Branded by Fire

CHAPTER 21

Mercy’s brothers had picked a little place in Chinatown for dinner. She walked in to find them arguing over the menu. Grinning, she messed up Sage’s hair, kissed Grey on the cheek, and let Bastien grab her in a hug that lifted her off her feet. All her brothers were strong men, but Bastien, the closest to her in age, was the biggest.

“Not if you want to live,” she said, after he laughingly threatened to throw her into the air. She saw the pretty waitresses give her envious looks—though it was obvious she was related to Bas. He had hair as darkly red as her own, though his eyes were a sharp, incredible green. Her brothers were all gorgeous on their own, but collectively, they made temperatures rise like nobody’s business. She’d spent half her teen years scaring off the girls who’d come sniffing after one or the other. Not that the idiots had been grateful.

“You look good, sis.” Putting her on her feet after another squeeze, Bas let her get into her seat.

“Yeah, nice dress.” Grey actually sounded sincere.

Mercy looked down at the short, royal blue cheongsam she’d bought in this very part of town. With her hair pulled up into a high ponytail and some makeup on her face, she felt good. Even if the knife-edge of need continued to twist relentlessly in her stomach, immune to the practicality with which she’d held Riley at bay this afternoon. “Thanks, Shadow.”

“How come he gets a cool nickname?” Sage muttered. “I get Herb.”

“Hey, don’t knock it,” Bas said. “You want to be called Frenchie instead? Sounds like the name of a fucking condom.”

They all choked on their oolong tea and one of the waitresses fluttered over, ready to offer all kinds of help. She saw her brothers check out the petite beauty—men—but though they gave her charming grins, they didn’t extend an invitation. Clearly disappointed, she took the order they finally put together, and headed off.

“What?” Mercy looked around the table. “You guys take up a vow of celibacy?”

“Now that you ask,” Grey murmured, brown eyes twinkling.

“Hah.” She snorted. Grey might be the quietest, but he was also the most cunningly feline. “I’ll believe that the day I”—Normally, she’d have said “sleep with a wolf” but since that option was out, she settled for—“grow wings and fly.”

Bas put a hand on her back, as if checking for wings. “This stuff is really soft.”

Sage, next to her, fingered the sleeve. “Yeah, it is. How come we rate getting you in a soft, pretty dress?”

“How come I rate the three of you all shiny and spic-and-span?” She raised an eyebrow at their outfits. Jeans, shirts, and T-shirts, nothing out of the ordinary. But all new, or clean and pressed, much nicer than necessary for dinner with their sister.

“We thought we’d go dancing.” Grey winked. “You’re coming.”

“I am?”

“Yes. We need you as bait to draw the other women.”

And since Mercy was a sucker for her brothers when the three of them ganged up on her, she went dancing with the demons. The serving staff at the restaurant looked so mournful as they left that she wrapped an arm around Bas’s waist and shook her head. “I don’t think the three of you should be allowed out in public together.”

He swung his own arm over her shoulders. “And I just know I’m going to have to punch someone for trying to paw you in that dress.” He sounded very eager.

She didn’t remind him that she was fully capable of punching out people on her own. Bas was her brother—he couldn’t help protecting her. As Riley couldn’t help it. It was like a switch went off in them at times. Mercy could bend when necessary, she wasn’t always a hard-ass. Bas had in fact, punched out people for her. She could deal.

The problem with Riley was, he didn’t seem to have any give in him. She didn’t want her only glimpses into his soul to be after the crushing darkness of nightmare. For her cat to trust him, he needed to trus—

“Hey.” Bas squeezed her shoulder. “Where did you go?”

She glanced ahead to where Grey and Sage were strolling, checking out the window displays in the adjacent shops. “I’m dealing with stuff.”

A silky pause. “What’s his name?”

“As if I’d tell you.”

“You chased off my last girlfriend.”

“She was a hyena.” Not literally, but in heart. “Wanted you for your money.” Bas was smart, crazy smart. He made money on the stock market simply by breathing. Which was why he was in charge of DarkRiver’s financial assets.

“My ego bleeds.” A hand rubbing pitifully over his chest.

“We’re going to be wiping up blood for weeks, it’s so colossal.”

He hugged her closer. “Come on, you can tell me. It’ll be our secret.”

“And you’ll go hunting him the second I’m distracted. I don’t think so.” But she hugged him back. “So, no new hyena for me to chase off?”

“I’m still healing the scars from the last one.” A piercing look. “I know who it is.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Riley.”

Her mouth fell open. She looked up. “What?”

“Jesus.” He stopped walking. “It was a guess, but I’m right. You’re . . . they’re . . . he’s a wolf!”

She snapped around to make sure the other two hadn’t heard. “How did you even make that guess?”

He thrust a hand through his hair, almost making a woman on the other side of the street trip, she was looking at him so hard. “Only dominant male I could think of that you’d been reacting to lately. You bitch about him a lot.”

She glanced again at her two younger brothers, currently distracted by a display of lanterns. “Don’t tell them.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because you know they’ll do something stupid.”

“So will I.” He jerked his head and they started walking again. “I might not be a sentinel, but I’m your brother. And I know how to kick wolf ass.”

“Bas.”

