Allegiance of Honor

Chapter 20

SIENNA COULDN’T BELIEVE what Hawke had done. She simply couldn’t believe it! She’d just returned to the SnowDancer den after lunch with Kit and had intended to update Hawke on what the young soldier had told her about the mood of the city in the aftermath of Naya’s attempted kidnapping the previous day.

Kit had also shared some personal news in confidence, but he hadn’t asked her to keep it from Hawke. People didn’t expect mates to keep secrets from each other. And Sienna knew Hawke wouldn’t say a word if she told him it couldn’t go any further. In truth, she’d been planning to unload on him, because while she was happy for Kit, the leopard was one of her closest friends and she felt a selfish desire to tell him to delay things a little longer.

Only her mate wasn’t here for her to talk to. He’d left her a message on their private comm, inside their quarters. A message. “I’m going to kill him,” she muttered, stalking down the den corridor near the infirmary. “I’m going to wring His Alphaness’s neck, then I’m going to kick his—”

She halted before she slammed into her uncle Walker’s chest. “I have to go,” she said, trying to swing around him.

He stopped her by the simple expedient of putting a single hand on her upper arm. Sienna froze. She would never disrespect the man who was her father in every way that mattered. “Uncle Walker, I need to leave,” she said, her skin vibrating with her urgency. “Hawke’s gone out to confront Ming!”

“It’s a business meeting,” Walker said.

Sienna sucked in a breath. “You knew?” Betrayal was a slap across her face. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Even though she was furious with Hawke, she could understand his boneheaded behavior. Her alpha mate was so protective of her that, sometimes, he acted before he thought. And when it came to Ming LeBon, he was more feral wolf than civilized man. That didn’t excuse what he’d done, but it at least made sense.

But for her uncle to go along with it when he knew exactly how good Sienna was at taking care of herself? She stared uncomprehendingly at the planes of his face, his expression calm in the face of her rage.

“Hawke is incapable of thinking clearly with you anywhere near Ming.” Walker held her gaze with the unusual light green of his. “But you would’ve insisted on going with him.”

“Of course I would’ve insisted!” Sienna fisted her hands. “Ming is a combat telepath!” He could smash Hawke’s natural shields open with far less effort than almost any other Tp on the planet, kill him within seconds.

“Judd’s with him.”

Relief and betrayal punched into her in equal measures. “Him, too?” she demanded. “Was I the only adult Lauren who wasn’t informed of Hawke’s plans?”

Walker closed both hands around her upper shoulders, held her still when she would’ve broken away. “Hawke did this with a cool head, Sienna.” The faintest hint of a smile. “Cool enough to know it’d be better to ask for forgiveness than to convince you of the sense of his plan.”

“Don’t patronize me, Uncle Walker!” It roared out of her. “I’m not a child anymore! I’m his mate.”

Walker looked at her for a long moment, long enough that she started to want to fidget. But instead of wearing her down in that way only he could do, he inclined his head. “Yes,” he said. “Hawke should’ve spoken to you. As for Judd and me”—his expression shifted, revealing a tenderness that destroyed her—“we can’t help ourselves. You’re a piece of our heart.”

All her anger crumbled.

Falling into his arms, she let his warmth and love and strength surround her, ground her, her face pressed to the smoky blue of his shirt, her eyes hot. Walker had been the calm anchor in the ugly storm of her childhood after her mother died, the one person she’d known she could count on even when she was caught in a monster’s grip. He was the one who’d made the Laurens into a family, refusing to let go no matter what. Never once had he betrayed her.

“I’m sorry for yelling,” she said when she could speak past the surge of emotion. “I’m just worried about Hawke.”

Cupping the back of her head, Walker said, “Can you sense any trouble through the mating bond?”

She shook her head, the realization calming her enough that she could think past her worry and anger. “Why is he even talking to Ming? Hawke hates him, wants to tear him into tiny pieces with his bare claws.”

“Let’s walk outside. I’ll tell you his reasoning.”

“Whatever it is, I’m still going to strangle him when he gets back.”

HAWKE knew he’d be heading straight into his mate’s fiery temper when he returned to the den, but that didn’t matter. Not when what he did here today would spell the start of the end of Ming LeBon.

Being in the same room as the former Councilor and his cold metallic scent and not gutting the other man went against his natural instincts, but the wolf understood what it was to protect pups. And right now, hard as that was to swallow, Ming’s stabilizing presence was protecting a heck of a lot of pups in Europe.

That would change.

If Hawke had to nudge Ming slowly out of power to make him viable prey, then so be it; the wolf was willing to listen to the human in this hunt. Because both parts of him knew that sooner or later, Hawke would tear out Ming’s throat. For threatening Sienna’s life, for hurting her when she’d been a child, for all those Ming had tortured and murdered.

“As I noted in my message, Mr. LeBon, SnowDancer has made a competing offer.” The words were spoken by a slight human male seated behind the desk by the windows. Stenson was doing a good job of keeping his cool, but Hawke could smell the sour tang of nerves on the mustachioed man with pale white skin.

It wasn’t every day that a small computronics company fielded two buyout offers: one from an ex-Councilor turned de facto ruler of a large chunk of Europe, the other from the biggest changeling pack in the country.

Hawke, his back to the window, stood to the right of the desk. Sitting next to Ming in the spare guest chair on the other side of the desk wasn’t an option. Judd stood outside the office door, but Hawke could sense him, knew the other man was protecting his mind from psychic threats. Whatever tricks Ming had, he’d have to mobilize into full battle mode to use them against an ex-Arrow and an alpha wolf.

“SnowDancer isn’t known for its interest in cutting-edge computronics.”

Hawke shrugged at Ming’s frigid comment. “Those who survive are those who adapt.”

“I’ll increase my offer by ten percent.”

Stenson glanced at Hawke.

“We’ll beat that,” Hawke responded. “By one percent.”

Ming made another counteroffer; Hawke countered it by another one percent. They went on like that until Ming got the point: SnowDancer was determined to buy this company and gain control of its innovative ideas.

That Ming hadn’t already stolen the company’s secrets was thanks to some very clever structuring. Stenson was in charge of the company’s finances and did the deals, but he knew nothing of its technological breakthroughs beyond what he needed to facilitate the financial side of things. The company had also succeeded in keeping secret the identities of its developers.

No Psy could pluck out secrets from a mind if he or she didn’t know which mind to target.

“It appears the company is yours.” Ming left without further words.

Hawke bared his teeth.

When Stenson flinched, he realized the gesture had been more lupine aggressiveness than human smile. Ah well, the man would have to get used to dealing with wolves sooner or later.

Since Yuki and the rest of SnowDancer’s legal eagles had already checked the details, Hawke finalized the deal with his signature, then held out his hand to Stenson. “Happy to be working with you.”

The bewildered man shook his hand. “You won’t be restructuring?”

“Expect a SnowDancer team to drop by, go over things with you. But at this stage, we plan to leave you to go about your business.” Hawke had bought the company primarily to frustrate Ming and ensure the ex-Councilor couldn’t get a foothold in this part of the world, but it actually was a good investment. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another deal to complete.”

Five minutes after that, he’d cut Ming off from acquiring the majority share in a financial entity based out of Liechtenstein, and an hour after that, while Judd drove them back up to the den, he made it clear to a corporation that they would lose their biggest client—SnowDancer—should they agree to work with Ming LeBon.

This was war and people had to choose sides.

When he hung up, Judd raised an eyebrow. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a ruthless CEO.”

“I am a ruthless CEO.” It was his official description on all the businesses that ran under the SnowDancer banner. “You’re the one who recommended we watch for Ming trying to infiltrate SnowDancer territory through business interests.” It was why Hawke had known what Ming was up to—he’d had SnowDancer’s Cooper and DarkRiver’s Bastien arrange a network of eyes and ears in the region’s business circles.

“I never expected you to take to business combat like a fish to water.”

“It’s not my preferred way to fight”—a slight understatement—“but it’s nice to know I just cost Ming millions of dollars.” Cutting off a little more of the evil bastard’s power base.

“How far will you go?”

“All the way.” As long as he played a strategic game, SnowDancer had the strength and the financial reach to not only keep Ming out of this territory, but to break the ex-Councilor’s grip on Europe. “I should’ve figured it out earlier, but I was so set on tearing off his head that I didn’t think about other options.” Now that he had, Hawke was starting to enjoy the hunt. “I’m going to bring him down so low that he has no allies and is running for his life on the streets. Then I’ll tear off his head.”

Judd’s eyes glinted. “Losing power would be worse than death for Ming.”

Hawke showed his teeth again. “Then the bastard’s going to be in a lot of pain starting today.”

His phone buzzed with an incoming message from Cooper confirming that SnowDancer now owned a ten percent share in a company Ming relied on for supplies for one of his other corporations. Give me six more months, Cooper had written, and we’ll have a fifty-one percent share. The best part is that SnowDancer will make a profit long term even as we freeze out LeBon.

Hawke’s wolf threw back its head inside him and howled in triumph.

Letters to Nina

From the private diaries of Father Xavier Perez

March 28, 2074

Nina,

I haven’t written for many days. The Psy assassin and I have been in the mountains, laying a trail to disguise the path that leads to the hiding place of the villagers the other assassins are coming to murder.

I thought we’d fight, spill blood, but this Psy, he tells me to be intelligent, to stop thinking with an alcohol-soaked brain and to remember that we are only two against an entire death squad.

“We can’t win one on one,” he says. “We can win only by stealth and cunning and being smarter than the enemy.”

I’ve never fought this way, in the shadows. Even when I ran with the human rebels in the first months after our village was sacked, we aimed to do violence against those who’d harm our people. Any rebels who died in the course of our campaign were held up as heroes.

The Psy assassin doesn’t know about the rebel cells. I’ll never betray those men and women to a man who might turn on me without warning. But he said something to me that was eerily apt: “Don’t try to be a hero, Xavier. A dead hero can’t help anyone.”

Xavier

Chapter 21

NIGHT HAD FALLEN by the time Hawke and Judd drove up the final track to the den.

Impatience clawed at Hawke. Searching for something to take his mind off the hunger to see his mate, he said, “What time are you and Brenna heading to Cooper’s territory?” He knew the two had plans to visit friends in the satellite den. “Driving, right?”

Judd shook his head. “We decided to catch a quick flight at eight tomorrow, since our visit’s only going to be a couple of days anyway. It’ll give us more time on the ground.” He brought the vehicle into the underground garage under the den. “Good luck with Sienna.” Unsaid were the words that he’d need it.

Leaving the lieutenant to deal with the vehicle, Hawke jogged from the garage to his and Sienna’s quarters. He was halfway there when he realized the mating bond was tugging him in the opposite direction. Reversing course, he ran out into the night darkness and through the trees for nearly twenty minutes until he saw her standing on a rise, looking out over the fields below.

The moon was full tonight, her body outlined against a sky dotted with stars.

It hit him again, that she was his. His mate. Extraordinary and strong and . . . furious.

Wincing at the look she shot him out of cardinal eyes gone a dangerous black, he braced himself. “Miss me?”

She growled before hauling him close for a kiss, her hands buried in his hair. It was a kiss of claiming, of branding, of angry welcome. Groaning, he had his hands on her hips, his body having turned rock hard in a single pulse, when she pushed him away. “If you ever do that to me again, I won’t forgive you.”

He’d expected anger but not this brittle edge to her voice. “Walker was supposed to talk to you, make sure you knew what was going on.”

“My mate should’ve talked to me.” The obsidian of her gaze flickered with a translucent flame, her tone flat.

Hawke’s gut twisted; this wasn’t anger. It was deeper, harder. “You would’ve wanted to come and there was no way in hell I was taking you.” Even the idea of her anywhere near Ming made his wolf threaten to turn into a primal killing machine.

