .

“You sure about this?” Zane asked as they got off their jetcycles after parking the vehicles at the mandated spot in DarkRiver territory.

“No,” Teijan said to his friend and second in command. “That’s why everyone else is forty-five minutes behind us.” If this invitation to a joint DarkRiver-SnowDancer event was a true gesture of alliance, friendship, and respect, then Teijan couldn’t afford to reject it. If it was something else . . . then as alpha, he’d take the first blow.

His people knew not to come in any closer until and unless they heard from him.

“Well, at least Clay delivered the invite.” Zane fixed the cuff of his tailored white shirt, which he wore over black pants and under a black jacket. “He’s always been straight with us.”

“Yes.” That relationship was why Teijan was here.

“Teijan.” As if summoned by the mention of his name, Clay walked out of the trees.

Unlike Teijan and Zane, the leopard sentinel wasn’t wearing a suit, but his clothing was just as crisply formal—a collarless dark green shirt worn over black pants and glossy black boots. The only thing that didn’t fit was the pink beaded bracelet around his wrist with his name spelled out in square white blocks.

But of course it did fit. Zane was currently rocking a temporary princess tattoo on the back of his left hand, complete with a glittering crown. Daughters had a way of getting their fathers to stand still for things they’d allow no one else.

“Just you two?” Clay asked after a quick scan.

Shaking the leopard’s hand, Teijan said, “The others are following.”

Clay’s slight smile held no insult. “I’m your guide. Come on.”

Fighting primal instincts that told him to get the fuck out of danger, Teijan followed. A number of his people had advised him against this, fought bitterly against his decision, but Teijan had been resolute. “If we hide and stagnate, we will eventually die,” he’d said. “The last time we took a risk, we earned the official right to claim these tunnels, and we ended up in a business partnership that’s brought the pack countless opportunities and given our youths the funds to study Above in specialties we could’ve never before afforded.”

His words hadn’t swayed the doubters, but they were in the vehicles following—because disagreement or not, Teijan’s Rats were loyal. That most of them were technically human, the flotsam and jetsam of society, made no difference. Together with the three adult rat changelings and one child, those discarded and abandoned bits of humanity had become a powerful intelligence network that made Teijan proud each and every day—and that had given all his people back their own pride.

“Where’s everyone else?” he asked Clay, because while he could hear faint sounds in the distance, there’d been no other vehicles where he and Zane had parked. No wonder Zane’s eyes were darting around waiting for an ambush at any instant. Teijan’s own vigilance was at fever pitch.

“That’s the designated parking area for your pack,” Clay said without missing a beat. “We had to spread around the projected number of incoming vehicles to protect the forest.”

It all made sense, but Teijan couldn’t silence the wary voice of caution . . . until a leopard cub pounced on him from a tree. Teijan caught the small body instinctively, for a child was a child. Even when that child growled at him, green-gold eyes glinting in challenge.

Catching Clay’s amused look, Teijan bared his own teeth, let them elongate. And suddenly, the child was shifting in a shower of light.

Teijan heard Zane catch his breath, felt his own heart kick.

A small boy with dark blue eyes and tumbled black hair was staring wide-eyed at him heartbeats later. Lifting a finger, he touched one of Teijan’s incisors. “I can’t do that!” It was a disgruntled statement.

Teijan returned his teeth to their human state. “What can you do?”

The boy showed him claws and growled again. “See?”

“My claws aren’t that big,” Teijan said.

A satisfied grin before the child shifted back to leopard form and lunged at Clay. Grabbing the cub, Clay rubbed the boy’s head. “Where’s your twin troublemaker?”

The cub pressed his face affectionately against Clay’s in answer before jumping to the forest floor. Padding in front of them—with glances back to ensure they were following—he led them to a space humming with people and redolent with food. Musicians were still setting up in one corner, but children ran this way and that and people had begun to gather and talk in small groups.

“You okay to guide in the rest of your people?” Clay asked. “I have to help finish putting up the lights—last-minute fix when the old set gave out.”

“Yes.” Teijan waited until Clay had walked away to glance at Zane.

His second in command’s face was as close to tears as Teijan had ever seen it. “It’s real,” Zane said, voice husky. “Cats would’ve never permitted their children anywhere near an ambush.”

Teijan knew why Zane was so overcome. Because he had a child. A daughter who might one day choose to—and be welcome to—live Above. A daughter who might even come to call the cub who’d met them not just a far more powerful ally, but also a friend.

Bringing out his phone, he made a call to his third in command. “Come,” he said, his own chest tight. “It’s safe. We are welcome.”

Chapter 54

IT WASN’T UNTIL all their guests had arrived and Lucas and Hawke were standing in the center of the empathic training area about to officially open celebrations that Lucas realized he and Hawke hadn’t discussed one crucial aspect of the event: which one of them would open it?

That might seem a specious detail to those who didn’t understand changeling culture, but it wasn’t. It had to do with dominance and with respect. If Lucas opened the celebration, it would be taken as an insult to their alpha by the wolves. If Hawke did it, the leopards would be pissed.

Wrecking the entire idea behind this event.

“Shit,” Lucas muttered under his breath at the same time that Hawke said, “Fuck.”

They glanced at one another. “Shall we try to time it so we both speak at the same instant?” Lucas asked in a subvocal murmur.

“You think we can pull it off?” Hawke scowled.

To anyone looking at the two of them, it would appear they were arguing. That was acceptable. Everyone knew he and Hawke weren’t friends, even if their mates thought otherwise. “I don’t know, but if we don’t do something soon, we’ll mess this up before it begins.”

Hawke rubbed his clean-shaven jaw and went to say something when a voice rose up from the crowd that had gone silent around them. “I say you flip for it.”

They turned as one to see that the speaker was Max Shannon.

Grinning, the ex-cop walked up to them and flipped a coin high in the air before catching it on the back of his hand, his other hand coming down over the top to obscure which side it had landed on. “Anyone disagree?”

Groans filtered out from the crowd, mingled with laughter.

The tension broke.

Max was a neutral party, his idea genius. No one could argue against chance.

Humans, Lucas suddenly thought, had been making peace among changelings for generations.

He looked at Hawke, caught the glint in the wolf’s eye before Hawke said, “Heads.”

“Tails then.” Folding his arms, Lucas waited as Max stepped back and, with great ceremony, lifted his hand from atop the coin.

Lucas’s snarl announced the results even before Max said, “Heads!”

There was cheering and booing in the audience but it was good-natured.

Clapping him on the back, Hawke said, “Next time, cat.”

