Branded by Fire

CHAPTER 14

Mercy spun around to find Riley amber eyed and cold in a way that told her he wasn’t thinking about anything but blood. “Riley.”

He didn’t look at her. “Who are they?”

The two men opposite her had gone hunting-quiet at his approach, and now she felt the promise of violence lick the air. “Why is this wolf near your home?” Eduardo asked, his leopard crawling in the menace of his voice.

“Quiet,” she ordered, turning to the newcomers with furious eyes. “He has a right to be here. You’re the interlopers so shut it.”

Eduardo blinked as if he’d never had someone speak to him in that tone. Beside him, Joaquin retracted his claws, but she wasn’t fooled. These men were sentinels. They could go attack-ready in a split second. But then, so could she. “Stay here.” Stepping away from the porch, she headed toward Riley.

He still didn’t take his eyes off the men. Snarling, she pushed him in the chest. His head snapped toward her. “Who are they?” he asked again in that cold wolf voice.

“Sentinels from my grandmother’s pack,” she said, livid at all three men, but mostly at Riley. She wasn’t a bone to be fought over. He had no right to act territorial—she hadn’t given him that right. “And I thought I told you to head back.”

“I’m not leaving you alone with strangers.” Quiet. Implacable.

Her temper rose. “We just had this conversation, Riley.”

He didn’t answer, his amber gaze shifting over her shoulder. “Why are they here?”

“Mercy’s grandmother,” Eduardo said from the porch, “thought she might have . . . chemistry with one of us.”

Mercy decided she’d have to shoot Eduardo. That pause had been calculated, the innuendo unmistakable. Damn cat was enjoying this. And she could all but sense Riley’s beast pounding against his skin, ready to savage and kill. “Out,” she said, pointing her finger first at Eduardo, then at Joaquin. “You come near my home again without permission, I’ll show you exactly why my grandmother calls me her favorite grand-daughter.”

To their credit, neither man turned noticeably green. But they did come down off her porch. “I’m not leaving you alone with a wolf.” Eduardo again. Acting as if he held authority over her.

Mercy had had it. She moved without warning, spinning her clawed hand out toward the other sentinel’s throat. He shifted back . . . but not fast enough to escape the graze across his throat. As he swore, his friend grinned and said something in Portuguese that he probably thought Mercy couldn’t understand. But she’d spent time roaming in their homeland.

Now she retracted her claws and said, “Joaquin is right. You asked for that one.” She raised an eyebrow when they didn’t move. “Why are you still here?”

Surprisingly, it was the quiet one who answered. “We like the night air.” His eyes were on Riley . . . who’d stepped closer, until only Mercy separated the three men.

They weren’t going to listen.

Fuck.

Tempted to leave them to it, she glanced at Riley, saw his rage in the iron-hard line of his jaw, and felt her heart give a jagged beat. He was at the edge of his control after everything that had happened today—if she left him alone with these two, somebody would get seriously damaged. “You like the night air?” She smiled, sweet as pie. “In that case, let’s go for a run.”

Wolf and leopard both looked at her like she was insane.

“What? Don’t think you can keep up with me? You’re probably right.” With that, she walked into the forest and took off, hoping the gamble would work. It did. All three followed her, the protectiveness built into their nature winning out over the possessiveness. Not that she needed protecting. Never had. Never would.

And the fact that Riley didn’t understand that more than irritated her. But in a tiny, secret corner, she was surprised to find a hint of pleasure. The wolf saw her as a woman, something men were often too blinded by her status to notice. Too bad Kincaid couldn’t compartmentalize—what she’d accept from a lover, she’d never accept from an ally who was supposed to be her partner.

Now she took them on one hell of a chase. All were fast. But Riley knew this land like the back of his hand. Quickly outstripping Eduardo and Joaquin, he tracked her to a spot leading away from her house and toward the Sierra. She kept up the run even when he came up beside her.

“Stop,” he said, putting a hand on her arm.

She shook it off. “If I have to escort you home, then that’s what I’ll do. A SnowDancer lieutenant is not going to be injured on my watch on DarkRiver land.”

“This isn’t about the alliance.” The wolf was riding him so hard, she could scarcely understand the words.

“Yeah, it’s about you acting stupid.”

“Mercy, damn it. Stop.” Riley swung around to block her path. “You’re tired and bruised from today. You need to be in a bath.” It agitated the wolf that she was tiring herself even further when she should’ve been resting.

She halted, raised an eyebrow. “I know that. What do you think I planned to do before you three started pounding your chests?”

His vision glazed over at the mention of the other men. “They’re here to make a claim on you.”

“No one can make a claim on me that I don’t allow. And if you don’t know that by now, there’s no point in this conversation.”

He heard something in that statement, a cool finality that told him he could lose her right this moment. Pulling on every ounce of self-control he had, he reined in the wolf and said, “Let me escort you back home. I’ll leave straight after.”