“Look at this!” Sienna held out a hand, on which danced a red and amber flame. “I’m not helpless! I’m the least helpless person in the world!”

Hawke thrust his hands into her hair, gripped. “But you’re mine to protect!” His heart pounded like a bass drum. “If anything happened to you—”

He couldn’t say it, couldn’t even think it. “I’ve lost too many people, baby. I can’t lose you.”

When Sienna cupped his face, her hands were fierce and gentle both. “You won’t. We’re in this together.” Her nails dug a little into his skin. “Trust me! Treat me as your mate!”

“I do!” Hawke’s voice was turning more and more into a growl. “Why would you think otherwise?”

“Why would you hide things from me?” Sienna yelled, her chest heaving.

They stared at each other for a single, endless heartbeat before their lips were locked in a kiss so passionate that Sienna went up in flames around them. He should’ve been worried, but he was never worried with the woman who fucking owned him. Her cold fire always knew pack. And it definitely knew her mate.

He took her to the ground, or maybe she took him. He tore off her clothes, she tore off his; their naked bodies slid against one another and when he pulled up her thigh and nudged at her with his cock, he found her wet and ready. Then she bit down on his lower lip while clawing his back and it was all over.

He thrust deep, pinning her to the earth.

One stroke, two, and Sienna was clenching so tightly around him that he couldn’t hold back. He gripped her shoulder with his teeth as he came, so hard that he knew he’d leave a mark. Good. He wanted her to wear his mark. Her nails made sure he’d be wearing hers.

The fire flamed hot red, then wild amber around them, a dangerous kiss from his very dangerous mate. A mate who was still pissed off with him when the fire sank into the earth to leave them lying entangled and naked under the stars, neither one able to breathe properly for at least five minutes.

Hawke could’ve dealt with an angry mate. He couldn’t deal with the hurt he saw in her expression.

Hand cradling the side of her face, he said, “I’m sorry.” It was difficult for an alpha to say that, but never to his mate, never when he was fucking wrong. “I was trying to protect you, but I did that by hurting you. I’m so goddamn sorry.”

Sienna’s eyes remained dark, without stars, but she spread her hand over his heart. “I was so terrified for you.”

Hawke thought about how insane he’d go if he knew she was alone with Ming, and wanted to kick his own ass. “I took Judd,” he said, even knowing that was no defense for what he’d done to her, the pain he’d inflicted. “But I was an asshole. I admit it. I won’t do it again.”

Sienna’s lips kicked up a little at the corners, the first stars appearing in her eyes. “I think this may go down in history,” she said as relief punched him in the gut. “An unreserved apology from Your Alphaness.”

“Smart-ass.” He petted her as he spoke, apologizing with his touch as much as with his words. “Seriously—I was thinking with my heart, not my brain.”

“Ugh.” Sienna pushed at his chest. “Stop making it hard to be mad at you.”

Her expression turned on the next breath. “You won’t do it again? Leave me out of a decision that affects both of us?”

Tugging her to his chest as he rolled over onto his back, he brushed her hair off her face. “I promise.”

Sienna nodded. “Okay. I know you always keep your promises.”

The fist around his heart began to open. “Want to know why I went to the meeting?”

When she nodded, he told her, man and wolf both supremely smug when her expression showed admiration for his tactics. “I wouldn’t have expected you to take Judd’s idea and run with it like that,” she said afterward, kicking up her feet. “You’re fiercely intelligent, but you don’t usually think sneaky.”

His wolf decided to take that as a compliment. “Sneaky is for cats,” he growled. “But I have been spending a lot of time with Lucas lately. I guess some of it rubbed off.”

Sienna’s smile was sharp. “I like the idea of messing with Ming’s financial foundation.” Her eyes narrowed in thought. “You know Devraj Santos hates him, too?”

Hawke nodded. He didn’t have any real details on what Ming had done to Dev’s wife, Katya, but he didn’t need them—because what he did know was that she’d been kept captive by Ming LeBon. Dev’s hatred of Ming was something he’d picked up on the last time the Forgotten leader had visited SnowDancer territory to catch up with the Forgotten children embedded into SnowDancer—protected by being claimed as wolves to the outside world.

Hawke had said something about Ming that involved Ming being dead, and Dev had agreed, his voice holding a near-metallic chill that was almost Psy—except for the fury behind it, the rage Hawke could all but taste.

“Katya shot him in the head. The fucker survived.”

Running a hand down the sexy curve of his mate’s back as the memory of Dev’s angry words echoed through his mind, he said, “Arrows have to hate him, too.” That would’ve been easy enough to guess with the defection of the squad from under Ming’s leadership, even without Judd’s close connection to current active-duty Arrows.

“Hmm.” Sienna tapped her kiss-swollen lower lip with a finger. “SnowDancer can blindside Ming a few times, but eventually he’s going to figure out all our major business entities and start to avoid anything where we could have an impact.”

Hawke bared his teeth. “That’s satisfying on its own.” It would mean the pack was forcing Ming to make financial decisions that weren’t in his best interest.

“Yes, but if we get a few other people involved . . .”

Hawke wasn’t used to playing with people outside his pack—and okay, Lucas, since the cat had proven his loyalty to the blood bond between the two packs. But he could see the positives of Sienna’s idea. “Enough people in on this and it’ll become very difficult for Ming to predict who might have an interest in what—or who might develop an interest.”

Sienna nodded. “Dev has financial expertise but I’m not sure about the Arrows—I know Judd didn’t get any financial training as an Arrow. He learned what he did on his own. We don’t want to put anyone in a bad position.”

Hawke nipped at her lips just because, growled when she dug her nails into him in response. It wasn’t a complaint. “This is only fun if everyone but Ming comes out a winner,” he agreed. “I’ll ask Judd to check whether the Arrows have someone with financial smarts. We have people we can lend them if they don’t.” He ran one hand through the dark ruby fire of Sienna’s hair. Yes, his wolf thought, this is better. Working with my mate, coming up with ideas together.

Smiling at him, she ran a finger down his nose. “I feel your wolf prowling in there. You want to run? I have to do a sweep anyway.”

“Yes.” The wolf wanted her fingers in its fur, wanted to nip at her with its teeth, play with her under the moonlight.

Pushing off him, Sienna held out a hand. He took his time rising, enjoying the sight of her nude body kissed by the moonlight and clothed only in the beautiful hair he loved to play with in either form. Her smile, though, that was the most beautiful part of her. He kept that image in his mind as he shifted, the wrenching pain and stunning ecstasy of the shift rippling through him as his body exploded into millions of particles of light, then reformed in another shape.

It was still him. Always. In either form.

He shook his body to settle his fur into place, discovered his mate was pulling on her jeans. Picking up her T-shirt while her back was turned, he started to pad away.

“Hawke!” Her outraged cry came a second later. “Give that back!”

Huffing in laughter, he upped his pace.

An infuriated scream echoed on the air currents, but Sienna didn’t come after him. When he glanced back, he saw her pulling on his shirt—which happened to be torn down one side thanks to her angry, impatient hands earlier. Using the torn halves, she tied the shirt off at the side of her abdomen, then smirked at him and picked up his jeans.

“Guess you don’t need these?” she said before balling them up and throwing them over the side of the rise.

Dropping her T-shirt, he loped back to her and, without warning, nipped her butt. She yelped, clamped a hand over the part he’d bitten, turned to look at him with temper in her eyes. “You are in trouble.”

Fire arced a half centimeter from his nose.

Making a sound more common to a startled pup than a tough-as-nails alpha, he jumped back . . . to hear his mate laughing so hard she could barely take a breath. When he growled again, she just laughed harder. And then she was on her knees and her hands were in his fur and she was pressing her face to his while the jeweled dark red of her hair fell around him and life was perfect.

HAWKE kept Sienna company all night on her security shift. After their run through the area assigned to her, she told him about her lunch with Kit, the baby cat alpha she insisted on having as a friend.

“Stop growling.” She glared at him from her standing watch position.

He was sitting in wolf form beside her, his fur rippling in the breeze.

He growled again, just to rile her up.

Eyes glinting, she pointed at him. “I think you’ve been hanging around cats too much. You’re getting sly.”

This time, his growl was one of insult.

Her lips twitched. “Got you.” Coming down on one knee to run her hand through the silver-gold of his fur, while still keeping an eye on her watch area, she said, “City’s angry but calm. Word’s gotten around about how quickly the attempted kidnapping was defused, and that’s helping turn aggression into pride.”

Hawke nodded. Strange as it was for a changeling to accept, the humans in the city felt a certain ownership in DarkRiver in the sense that it was their pack that held such power. That extended to SnowDancer in the regions where the wolves held sway. The oddest thing was that a number of local Psy seemed to believe the same, feeling more loyalty toward the packs than they did toward the Ruling Coalition. It wasn’t something either Hawke or Lucas had expected or were used to, but as alphas they saw the pragmatic benefits.

And as two men born with powerful protective drives, they refused to let down the people who’d given them their trust—even if those people weren’t pack. That, too, was a situation Hawke could’ve never predicted. Changeling alphas didn’t run for mayor or for any other political office for good reason; their primary and primal focus was the pack.

The latter would never change, but the line of communication between the packs and the other residents of their territories was stronger and more in use than it had ever before been. A threat to any part of that territory was considered a threat to the packs, and as such, their actions protected all who called it home.

“There’s no more news yet on exactly who was behind the mercenaries,” Sienna added. “At least not as far as Kit knows.” Rising to her feet again, she began to walk the perimeter.

He walked beside her.

“Leila Savea remains missing.” Sienna’s tone turned somber. “It’s going to take a miracle to find her, isn’t it?” Her eyes met his, the sorrow in them potent.

She, too, had once been trapped in a nightmare.

Hawke wished he could tell her that they would find the vanished BlackSea changeling, but Sienna didn’t want empty comfort, had experienced too much harsh reality to accept it.

Instead of giving her words that meant nothing, he held her gaze until she nodded, understanding his promise: No one would stop looking for Leila Savea until they either found her . . . or her body. If, for some unfathomable reason, others stopped, SnowDancer would pick up the baton.

Together, they began to walk again.

At times they talked, but mostly, they just enjoyed being together. As night turned to the gray before dawn, Tai came to relieve Sienna. The young soldier with his big shoulders and slightly slanted eyes of blue-green grinned a hello at Hawke, but he had the good sense not to attempt to tease his alpha about being out all night with his mate. Hawke wasn’t above teasing, but Tai was too young to have earned the right to that much informality.

Sienna had always been the single exception to that rule. From the day she’d entered the den, she’d seemed to make it her mission to drive Hawke insane. He should’ve known then and there that she was destined to be his mate.

“Why are you smiling?”

Still in wolf form, he glanced up at her question.

“It doesn’t matter what form you wear. I know.” An answer to his unspoken question. “I can feel it inside.” She touched a fist to her heart. “Something’s amusing you.”

He bolted into a run without warning, challenging her to keep up with him. Laughing, she pounded toward the den alongside him. They both knew he was throttling his speed for her, but that took none of the pleasure out of it. His wolf loved running with her.

Racing through the dew-laden quiet of the White Zone, they pelted into the den and past startled packmates who jumped out of the way. One yelled out, “Act your age not your shoe size!”

Another growled, “Dignity, Hawke!”

Both of those hecklers were his friends, their words tinged with laughter as well as joy that Hawke had found a mate, found happiness.

Continuing to race through the corridors that were quiet except for the early risers, they tumbled into their quarters together and Sienna locked the door behind them. Hawke shifted in the seconds it took her to do that. Scooping her up in his arms the next instant, he ran into the bedroom to throw her on the bed.

Her hair haloed around her in a ruby-red fan, her face flushed from their run and her breathing rough. “That was fun!”