That quickly, Lucas realized they’d settled the issue for all future events that involved both packs. They’d switch off now that the pattern had been set. No issues of dominance or insult, just two powerful predators being careful to respect each other’s space. “You better believe it.” He moved to stand next to Hawke as the wolf officially opened festivities.

But Hawke had more to say, his words ones Lucas would’ve spoken, too, had he won the toss. They’d talked about this, come to an agreement. “You’re here because we consider you family.” His eyes scanned the audience before he glanced at Lucas.

“Each and every one,” Lucas said, because these words needed to be spoken by both of them. “We expect you to treat each other as family, too.” He wondered what Kaleb Krychek would think about that, but the cardinal Tk was now deeply connected to DarkRiver whether he liked it or not.

“As for the guests of honor . . .” Hawke and Lucas stepped aside to reveal Mercy and Riley behind them, their arms full of tiny wrapped bundles.

Who started squalling in red-faced fury right on cue.

Laughter rippled through the clearing and suddenly everyone was moving, talking. A special area had been set aside and prepared for the babies and toddlers to play and tumble in without worry, while Ben, Sakura, Keenan, Noor, Roman, and Julian led the charge in the under-ten department, racing off to play some game that involved climbing trees. A little girl of maybe seven or eight who was with the Rats watched big-eyed after them, but stuck to her family.

Then Julian turned back and came over to her.

She remained hesitant until her father and Teijan both said something that made her smile and bare teeth that turned sharp and pointed as Lucas watched. Julian showed her his claws in response and suddenly, both children laughed before running off to join the others.

The slightly older children, including Marlee, were soon gathering to chatter among themselves.

When it came to the leopards and wolves, those at the end of their teen years and in their early twenties had pretty much made their peace at a New Year’s event organized by three of their own, and they drifted into small groups to talk and to flirt.

The adults weren’t all used to working together, but they were being shown the way by the ones who were and conversations soon began to flow naturally.

It was the preteens and younger teenagers who remained in their own pack clusters. Not unexpected since kids that age tended to be awkward anyway. It would take them time to adapt, but Lucas could see them watching the older teens interacting, knew they’d grow up seeing such interactions as normal.

Right then, he glimpsed Jon slouch in his teenage-boy way to the food table groaning with dishes brought in by cats and wolves, their other guests asked to simply bring themselves. So of course they’d all brought gifts, not just for the pupcubs, but others that could be shared out among the children here tonight.

As Lucas watched, Jon reached for a sandwich half . . . right as two female wolf teens sidled over and beamed at him. Both were wearing dresses so short and skimpy that he was certain they’d sneaked those dresses out of the den by putting on something much more parentally acceptable over it.

Jon looked taken aback.

Abandoning his sandwich, he began to back away. The girls followed.

Shoulders shaking at the evidence that maybe it wouldn’t take long for the younger teens to adapt after all, Lucas nudged Hawke’s shoulder.

The wolf alpha was holding a pupcub but followed Lucas’s gaze. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he muttered. “Yo, Heather and Dani!”

Spinning around to look at their alpha, the two girls gulped and scuttled over. Jon took off into the trees the instant they were no longer holding him captive. Meanwhile, Lucas tried to keep a straight face while Hawke disciplined the two girls. “I seem to remember you wearing clothes when you left the den.”

“We are wearing clothes,” one of the girls protested.

“Oh?”

The single word was enough to make them turn bright red and duck their heads as they twisted their hands together. Neither pack was prudish in the least, but adults and children both were expected to dress suitably for formal events. It was about discipline and respect—and in this case about being age-appropriate.

No one would’ve batted an eye had an eighteen-year-old worn one of these dresses to go clubbing. But barely thirteen-year-olds, if Lucas was guessing their ages right, at a family celebration? It was a wonder they’d stayed under the radar this long.

“And what did I tell you about stalking DarkRiver boys?” Hawke asked the two chastened wolves.

“That cats are shy and we should be nice.”

Lucas almost choked, had to cover it with a fit of coughing. Shy? For cats? Hawke shot him a glare, as if to say, What the hell did you come up with? Lucas didn’t admit he’d told DarkRiver kids that the wolves were far shyer than cats and they had to take care.

“But Jon isn’t a cat,” one of the girls pointed out, looking up through her eyelashes. “He’s human.”

“And he’s soooooo pretty!” Her friend all but melted into the earth.

A single growl from Hawke and they froze, spines dead straight.

Holding their gazes, their alpha said, “Go change, then you’re in charge of making sure Ben doesn’t get into trouble.”

Two faces fell, their looks of despair so comical that Hawke’s lips twitched. “For an hour,” he amended. “After that, I’m sure someone else will need to be punished.” He reached out to hug the girls to him one-armed. “You can sashay all you want when you’re a little more grown. Right now, you’re still pups. Now go put on your proper clothes.”

Feet dragging, the two disappeared off into the trees, where they’d no doubt stashed the clothes with which they’d fooled their parents. Hawke looked down at the pupcub in his arms as the child grumbled in her sleep before her expression turned beatific. “Yep, you’re going to be trouble, too.”

“Of course she is.” Lucas tapped Belle on the nose. “We wouldn’t have our cubs or pups any other way.”

“No,” Hawke said with a smile as the two girls he’d sent off returned in skirts and pretty tops. The pair went straight to Ben—who was currently hanging upside down from a tree branch while trying to stuff cake into his mouth. It appeared to be a competition, with Roman hanging in the same position beside him.

It was pack. It was life. It was family.

WALKER Lauren stepped onto the dance floor with his partner. Who beamed up at him, the lightest touch of pink lip gloss on her mouth. He wasn’t ready for his baby girl to grow up, and at a few months past ten years of age, she wasn’t quite there yet, but she was close enough that things that hadn’t interested her at all a year earlier now intrigued and fascinated.

Such as lip gloss she’d told him tasted like strawberries.

“Come on, Daddy.” Marlee held out her arms in perfect position for a slow dance.

Walker bit back a smile, because at this instant, she was his baby again, that small warm bundle he’d cradled and rocked in the darkness of the night when no one could see how much he loved her. In the PsyNet under Silence, such things had been forbidden, a father’s love for his child verboten.

No more.

“Just a second.” Reaching down, he picked up her much shorter form and, holding her easily with one arm around her waist, engulfed her raised hand with his other, their arms at a ninety-degree angle. “Place your free hand on my shoulder.”

Marlee obeyed his quiet instruction, but her mind was on other matters. “Don’t wrinkle my dress.”

