Branded by Fire

CHAPTER 6

Mercy led Riley and Willow to her vehicle, parked a little way from the cabin. “Buckle up,” she said, starting the engine.

“Done.” Bright eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. “See?”

Even as Mercy nodded, she glimpsed Riley twist around to look over his shoulder. “Good girl.”

That light exchange set the tone for the drive to Tammy and Nate’s place—but Willow got real quiet the instant they opened the doors and she stepped out. “I can’t smell my mom and dad.” Her hand clenched on Mercy’s.

“They had a longer way to travel,” Riley told the girl with a blunt honesty predatory changeling children appreciated. Most of them were very good at sniffing out lies. “Probably be here in the next half hour. Go on in and grab something to eat.” It was well after the breakfast hour.

“I’m not hungry.” Willow kicked at the grass.

Mercy tugged at her hand, making her look up. “Your mom let you skip meals?”

A shake of the head.

“So?”

A sigh. “I’ll go eat.” But she dragged her feet all the way to the house . . . at least until Tammy’s twins came running out in human form, jumping up and down at the idea of a Big Girl to play with. Their new pet, a kitten named Ferocious, ran up on their heels, determined not to be left behind. Taking advantage of Willow’s fascination with the gorgeous gray thing, the twins basically kidnapped their new friend with promises of letting her cuddle Ferocious.

“A kitten for a pair of leopard cubs?” Riley murmured.

Mercy grinned. “That kitten thinks it’s the master of the universe—Jules and Rome growl at any other cat that dares swipe at her.” Laughing at his expression, she nodded at the house. “Let me make sure Willow’s okay.” When she arrived in the kitchen, it was to find Ferocious purring loudly in the lynx girl’s lap, while Julian and Roman stood on either side of her, their little hands on her bare arms as they told her all the “amazing” things their pet could do.

“Your boys are wonderful,” Mercy said to Tammy. They’d understood instinctively that Willow needed caring, so they were doing the job.

The healer smiled in maternal pride. “Have you eaten?”

Mercy was shaking her head when Lucas’s mate, Sascha, walked into the kitchen. “Morning, Mercy. Lucas said to let you know he’s out front.”

Satisfied Willow would be well looked after—and in all probability, petted and spoiled—Mercy headed out to find Lucas giving Riley’s back a considering glance as the damn wolf turned to retrieve something from the car. Fuck.

Lucas, Mercy was well aware, would know for certain that those marks had been made with leopard claws. But he didn’t say anything when Riley turned back, cell phone in hand. “Must’ve slipped out of my pocket. I’m going to let Hawke know what’s going on.”

Lucas nodded and moved a little distance toward the house to give Riley privacy. Changeling hearing was incredibly acute. But it was her alpha’s eyes that worried Mercy as she followed him over. “Any idea what happened?”

“Nate said the house had obviously been invaded. The son is missing, signs of a struggle.” Eyes narrowing, he looked her up and down. Then drew in a deep breath. “Good, you took care of it.”

She categorically did not want to be having this conversation. “Yeah. Can we move on now?”

“No.” A glint lit those intelligent green eyes from within. “Riley’s got some interesting marks on his back, and you’re not touch-hungry all of a sudden. And is that a bite I see on your neck?”

“What’s one got to do with the other?” She tried to brazen it out, but couldn’t stop herself from sweeping her hair around to hide the incriminating mark. Of course Riley had to bite her somewhere obvious—it was exactly the sort of thing dominant males loved to do, the first stage in claiming a female for their own.

Lucas’s lips curved, the savage markings on his face—four jagged lines, like the claw marks of some great beast—standing out in stark relief. “Dorian’s going to love this.”

She glared. “I swear to God, you tell him, and I’ll”—what the hell could you threaten an alpha with?—“I’ll tell Hawke you want to go on daily bonding runs with him.”

Lucas didn’t stop grinning, but said, “That’s just mean, Mercy.” He glanced over her shoulder. “But if you don’t want anyone else to know, get Riley a T-shirt.”

“This is not an admission of anything,” she said as she ran into the house and grabbed a spare tee from the stash the sentinels kept there. It made sense since Tammy was their healer and they often came to her bleeding or worse. The tee was a plain gray but when she threw it at Riley and he put it on, it abruptly became much more interesting—the man might make her hackles rise ninety-nine percent of the time, but he was built delicious, all hard muscle and contained masculine power.

Feeling heat bloom in the pit of her stomach in spite of her teeth-gritting control, she turned away just in time to catch Lucas’s smirk. “Luc.”

“I’m a sphinx,” he promised. “By the way, you have visitors. Came in last night—staying in a cabin not far from your place.”

Anger flared, eclipsing everything else. “Why didn’t you tell me my grandmother was doing this?” She knew Lucas and Isabella had a strong alpha-to-alpha bond. Over fifteen years ago, when DarkRiver had been under attack by the ShadowWalkers, Isabella had offered her help, though she’d been dealing with serious territorial problems of her own at the time. In the end, the help hadn’t been needed, but the offer had never been forgotten.