Coming down over her, he took a morning kiss, his wolf rumbling inside his chest. “I was smiling because I was thinking about what a pain in the butt you were as a teenager.”

“You liked me even then.” She poked at his shoulder. “Admit it.”

“Never.” He grinned and pushed off the bed before her wandering hands made it impossible for him to do anything but strip her naked, make her sigh his name. “You need to eat and then you need to sleep.”

A scowl. “You going to sleep with me?”

Hawke was fully capable of going without sleep, but since SnowDancer wasn’t at any kind of emergency alert, he didn’t need to. “Yes, Sienna Lauren Snow,” he said, drawing out her name because he liked the way it sounded. “I’ll be sleeping with you.”

She sat up and reached back to quickly braid her hair. “Good. Let’s go get breakfast.”

Hawke had recovered the jeans Sienna had thrown over the rise, but had left them—and her T-shirt—cached for later retrieval. Grabbing another pair, he hauled them on, then shrugged into an old black tee before taking her hand.

In sync, with no more need for any further discussion, they made their way together to the room where breakfast was laid out for those packmates coming off night shift or going out on an early-morning shift.

“Sin!” Sienna’s best friend, Evie, waved them over to a table where she sat alone, nursing a cup of coffee. “Hi, Hawke.”

“Good morning.” Bending, he pressed a kiss to her temple, her hair cool black silk under his touch and her eyes deepest gray.

It was extraordinary how differently he saw Evie and Sienna, though they were near the same age. Indigo’s submissive sister was so young in the life she’d lived, so innocent. The alpha in him felt only protectiveness when he looked at Evie, could never imagine seeing her as a woman.

Sienna . . . wolf and man, he’d always accepted her as a strong opponent, even when she’d been too young for him to see her as anything else.

“What are you doing up?” Sienna asked her friend as Evie rose to pour Sienna and Hawke coffee from the carafe on the counter.

Hawke accepted the small gift with a smile of thanks. Had he insisted on getting his own coffee, she’d have lost that sunny light in her eyes, started to feel redundant. She wasn’t. No submissive was. Dominants were the fighters of a pack. Submissives took care of creating the home they protected.

It was a perfect balance in a healthy pack.

“I had breakfast with Tai.” Evie’s cheeks flushed with happiness. “He told me he was taking over from you, so I thought I’d wait.”

Hawke had just accepted a hot bacon roll Evie passed over from the tray that must’ve been brought in a bare minute earlier, when his attention was caught by another woman who’d walked into the otherwise empty room. Alice Eldridge. A gifted human researcher who’d been forcibly put into cryonic sleep for over a hundred years and had woken to find everyone she’d ever known was dead.

Her hair had grown back in the ensuing time, the spiral curls rich brown and gold against brown skin that had regained its glow. Her body, too, was no longer skin and bones. She’d taken up climbing again, regained the lithe muscle tone she’d had before her long sleep. But Alice’s eyes continued to hold a relentless sadness. Unable to see a member of his pack that way, Hawke put down his roll and, leaving Sienna chatting to Evie, walked over to Alice.

She hadn’t yet accepted that she was a SnowDancer, wasn’t sure what her place was in the world, but she was still his responsibility. Not saying a word, he wrapped his arms gently around her, loosely enough that she could escape should she want. She froze like a startled deer.

One second. Two. Three.

A cautious movement.

Alice placed her head against his chest and slid her arms around him.

He tightened his embrace.

All changelings knew that, sometimes, touch could heal what words never could.

“Thank you,” she whispered afterward. “I . . . why does that make me feel safe? You’re a stranger, really.”

Because even a human recognized the power in an alpha wolf. “You’re one of mine,” Hawke told her. “Part of this family. Don’t forget that.”

A shaky smile before Alice nodded and joined the rest of them for breakfast.

Smiling, Evie got her tea and a roll before whispering, “I heard a rumor that a certain dominant is going to ask you out today.”

Alice groaned, her lingering sadness fading—at least for now—under a wave of aggravation. Exactly as Evie had likely intended, even if it hadn’t been a conscious thought on her part. Submissives were good at that, at giving others what they needed to get back on an even keel.

“What is it with wolves?” Alice said with a feminine snarl of which Hawke’s wolf approved. “I’ve made it crystal clear that I’m not anywhere near ready to date.”

Swallowing a bite of her own roll, Sienna shook her head. “You say that and certain wolves hear ‘oh, she wants me to try harder.’”

Hawke wisely kept his mouth shut and started on a second roll, having already demolished the first. Evie got up to refresh his coffee, but her attention was on the conversation.

“So I should just go on a date and be awful?” Alice asked. “Bore the man to tears by talking about esoteric research papers on bat guano or the health properties of wheatgrass?” Her eyes gleamed. “It holds a certain appeal.”

Shaking her head, Evie said, “No, because then all the others will think they can do a better job and it’ll become a contest to see who can make you have a good time on a date.”

“Yeah.” Sienna nodded. “Also, if the male in question makes a real effort on the date, he might get his feelings hurt and then you’ll have to figure out how to deal with a moping wolf.”

Alice stared at Hawke’s mate. “While the fact I’m turning the men down flat isn’t hurting anyone’s feelings?”

Both Sienna and Evie shook their heads, with Evie the one who explained. “Wolves love a good chase. I mean, did you hear what Drew did while he was courting my sister?”

The resulting conversation actually had Alice laughing. “No, he didn’t!” she said several times, only to be met by confirmations that yes, Drew did go there, and yes, he did do that.

Content to be around his mate and packmates, Hawke just grinned and listened.

AS a result of their lingering over breakfast, he was awake when a call came through that Indigo thought he should answer. He’d just been about to strip for bed, had his T-shirt balled up in one hand.

“Psy called Pax Marshall,” his lieutenant said over the comm. “He’s got a proposal and I figured you’d want to take his measure.”

She was right—Pax Marshall wasn’t simply another CEO. He was a ruthless male who’d risen to the top of his family hierarchy at only twenty-four years of age and, according to Judd’s intel, was considered one of the new powers in the Net.

Whether he has any loyalty to anyone but himself is up for question. But if he doesn’t have blood on his hands, I’d be very surprised.

Judd’s words fresh in his mind, Hawke pulled his T-shirt back on and said, “Transfer Marshall through.”

Chapter 22

THAT AFTERNOON, SNOWDANCER Lieutenant Cooper was on his way out of the den he commanded on the northern edge of the San Gabriel mountains when he got a call from his alpha. Hawke told him that Pax Marshall, head of the Marshall Group, had proposed a joint business venture in a location in Arizona that was almost right up against the border for which Cooper was responsible.

“I don’t trust him,” Hawke said flatly. “Word in the PsyNet is that Pax would cut his own mother’s throat to get ahead.” That insight had no doubt come from Judd.

Cooper shrugged. “Judd’s buddy Krychek isn’t exactly cuddly.” Yet, quite aside from his friendship with a SnowDancer lieutenant or the times Krychek had offered assistance to San Francisco, the male rumored to have murdered his way up the ladder had a mate who worked daily with empaths.

“Exactly.” Hawke’s eyes gleamed wolf-blue. “Talk to Marshall, see if we can work with him. If this is a real opportunity, dig into the ethics of the entire deal.”

“Always.” Cooper folded his arms, the deep bronze of his skin soaking in the sunlight that poured through the window of his office, that office hidden high in a natural curve of the mountain that held the den. “Lucas’s cub all right?” His wolf growled, still enraged at the idea of anyone harming a child.

Hawke thrust a hand through his hair. “Yeah, bastards didn’t touch Naya. Lucas’s people are still turning over rocks, but an ocelot pack named SkyElm has come up in the investigation. Keep an ear to the ground for any intel about them.”

“Consider it done.” Unfortunately, Cooper had nothing new to report to Hawke on the Consortium situation. His alpha had asked him to investigate the shadowy group using his financial contacts, see if he could pick up any kind of a trail. “These particular cockroaches are very good at hiding,” he told Hawke. “Someone thought this through, locked down all the information.”

“Keep working on it. I’ll update you on anything that comes up on this end.”

Meeting ended, Cooper went looking for Judd—the other lieutenant had arrived in Cooper’s den midmorning, together with his mate, who happened to be close friends with a technician based in this den. The visit was so the women could catch up, but it also gave Judd and Cooper an opportunity to spend time together. They knew each other as all the lieutenants knew one another, but it was inevitable that they’d be closer to the lieutenants they worked with on a daily basis.

For Cooper, that was Jem, Kenji, and Tomás.

Still, his wolf liked Judd. So did the human side of Cooper. The other lieutenant had proven his loyalty to the pack—and his strong, intelligent mate looked at him with her heart in her eyes. A man who’d earned a SnowDancer woman’s admiration and respect? He was all right in Cooper’s book.

“Judd,” he said, spotting the other man on his way out of the den.

The former Arrow was dressed in what looked like workout gear. Of course, it was all black. Arrows never got over that, apparently.

“Got a minute?” Cooper asked.

“Several if you need them.” Brown eyes flecked with gold met Cooper’s. “I was just planning to try the new obstacle course your trainers put in. I hear it’s good.”

“Fiendish is a better description.” Cooper scowled. “Diabolical is another.”

“Excellent.”

Walking outside with his fellow lieutenant, Cooper led him in the direction of the course. “Pax Marshall, can you give me the full lowdown? He wants to talk business with us.”

“A previously little-known individual who suddenly rose to prominence in his family group,” Judd said. “Instinct tells me he was the power behind the throne before he took it over, at least for the final twelve months of his predecessor’s reign.”

Judd paused as Cooper caught an errant ball and threw it back to the kids playing nearby. “It’s rumored he engineered his father’s death in a car crash, but no proof. Could be propaganda he himself started—Psy both fear and admire callous expediency when it’s used in a smart fashion.”

Cooper rubbed at his jaw, his thumb brushing over the scar that marked his left cheek. “He’s young. Twenty-four, right?”

“Yes. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating him though.” Judd’s tone was a cool warning. “Aside from being extremely intelligent, he’s a Gradient 9 telepath.”

Cooper whistled, aware that the Psy Gradient went up to ten. Cardinals were all off the scale, but he’d heard it said that some of the most dangerous people in the Net were just below cardinal status. Judd was the perfect example.

“Pax hasn’t been directly linked to any violence,” the other man continued, “but that just means he’s very good at hiding his tracks.” A pause. “One thing I will say—even the squad can’t find any evidence that he’s ever been involved in the death of anyone I’d term an innocent.”

“A ruthless but fair man,” Cooper said. “Or a monster clever enough to conceal crimes that don’t add positively to his image.”

“Exactly.”

He grinned as Judd used his telekinesis to catch a pup in the midst of an uncontrolled fall and floated the wide-eyed youngster to the ground.

“Overall, Pax Marshall is a calculating operator,” Judd said, as if he’d done the rescue automatically, his mind on other matters. “My take? This is apt to be a legitimate business opportunity. He’s reaching out to SnowDancer because SnowDancer has a certain level of power in the post-Silence and post-Trinity world.”

“Yeah, figures.” It wasn’t only the pack’s own financial might that Pax Marshall would’ve considered, but also the influence they had on other groups. “You think he’s left Silence behind?”

Judd shook his head in a hard negative. “Aden’s had contact with him and he’s sure Pax is ice-cold beneath the surface. He is linked into the Honeycomb, but that empathic link can be achieved with a very minor shift in thinking—my feeling is that he sees Silence as a weapon in a world where most people are held hostage to their emotions.”

Cooper paused at the start of the obstacle course. “That gives me a good bead on the guy. Thanks.” He gestured toward the course. “Go on, try the beast. I’ll stand over there and laugh at you.”

“Challenge accepted.”