“Don’t ‘Bas’ me. You might be able to control Grey and Sage but don’t even try it with me.”

She glared at him. “This is my business.” She trusted Riley not to hurt her brothers, but a lot could go wrong when men got stupid—especially when those men had claws and teeth meant for hunting prey.

“Should’ve thought of that before you told my ex-girlfriend I eat live kittens for breakfast.”

A tiny twinge of guilt. Then the cat wondered what Riley would think of her last successful “shoo-away.” “Who knew she’d believe me?”

“Oh no? When you ‘accidentally’ opened the cupboard to expose my ‘kitten cage’ full of the poor, sad kitties I was going to snack on?” A raised eyebrow. “Wasn’t the cage next to my special ‘kitten defurring’ tools?”

“They were obviously fake.”

Bas just stared at her.

Mercy snarled. “Damn it. Let’s go dancing.”

“Yeah, let’s. I need to plan how I’m going to fillet this bastard if he hurts you.”

Riley couldn’t do it. He couldn’t stay away from Mercy. However, her cabin proved empty. He debated calling her, then realized that would betray far too much of the driving need in him. And he couldn’t let her learn that, couldn’t give her that much power over him. Shoving the phone into his pocket, he headed back to his vehicle.

That was when he scented him. Another male. One of the South Americans. His wolf bared its teeth inside him, but it was possession, not rage. The man had been here but wasn’t any longer. He’d probably come looking for Mercy. It was tempting, oh-so-tempting, to track him down and make sure he understood that Mercy was off-limits, but Riley knew his cat. She wasn’t the kind of woman to play off one man against another.

And if he went after Eduardo and Joaquin, she’d assume he didn’t know that.

“Fuck.” Logic was a bitch sometimes. Forcing himself to get in the vehicle, he turned around and went home, parking the four-wheel drive in a designated spot miles from the den and completing the rest of the distance on foot.

The exercise burned off most of his frustration and anger, but he couldn’t make himself stay inside the network of beautifully constructed tunnels that had protected SnowDancer from enemy eyes more times than anyone could count. Instead, after showering and pulling on a fresh T-shirt and jeans, he went outside and found a seat on a storm-fallen tree on the edge of the White Zone.

He was sitting there, second-guessing his decision not to track Mercy down, when someone tracked him down. Catching the strawberry and candy scent on the breeze, he kept his back to his visitor, allowing her to decide if she wanted to talk to him.

A moment later, a small hand tugged on his sleeve.

Turning, he chucked Sakura under the chin. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“It’s only nine and I had a nap today.” A smile and a hopeful look.

Knowing he was a sucker, but unable to resist, he picked her up—doll and all—and sat her on his lap, where she curled into a contented little ball, her ear over his heart. A wave of tenderness swept over him and he cupped the back of her head in a gentle hold.

“Riley?”

“Hmm?” He stroked his hand over the sleek black fall of hair she’d inherited from her mother.

“Have you seen my daddy?”

Riley went over the roster in his head. “Elias should be coming back within half an hour.”

“I’ll stay and wait.”

“Did you tell your mom?” he asked, thinking that while the hair had come from Yuki, the eyes were indisputably Elias’s.

A nod. Tiny fingers braiding her doll’s silky hair. “Riley?”

“Sakura.”

A giggle. “Did you see my tooth?” She tilted up her head. “See, I lost two.”

“Where’d they go?” he teased.

Another giggle, innocent and bright. “Mom said you should come have coffee with her and Dad.”

Riley raised an eyebrow. “She did?”

“Uh-huh. And she even made pecan pie.”

Riley loved pecan pie, as Yuki well knew. “Your mom’s sneaky.”

“That’s what Dad says.” She snuggled closer and he tightened his arms, very aware of her fragility. He couldn’t believe one of his tough soldiers had produced this tiny creature, but it was true. Half the time, Elias didn’t seem to believe it either. The other half, he strutted around like the proud papa he was.

“How come she’s sneaky?”

“She wants to ask me questions, and she’s bribing me with pie.” He had no doubts that Yuki wanted to grill him about Mercy. Damn nosy packmates.

“Oh.” Her attention was on her doll. “Do you think she looks pretty?”

“Very. Just like you.”

A sunny smile was his reward. “I like you, Riley.”

Riley felt his heart tighten. He liked Sakura, too. Brenna had once asked him if he’d had enough of parenthood what with having to shoulder so much responsibility in raising her and Andrew, but Riley had never seen it that way. To protect and raise a child was a gift. “What’s your doll’s name?”

“Mimi.” Putting the doll on her lap, she patted his chest. “Riley?” A whisper.

He bent his ear to her lips.

“I ate some of your pie when Mom wasn’t looking.”

Riley burst out laughing, realizing she’d come to hide from the results of her misdemeanor. It amused the wolf in him, too. Because this pup was one of his own, part of a pack both man and wolf had vowed to protect. Now another loyalty was starting to rise, and it confused him on every level, making him question truths so integral to his life that they simply were.

Until her.

If this fire between them turned dark and exploded outward, it had the potential to devastate both SnowDancer and DarkRiver.

Still, he wondered how Mercy felt about kids . . . if a child was even possible between two such divergent changeling groups.