“I won’t.” That dress was one Marlee had bought on a shopping trip with Lara. A vibrant blue that brought out the light green shade of Marlee’s eyes, it had a sparkling neckline studded with what Marlee called “jewels” and no sleeves. The skirt went to her ankles, with tulle underneath. It was the dress of a little girl turning into a big girl. Marlee adored it.

As Walker adored her.

Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he said, “Your hair looks beautiful.”

An incandescent smile. “Lara did it!” Marlee lifted her hand off his shoulder to pat the updo into which Walker’s healer mate had combed Marlee’s strawberry blonde locks. “You really like it?”

“I love it.” As a teacher and a father, Walker had always tried to encourage any child in his care, but it was only after leaving the PsyNet that he’d finally had the freedom to say such sweet words to his little girl.

And to the bigger girl who danced in her mate’s arms not far away.

Sienna sparkled tonight, her ankle-length black dress made of some fabric that caught the light in a hundred different ways. Unlike Marlee’s dress, Sienna’s hugged her form, the long sleeves tight to her arms and the neckline jaggedly asymmetrical. The dark ruby red of her hair fell down her back, hiding it, but he’d seen the deep vee there.

“Uncle Walker,” she’d said with a scowl when he’d warned her she’d get cold. Then she’d thrown her arms around him. “I love you, too.”

That his dangerous niece could say that to him was a gift. That she wanted to say it to him was an even greater one. Sienna’s eyes caught his right then as Hawke spun her out, and her cardinal gaze was full of delight. Hawke spun her back into his chest a second later. Landing with her hands flat on her mate’s body, she tilted up her head just as the wolf alpha bent his.

Walker looked away from the kiss that said a thousand things without a word being spoken, and down into the glowing face of his daughter. One day, she, too, would have a mate to love, a mate who loved her in turn. When that time came, he’d let her go with his blessing to live a life extraordinary and beautiful and full of freedom, but until then, he’d watch over her.

Now, catching her wide-eyed interest in something Drew was doing to Indigo, he copied the move and dipped Marlee over his arm. She giggled in girlish delight, saying, “Again, Daddy!” when he lifted her up.

So he did it again.

Marlee was flushed and happy when the song ended.

“Come on Marlee-Barley, time to dance with me.” Toby held out his hand.

Walker’s nephew was in the awkward gangly phase, but he’d scrubbed up for today in black pants and a short-sleeved shirt in dark blue that had epaulets and visible stitching as detailing. His hair, as ruby red as Sienna’s and as striking, was neatly brushed but already falling forward. It was his eyes that made Toby though—cardinal starlight, they held a sweetness it was rare to see in a boy his age.

Walker worried about Toby, but sweet as he was, his nephew seemed to be holding his own, even in the midst of a wolf pack. According to Lara, he seemed to have the same effect on his packmates as a fledgling healer, engendering trust and making people feel better with his simple presence.

Perhaps it was because Toby had an empathic gift or maybe it was simply that Toby had been born with a deep gentleness of spirit. He’d have been crushed into line under Silence, but here, he was free to grow into his personality.

Tonight, he took a delighted Marlee as his dance partner and they spun into a fast dance, both of them stamping their feet and moving their arms with the beat. When Ben, dressed in a tiny tuxedo Lara had pronounced “deathly adorable,” ran over to join them, they laughed and made a space for his small body.

“What’s my Benny going to do when Marlee matures before him?” Ava asked, having come to stand beside Walker at the edge of the temporary dance floor. Her glossy dark locks were streaked with metallic blue and glittering silver and swept up in a complicated braid. “It’s already happening.”

“He’s tough. He’ll handle it.” Ben and Marlee had long been firm best friends despite the age difference between them, some indefinable aspect of each speaking to the other. However, like Ava, Walker could see that relationship altering shape in front of his eyes. Their interests were diverging, would take them in different directions in the coming years.

“But,” Walker said as they watched their children dance, “whatever happens, I can’t see them ever drifting totally apart.” Their relationship was too strong, too rooted, and for all his childish antics, Ben was oddly astute. As if he saw people for exactly who they were.

A boy like that would grow up into an extraordinary man.

Ava sighed. “She’s still going to break my poor boy’s heart in a few years. No girl of fourteen is ever interested in a boy of ten.”

Wrapping his arm gently around Ava’s shoulders, Walker held her to his side with the affectionate skin privileges that had developed between them over the time Walker had been mated to Lara. The two women were best friends, Ava in and out of their home, as Lara was Ava’s. Walker also liked Ava’s mate, Spencer, a great deal and they often had dinner with the other couple, while Marlee loved spending time with both Ben and his baby sister, Elodie.

The toddler was currently laughing uproariously with Naya Hunter, both of them seated on an outdoor play mat.

Their baby laughter was making several nearby adults grin. Walker couldn’t resist his smile, either. “I don’t think a small thing like a broken heart would stop Ben from pursuing Marlee as soon as he’s old enough,” he said.

Ava chuckled. “You’re right. My boy has stubborn determination down to an art.” Rising on tiptoe, arm around his back, she tried to look out over the dancers. “Where’s Lara?”

“Chatting with Tamsyn about the pupcubs.”

Looking over to where the two healers stood, Walker saw them move apart after a quick hug. Lara turned to head toward him at the same instant that Ava said, “There’s my sweetheart. I’m going to haul him into a dance before he gets too caught up in photographing the event.”

Walker let Ava slip away and moved to meet his mate halfway. She’d tamed the corkscrew curls of her black hair into a fancy twist tonight and the red glints within shimmered when she passed under a cascade of tiny lights, but nothing shimmered as bright as her smile when she met his gaze. Her dress was ankle-length, the color a deep blood orange that looked exquisite against the natural dark tan of her skin.

It caressed her form as she moved, the simple lines of it graceful and elegant both.

“Are the children happy and busy?” she asked as she reached him.

“Yes.” It hadn’t always been easy for Walker to trust the bonds of pack, especially when it came to the children, but he was a true SnowDancer now, understood that in a healthy pack, a child need never look far for affection or assistance.

Biting down on her lower lip, Lara tugged on his hands. “Let’s sneak away for a bit.”

Walker had never played, not as a child, not as a young man. But he was mated to a wolf now, and to a wolf, play was as necessary a part of life as breathing. Releasing his mate’s hands, he slid one of his around to lie against her lower back. “This way.” His height made it easy for him to see through the mingled guests.