“No.” A flat refusal, but her eyes were full of fire. “I’ll get myself home, and if necessary, I’ll kick Eduardo and Joaquin’s butts.”

Riley felt the wolf buck at the reins at the mention of those names but he held on to his humanity. “They won’t catch you. You move like lightning and this is your territory.”

“Good answer.” But she stayed out of reach. “Are you going to leave for the den?”

He wanted to stalk those two unknown leopards, make sure they knew he’d marked her, taken her. But that, he realized, would end any and all chance he had with the woman he wanted more than his next breath. Biting back a growl, he shifted into wolf form and stared at her.

She came down on her haunches and touched him at last, an intrinsically female stroke through his fur. “Go.”

Fighting the violent natural urges of man and wolf both, he did as she asked.

Mercy knew exactly how much it had cost Riley to do what he’d done. Yet he had. For her. It shattered another barrier inside of her, made her wonder if perhaps they could do this, become lovers, without it destroying the working relationship between them—a relationship that was vital to the DarkRiver-SnowDancer alliance. They were sentinel and lieutenant, there was no getting away from that. Every one of their actions had the potential to rebound onto their packs.

She felt her phone vibrate as she walked in through her back door, having evaded both Eduardo and Joaquin. The caller ID told her it was her grandmother. Realizing she better not answer it in her current mood, she had a quick meal, then stripped and walked into the shower. The bath would have to wait. She wanted sleep.

But her rest was broken. She was worried about Nash . . . and, if she was honest, about her inability to stay away from Riley. She’d been truthful earlier when she’d told him she was touching him because he needed it. But that wasn’t the whole story.

She’d needed it, too.

Those dark eyes that were too often solemn, that beautiful, thick hair, that stubborn male body, it all drew her. Solid, Riley was solid. His abdomen was hard enough to bounce quarters off, his thighs firmly muscled. Bitably muscled. But he was in no way slow—though he was very good at pretending to be. As Eduardo and Joaquin had discovered, Riley could move wicked fast when he wanted to.

He could also move with leisurely patience when inside a woman.

Her entire body sighed, wanting more, wanting him. And only him.

But powerful though the attraction was, she could deal. She was a woman at home with her needs—and it wasn’t as if he didn’t want her back. No, it wasn’t the physical stuff that worried her. It was the other things that were beginning to be woven into the physical.

Like the tenderness she’d felt today.

She should’ve berated him for going all crazy because she’d gotten a little scratched up, but no, she’d stroked him instead. Because when she’d seen that glint of glass in his hair, her heart had skipped a beat. Irrational worry. But worry.

And later, when she should’ve left him to fight it out with Eduardo and Joaquin, what had she done? She made sure he left without any bloodshed. Part of it she could blame on a sentinel’s duties—he was a SnowDancer lieutenant, and if he was attacked by guests of DarkRiver, it would shake the foundations of the alliance. But the rest . . . in spite of her anger at his unearned possessiveness, she hadn’t wanted him hurt. Of course, she thought, kicking off the covers, in the mood he’d been in, he’d probably have made mincemeat of the other two.

She had to . . . Sleep finally crept over her in a stealthy wave, her dreams hot and dark.

Riley ran himself to exhaustion, but he dreamed, too. They weren’t good dreams.

He was late. Always too late. Willow’s broken body lay in a shallow grave, and he couldn’t even pick her up, couldn’t even hold her close.

Her eyes snapped open but they weren’t her eyes. Only one person had such unique eyes—and that’s when he saw it was Brenna in that grave, being buried alive. Her hands reached for him, but he was locked in place, unable to move as his sister screamed.

Until the dirt covered her face, filled in her mouth, stilled her hands.

Riley jerked upright with a scream of anguish stuck in his throat. His first instinct was to check that Brenna was okay, but it was two thirty in the morning. And there was no way he wanted her aware of the demons that continued to haunt him, night after endless night.

Shoving back the sweat-damp hair on his forehead, he got up, knowing he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. Instead, he took a shower and dressed.

It didn’t take long.

There were so many night hours left to go.

When he began to head down to the garage, he told himself to stop, but his feet kept moving forward. Grabbing the four-wheel drive closest to the exit, he drove through the pitch black of night in the Sierra and onto DarkRiver land. Normally he loved the night, the beauty and the peace of it. But tonight, the darkness haunted him, reverberating with a thousand echoes of nightmare.

Fighting those insidious whispers, he kept his focus strictly on his destination. And then he’d arrived. Mercy’s vehicle was there in its spot. Something in him relaxed. Parking next to it, he exited into a world cloaked in the opaque hush of a moonless night. It was instinct to go to her cabin and sit on the steps. His wolf was still agitated, but here, he could think. Blowing out a breath, he decided to simply wait for dawn. For Mercy.

That was when the door opened. “Riley?”

Of course she’d known he was there—she was a sentinel. And in some part of his soul, he’d counted on that. “Don’t ask me any questions tonight, Mercy.” He didn’t look at her, feeling vulnerable in a way that panicked his wolf.