It wasn’t until Judd started that Cooper remembered the other man was a fucking telekinetic. Oh, Judd didn’t cheat. No, like all Tks, he simply moved better. It was hard to explain to anyone who hadn’t seen a Tk in motion, but while they weren’t as fluid as changelings, they were damn close. And Judd Lauren was a former Arrow, trained to be a ghost.

He moved like liquid smoke.

He still fell flat on his ass on the same obstacle that had dumped Cooper the first time around. Clapping as Judd got up—with a dark look at the obstacle—Cooper called out, “Don’t feel too bad. The pups fail that one, too.”

“Funny, Coop.” Then the stubborn man went back to the start of the course and began again.

This time, he cleared the obstacle with grace, kept going.

By the end of the day, Judd had started the course seven times and finished it zero times. He had several bumps and bruises as well as a cut on his cheekbone and, after a shower, was sharing a drink with Cooper while they sat at an outdoor table they’d set up. “How many times before you completed it?” he asked Cooper.

“One.”

“Do I look drunk?” He held up his orange juice—Psy abilities didn’t mix well with alcohol, and the Psy Cooper knew tended to stay away from it.

Cooper’s wolf bared its teeth inside him in lupine laughter. “Ten. So you have three more to go before I’ve officially beaten your Arrow ass.”

“I’ve got tomorrow.” Judd put down his drink and got up to examine the grilling machine Cooper had brought out.

Cooper was about to explain the functions when his attention was caught by the sound of female voices.

Three women walked out of the den. One belonged to Judd, one was Brenna’s friend, and one was very much Cooper’s. Grace came straight into his arms, all shiny and fresh from a shower. “Aw,” he murmured for her ears only. “I was hoping to get a chance to clean you up.” She’d told him she’d be crawling through internal ducts today as part of a routine inspection of the artificial sunlight system that illuminated the den.

Turning a little pink under the cream of her skin, his mate rose on tiptoe and nuzzled at his throat. “You could make me dirty first.”

He almost groaned, his cock reacting to her words like she’d stroked him with her pretty hands—or sucked him with her pretty mouth. “When did you get to be so bad, Grace?” He liked it, liked it a hell of a lot.

“When I had to deal with a certain lieutenant.” His sassy mate turned to examine the table. “You guys are all prepared.”

Cooper wrapped an arm around her as other packmates came out to join them, all bringing a plate to share. It was a small gathering under a clear night sky, the air redolent with the smell of food and flavored with conversation. People came and went as shifts changed, the atmosphere low-key and relaxed. Cooper ended up sitting on the ground, as did pretty much everyone but for a couple of older packmates who joined them for an hour. He’d tugged Grace down to sit between his thighs and she stayed warm and snug against him.

At one point, he realized her eyes were closing, and as he watched her slip into sleep, he thought back to a time when his deeply submissive mate had worried about having a relationship with a dominant. Back then, she’d have looked at him in total astonishment had he told her that one day, she’d fall asleep in his arms without a care in the world, even though he had his hand gently, possessively, curled around her throat.

His wolf stretched out inside him, pleased and proud. His mate had enough courage for a thousand dominants.

EARLY the next morning, he kissed Grace good-bye, then got into a truck with two other packmates for the drive across the border to meet Pax Marshall. All three of them had rock-solid natural shields, the effectiveness of which had been confirmed by Psy members of the pack. Judd had volunteered to accompany them, but Cooper had shaken his head. “We don’t want Psy like Pax thinking we’re vulnerable targets without you.”

Nodding, Judd had said, “Remember, if it all goes sideways, even a Gradient 9 won’t be able to smash through your shields without doing significant damage—and using a ton of power. Claw out his throat at the first sign of a telepathic blow. Don’t give him a second chance.”

Cooper had considered carrying a weapon, decided against it. Again, it was about projecting a confidence that made it clear no SnowDancer wolf was easy prey. He’d also made a conscious decision to turn up to the meeting in jeans, work boots, and a simple white T-shirt. Pax Marshall was all sharp suits. Cooper had no intention of appearing to cater to him.

As it was, Pax surprised him. The handsome blond male, his features sharply patrician and his eyes blue, turned up in khaki cargo pants and a white T-shirt, his boots very similar to Cooper’s. Their meeting place—at Pax’s request—was an empty piece of land in Arizona that belonged to SnowDancer, but that they’d left undeveloped because it was too small for anything useful.

The area was open, with no way for anyone to set up an ambush.

“So,” Cooper said after they’d introduced themselves. “What’s your proposal?” He’d already increased his estimation of the other man’s political and manipulative skills—Pax had clearly dressed to put Cooper at ease.

“This piece of land is in a prime location to provide an extension to the computronics factory on the horizon.”

Cooper raised an eyebrow. “Except for the fact there’s an abandoned warehouse in between on disputed land.” That was why SnowDancer hadn’t already bought the factory and associated land—the heirs were fighting so bitterly over the disputed parcel that it was too much hassle for too little gain. For any development to be a sound economic investment, the pack needed to own all three parcels.

“It’s no longer disputed,” Pax said, his expression ice-cold.

So, he wasn’t pretending not to be Silent. That, too, Cooper thought, was calculated. Pax had quickly figured out that Cooper had a great bullshit detector, so he’d opted for the straight and narrow. Or was giving the impression of it at least. “Is that so?” Cooper folded his arms across his chest. “Last I heard, they were threatening to murder each other with rusty knives.”

Human families could be frankly scary to a wolf.

“I bought it,” Pax said. “I paid both parties.”

That meant Pax had snuck in under SnowDancer’s nose. But in doing so, he’d been forced to invest heavily upfront—and SnowDancer still held the winning hand. “Why would you pay twice for a useful but not prime piece of land?” Cooper asked, keeping the rest of his thoughts to himself for now.

Pax turned that arctic-blue gaze back onto the distant computronics factory. “As of this morning, I also own the factory and the land on which it sits.”

“You want to make us an offer for our parcel?”

“No.”

“Oh? Why?”

“I don’t think you’re stupid enough not to realize you own the critical piece on the chessboard.”

Cooper grinned. Yes, SnowDancer understood the precise value of its land. This area was known for the kind of quiet needed for the manufacturing of the most delicate computronics. No heavy vehicle traffic, no real population, the sky clear of all air traffic, thanks to an old law no one had bothered to update, and no pollution.

Clean air. Quiet environment. A waterway for transport.

The three holy grails when it came to the creation of high-end computronics.

And SnowDancer had the only access to the waterway in question. “We’ve got you over a barrel, Marshall.”

“I could hire telekinetics,” Pax pointed out, his tone chilling further.

Interesting. Had the man been a wolf, Cooper would’ve said he was pissed off. But since he was a Psy widely thought to be deathly Silent, it was doubtless a clever psychological game.

“However,” the other man continued, “it would be more efficient to bring you in as a partner.”

The resulting discussion was hard-edged and pure business. Cooper made no promises, but he hammered out a deal he could take to Hawke and the other lieutenants, should, of course, Pax pass certain other tests. Ethics and the environment included.

There was also one other thing. “You do a lot of business with Ming LeBon?” he asked off-handedly.

The Psy male paused and Cooper had the feeling it was genuine. Pax hadn’t expected that question, wasn’t prepared for it.

“A small percentage,” he said at last. “Why?”

Cooper shrugged. “Word on the street is that he’s going to start to suffer significant losses. You might want to pull out before the shit hits the fan.” He wasn’t giving anything away, not with Ming fully aware that SnowDancer had declared war on him.

“Thank you for the advice.” Pax’s tone revealed nothing, but a day later, the financial grapevine was abuzz with the news that the Marshall Group had cut all ties with LeBon Enterprises.

Pax Marshall, it seemed, had chosen a side.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t a cobra in the grass.

Chapter 23

MING LEBON HAD ended his conversation with Pax Marshall an hour earlier without learning anything about why the Marshall Group had suddenly sold all its stocks in businesses associated with LeBon Enterprises. The arrogant young telepath who’d seized the reins of the Marshall empire had insisted the move was simply “part of the family’s long-term business plan.”

But Ming had heard whispers from his spies within the Marshall Group that Pax Marshall was pursuing a lucrative contract with the SnowDancer Wolves. That could not be a coincidence.

He was sending a message ordering one of those spies to get him more details when he received a letter with the official Trinity seal. It stated that the entire body of signatories had voted on his application to join. Despite the backroom deals he’d made, that vote hadn’t come down in his favor.

He crushed the letter in his hand. “SnowDancer.”

Ming wasn’t used to being so blatantly blocked from anything: the majority of people were too scared of him to attempt it.

He also wasn’t about to allow the wolves to push him into a situation where he’d lose face in front of the entire world. The emotions didn’t matter to him, but the impact on his power base could be catastrophic. Already, he could visualize the flow-on effect of this single damning rejection, see the missed opportunities, the chipping away at his financial alliances.

Throwing the crumpled-up letter in the trash, he decided that if SnowDancer and its allies wanted a war, they’d get one. Ming was a combat telepath but he was also a master at strategy. No one could beat him on that field of battle. Certainly not wolves driven by a feral desire for vengeance.

“Send me the draft of my proposal,” he said to his aide.

He’d finalize that proposal, then, when the time was right, send it to all parties, including the wolves and the Arrows. He wouldn’t do this by stealth. No, he wanted the world watching and witnessing the fall of Trinity.

Chapter 24

LUCAS HAD ASSIGNED multiple people to tracking down data on the ocelot pack linked to the assault on Sascha and Naya, but it was Dorian who ended up doing most of the heavy lifting.

He’d fractured his leg in the crash, but what neither he nor Jason had let on at the scene, deciding Sascha didn’t need the additional worry, was that he’d also suffered multiple broken ribs and severe bruising to his upper chest. Broken ribs were a general pain in the ass for everyone—even Tamsyn couldn’t totally heal them, so Dorian was off active duty for a couple of weeks.

Tamsyn had also ordered the sentinel to keep the weight off his plascast-covered leg for three of those days. “Or I’ll reverse the healing I’ve already done and you’ll be stuck with a cast for months instead of fourteen days.”

As a result, Dorian took himself and his computer off to Mercy and Riley’s cabin for one of those days. There, according to the message Lucas got from Mercy, the blond sentinel kept her company, made sure Riley didn’t stress out too badly, and researched the hell out of the ocelot pack.

I’m pretty sure he’s hacking things that could get him locked up, Mercy had noted. Watch out for the men in black suits.

It was on the fourth day of his enforced “vacation,” Dorian having spent the rest of the time hunkered down in his own cabin, that he sent Lucas a note: I have a report on the ocelots.

Lucas could’ve requested that report over the comm, but he wanted to check up on the sentinel, see that he was, in fact, following orders and healing properly. Vaughn, Clay, and Emmett—as well as Tammy, of course—had all been in and out of Dorian and Ashaya’s home since he was grounded, had kept Lucas updated, but his panther wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d seen the other man with his own eyes.

Dorian, more than any other dominant in the pack, could be stubborn about injuries. He’d always pushed himself too hard, too fast, an outcome of the fact that he’d for so long been latent, unable to shift into his leopard form. Where others might’ve given in to despair, Dorian had channeled his pain into an unremitting drive to excel. It was why he’d trained as an architect, taken up flying, learned hacking, all while being a crack sniper. Not only to sublimate the pain that came from not being able to shift, but to keep his mind busy so he didn’t go insane.

Lucas’s joy the day he’d discovered Dorian had shifted for the first time had been a raw fury inside him. Today, as the blond sentinel met Lucas in the doorway of his home, Lucas took in his balance on the plascast, then scanned his chest. “How’re your ribs?”

Rubbing lightly on the soft dark gray of his T-shirt, Dorian gave a lopsided grin. “Almost fixed and no, I’m not lying. My mate insists on scanning me every night to check the progress of my healing.”