Now, Lucas folded his arms. “I thought you were drowning. Your grandmother was offering to throw you a life jacket.” Blunt words. “And might be one of them turns out to be your mate.” He switched his attention as Riley jogged over. “Hawke up-to-date?”

Riley nodded. “Since I’m down here, I’ll stay on this. What did Nate find?”

Lucas gave him the same rundown he’d given Mercy. “Willow say anything?”

“Only that they took Nash,” Mercy said, putting everything else out of her mind. “Why would anyone run this big an op to grab a college student?”

“Brenna was a college student when Enrique took her.” The withheld rage in Riley was an almost physical thing.

Mercy understood—Santano Enrique, a cardinal telekinetic, had killed Dorian’s sister, Kylie, and viciously tortured Riley’s sister, Brenna. Brenna had survived, but she’d been hurt in ways no woman should have to suffer. “Riley’s right,” she said, and the sky didn’t fall in. “This could be another crazy, or it could be something specific to Nash.”

Lucas nodded. “Parents should be able to tell us more, but don’t count on scent—someone sprayed a heavy perfume throughout the house.”

Riley’s eyes grew flint hard. “Could be changeling.”

Mercy hoped that wasn’t true. Betrayal among the tight structure of the pack was rare, but when it happened it shoved an ice pick of the cruelest pain through them all. “We need to go back to the scene after we hear what Iain and Enid have to say.” She met Lucas’s eyes. “I want to stay on this.”

“Works.” Lucas nodded. “Nate’s helping Emmett run some important training for Kit and the other novice soldiers. It’d be better if he could continue with that.”

An instant later, they felt the vibration of a vehicle getting closer. Nate’s SUV rolled in not long after. Two people who looked like they’d been dragged through hell itself got out the back as Nate stepped out from the driver’s side.

Mercy heard the sound of running feet seconds before Willow screamed, “Mommy! Daddy!” and launched herself off the porch. Catching her in a bone-crushing embrace, her father wrapped one arm around his mate and pulled her into the hug as well. Mercy looked away from the private moment, her eyes locking with Riley’s.

Pure, electric heat.

She held that wolf gaze, daring him to say something. He kept his silence, but those eyes . . . the intensity in them made her thighs clench in instinctive female reaction. She called him a stick-in-the-mud because he was so damn calm, so practical, and in no way hotheaded. But as she’d learned last night, when that intensity focused on a woman, it focused. Hunger tore through her, potent, rough, primal in its sensuality.

“Can you two keep from tearing each other’s throats out during however long it takes to find Nash?” Lucas’s dry tone did nothing to hide the feline amusement in his eyes as he broke into her line of sight. “Or maybe I should be worrying about clothes instead?”

Riley growled low in his throat. “Not your business.” His voice was more wolf than human, heavy with the same need that had Mercy in its claws.

“What?” Lucas asked disingenuously as Nathan began to herd the sobbing family inside. “Come on. Playtime’s over.”

Mercy hung back a little as Lucas went in. “Keep your shirt on next time,” she muttered to Riley, realizing the implication of her statement an instant too late.

“Keep your claws in . . . no, don’t. I liked it.” A pause. “Kitty.”

She felt those same claws release. It took serious effort of will to put them back in. “What am I worried about?” she said instead, drawing blood in a much more effective way. If Riley wanted to mess with a cat, he’d better invest in armor. “I’m never again going to let myself get that desperate—I mean, a wolf? Do you know how many years it’ll take me to live that down?” The words were almost subvocal, designed to carry to his ears alone. She felt him bristle, but all amusement died the instant she saw the way Willow’s mom was clutching her.

“My baby,” she was saying, kissing Willow’s cheek, “my baby.” Another kiss. Willow clung to her like a little monkey. Her father was sitting beside them, touching his child and his mate anywhere he could reach. The love, the connection between the three was a physical thing. Her chest grew tight with the force of it.

Then she felt Riley enter behind her, and the heat of him was a wash of wildfire on her back. “Iain,” she said, feeling that fire snake into her very veins, “we need to talk to you.” The sooner, the better. “And Enid, too.”

Sascha came into the room from the kitchen right then. “Willow, why don’t you come play with Rome and Jules for a while. They’re starting to drive their mother crazy.” A smile, but the eyes—the white stars on black velvet of a cardinal, the most powerful grade of Psy—were directed at the lynx girl’s parents.

Mercy felt a sense of calm, of warmth, soften the stark edge of fear and desperation in Iain’s and Enid’s scent. It was no surprise—Sascha was an empath, a woman born with the ability to soothe emotional wounds. Now she’d taken a piece of the Bakers’ pain, absorbing it into herself. Mercy wondered if doing that hurt Sascha, but knew her alpha’s mate would never back off, no matter if it did.

Iain and Enid finally let Willow go with Sascha five minutes later. “She’ll be fine,” Mercy reassured them, taking a seat in front of the couple while Lucas and Nathan remained standing against the walls.