“All right.” Soft footsteps. “But would you like to come inside?”

Wary of her agreement, but needing . . . something, he walked in. She took his hand, her golden eyes luminous in the dark. “Come on, wolf.”

He let her lead him to the bedroom.

“Boots off,” she said, and crawled beneath the blanket.

Sitting on a chair near the vanity, he took off his footwear and just watched her, not sure he could do this. She’d given her word so she’d ask no questions, but she’d know, she’d see too deep, to things he kept hidden because they shamed him so utterly.

“No questions,” she said again after an endless moment, and lifted up the edge of the blanket.

Man and wolf both hungered for the simple beauty of her touch. He had no power, no will, to resist. Standing, he crossed the carpet to slide into bed beside her, fully dressed. And when her arms came around him, when her fingers stroked into his hair, he buried his face in the curve of her neck and let the unexpected tenderness heal the wounds of the night.

Sometime before dawn, he slept.

Mercy woke to the knowledge that she was wrapped around Riley like ivy, her face against his chest, her legs tangled with his, her hands under the T-shirt he was wearing beneath a khaki shirt. The blanket had been kicked off but she was toasty warm, he generated such luscious heat. Her cat purred, wanting to stay like this all day.

So when the phone rang, she had a hard time extricating herself so she could grab it before he did. She succeeded only because the wolf was half-asleep.

“We had contact from the kidnapper,” Lucas said. “He wants a meet.”

She snapped upright. “It’s mine.”

“It’s yours,” Lucas agreed and gave her the details. “I’ll call Hawke, have some wolves meet you there.”

She decided not to mention she had one wolf right in front of her. Closing the phone, she ran her fingers over his stubbled jaw. “Time to move, Kincaid.”

No words, but his muscles grew painfully rigid under her hands.

He only relaxed half an hour later, when she continued to keep her promise to ask no questions. She didn’t have to. She knew what haunted this powerful, proud male, though he’d never spoken of it, never even acknowledged it. And yet when the demons had become too bad, he’d come to her.

It changed things, but that was something they didn’t have the time to discuss. Not while Nash remained a hostage.

The kidnapper was waiting for them in the shadowy depths of a half-demolished building on the outskirts of San Francisco. Early morning light whispered over the site, but somehow failed to soften the harsh lines of plascrete and metal.

Everything about the place set Mercy’s hackles to rising.

Her eyes scanned the black plastic that floated where the windows should’ve been, giving the building even more of a sinister cast. Neither side of her liked the place, but it mattered little. She went in first . . . after a furious argument with a Riley who was back to his usual infuriating self.

“Human males underestimate females,” she said, “even more than stupid changeling men.”

“He could have a gun.”

“I’m wearing a bulletproof vest.” She touched the lightweight fabric. “You go in, you’re so mad you might tear off his face before he tells us anything,”

Riley’s hand closed over her upper arm, dark eyes ringed with amber. “He deserves to have his face torn off.”

“That won’t tell us where Nash is, will it?” She gritted her teeth. “We haven’t scented him anywhere near this building. If you kill this guy, we’re back to square one.”

“I don’t like you going in there alone.”

“There’re ten of you out here! You’ll only be a couple of seconds behind me. How is that going in alone?” She was nose to nose with him by now.

Someone cleared their throat.

Riley’s growl scared them off. “Don’t pull any shit because you want to show off.”

“Wait a second.” She looked down then back up. “Nope, I haven’t grown a cock in the last few minutes. I have no need to prove whose is bigger.”

He leaned forward and bit her lip. Hard enough to sting. She’d have kneed him, but she needed his mangy wolf ass covering hers. “Happy now?” she muttered, wondering if anyone hadn’t seen that blatant display of ownership. She and Riley were going to have a long talk after this was over.

“No. I won’t be happy until I have you over my lap.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Try it and we’ll see who still has his balls.”

Two minutes later, she walked into the dim room in one corner of the building, the windows half covered by old curtains rather than the ubiquitous black plastic. Some light crept in, but it was dull, as if the room swallowed all energy—the kidnapper had clearly chosen the location for that very reason. His skin shimmered with darkness, and he used the shadows to turn himself into an uncertain silhouette. But she was a cat, her vision acute. She saw his height, the way he held himself, and knew this man could draw blood with a single sharp move.

“I’m armed but I have no intention of attacking,” were his first words.

Mercy kept her hands in sight, too. “Excuse me if I don’t take your word on it.” His English was flawless, she thought, his accent too clean.

“Touché.” That word fell far more naturally from his lips. “My name is Bowen.” A flash of perfect white teeth. “Bo’s what folks call me most of the time.”

“Careless of you to lose your identity bracelet.”

“The lynx was stronger than we thought.” Another smile. “Can I have it back?”

Charming, she thought. And he used his charm like a weapon. “We’re not here to be friends. Where’s Nash and what do you want in exchange for him?”