It still took them several minutes to navigate their way out, as packmates and friends wanted to say hello, but he finally got them to a spot in the shadow of a cabin. Far enough away from the party that they could speak in private, but close enough that they could still see the festivities. “Do you want to go into the forest?” Stroking his hands down her back, he rested them on the curve of her buttocks. “I want to.”

Lara looked at him through the thick fan of her lashes. “Bad man.” Her smile belied her words. “Leading me off the straight and narrow.”

Walker went to say that was his responsibility as her mate when something altered in the air between them . . . or perhaps something altered inside him. He didn’t know how to describe it, but he knew for certain that Lara’s body was no longer the same as it had been yesterday. Leaning down, he looked into her eyes.

“Walker?” Lara raised one hand to his cheek. “What’s the matter?”

Shaking his head, he tried to put a finger on what was bothering him . . . and oh. “Did you do a pregnancy test today?”

“No, I was going to wait till—” Lara’s eyes widened, one hand going to her abdomen. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. He couldn’t explain how, but he was sure. It was as if the mating bond had sent him a little pulse of knowledge, a warning that he’d have to take extra care of his mate in the months to come. “Yes, I’m sure.”

Tears filled her eyes. “Walker, oh. A baby.”

He gathered her in his arms, his own heart thudding so brutally inside his chest it almost hurt. “I love Marlee until it’s hard to breathe at times,” he told her. “But I never had the chance to experience all the stages of her development. I had to steal time with her.” The times she wasn’t in day care and her mother, Silent and without rebellion, wasn’t around to see how Walker treated his child—as if she was precious. As if she was his heartbeat.

“You won’t miss out on anything this time around.” She lifted her tear-wet face to his. “We’re going to go through this together, all of us. The whole family.” Her face glowed. “I can’t wait to tell the children.”

He loved her even more for loving Marlee and Toby as her own, for treating them like a mother would her babies. “Together,” he echoed, and holding her close, looked out at where Marlee was now sitting on the ground eating cake with a similarly occupied Ben next to her.

As he watched, Ben offered her what might’ve been a chocolate decoration from his piece. She accepted it, giving him something from hers in return. When Spencer moved into view to take a snapshot of the two, Walker knew he’d be asking for a copy.

“Do you think she remembers?” he asked Lara. “The times I had to be cold with her? The times I couldn’t pick her up when she cried?”

“Marlee is one of the most well-adjusted children I know.” Lara brushed his jaw with her fingers. “Whatever she might’ve missed out on in her childhood, she always knew that you loved her.”

Emotion rising in a tide inside him, Walker spread his hand over her hip. “When shall we tell the family?”

“After I do the test, double confirm.” Lara’s voice was shaky. “I feel like I’m made of champagne, bubbles of happiness fizzing up my brain.”

Walker could’ve never come up with that description, but it was exactly right. “Me, too,” he admitted, bending until their breaths kissed and he could drink in her sheer joy. “Me, too.”

Chapter 55

JUDD DIDN’T KNOW quite how he’d ended up with an armful of baby, but someone had handed the child to him, and so he now found himself looking into big brown eyes that looked back at him with just as much curiosity. She wasn’t one of the newborn pupcubs. He was fairly sure this child belonged to a leopard soldier named Emmett and his human mate, Ria.

Baby stealing was rampant at the party, the children passed around to be adored and kissed and spoiled. The pups and cubs and pupcubs seemed to take it in their stride, pack creatures that they were. But since no one seemed to realize that Judd had a baby, he stepped a little farther away from the main lights so he could spend more time with this tiny brown-eyed creature.

“Hello,” he said, though he knew the baby was too young for verbal communication.

She waved a fist at him.

Cradling her in one arm, he took the offered fist in his free hand. Her skin was so fragile, her bones so soft, and her grip delicate but determined when she tugged at his finger. He found himself smiling, fascinated by her small movements, the way she clearly wanted to bite down on his finger though she had only the merest suggestion of her first two teeth.

“Gorgeous man, you just melted my heart into a puddle.”

He’d known Brenna was coming nearer. He could feel her always. When she stopped at the other side of the baby and sighed, he glanced over to meet the extraordinary beauty of her gaze. “Why are you melted?”

“Seriously hot, seriously dangerous man with a tiny, adorable baby in his arms, both of them fascinated with one another?” Uncaring of her stunning ankle-length gown in poppy red, Brenna fell dramatically onto the ground, arms flung out. “Dead.” Pushing up onto her elbows, she said, “Especially since it’s my hot man holding a baby.”

He helped her up using his telekinesis. “You want to hold her?” he asked, strangely reluctant to pass over the soft, warm weight.

“No, it’s okay. You keep holding her.” Brenna smiled, obviously able to read his emotions. “Her name is Mialin Corrina.” Kissing the baby’s cheek, Brenna whispered, “Pretty, just like this tiny kitten.”

That kitten smiled and made happy sounds that did things inside Judd.

“Did you ever hold Marlee or Sienna?” Brenna asked.

“Marlee.” Not often, only when he’d been able to slip the leash of his trainers, and then only when his brother was alone except for the baby. “She used to do this, too.” Grip at his finger and later, at his hair. “I always found it so peaceful to hold her.” Feel the beat of her heart, the warm puff of her breath. “I never had the chance with Sienna.”

Brenna stroked his forearm. “If I’m right, you’ll be holding another baby very soon.”

Judd began to ask what she meant when he caught the line of her sight. His brother Walker was standing in the shadows thrown by a distant cabin, but there was no mistaking the joy on his face, or the protective way he had his hand over a beaming Lara’s stomach.

Judd’s heart gave this great big kick of a beat. “If anyone deserves to be a father again, it’s Walker.” His brother was the best father, the best man, that Judd had ever known.

Brenna tucked herself under his arm when he held it out. “Do you want kids?”

Judd looked down at the now sleepy-eyed baby in his arms, found himself nodding. “One day. When we’re a little older and more . . . like Walker and Lara. More steady. Do you know what I mean?”

“I know exactly. They’re rooted and solid, anchored.” She slipped her arm around his waist. “We’re still finding our way, discovering who we are. But one thing I know—you’re mine and I’m yours and any growing we do will be together.”

“Always.” Judd couldn’t imagine life without Brenna. It simply didn’t make sense to him. “Do you think I should give her back?”

“Finders keepers, I say.”

So they kept the baby for an hour, watching her sleep and touching her upturned nose every so often, or brushing their fingers over her little fists. It was Emmett who finally came to claim his daughter. “Come on, baby girl,” he murmured, taking her from Judd.