Riley, however, came to sit beside her, swinging around a chair to put his arms on the back. “She’s a strong kid,” he told them in his direct, no-nonsense way. “Escaped and hid out with a group of wild lynx.”

Iain smiled, his pride open. “We thought they’d taken her, too.”

“Did you see who came into your home?” Mercy asked, trying to ignore the fact that Riley’s thigh was pressing against hers, the rough masculine heat burning through her jeans to incite her leopard to voracious sexual want. It was on purpose. Definitely on purpose. The wolf was getting back at her for implying he’d been nothing but a convenience. “Even a hint would help.”

The Bakers shook their heads. “We were asleep,” Enid said, voice husky from crying. “But usually, we’d wake up the instant an intruder even entered the yard. But this time . . . it was like we were drugged right from the start.”

“Enid’s right.” Iain frowned. “I remember fighting to wake up, sure something was wrong, but I couldn’t. I saw a black shadow bend over me, felt a push in my . . .” He shoved up his sleeve as if searching for something. “I felt it right here.” He pressed a spot on his forearm. “Like a pressure injector. Next thing I know, I’m waking up and the house smells wrong, and I know the children are gone.”

“Could’ve been some kind of gas,” Nate suggested. “We’ll have to check to see how they got it into the house.”

Enid sat up, eyes distraught. “We had some work done under the house a few days ago—I was being paranoid, wanting to make sure everything was solid because Willow’s always crawling under there. But they could’ve set something up then. If I hadn’t—”

“Shh.” Iain bussed the top of her head. “The only ones at fault are the bastards who did this.”

Mercy wished she could give the Bakers more time to come to terms with everything that had happened, but finding Nash had to be the priority. “If it was a gas, how did Willow escape?”

Enid laughed, a choked-up sound. “She’s been misbehaving lately. Sneaking out to go play in the woods at night. Drives me crazy. Probably saved her life.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean to say that. Nash’s fine. He has to be fine.”

“I’m sure he is.” Iain’s tone was so certain, everyone looked at him. “It’s his work,” he told them. “Somebody wanted him for his skills—my son’s mind, it’s brilliant.”

Mercy’s cat came to attention, seeing a parallel that might simply be an illusion. But if it wasn’t . . . “I thought he was a student.”

“Not an ordinary one—he started taking college classes at thirteen.” Iain’s pride was apparent even through his worry. “He’s been working on his own projects for years now.”

“All to do with nanotech,” Enid said, and a bell rang loud and clear in Mercy’s head. Beside her, Riley’s thigh turned rock hard, and she knew their thoughts were running on identical tracks—three months back, Dorian’s mate had been the subject of a kidnapping attempt by the Human Alliance. Though none of Ashaya’s attackers had survived to confirm it, it had been clear they’d wanted her for her knowledge of a lethal virus. Depending on the nature of Nash’s work, this seemed very much like the kind of operation the Alliance would run.

“Do you have details of your son’s research?” Mercy asked, knowing the payoff had to be major for the kidnappers to chance reprisal by DarkRiver—because while in their territory, the Bakers were Pack. And DarkRiver never forgot its own.

Both Enid and Iain shook their heads. “It’s all hush-hush,” Iain said. “The university got a grant from some big company and that company has first rights to the results.”

“But his professor would know,” Enid added. “I’m sure he’d help you.”

“Merce,” Lucas said, “why don’t you and Riley head out to the house. I’ll organize the data collection on Nash. Enid and Iain can see if Willow remembers anything.”

The shift of muscle against her own, a slight rasp of fabric against fabric that made every hair on her body stand up in attention. But this time, the wolf hadn’t done it on purpose, his attention elsewhere.

“We have to guard against tunnel vision,” he warned, his fury apparent in the vicious control with which he spoke. Riley, Mercy knew, despised the monsters who preyed on those weaker and less able to defend themselves. It was one of the few things they agreed on. “Could be a professional relationship gone bad, a competitor, anything. We need to explore all angles until we have more intel.”

The others made sounds of agreement, and Mercy and Riley drove off after grabbing a quick meal. Despite Riley’s attempt at wresting control—even though it was her car—Mercy was in the driver’s seat. It was obvious Riley hated that fact with a feral kind of passion.

“If you don’t stop clenching your fists,” she said sweetly, “your veins might explode.”

“I’ll take that under advisement, Mélisande.”

She barely stopped herself from slamming on the brakes. “Who told you that?” She needed to know who to dismember.

He snorted. “I ran the background check on you.”

“What?”

“Did you think SnowDancer was sitting on its ass while you cats set up your territory here?”

Given that she’d done some spying of her own, she couldn’t exactly argue with that. But—“That name is off-limits. On pain of death.”

“I’m quaking in my boots, pussycat.”

She screamed. “Why do you live to aggravate me? Why?”

A smile that told her nothing. “One thing I’ve always wondered—why did you enter that bikini contest when you were a teenager?”

Her face flushed with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. “How far back did you trace me?”

“Far enough.” A pause. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“And you didn’t turn into a puff of smoke and disappear. The world is full of disappointments.”

A low growl filled the vehicle.