Since Ashaya was a scientist—and more important, loved Dorian with a furious passion—Lucas nodded. For once, it appeared the sentinel was following orders when it came to his health. “You want to talk inside or out?” Dorian’s architectural skill was reflected in the home he’d built. It was all glass panels covered by greenery and foliage except for cunning clear areas that let in the sunlight, until being inside was like walking in the forest.

Next to Lucas’s own aerie, Dorian’s home was his favorite design in pack territory. But today, his skin was itchy, wanted to be outside. Still, since Dorian was injured and might want to sit in a comfortable spot within, he’d follow the other man’s preference.

But Dorian said, “Definitely out. Look at that sky.”

It was a cauldron of color, the sun in the process of setting.

Dorian looked over his shoulder as he stepped out. “Keen! You want to kick your ball around?”

The answer came immediately. “Yes!”

Dorian’s adopted son ran out seconds behind him, a soccer ball held in his hands. “Hi, Lucas!”

Lifting the six-and-a-half-year-old in his arms, Lucas said, “What’s up, Keenan?”

“I got a gold star at school.” Keenan’s blue-gray eyes sparkled, the dusky brown of his skin glowing from within. “For helping my friend with his adding.”

“Good. You make the pack proud.” Ruffling the boy’s hair, he put him back down on the ground, man and panther both happy to see such open joy in a child who’d been far too solemn when he’d first come into the pack. “I hear you’re having special lessons.” It had become obvious that Keenan was highly gifted, but though normal schoolwork was so easy for him that he was bored, he didn’t want to separate from his year group.

His parents agreed with his choice, as did Lucas. Even a gifted child should have the chance to be a child, to take music and art lessons with his friends, to play games with them during breaks, to participate in group activities where it was more about communication and working together than specific knowledge.

“Children in Silence weren’t allowed friends,” Ashaya had said to Lucas when the question of Keenan’s education came up, her voice thick with emotion. “I don’t want that loneliness for my son, and I’m afraid that’s what’ll happen if he skips grades and ends up far younger than his classmates.”

As a result, DarkRiver had authorized a special education grant that meant Keenan had a teacher’s aide whose task it was to work with him on more advanced lessons while he remained among his usual classmates. When the class did math, Keenan did math, too, just at a more difficult level. When it was time for a sports or music lesson, he took it with his classmates.

Ashaya and Dorian could’ve easily paid for the teacher’s aide themselves, but cubs were considered the responsibility of the pack as a whole, for they were the pack’s heart.

It was an alpha’s honor to ensure they had what they needed to thrive.

“Yes!” Keenan bounced up and down in front of Lucas. “My new teacher’s name is Shonda and she makes my brain hurt.”

Lucas hunkered down to Keenan’s level. “Is that a good thing?”

A determined nod. “I like thinking hard.” He glanced up at Dorian. “Will you watch me kick the ball, Dad? I can get the goal sometimes now.”

As Lucas rose to his feet, he felt more than saw the emotion that crashed through Dorian at the innocent request. Swallowing, the sentinel said, “Lucas and I will watch you while we talk.”

Smile luminous as the sun, Keenan ran off a short distance to the leaf-strewn section in front of the cabin, while Lucas and Dorian leaned up against the trees. “It’s a punch to the heart each time he calls me dad,” the sentinel admitted in a gruff tone. “Right fucking here.” He pressed down on his chest above his heart, as if the organ ached.

“When did he start?”

“After the leg.” Dorian tapped the slightly green-tinged transparent plascast. “He said, ‘Dad, that’s just like the one I had on my arm!’” The sentinel grinned. “He was so excited and it was all so natural. No big deal, you know? Except it is to me.”

Lucas understood. To earn the trust of a child, that was a gift nothing could beat. “I heard from BlackSea,” he said into the emotional quiet. “They’ve narrowed Tanique’s vision of ‘Edward’s Pier’ down to twenty possible locations and are planning to check them out one by one. Of course, that’s if the place is even in Canada.”

Dorian folded his arms. “I feel so fucking helpless.”

“We’re here if BlackSea needs us.” Despite his rational words, Lucas felt the same prowling frustration as Dorian. To be a dominant was to protect. “Miane and her lieutenants have to be going crazy by now.” Leila Savea was only one of BlackSea’s many vanished.

“Yeah.” A long pause. “Reminds me of Kylie. How I held my baby sister in my arms and there was nothing I could do to bring her back to life.”

Memory smashed into Lucas. Of a laughing young packmate whose life had been stolen in a bloody, brutal way. “We made the fucker who hurt her pay,” he said with a growl. “Nothing will ever bring her back, but never forget that we did her memory justice.”

Dorian nodded. “I look at Keenan and I feel this pain deep inside because he’ll never know the funny, loving aunt he would’ve had. I can almost see how she would’ve played with him, how she would’ve taught him to dribble.” Swallowing, he smiled when Keenan kicked a goal. “But I figure she’s around, watching over us. Kylie would do that.”

Ashaya walked out of the cabin before Lucas could answer, two mugs in hand and her feet bare. Her body was clad in a simple orange shift that set off skin a shade darker than her son’s, as well as the arresting blue-gray eyes she shared with Keenan.

“Coffee.” Her smile was sunshine, banishing the dark—and her eyes, they were focused on Dorian, as if she’d sensed the pain that had rippled over her mate’s soul, come out in response to it.

“Thanks, Shaya,” Lucas said, deliberately using Dorian’s pet name for her as a silent tug pulling the sentinel back into the beautiful present. If there was one thing Lucas knew, it was that Kylie would’ve wanted only joy for her adored big brother.

The provocation worked.

Growling low in his throat as he accepted his own mug, Dorian hauled Ashaya to his side, the electric curls of her unbound hair shining with hidden highlights in the sunset light. “Why did you get him coffee?” he grumbled. “Now he’ll never leave.”

Ashaya laughed and kissed Dorian, her fingers lingering on his jaw for a long moment before she turned to face Lucas. “Did you hear Mercy was trying to do pull-ups?”

Lucas almost spit out his coffee on a bark of laughter. “Did she succeed?”

“She told me she was up to seven when Riley made her stop,” Dorian said, his very amused leopard in his eyes. “Can you imagine his face when he walked in?”

It was a priceless visual. “Poor Riley.” Lucas had a good idea what Mercy was up to with her antics—because when a dominant predatory changeling female loved, she loved with every ounce of her being.

“While I was there,” Dorian added, “I got into the swing of things. Pretended my ribs were killing me and I needed all kinds of assistance. I thought Riley was going to strangle me at one point.”

Shaking her head in laughing reproof, Dorian’s scientist mate gently patted his chest just as Keenan called out to her. “I’ll leave you two to talk. I’ve been in the lab all day working on the Human Alliance implant.” Her smile faded at the edges. “It’ll do me good to stretch my legs with our future soccer star.”

Dorian closed his hand over hers, his eyebrows drawing together. “Hold up. What aren’t you saying?”

Ashaya looked over as if to ensure Keenan was happy in his play before replying. “I don’t know for certain yet.” Her voice was troubled. “But . . . I have a very bad feeling the implants are going to start failing in months if not sooner. I don’t mean simply in effectiveness. I mean a degradation that’ll impact the brain.”

Lucas sucked in a quiet breath, all amusement instantly erased. “You’re talking about the same implant that’s in Bo’s head?” he asked, referring to the effective leader of the Human Alliance. “The one that shields his mind against psychic manipulation?” Natural human shields were far weaker than the rock-solid ones possessed by changelings.

Nodding, Ashaya said, “I haven’t shared my concerns with him yet. Amara and I want to be positive beyond any doubt—because the very first group that received the implants? They’re beyond the stage where a surgical removal is safe.”

That group included Bo and his top people.

“I won’t mention it,” Lucas promised as Dorian cuddled Ashaya against him, murmuring things to her that made her nod and whisper back.

“Shit,” Dorian said after Ashaya left to play with Keenan. “If those implants fail, we lose Bo.”

That would be disastrous. While the other man had made bad mistakes in his original interactions with DarkRiver and SnowDancer, he’d proven to be a cool head with whom they could build a relationship. Even more critically, he had the charisma and the passion to reach millions of humans and convince them to believe in the vital importance of uniting under the Alliance banner. Lose Bowen Knight and the Alliance would disintegrate, of that Lucas was convinced. It wasn’t strong enough to survive without him, not yet.

And if they lost the Alliance, Trinity would fall.

The world could not afford for Trinity to fall. The instant it did, the Consortium would sweep in and chaos would reign.

Jaw grim, Lucas said, “Let’s hope Ashaya and Amara disprove their own theory.” It was a very faint hope: together, Ashaya and her twin were the best in the world in their field.

Dorian’s eyes reflected the same bleak knowledge, but he just nodded. “So, the ocelots.” His expression darkened further. “Our old information was out of date. They did use to be a small but strong and stable pack in their region, but they got caught in the insanity that hit the Psy.”

“You’re talking literally?” Lucas’s gut went tight as he remembered the murderous violence that had nearly overwhelmed the Psy race at the start of this year.

“Yeah. SkyElm was—is—based next to a large Psy hamlet. The ocelots have plenty of room to roam but their main pack settlement has always been near the border—just a historical thing no one bothered to change because the two sides kept to themselves.” Glancing over at his mate and son when they laughed, Dorian exhaled.

“But when the Psy started losing their minds because of the shit that was going down in their PsyNet, the pack was caught out.” Dorian drank more of his coffee but didn’t seem to taste it, his mind on whatever it was he’d discovered. “I can’t figure out why the hell the alpha didn’t move his people, since the hamlet outbreak happened after the first major outbreaks in New York.”

At which point, Lucas thought, the entire world knew ordinary Psy had suddenly become deadly neighbors to have. “How many?” he asked quietly. Dorian wouldn’t be this affected if the pack had lost two or three members.

The sentinel’s words were brutal. “There are only seven survivors. From a pack that was ninety-three strong.”

Lucas’s hand clenched so hard around his mug that he almost cracked it. “How is that possible?” The casualty rate was far too high for a predatory changeling pack pitched against the unthinking insane.

“Ocelots were unbalanced.” Dorian’s eyes turned into chips of ice. “SkyElm had too many elders and children, not enough aggressive dominants physically able to defend the pack.”

Claws pushing at his skin, Lucas had to make a conscious effort not to snarl.

He tried not to judge other alphas, but the situation Dorian was describing should’ve never happened. It was an alpha’s responsibility to ensure his pack had a balanced complement of dominants in the prime of their life. Sometimes that meant putting out the call to friendly packs for intrepid young men and women who wanted to take up higher-level positions than they could hope for in their own packs at the same age. Other times, it meant making the tough decision to dissolve the pack by requesting integration with a bigger pack.

“Even if the ocelots had no one they could amalgamate with,” Lucas said, “they could’ve asked for recruits from other feline packs.” Fellow alphas like Lucas would’ve even authorized temporary transfers to support SkyElm until the faltering pack had enough permanent packmates. “Why didn’t they?”

“They did put out the call,” Dorian said, to Lucas’s surprise. “Catch was they only wanted ocelots, no other cats. That’s why we never got a request for help.” A tight shrug. “There aren’t many ocelots in the country and while the other packs are healthy, they’re also small, can’t afford to lose members. But”—Dorian’s clipped tone grew harsh—“they all, each and every one, offered to accept an amalgamation request if it was made. SkyElm said it wasn’t interested.”

That was flat-out arrogance, and it had led to the decimation of almost an entire pack. “The survivors, who’s left?”

“Two of them are children,” Dorian began. “Alive because a submissive grabbed them in the middle of the carnage, threw them in a room, then barricaded himself inside with them, hacking off the hands of anyone who tried to get through.”

Lucas growled in approval. That was exactly what a submissive packmate was meant to do in such circumstances—take any children in his or her vicinity and keep them safe. At least one member of SkyElm knew his duty.