His hands were big and a little scarred, his face rough-edged despite the fact that he’d shaved, but the tenderness in his hold was endless. The baby’s face lit up even in sleep at the sound of her father’s voice.

“Thank you for letting us hold her.” He knew Emmett must’ve been aware of his daughter’s location every instant that she hadn’t been in his arms.

“I figured she couldn’t be more safe than with an Arrow. You protect the innocent after all.” Emmett kissed his daughter’s forehead. “But now this kitten’s great-grandmother wants to see her and she has first rights.”

As the other man turned and walked away, Judd felt his heart give another kick. Because for the longest time, the Arrows had been the nightmares, the bogeymen. They’d protected, too, but no one had seen it. Now, at last, the world was starting to understand. It no longer mattered so much to Judd, but for his brethren . . .

He searched for and found Vasic in the crowd. The teleporter was standing quietly beside his mate while she chatted to Sascha, but he was engaged. He was present. As was a man who wasn’t an Arrow but who walked the same dangerous roads. Catching his gaze, Kaleb nodded. Judd nodded back before returning his attention to the wolf who’d hauled him into her arms and taught him to live.

“Let’s dance,” he said. “I want to celebrate this night.”

ANNIE’S leg ached but it was nothing major, not now that she was using the anti-inflammatories Tamsyn had prescribed. The relative lack of pain left her free to enjoy the festivities. She’d become used to changeling events in the time she’d been mated to Zach, but this one was unusual in more than one way. Not just because of the wolves but all the others here tonight.

That was when she saw him across the clearing. He was standing by the trees, separate from everyone while his eyes tracked the woman with dark blue eyes who was Faith’s cousin. Annie knew who he was of course—hard for anyone not to recognize the man rumored to be the most powerful Psy in the Net.

But seeing Kaleb Krychek on the comm screen was different from seeing him in person. The power that pulsed off him . . . It was strangely familiar, but perhaps she was fooling herself. Still, she had to know.

Moving carefully and using her cane for support, she made her way across the clearing after checking to see that Rowan was happy in the arms of one of his young aunts. There he was, her beautiful boy.

She felt as if she was smiling with her entire body.

The constant use of the cane, the problems with her leg that had resulted from the change in her balance during pregnancy, it was all worth it.

Of course, Zach was a growly overprotective leopard who hated seeing her in any pain. If he had his way, she’d be sitting in bed drinking tea and eating crumpets every day. Smile growing impossibly deeper, she looked around, found her mate.

He was hunkered on the ground with his nephew Bryan standing behind him. Bryan had his hands over Zach’s eyes as he asked his uncle to guess something. Ah, that explained why Zach hadn’t zeroed over to her as soon as she left her comfortable seat. She liked that seat, loved how people constantly came over to socialize and how the cubs squeezed their warm, squirmy bodies in beside her when they wanted a rest.

Annie wasn’t stubborn without reason, and there was no reason to put unnecessary pressure on her leg when she could sit now and save up her energy for later.

Like for petting her mate.

But she couldn’t sit. Not tonight. Not at this moment.

Kaleb’s eyes connected with hers when she was still several feet away. He scanned away an instant later, likely believing she was moving to join a group a little way to his left. When she stayed on course, however, he returned his attention to her; she was close enough now to truly see those extraordinary eyes, see the white stars on black that was a cardinal’s gaze.

After coming to know Sascha and Faith, she’d realized cardinal eyes weren’t all the same. Each was distinctive . . . and this pair, she would never, ever forget. Throat thick, she came to a halt about two feet from him, the two of them far enough away from everyone else that they had privacy. It was clear he didn’t recognize her. Why should he? She’d been a small, skinny girl of seven at the time he last saw her.

He’d been a child, too, but those eyes. Those eyes.

“May I be of assistance?” he asked when she stayed silent. “I can teleport you back to your seat if you’re in pain.”

Annie shook her head, her eyes burning. “It’s you,” she whispered.

He stared at her for several seconds before his gaze went slowly to her leg, then to the cane on which she rested her hand and her weight. When he lifted that starlit gaze to meet hers once more, she knew he remembered. Remembered the freak bullet train derailment, remembered the small girl trapped under a crushing weight of metal, remembered lifting that metal so she could be pulled out.

“They saved your leg.”

Swallowing, she nodded. “Plassteel that grew as I grew,” she told him. “It was the most advanced operation at the time.” There had been progress since then, and Annie had been considering one more operation that would fix the remaining issues, but then she’d fallen pregnant and decided the operation could wait. “My name is Annie Quinn.”

“I saw you with an infant.” Kaleb’s voice was as midnight as the sense of power that swirled around him.

“Yes, he’s mine. Mine and Zach’s.” A tear rolled down her face. “Thanks to you, I’m here and I’m—”

“Angel.” Zach’s voice, holding a hard edge. “Why are you crying?” He placed a hand on her lower back, Rowan cradled in his other arm.

Looking into his beloved face, she said, “Zach, it was Kaleb.” More tears rolled down her face. “All those years ago, it was him.”

Her mate’s grim expression changed into one of quiet respect. Sliding his hand out from behind Annie, he held it out to Kaleb. “It’s an honor.”

Kaleb shook Zach’s hand, though Annie could guess he wasn’t a man at ease with skin privileges on any level—except with Sahara.

“I did what was necessary,” he said with no change in his intonation or expression.

“You did what was right.” Annie refused to allow him to brush aside his heroism. He’d been a boy with such old eyes, and he’d done what was right. From what she’d learned of the Psy since becoming part of DarkRiver, she knew that choice would’ve cost him.

Under Silence, a telekinetic child would’ve been strictly supervised . . . and likely tortured in an effort to teach him control. “You were a hero that day,” she said through a throat gone raw. “I will never ever forget what you did.”

Zach pressed a kiss to her temple. “Thank you for saving my mate,” he said to Kaleb afterward. “I’ve wanted to say that to Annie’s ‘boy with the cardinal eyes’ for a long time.”

Kaleb inclined his head very slightly. “There is no debt,” he said, as if he’d tried to work out why she’d approached him and come up with that answer.

Smiling, she wiped away her tears. “I know. You’re a good person.”

“I believe you’d be one of two people on the planet who’d say that. The other one is the woman changelings would describe as my mate, so she’s understandably biased.”

That made her laugh wetly while Zach grinned. “Can’t say the man’s not honest.” He rubbed her lower back. “You want to tell him or shall I?”

“I want to.” Touching her fingers to her baby’s, she said, “This is our son, Rowan.” She looked up to hold Kaleb’s eyes. “I’d like to use your name as his middle name.” Without Kaleb, she wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t have a mate and a son. It was important to her to honor the act of courage of the boy he’d been in a way that made him part of her family.