“Only two soldiers,” Dorian continued. “Both were badly injured in the fighting but are now up and walking. The pack healer is alive; she was on the front line, but the alpha pulled her back before she was too badly wounded. One of the only good decisions he seems to have made.”

“The alpha’s alive?”

Expression flat, Dorian nodded. “I spoke to a friend in the area—he says according to a few humans who were trapped in buildings near the Psy enclave/SkyElm border and watched the fighting go down, the pack’s dominants protected the alpha above all others.”

That wasn’t necessarily the wrong move—a dead alpha could collapse a pack’s cohesion, especially if it was a weak pack to begin with. However, in a situation where cubs were being killed, protecting those vulnerable lives should’ve been the dominants’—and the alpha’s—only focus. In DarkRiver, should it ever come down to such a horrible situation, even the most frail elders would take up arms and form a line of defense.

Then Dorian said the most unbelievable thing. “He lost his own cub and mate.”

Blinking, Lucas stared at his sentinel. “How is that possible?” In a battle where Sascha and Naya were under threat, Lucas would fight to the death to protect them. No one would get through him except by tearing him to fucking pieces.

“I don’t think it was on purpose,” Dorian said, though anger vibrated in his voice. “Far as I can piece together, SkyElm left one side of their settlement unprotected, believing the danger to be only on the border.”

A crack of sound, coffee spilling to the forest floor.

“Shit.” Putting the cracked mug on the ground, Dorian shook off the coffee that had spilled on his fingers. “You can figure out the rest.”

Lucas could and it wasn’t pretty. “It doesn’t sound like SkyElm would have the capacity to organize a kidnapping of any kind, much less hire a mercenary group. And why the hell would they want to attack DarkRiver when they could’ve reached out to us for help?”

Lucas would’ve accepted the refugees without question, DarkRiver more than big and stable enough to integrate the seven survivors and provide them any help they needed. While leopard changelings formed the vast majority of DarkRiver, the pack included Psy, human, one jaguar, and several lynx packmates. It was, in fact, the best pack for SkyElm to have approached in the aftermath of the massacre.

Especially since, unlike the alphas of smaller packs, Lucas wouldn’t have worried about a dominance challenge from the SkyElm alpha. He was too strong, had held power too long, and his sentinels were loyal beyond any question.

“Here’s the thing.” Dorian ran his fingers through his hair. “SkyElm was small but they have a couple of patents, courtesy of two elderly packmates who’d invented things and signed over the patents to the pack as a whole. Bastien tracked the money generated by those patents and he says that a month ago, someone transferred two million dollars of it to an offshore bank where the trail goes cold.”

From there, Lucas realized, it could’ve been funneled to the mercenaries. “I need to talk to the SkyElm alpha face-to-face.” No matter his disdain for the other man’s decisions, Lucas wouldn’t judge him guilty of Naya’s attempted kidnapping without firm evidence. The Consortium was too good at setting friend against friend, at creating fractures where none had previously existed.

“You planning to leave DarkRiver territory?” Dorian straightened, his leopard a wild green presence in his eyes. “Luc, you know that’s not a good idea.”

“I can’t ask him to come here, not when he must be all but broken.” The other alpha had lost his pack, his mate, and his child in a single horrifying day. Lucas wouldn’t wish such hell on anyone. “I have to go to him.”

Letters to Nina

From the private diaries of Father Xavier Perez

April 30, 2074

Nina,

The villagers are safe.

The Psy assassins have given up and gone away, and the people we saved know to stay in their hidden new home until things change on a far wider scale.

Today, for the first time since I lost you, since our people were butchered, I felt God in my heart again. And in the ray of dawn sunlight as it touched a child’s peacefully sleeping face, I saw hope.

The Psy soldier with whom I work in the darkness to thwart his fellow assassins shows no one his face, but these villagers know mine, trust mine. I am one of them after all, my skin the same dark shade, my features familiar, my language theirs, my race human.

Now, however, it seems I’m also a rebel in a sense I could’ve never predicted only months earlier. I fight alongside a man I would’ve once murdered for the simple fact he is Psy and it was Psy who so viciously stole everything from me. That shames me and yet I write it here because I want you to know who I’ve become since I lost you. The good and the bad.

Nina . . . I miss you.

Xavier

Chapter 25

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AFTER Dorian told Lucas about SkyElm, Lucas’s sentinels and mate worked together to cover his absence while he moved alone out of the territory. It was the fact that he was on his own that had most worried his people, but a single panther moving alone in the night was a shadow. If he could’ve made the trip overland, there would’ve been zero risk of detection, even from other predatory changelings, but that would’ve taken too long, so Lucas had called on a party he’d never expected to need: Nikita Duncan.

Sascha’s mother owned more than one airline as well as a fleet of private craft. She’d got him on an unlogged flight on a small plane piloted by a man she assured Lucas wouldn’t betray him, even under threat of torture. Sounded good, but Lucas wasn’t about to trust anyone in her employ. Had Dorian not been out of commission, the sentinel would’ve been his pilot of choice. Still, since Nikita considered Lucas integral to Sascha’s continued security, he was probably safe.

Getting into the already-warmed-up and ready-to-go plane on an isolated runway outside the city, he chucked his small pack inside, hauled himself in . . . and recognized the scent of the pilot. “When the fuck did you get a pilot’s license?”

Max Shannon put his arm on the back of his chair and grinned over his white-shirted shoulder, his features a handsome mix of Caucasian and Asian and his black hair neatly cut. The dimple in his left cheek had fascinated Naya the last time Max and Sophie visited DarkRiver territory. Lucas’s cub had kept touching it, as if trying to figure out how it was made.

“Seemed a good skill for a security chief to have,” Max said in answer to Lucas’s question. “Especially when the woman I’m meant to protect is constantly on planes.” He lightly tapped the control panel in front of him. “Preflight check’s done.” The other man began to get up. “I just need to close and lock the door.”

“I’ll do it.” Thanks to Dorian, Lucas was experienced at the process, but he made sure Max had a clear line of sight to his actions. “Pass the pilot test?”

Giving him a thumbs-up, Max angled his head forward. “You want to sit in the copilot chair?”

“Nowhere else,” Lucas said before sliding into the seat. He’d forgotten there were two people in Nikita’s organization he did trust: Max Shannon and his wife Sophia Russo.

Max had helped DarkRiver more than once, plus, since Sascha and Sophia were friends, Max was often in Sascha’s orbit. And Lucas’s empathic and intuitive mate had never once caught anything bad about the ex-cop. Neither had Lucas. Most importantly, the cubs adored Max.

He was one of the good guys.

“You do realize your current taste in employers is inexplicable, right?” Lucas commented after picking up the headset Max pointed out to him.

The other man shrugged and put on his own headset. “Sophie and I live in hope that we’ll drag Nikita over to the side of light.” A sudden grin that once again revealed that dimple in his left cheek.

Linked as the sight was to memories of his cub, it had Lucas’s panther prowling to the surface of his skin.

“It might even happen this century, now that Anthony’s in the picture,” Max said.

Snorting, Lucas nodded at the lights of the control panel. “How long you been flying?”

“Don’t worry. This is my first real flight, but my instructor said it’ll be just like in the simulator.”

“Funny, Shannon. You tell Nikita that one, too?”

“I only tell your mother-in-law knock-knock jokes,” Max responded with a straight face before he began to taxi down the private runway marked by small glowing beacons. “For some reason, she never says ‘who’s there,’ so the whole process comes to a premature end at ‘knock, knock.’ I’m constantly dejected.”

Chuckling, Lucas didn’t speak again until they were in the air after a smooth takeoff, San Francisco a glittering sprawl to their left. “You have the brief?”

Max nodded. “Plan was I stay with the plane, while you prowl off into the dark.”

“Plan was?”

“I’m offering to go with you if you need backup.”

Lucas considered it. Max was as well trained as his own sentinels, and taking him along would have no impact on the security in pack territory. However, his original reasoning for going alone still applied—if this was about stealth, a panther alone stood the best chance of skating under the radar.

There was also another consideration.

“No,” he said to the other man. “I need to know the plane is ready to go the instant I hit the runway. Can’t take the risk of someone sabotaging it.” Lucas couldn’t afford to be away from DarkRiver for long, not given how visible he’d been lately, courtesy of his role with Trinity. Someone would notice his absence. “The man I’m going to see, he’s physically far weaker than I am, so the security issue is minimal.”

“Could be an ambush,” Max said with the grim clarity of a security chief for a woman a lot of people wanted to kill. “You prepared for that? And don’t predatory packs have rules about entry into another’s territory?”

“I’m going over land unclaimed by changelings until I hit SkyElm’s borders.” Warning them of his arrival wasn’t on the agenda. “As for a possible ambush, I’ll see them before they ever spot me.” Being jet-black had significant advantages—advantages Lucas intended to teach his daughter as soon as she got a little older.

Of course, it would make it a devil of a thing to find her when she was being cheeky, but Lucas would rather have that than not teach her skills she could use to protect herself should she ever be trapped alone and far from help. She was fierce, his cub, but while she was small, he would teach her to hide and wait. Hide and wait.

A child panther couldn’t win against adult combatants.

Lucas knew that firsthand.

“Panther in the dark.” Max whistled. “Yeah, okay, good plan. What’re you going to do about clothes when you arrive?”

Lips tugging up, Lucas said, “Humans are so hung up on clothing.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit.” The ex-cop pointed a finger at him. “You’re not going to confront some other man while he’s clothed and you’re not.”

In truth, Lucas would have no problem doing that, especially since he knew his dominance far exceeded that of the ocelot alpha. But, in this case, he likely wouldn’t have to. “Someone always forgets their washing outside. I’ll grab what I need.” If not, he’d do the confrontation in his skin—which, unbeknownst to Max, would probably unnerve the other alpha even more.

Civilized manners, including wearing clothing, came from the human part of a changeling’s nature. Comfort with their bodies, whether furred or the human skin, came from the primal core of their animal. An enemy might be able to negotiate with the civilized half, but the animal reacted on pure, undiluted instinct. And an alpha panther driven by violent protective urges was not a predator anyone wanted to face.

“There’s a duffel back there with some weapons.” Max jerked his thumb to the back of the plane. “I packed them just in case, but I guess you can’t carry anything?”

“No, not without losing my speed and camouflage.” He’d run with a small pack as a panther before, but it changed the sleek lines of his body, made him stand out. “I don’t think this will be that kind of a confrontation.” Because if the ocelots had actually had anything to do with the attack on Naya and weren’t just being set up, they could have no reason to believe they’d been discovered.

Dorian had undertaken his data mining with extreme care, while the people he’d spoken to in the region were all allied with DarkRiver. Two had been born as part of Lucas’s pack, moved out when they mated, still had plenty of family in DarkRiver. The other was a SnowDancer wolf temporarily based in the region while he completed advanced technical training in an unusual specialty.

No, the ocelots had no reason to watch for a panther coming for them.

IT took Lucas two hours to run to SkyElm’s home base after Max landed the plane at a private airstrip that belonged to Nikita. It was hidden in the center of a sprawling spread, the landing strip concealed from casual view by the lay of the land, and even had anyone been curious, the strip was officially used for ranching operations and for the transport needs of the people who ran it.

There were no buildings anywhere within a visual line of sight.

Max had initiated the landing-strip lights by remote control, once he got close enough. The instant he had the plane on the ground and parked, he switched those lights off, plunging the area back into pitch darkness, the moon hidden behind clouds.

The quietness of that strip, however, was nothing compared to the screaming silence that surrounded the ocelot aeries. Though he’d shifted by that point, grabbing a pair of jeans off a line a mile back, Lucas’s steps remained panther quiet, causing not so much as a whisper to fracture the disturbing quiet.

Perhaps the crushing power of it was because he knew that a community meant to house near to a hundred people now held only seven. While, like leopards, ocelots were solitary by nature, this pack had a long history of living in close proximity to one another, probably because of the small size of their pack.

The survivors had to be shell-shocked.

Pushing aside the surge of pity that came from both parts of his nature, he reminded himself that SkyElm could have Consortium help. Even if not, wild ocelots were nocturnal for the most part and that tendency showed up in changelings as well, though to a lesser extent. He couldn’t count on the pack being asleep, even this deep into the night.

Guard up, he took to the trees and stayed high while he made his way toward the only two aeries where he could detect fresh scents rather than the dusty loneliness of homes left uninhabited for months. The first one he reached proved to house the children. He could just see their small bodies through the locked window: both were in ocelot form and curled up tightly together, while an adult male lay on a bed right in front of the aerie door.

Blocking it. Keeping the children safe.

The submissive.

Lucas would readily accept such courage into his own pack.

Aware he was missing the healer, the alpha, and the two soldiers, he took extreme care as he moved on. He had no doubts that he could take on all three of the dominants, but he didn’t want to turn this into a bloodbath when this devastated pack might’ve had nothing to do with the attack on Naya.

Instead of moving on to the other aerie, within which he could now see a soft glow of light, he went dead still and listened. His patience was rewarded ten minutes later. The soldiers were below, running a tight perimeter as they sought to protect the remnants of their broken pack. Those two had to be hurting bad—dominants weren’t supposed to outlive their vulnerable. They were built to fight to the death.

If the ocelot alpha wasn’t careful, he could lose both to their own demons.

Having gained a fix on them, Lucas padded silently along the tree road until he came to a halt directly outside the large open window of the aerie where two people were talking. The window itself offered a view into an empty kitchen, the speakers most likely in the room beyond.

“You have to sleep, Monroe,” a female voice pleaded. “You’ve been up for five days straight except for a few snatches here and there.”

“No, I have to stay awake. Have to protect.” The tone of the male voice was wrong, the words a little off.

Jagged. Broken.

“You’re our alpha.” The woman sounded on the verge of tears. “We need your guidance now more than ever, but the lack of sleep is making you erratic.”

Growls sounded from within, along with the slap of feet moving back and forth across the floor, back and forth.

“Monroe.” The woman, who must have been the healer, tried again. She’d managed to get her incipient tears under control, sounded gentle and coaxing as she said, “I’ve made you a cup of tea. It’ll relax—”

The sound of china crashing to the earth, liquid splashing on wood. “I don’t need any fucking tea!” It was a roar.

Concerned for the healer and aware the two soldiers probably couldn’t hear the commotion from their watch positions, Lucas flowed into the aerie through the window. His eyes had already adapted to the light so he padded through the kitchen straight into the living area. The alpha was looming over his healer, his brown hair streaked with gray and sticking up in tufts and the pale skin of his face blotchy red, his fists clenched.

The healer was a fragile-looking woman, maybe eighty years of age. To her credit, she wasn’t flinching, was in fact still attempting to reason with her alpha.

“Monroe Halliston.” Lucas leaned against a wall, his posture deliberately unthreatening. “We need to talk.”

Spinning around with a snarl, the ocelot alpha came at him like a hurricane. Lucas had expected the violent instinctive reaction, had the other alpha on the floor in seconds, the older man’s wrists locked behind his back. When the healer went as if to cry out for help, he shook his head. “I’ve come to talk,” he said quietly. “You call the soldiers inside and this could end in blood.”

The ebony-skinned woman swallowed, looked at his face, her brown eyes on the lines that had marked him from birth. “Lucas Hunter. DarkRiver.”

Enraged by the sound of those words, Monroe Halliston attempted to flip Lucas off him. Lucas held him in place with increased pressure. “I came to talk,” he reiterated.

“I don’t want to talk to the bastard who helped the Psy murder us!”

Lucas’s blood ran cold.

Making a snap decision, he returned his attention to the healer. “Call your soldiers,” he ordered. “Tell them I’m not here to spill blood, but I will if they don’t both come through the door in the next two minutes.” Lucas had done a full reconnaissance before he approached the aeries, knew there was no threat out there that could prove a danger while the dominants were away from their watch.

“Don’t follow his orders!” the alpha yelled, but the healer seemed to realize Lucas was dead serious.

Running to the door, she called out to the two dominants. They appeared breathless in the doorway within the allotted two minutes, during which time, Monroe raved and ranted. Lucas hauled the other alpha to his feet, but kept his eyes on the soldiers, taking in their ragged condition, the bags under their eyes. “Keep your hands in plain view,” he said in a tone that brooked no disobedience. “I’ve got no fight with you.”

“You’re holding our alpha hostage.” It was a tired statement from the male half of the pair. “We have to act.”

“I’ll incapacitate you in seconds,” Lucas said over Monroe’s screaming at them to intervene. “At which point your remaining packmates, including the cubs, will be helpless.”

The two soldiers looked at Monroe, who continued to demand they fight. Faces growing tight, they stepped back to take up watchful positions by the door, their hands clasped in front of their bodies as per Lucas’s order. Their actions told Lucas this alpha-pack relationship had been all but broken long before Lucas arrived—Monroe’s unthinking orders had simply put the final nail in the coffin.

Holding the other alpha’s wrists in an unbreakable grip, Lucas grabbed a navy blue scarf from the floor. It must’ve been the healer’s. He dragged the alpha into a chair, then used the scarf to tie the other man’s hands to the back of it, so that they could have a face-to-face conversation.

He didn’t think Monroe Halliston was thinking clearly enough to attempt to break his bonds by semi-shifting, but if he did, Lucas would do what he had to do to control the other alpha. “You blame DarkRiver for the deaths of your packmates?”

Eyes now a pale greenish brown with an elongated black pupil, the alpha bared his teeth. “It all began with you!” he yelled. “You and your Psy mate.” He spat on the floor, as if he’d tasted something foul. “Without you, the Psy would’ve remained in their world and we would’ve remained in ours. Safe.”

This wasn’t the time to tell the ocelot male about the rot in the PsyNet and how it had infected Psy minds. The outbreaks of insanity had been inevitable. It was Sascha and other empaths like her who’d stopped the massacres from being even worse. Without the domino effect of Sascha’s defection, those Es might’ve never awoken in time.

“You hired mercenaries to kidnap my child,” he said, a heavy feeling in his gut.

A sly look flitted over Monroe Halliston’s face as the healer lifted a trembling hand to her mouth, while both soldiers visibly blanched. “Prove it.” It was a challenge.

Chapter 26

“DO YOUR PACKMATES know about the two million dollars you transferred into an offshore account in the Caymans?” Lucas asked. “The mercenaries tell us that the full fee was four million.” An irresistible amount. “That second payment would’ve cleaned out your pack’s savings.”

The ocelot alpha curled his lip, but the healer spoke before he could spit out further insults.

“How could you?” It was a shaky whisper. “That money was the only thing we had left to give the cubs. Their parents are gone, their grandparents are gone, their friends are gone! At least with that money, they could have a good life, have choices!”

Baring his teeth at the elderly woman, the alpha said, “Shut up and get out.”

He didn’t seem to notice the reaction of his soldiers, but Lucas did. The two were staring at their alpha not only in shock . . . but also in disgust. The healer was sacrosanct in a healthy pack. No one, no one in Lucas’s pack, would ever get away with insulting Tamsyn. He might disagree with her at times, might even get angry with her on very rare occasions, but even he would never talk to her in that ugly tone.

“No!” The healer’s entire body trembled as she came to stand next to Lucas. “You don’t get to give me orders anymore. I don’t know who you are, but you are not my alpha!”

Hissing and growling, the ocelot alpha attempted to get up, chair and all. Lucas slammed him back down but didn’t speak. Instead, he gave the healer the chance to say whatever else she needed to say.

When Monroe Halliston ignored her to shout, “Get this traitor out of here!” to the two other dominants, they didn’t respond.

The once-alpha had lost them.

As if realizing that at the same time, the older man began to yell. “You’re fools! Don’t you see what he did? He opened the floodgates and we were caught in the flood! Your brothers and sisters and parents would still be alive without him! My mate would still be alive. My son would still be alive!” Another growling snarl. “Why should he get to keep his mongrel child while my son lies dead?”

Lucas’s claws sliced out but he forced his enraged panther into patience. There was more here than met the eye. Monroe was too unstable to have pulled off what he appeared to have pulled off. First of all, according to the conversation Lucas had had with Bastien prior to leaving for Texas, Monroe couldn’t have done the financial maneuvering involved.

“He doesn’t have the skill,” the man in charge of DarkRiver’s financial assets had told Lucas. “The steps it took to move that money from the Caymans’ account without leaving any kind of a trail? It requires years of experience and an in-depth knowledge of banking systems.”

Bastien had thrust a hand through the dark red of his hair, his green eyes sharply intelligent. “To put it another way—you couldn’t do it and you’ve got way more financial expertise than the ocelot alpha. The only person in San Francisco who could is talking to you right now.”

And since Bastien’s level of expertise was in no way common, it was highly improbable that Monroe Halliston had simply hired someone. Especially when Bastien had found zero indications that the ocelot had paid out any money but the two million down payment to the mercenaries. No one that good would work for free.

Unless they had an ulterior motive.

“Mongrel child?” one of the SkyElm soldiers said into the stunned quiet, her voice trembling. “Is that how you think of me, too? My father was human, after all.”

Her former alpha stared at her and when he spoke, he betrayed far more than he intended to. “It would’ve been a lot better for the world if we’d all stayed in our separate corners, human, Psy, and changeling.” The ocelot’s tone was broken rock, harsh and grinding. “This so-called Trinity Accord, it’ll just lead to more death, more destruction.” Volume increasing, he said, “The smartest people have already realized it. They’re working to get us back to where we should’ve been from the start!”

That sounded very much like it could be Consortium rhetoric, but Lucas wasn’t about to rely on guesswork. Before he could speak, however, the male soldier said, “Those aren’t your words.” A steady tone but one that demanded attention. “Who did you betray us with?”

Monroe jerked. “I didn’t betray this pack!” His voice shook with the force of his passion and resolve. “Everything I’ve done was for you!”

“Oh?” the soldier asked. “What were you intending to do with the DarkRiver cub? Murder her in vengeance?”

The man who’d once been alpha to these people suddenly paled, as if realizing how far he’d gone. “Of course not,” he whispered. “I don’t murder children.”

“So where was she supposed to go?” the soldier insisted. “Did you expect us to take you at your word and accept her as falling out of the sky, never mind that DarkRiver would’ve ripped apart the world searching for her?”

The sarcastic question made Monroe Halliston snap. Wrenching at his bonds, he said, “My friends made preparations for the child to be shipped out to Australia!”

“What friends?” the healer asked.

“I never knew their names.”

“You trusted anonymous strangers?”

“Strangers who saw the truth, who wanted to help us get vengeance.” A smile meant to intimidate. “The ship was ready and waiting in San Francisco Port. That was the genius of it—our enemies would’ve been scrabbling to find clues and all the while, the child would’ve been locked up in a boat in their own territory.”

“You’re a fool if you think that would’ve worked,” Lucas said quietly, though his blood was raging. He didn’t need more from this pathetic excuse for an alpha. Luca’s people were more than good enough to find the ship in question, given the relative scarcity of vessels bound for Australia that used San Francisco Port. “Do you really think a single ship, plane, or car would’ve been allowed to depart San Francisco had Naya been taken?”

“You don’t have that much power.”

Lucas shrugged. “We have enough.” And they had friends, including a woman who had the authority to ground entire fleets of planes, and an ally who controlled vast areas of the sea, but he wasn’t about to share those details with this man who was about to die. “Go,” he said to the soldiers and the healer. “You know there can be only one outcome here.”