Kaleb took several seconds to reply. “Are you sure you want him linked to me?” he asked at last.

“Yes.” She knew what the world saw when they looked at Kaleb Krychek, but she saw the hurt boy who’d nonetheless thought of others. She was glad, so glad that he’d found joy, that he’d found love. “You will always be a part of our family, and I hope you’ll accept that invitation in the spirit it’s given.”

Kaleb’s eyes left hers, found his mate’s, and Annie had the sense he was talking to her. When he looked back at her, he said, “Thank you.”

“We’ll send you our details, in case you’d like to visit.” She didn’t think Kaleb Krychek was the visiting-babies-and-friends kind of man, but he was family now and would be treated as such. “I hope you come.”

“Yes,” Zach added. “You’ll be welcome.”

AFTER Kaleb inclined his head in acknowledgment of the DarkRiver couple’s offer, the male—Zach—began to coax his mate to head back to her seat. Having noticed how heavily Annie leaned on the cane and was now leaning against her mate, Kaleb said, “Would you like a lift?”

They both stared at him before grinning in concert. It was Zach who said, “Why the hell not?”

It took less than a heartbeat. He could see the destination and they were standing in front of him. Even as Annie opened her mouth to speak, the couple and their baby found themselves by the comfortably cushioned wicker chair from where Annie had walked over. Laughing, the couple waved at him before Zach helped Annie into her seat, then handed the infant to her.

An infant named Rowan Kaleb Quinn.

That was the first time I exercised my own free will, he said to Sahara as his heart walked toward him, a woman of about five two in a strapless gown the color of ripe cherries that set off the warm shade of her skin. She’d chosen the black-on-black suit he wore, caressing her fingers over his pectoral muscles before she buttoned up his shirt.

I glimpsed news of the train derailment on the comm screen, he told her, saw that a small girl was trapped underneath all that twisted metal. A child just like him, hurt and broken. So I snapped the chains on my mind and for a small fraction of time, I was free and I was doing something good.

Flowing into his arms, Sahara looked up at him with eyes that had always seen him for exactly who he was—a man who lived in the gray but who loved her with every dark corner of his soul. “You were being true to yourself.” She spread her hand over his heart. “Even in the horror, you found the will and had the courage to fight for what was right.”

He brushed his hand over her hair. Here, with the changelings, such contact between mates was accepted—expected even. They were a highly tactile race, and while Kaleb would’ve found that strange before Sahara came into his life, she’d long ago taught him the value of a touch given in affection and love.

Let’s be young and happy today, Kaleb. Sahara’s mind speaking to his, her telepathic voice poignant with memories of all the celebrations they’d missed, all the pain they’d survived. Like we were in that market in Istanbul. Forget about everything else for one night.

Kaleb was always on alert for threats, but that didn’t mean he’d deny Sahara. If she asked for the moon, he’d find a way to lay it at her feet. Anything you want.

The catastrophic problem with the Net would still be there tomorrow, as would the Consortium’s machinations and the politics of the powerful and dangerous.

Will you dance with me? The charms on Sahara’s bracelet clinked against one another as she lifted her arms to link them around his neck, her love for him proud and open.

Deep inside, even the part of him that was the void, merciless and dark and broken, knew happiness, knew joy. You’re the dancer. But he took her into his arms and they moved to the rhythm of the slow, romantic song the band was playing. Kaleb knew it was romantic because Sahara whispered that to him while stealing a kiss.

Her hair was soft, carrying the fresh scent of her shampoo. He’d washed her hair for her in the shower earlier that day, after which he’d demanded payment for his work in kisses. With her, he could be young, could be the boy with whom she’d fallen in love before the world tore them apart.

No one interrupted them for that song or the next. But on the third . . .

“Hi, Mr. Krychek!”

Kaleb glanced down to find himself looking into the face of a child of about five or six, the boy’s dark hair messy silk. “Hello.”

“Zach said you teleported him!” The boy was all but jumping up and down. “Can you teleport me?”

Do you think he has any idea I’m considered a deadly threat by most individuals on the planet?

Nope. Sahara’s eyes laughed at him. He thinks you’re a new toy.

It cost Kaleb nothing to teleport the child to the far side of the compound. He could hear the boy’s excited cry from here. “Perhaps we should leave before he tells all his small friends.”

Weaving her fingers through his, Sahara tugged him forward. “Come speak to the adults. They’ll make sure the children behave.”

Kaleb found himself next to Judd not long afterward, Sahara having led him to the man who was his friend. “You two talk,” she said. “I haven’t had a chance to catch up with Faith yet.”

“Do you get asked to be a personal teleporter?” Kaleb asked Judd after Sahara blew him a kiss and began to weave her way through the crowd to find her cousin.

“Yes.” A slight smile from the former Arrow. “Even though I occasionally dump them in the lake.”

“I probably shouldn’t do the same as I’m a guest, and over half the people here are still certain I’m going to kill them at any moment.”

“True.” Judd nodded toward Annie and Zach. “Saw you talking. You know them?”

“Yes. From a lifetime ago.” He realized he’d never told Judd of the childhood incident, did so now. “She’s going to give her child Kaleb as a middle name.” He still wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

Judd’s expression turned solemn. “An honor and an invitation.”

“Yes.” Kaleb saw a child running toward them, teleported the girl right next to her elders—who grabbed her by the shoulders and made her sit down to eat at a picnic table. “It appears I’m gathering even more . . . people.”

“People?” Judd shook his head. “I think you mean family.”

“Sahara is my family.”

“She’s the center, yes, but a family is a living organism. It grows in many directions. Like Xavier’s Nina—she’s now part of our family, too.” Judd’s eyes followed a pair of leopard cubs who’d snuck under the food table and were attempting to pull down the tablecloth. A tiny panther cub stood on this side of the table and looked at them with an inquisitive expression on its face.

A second later, the leopard cubs found themselves in front of a tall brunette dressed in a fitted gown of shimmering bronze. She looked down at their startled faces, then located Judd in the clearing and called out, “What did they do?”

Judd pointed to the tablecloth they hadn’t quite managed to dislodge.

Hands on her hips, the brunette scowled down at the cubs who were now both sitting up in an attentive pose. “You do realize I could punish you by saying no more dessert this entire party?”

Flopping onto their fronts, the cubs hid their eyes using their paws.

Kaleb could see the brunette struggling not to smile.