Had Monroe Halliston been mentally ill, with no awareness of right or wrong, Lucas would’ve swallowed his rage and forced himself to show mercy, but grief alone wasn’t an acceptable excuse for what this man had almost done. He had taken actions that could’ve led to the murder of Lucas’s mate with her warm, empathic heart and smile that was his world, and the abduction of his barely one-year-old cub. Naya’s fear would’ve been a traumatizing wound carried forever in her heart, as Lucas carried the scars of his parents’ deaths.

No, he could not, would not forgive such a crime. The world had to understand that DarkRiver protected its own and that to come after anyone under Lucas Hunter’s protection was to sign your death warrant. Yes, he could act civilized, but he remained a panther under the skin.

At the door, the SkyElm dominants came to attention. “We’ll stay, bear witness,” the female soldier said in a quiet voice.

Her partner nodded.

Accepting their right to remain, Lucas glanced at the healer. “Go,” he repeated in a gentler tone. “You don’t need to see this.”

The woman was sobbing, but she didn’t argue with him.

Waiting only until she’d left, Lucas looked down into the face of the man who’d betrayed his own pack in a selfish desire for vengeance. “Changeling law is clear. You sent outsiders into my territory. Those outsiders had orders to take my child, even if that meant killing my mate. The penalty is death.”

The air around Monroe began to shimmer, as if he’d finally figured out he could shift and escape his bonds.

Lucas didn’t hesitate.

His claws sliced through Monroe’s carotid and jugular in the split second before the shift took hold.

“HE was good once,” the healer whispered to Lucas while the two of them stood below the aeries, waiting for the soldiers to return.

They’d gone to bury the man who’d once been their alpha, giving him that much at least, even if they could no longer give him their respect.

“Arrogance became a way of life for him well before the Psy attack.” The healer hugged herself. “I could see it settling in, tried to counsel him, but he would never listen. He always knew best.” She swallowed. “Even his sentinels couldn’t get him to pay attention, see what he was doing to the pack.”

“Then they should’ve walked away.” A pitiless answer, but that was how a pack was supposed to function—an alpha had no automatic right to the loyalty of his strongest men and women. He earned it. If he didn’t have that loyalty, he didn’t have the right to be alpha.

“Yes.” The healer sighed. “I think they stayed because we had so many elders and children and . . . because of inertia.” Her hand trembled as she wiped away the remnants of her tears. “The money cursed us in a way. It made it easier to stay with the pack than to strike out and find a new life.”

Lucas tried to be charitable toward the dead, but the truth was that their choices had helped doom the pack as much as Monroe’s mismanagement.

“But don’t blame those two,” the healer whispered urgently as SkyElm’s sole surviving dominants reappeared in the distance. “They wanted to roam and explore, were held back by our lack of dominants. And they’re babies for all the responsibility they’d taken up.”

Lucas had already figured that out—these two couldn’t be older than twenty-two, twenty-three. In DarkRiver, they’d be junior soldiers at most.

Waiting for the two to reach him, he said, “It’s done?”

They snapped to attention. “Yes, sir,” the female said.

“We didn’t place a marker,” the male added defiantly. “He doesn’t deserve that.”

A pause followed . . . before the healer seemed to realize she was now the highest-ranking member of SkyElm. “I don’t know what to do,” she said bluntly. “I don’t know if another ocelot pack will take us—they’re all so small, and we’d come with only two soldiers as opposed to four people who need protecting.”

“I think you’re selling your submissive packmate short.” Lucas had silently checked the other aerie after cleaning up the blood on his body, discovered the submissive had armed himself with knives and was waiting behind the door. “Call him down. All the adults need to be here.” And the survivors of this pack needed to learn to forget bad habits starting right now.

Submissives in DarkRiver were treated as equal packmates, simply those with a different skill set and strength. Never would they be excluded from such decisions.

Only when all four adults surrounded him did Lucas say, “Did any of you know what Monroe was up to?”

They all shook their heads, the submissive having been briefed on what had happened. Lucas picked up no signs of deception. He’d already been certain about the soldiers and the healer. Now, having just seen an example of how this pack had thought of its nondominant members, he realized the submissive was the last person Monroe would’ve trusted with any plot.

“I’m extending an invitation for you to join DarkRiver.”

Relief crashed over their faces, too powerful to be hidden. Changelings who weren’t loners by choice were lost and broken without a pack.

“But,” he said before anyone could speak, “we function very differently from SkyElm. You’ll have to learn our rules and abide by them.” He pointed at the soldiers. “You two will be demoted to what your rank should be, given your age and skills.”

Both nodded so quickly that Lucas realized neither wanted to be in a position they couldn’t handle. Intelligent then. Good.

“I already have a senior healer,” he said to the oldest member of SkyElm. “But she’d welcome help.” Lucas’s pack was growing day by day; there was plenty of room for another pair of healing hands.

“I know Tamsyn,” the other woman said with a smile that lit up the weathered lines of her face. “She’s brilliant and far more suited to a strong pack like DarkRiver than I’d ever be. And . . . I’m tired.” Sad, too, her expression told. “I’ll be happy to assist her where I can and to care for our orphaned cubs the rest of the time.”

“Those cubs will need parental figures.” Lucas included both the healer and the submissive in his next statement. “Do you want that responsibility?”

“Yes.” The submissive’s voice was firm, though he didn’t have the dominance to meet Lucas’s eyes. “The less disruption to their lives, the better—they’ve barely started speaking again after the trauma.”

Lucas nodded. “I’m leaving tonight. Pack up what you need and be ready to leave here in forty-eight hours.” He’d send a team to secure the aeries, put anything his new packmates didn’t need into storage.

By changeling law, the land itself would be forfeit if SkyElm had occupied it through historical rights. By general law, humans and Psy were locked out from claiming such vacated land, but it would be available for a changeling pack to claim, so long as they could defend it. If, however, SkyElm had purchased the land, then Lucas would make the decision as to what happened to it. These people were now his responsibility and that included taking care of their financial legacy.

“Can we leave tomorrow?” one of the soldiers blurted out. “It won’t take long to pack what we need and the rest we can come back for at a later time.”

Looking around, Lucas saw no disagreement on the faces of the other ocelots. There was too much pain here, he realized, too much loss. They needed to escape. “I’ll organize it.” He slashed a claw down one side of the male dominant’s face, did the same to the female dominant.

Neither flinched.

Lucas then touched the submissive’s cheek with his palm and pressed a kiss to the healer’s forehead. “Welcome to DarkRiver.”

The submissive began crying, his shoulders shaking with the force of his sobs.

Lucas embraced him, holding the other man until he no longer needed the touch, until his animal understood and accepted that it no longer had to carry this unbearable weight alone. He had an alpha he could rely on.

“The children,” Lucas said in a gentle reminder when the ocelot male could finally breathe again.

Nodding jerkily, his new packmate left, to return with a boy of about seven and a girl who looked at least a year younger.

So young.

And so scared.

Hunkering down in front of them, Lucas simply opened his arms. They came instinctively to him, knowing from the stances of their packmates that he was safe . . . and feeling his strength. From the way they clung to him, they needed that strength as badly as the courageous man who’d watched over them until this instant.

Lucas squeezed both children tight, rising to his feet with them still in his arms. “You’ll be coming home with me,” he murmured and knew he couldn’t leave tonight.

To do so would be to break their fragile hearts.

So be it. He’d figure out a way to adjust his plans.

LESS than twelve hours later, DarkRiver had six new members, no one had noticed Lucas’s absence, and Vasic Zen had agreed to teleport Naya to visit her maternal grandmother in the coming week.

“As long as I’m not needed for an emergency,” the Arrow said, “you can contact me when you’ve set up the meet and I’ll do the teleport.” Icy gray eyes holding Lucas’s. “You’re sure you want your mate and child within the territory of one of the most dangerous women in the world?”

“Nikita knows not to cross me.” Lucas didn’t have the emotional connection to Nikita that Sascha did, would eliminate her without hesitation should she prove a threat. “Has the squad heard from BlackSea? Any progress on locating Leila Savea?” It had been well over a week since Tanique Gray’s psychometric vision.

Vasic shook his head. “Nothing.” A glance at the small jade clock on Lucas’s desk. “I’d better head home. Ivy’s planning a special dinner for Grandfather for his birthday.”

“Ashaya mentioned it was today.” The scientist deeply respected Zie Zen, and to Keenan, the elder was his grandfather, too. “She said Keenan made him a gift.”

Vasic’s smile was slight, but for an Arrow, that equaled a giant grin. “It’s a portrait of Grandfather done in rainbow colors that he has solemnly promised to place in his study—I teleported him to visit with Ashaya and her family earlier today.”

That promise, Lucas thought, said a great deal about Zie Zen. A powerful man who’d surely made many ruthless decisions in his long lifetime, he’d nonetheless not lost his soul. “Please give him DarkRiver’s best wishes. We will always be in his debt.” Without Zie Zen, Ashaya would’ve never escaped the Psy Council’s clutches, and without Ashaya, Dorian might still be furiously angry at the world, his leopard trapped in a clawing scream inside his body.

That, however, was simply the most obvious example of how Zie Zen had influenced the pack in a positive way. Lucas knew the Psy elder had his fingers in many other pies and, like Nikita, he protected those who were his own. In this case, that included DarkRiver, since Keenan and Ashaya called the pack home.

“I will,” Vasic promised before teleporting out.

Alone, Lucas turned to his desk and slid his computer screen back into the body of his desk. He’d only arrived home at close to one this afternoon, wouldn’t have minded a few hours’ rest, but he’d come into the office instead so people could see he was in the territory. Once here, he’d spent the time wisely and cleared a backlog of tasks that fell to him as the head of DarkRiver’s business enterprises. Not everything, however—that would take another three hours at least.

Walking out to where his admin sat at her own desk, he said, “You going to shoot me if I head out?” He could finish up tomorrow morning, but he needed to know if there was something urgent he’d overlooked.

Ria rolled her eyes. “Like I could stop you.”

Grinning, Lucas tapped her on the nose. “We all know you’re the boss of this office.” Ria might be human but she was one of the strongest members of the pack, her status in the hierarchy that of a senior maternal dominant.

Now, her scowl was thunderous. “Tap me on the nose again like I’m a cub and I’ll break your hand.”

“Boss of the office,” he reiterated before ducking back inside his own space to grab his leather-synth jacket. He’d borrowed Vaughn’s jetcycle, and at those speeds, even a panther felt the chill. Shrugging into the jacket, he walked back out to Ria. “I heard Mialin caught a cold.”

Her face softened. “Only a sniffle. Emmett’s got her with him today.” Eyebrows drawing suddenly together over the silky brown of her eyes, she said, “How do you even know that? She just developed it this morning.”

“You might be the boss of the office,” he said as he zipped up the jacket, “but I’m the alpha of DarkRiver.” Every packmate was his responsibility, especially the littlest of them all. “Tamsyn had a look at her?”

Nodding, Ria got up to give him an unexpected hug, the scent of her small, curvy body deeply familiar to his panther. “You’re a good alpha, Luc.”

The out-of-the-blue words hit him hard after what he’d seen in SkyElm.

He wrapped his arms around her, held her close. “Thanks, Ri-ri.”

Elbowing him for using her endearing family nickname, she released him to go over to one corner of the office. “Don’t forget your helmet or Sascha will brain you.”

Lucas accepted the gleaming black thing. “I’ll be at Dorian’s, then home if you need me.”

His light mood only lasted until he hit the road out of town, his face turning grim inside the helmet. Because he wasn’t just swinging by to see how Dorian was healing. The sentinel might be off active duty, but he remained one of Lucas’s most trusted people. And as of last night, he had a new task: to find the ship that had been meant to take Lucas and Sascha’s cub from San Francisco to Australia.