Going down on her haunches, she lifted the cubs by the scruffs of their necks. “That was a very naughty thing to do,” she said sternly. “I’m going to give you a pass because it’s a celebration but any more naughtiness and I’m taking you home and making you Brussels sprouts for dinner.”

The cubs’ mouths fell open.

“Yes,” she said in that same stern tone. “Brussels sprouts, with spinach for dessert. Now, will you be good?”

Two quick nods.

“Hmm. I’ll be watching.” Setting down the chastened cubs, she managed to keep a straight face until they were far enough away that they didn’t see her grin as she came over to Judd and Kaleb. “People keep telling me they’ll get into less mischief as they get older, but I swear they’re just getting smarter about their naughtiness.”

“They know they’re safe,” Kaleb found himself saying. “It gives them the freedom to push boundaries.”

The brunette, who he’d identified as the DarkRiver healer, Tamsyn Ryder, nodded. “I know, but I’m already starting to dread their teenage years. I have visions of jetcycles and climbing up girls’ walls at night.” Affection colored every word. “Knowing the two of them, they’ll work together to steal ladders to scale those walls.”

Kaleb didn’t understand children, especially not children like this. He understood Arrow children the best. But he could also see why Aden was working so hard to reform the very foundation of Arrow society. It had to do with love and with trust.

The kind of love and trust that had him teleporting his mate away from Faith without warning ten minutes later.

“Kaleb!” His name had barely cleared her lips when he teleported them into the forest.

“Are you kidnapping me?” Sahara scowled at him but stayed flush against his body.

“We never finished our dance.”

Sahara’s response was soft, her eyes holding a thousand dreams. “We never will. This dance we’re in, it’s forever.”

Good.

Chapter 56

SPOTTING KIT ON the far edge of the celebration, Lucas pressed a kiss to the temple of the sleeping pupcub in his arms before passing the child’s small, warm weight to his doting grandfather. He then made his way directly to the young soldier. There was a look in Kit’s eyes that the panther in him well understood.

“When are you leaving?” he asked the man he’d watched grow from babe to youth to this soldier who had earned his deepest trust.

Kit blew out a breath. “I thought, tonight.” A half smile. “Hopefully no one will notice with all the excitement, and I’ll be long gone by then.”

Lucas knew why Kit wanted to go without telling anyone—leopards understood the need to roam, but Kit was a child of the pack and many would miss him desperately. Especially the cubs. “You’ve spoken to the children?” Julian and Roman, in particular, considered Kit a big brother.

“I told them I’m going on an adventure.” Kit shoved a hand through his hair, his eyes holding a deeply feline curiosity. “How did you know?”

Lucas just shook his head. He was alpha—a good alpha always knew the heartbeat of his pack, and he’d known for a while that Kit was restless and straining at his skin. He needed to stretch himself, explore the wider world, even more so than most leopards because Kit had the scent of a future alpha.

That wasn’t, however, what made a true alpha. Being alpha took an ability to love with a depth that included each and every person under the alpha’s care; it also required a temperament that fostered trust in the bonds of pack. Rough or sophisticated, growly or warm, each alpha was unique, but the best alphas had both those qualities.

So did Kit.

Any pack he founded would be strong, would endure. Lucas had seen the young male come into himself over the past year. Already, his peers looked to him for leadership; when it came time for him to strike out on his own, he’d have sentinels ready to back him and build a pack with him.

That time, however, was in the future. For now, Kit remained a child of DarkRiver heading out into the world, to roam as his leopard demanded. “Be wild,” Lucas said with a smile. “Explore everything you want to explore. Run hard, play hard, find your skin.” Tugging the boy close, Lucas hugged him tight.

Kit hugged him back as fiercely. “I need to roam,” he whispered, “but I’ll miss everyone.”

“Roaming doesn’t mean disappearing,” Lucas reminded him when they drew apart. “Stay in touch and meet up with packmates who are roaming in the same areas. You can discover who you are without turning loner. I have a feeling Cory and Nico are nearly ready to roam, too, so you might run into them sooner rather than later.”

Relief colored Kit’s features. Lucas understood. Their nature was dual—the solitary leopard and the social human. It was at this stage of life, a point that came at a different time for each one of them, that the leopard became more ascendant than the human. However, they remained changeling. Being totally solitary wasn’t a natural choice.

“Look after Rina,” Kit said, then laughed and closed his hand over the dog tags that hung from his neck. “She’d kill me if she heard me say that, but—”

“I get it.” Rina and Kit had become a tight unit after the deaths of both their parents. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t get into too much trouble.” Rina had done her roaming and though her edgy tendencies remained, that was part of her personality and nothing Lucas would try to crush. All he’d asked from her was discipline. “Go. Roam.”

Kit’s grin was wild, his eyes turning leopard. Shifting on his heel without further words, he faded into the trees, a young leopard heading out to explore the world.

“I’ll miss him,” said a familiar female voice from behind Lucas, slender arms sliding around his body as she pressed her cheek to his back.

He closed his hand over one of Sascha’s. “I know, kitten, but it’s how we grow.” Sascha found it hard each time one of their young adults left the pack; her instinct as an E was to hold her family together, keep them safe and happy. Consciously, she knew the majority of leopards needed to roam to settle into their adult skins, to be truly happy, but that didn’t lessen her worry at watching them go. “He’ll come back.”

“But he might leave again one day, more permanently.”

“Yes.” There was a high chance that, bonded as closely as he was to DarkRiver and Lucas, Kit would offer to remain in the pack as one of Lucas’s sentinels. But should Kit make that offer, Lucas would decline it. Not because he didn’t want Kit’s strength and loyalty beside him, but because he knew Kit was meant to lead his own pack—he was one of the most promising young alphas Lucas had ever known.

Lucas would do him a disservice if he didn’t push him to be all that he could be.

“Often,” he said to his mate, “our chicks have to leave the nest to find their wings.” Turning, he wrapped his arms around her. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t still ours. Even when Kit leaves DarkRiver, he’ll still be one of us.”

Sascha nodded, took a breath. “I’m trying not to think of Naya going off on her own one day in the future.”

Chuckling, Lucas nuzzled her. “Kitten, our cub isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.” Not to roam and not because she’d been stolen away by enemies.

Lucas would protect his child to the death. If Pax Marshall proved to have been the mastermind behind Naya’s planned abduction, Lucas would take vengeance against the Psy male. And if it turned out that Pax had been set up, then Lucas would go after the shadowy figures pulling the strings of what could’ve been a deadly game.

“But Naya will eventually go off roaming,” Sascha insisted and, a scowl on her features, said, “Do you know what Jamie did while he was away? Race cars at dangerously high speeds, make friends with bears who got him drunk every day of the week—”

“You gotta watch bears. They can drink anyone under the table.”

“Stop laughing.” She pushed at his shoulders. “I’m not sure how he made it back in one piece, especially after he decided to go deep-sea diving. What cat does that?”

“Jamie’s always been a law unto himself.” Lucas shuddered at the idea of being submerged that far in the deep. “Did you notice the weirdest change?”

When Sascha frowned and looked around for the male Lucas had just promoted to sentinel alongside fellow former senior soldier, Desiree, Lucas said, “His hair’s the color he was born with.” It happened to be a rich chocolate brown.

Sascha’s eyes widened. “I didn’t realize. But he feels all right.”

He knew she meant that in the empathic sense. “Well,” he said, nipping and sucking at her lips in a teasing kiss, “when a cat takes up deep-sea diving, changing hair colors probably isn’t very exciting anymore.”

Sascha’s laughter drew the attention of one of the cubs who hadn’t yet given in to exhaustion. Normally, they’d all be down by now, but since it was a special occasion, he and Hawke had relaxed the rules. Catching Roman in her arms, the boy in human form and miraculously dressed in the same clothes he’d arrived in—which meant he’d actually cached his clothes pre-shift—Sascha hefted him up.

“Oof,” she said as she settled him on her hip. “Did you eat an entire cake?”

Roman’s eyes widened. “I shared with Jules and Issy and Dai and Naya.”

“Well, that’s all right then.” Sascha kissed him on the cheek, and Roman put his head on her shoulder.

He was asleep by the time they reached the other side of the pack circle. Seeing them, Nathan reached out to take his son into his arms. Rome didn’t wake, sleeping with the carefree abandon of a child who knew he was safe and loved.

After pressing a kiss to his son’s silky black hair, Nathan caught Lucas’s gaze and angled his head to the left. Lucas looked in that direction to see a pile of cubs and pups, Naya included, fast asleep on a soft blanket someone had laid out. Two little girls lay in human form amongst the furry bodies: Noor, and Aneca, one of Teijan’s pack.

Nathan walked over to place Rome with his playmates, including Jules. The boy stayed in human form but curled around the others. They, in turn, moved in their sleep to snuggle around him, and he was soon blanketed in golden fur spotted with black as well as the soft brown fur of wolf pups. Naya slept in the protective circle of his arm, Jules’s furred body on her other side.

Sascha was right.

One day, these children, too, would head out to roam.

Lucas looked back toward the place where Kit had disappeared and wished that cub well. The pack would be waiting for him when he was ready to come home, whether that was a month from now or ten years. Each leopard’s journey was his own. Knowing adventure and discovery awaited Kit, Lucas and his mate rejoined the party that celebrated a bond signed in blood and welded together by loyalty—and now, by three newborn lives.

The parents of those newborns, a wolf lieutenant and a leopard sentinel, danced to a soft, slow ballad with the unconscious grace of a couple in sync on the deepest level. And though they appeared lost in one another, Lucas was fully conscious that Mercy Smith and Riley Kincaid knew the exact whereabouts of each of their three babies. The new parents tended to only be able to bear the separation from their pupcubs for about five minutes at most.

Then they’d reclaim Belle, Ace, and Micah, cuddle them close.

Smiling within, he took in the others here: lethal and dangerous Kaleb Krychek who’d just emerged from the forest with his laughing mate; easy-humored Max Shannon and his wife, Sophia Russo; ex-Psy Councilor and current member of the Ruling Coalition, Anthony Kyriakus. Then there was Teijan’s sharply dressed presence near Ivy Jane, the empath currently chatting to Tally—who gently cradled a pupcub, while Ivy’s Arrow mate spoke with the Rat alpha.

Nearby, Forgotten leader Devraj Santos chatted to Jon and Clay, and not far from them, Katya Haas was deep in conversation with Ashaya Aleine and Alice Eldridge. Ashaya’s twin had turned down an invitation to attend, having no desire to be part of any kind of a social gathering, but Lucas knew she was present in some sense through her unbreakable tie with Ashaya.

Myriad bonds connected the people here.

It was a tangled kaleidoscope. One he could’ve never imagined the day he first sat across the table from a beautiful woman with eyes of cardinal starlight. Those eyes met his at that instant, her body warm at his side. He went to draw her into a kiss when he felt a tug on his pant leg.

Leaning down, he scooped Naya into his arms. “I couldn’t have imagined you, either,” he said to their mischievous cub, who’d padded away from her sleeping friends and now growled happily at him.

Sascha’s laugh was soft, her kiss passionate against his lips. Held between them, her mother’s hand on her back, Naya purred, happy and safe and with no awareness that she was the embodiment of change.

Nadiya Shayla Hunter would never have an ordinary life.

And perhaps, if the adults here and around the world got it right, she’d never know anything but friendship and family and hope. Not war. Not racial discord. Not anger and distrust.

“I like to imagine a future,” he said to Sascha, “where one day, our daughter stands in the center of the United Earth Federation and when she speaks, the ears that hear her voice are Psy and human and changeling and Forgotten and every possible blend.”

Eyes shining wet, Sascha whispered, “No divisions, no artificial lines.”

“Yes.” He tapped Naya on the nose when she tried to bite his jaw. “Just a vibrant peace.”

“Well,” his mate said slowly, “not quite three-and-a-half years ago, when we mated, you punched Hawke hard enough to knock him down. Tonight, he’s rocking a pupcub who technically belongs to you. Roughly three years for wolf and leopard to become family.” A deep smile. “It’s not a bad start.”

She took their baby when Naya jumped over, nuzzling and cuddling their cub with sweet maternal affection. “I believe in us.” Her eyes met his, streamers of color in their depths. “All of us. I believe we’ll find a way out of the darkness. The Consortium won’t win—and in defeating it, we’ll forge bonds no one will be able to break.”

Lucas ran his knuckles over her cheek. “Trust an empath to find a silver lining.”

Turning her head, Sascha kissed the skin above the pulse in his wrist. “Our daughter will stand in the United Earth Federation and when she does, we’ll proudly tell everyone we know that that’s our baby.”

Panther prowling to the surface of his skin, Lucas gathered his mate and their child in his arms. “Hold Trinity together, defeat the Consortium, help the Psy save the PsyNet, and help the humans figure out a way to block psychic intrusion, and finally, set up the UEF.” He nodded. “Let’s do it.”