by Nalini Singh
As it was, he'd spent his adult life volunteering to assist packs who'd lost their healers and who didn't have a trainee old enough to step into the position. It had given him an incredible breadth of experience--he'd been to even more places in the world than Remi, mentored countless young healers who needed time to come into their own--but he'd been desperately lonely. Healers needed their own packs to nurture, needed family around them. Remi had never met a healer who was also a loner. It appeared to be an impossible combination.
Having hauled open the back door, Finn went to check Aden.
"No," Remi said. "He was clear she was the more critical. Internal bleeding, abdomen."
Finn went clawed and just tore a hole through the woman's clothing to check her stomach. Swearing hard and low seconds later, he grabbed her in his arms. "Get the male inside!" he said as he began to turn to run to the infirmary. "He's losing blood from somewhere!"
"Shit." Remi had thought the scent was all from the woman, that Aden had simply surrendered to exhaustion and cold.
Throwing the Arrow leader over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, as the other man didn't appear to have gut wounds, he followed Finn to the infirmary--a large open room in a ground-level cabin--and placed Aden on a bed next to the one where Finn was already working on Zaira. Finn's shirt was plastered to his body and his light brown hair dark from the rain, but Zaira had his unflinching attention.
Finn's nurse, Hugo, and another member of the pack who had some medical training took over the instant Remi had Aden on the bed, stripping the Arrow leader of his camouflage green jacket and cutting through his sweater in their search for his injuries.
"He said they had some kind of an implant in their heads," Remi told Finn. "They got it out--fuck knows how--but there could be damage."
"Jesus." Having turned Aden onto his side, Hugo hissed out a breath, the long braid in which he wore his black hair falling over his shoulder. "No wonder the back of his sweater is soaked in blood." A pause as Hugo peeled away a bloody bandage. "Oh, hell, he's got what looks like an unsealed wound at the back of his head."
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Finn muttered, his eyes focused on the woman; her abdomen didn't look right even to Remi's untrained eyes, the jagged tear of the bullet that had violently exited her body a further insult.
Finn ran a scanner over her stomach. "This is bad. She should be dead, would be if someone hadn't sealed the major bleeds."
"Fix her first," Remi said, knowing in his gut the Arrow leader would've made the same call. He hadn't missed the fact that Aden had focused totally on her injuries when he'd been losing blood from what, to Remi's eyes, looked like a seriously bad head wound.
"Finn," Hugo said, having slit Aden's pant leg along one side, "he's got a bullet wound to his upper thigh. Bullet's still in there, I think."
As Finn barked out orders, Remi stared at the Arrow who'd walked who knew how long a distance through storm-lashed terrain with a bullet in his thigh and a bleeding head wound, all while supporting his wounded squadmate. The man was a serious threat, but Remi would have a difficult time killing him now. He was starting to like the stubborn Arrow.
Leaving Finn and his people to their work, he walked out into the wide corridor outside the infirmary to find his sentinels gathered around. Lark, Angel, and Theo all had damp hair, had no doubt made sure the all-wheel drive was safely parked and RainFire's perimeter clear of threats. "Are we on generators?" He'd caught the telltale flicker of the lights a minute before.
"Just switched," Lark said, her ebony skin flushed from within, as if she'd been running. "Comm lines went down fifteen minutes before the electricity. Best guess is that a lightning strike fried the conduit."
"Damn." RainFire was now effectively isolated from the rest of the world. The pack's territory was in a dead zone as far as current satellites were concerned, which meant that if RainFire wanted satellite comms, they'd have to pay for a satellite of their own. The pack was too young to have that kind of money.
"How long can we run the generators?" Changelings were more resistant to cold than humans or Psy, but RainFire had cubs who wouldn't last long if the heating went out. Should that be a risk, Remi would find a way to get them to civilization.
"Days," Theo said, his tanned skin belying the current weather. "That's why Lark and I blew the budget. We got the green version that we can run with fucking vegetable scraps if that's all we have."
"Sometimes," Remi said, "I remember why I asked you degenerates to join the pack."
The cousins bumped fists. They'd been roaming alone when Remi first met them, having been on their own since they were teenagers after their tiny pack imploded as a result of a frankly selfish power struggle that had savaged pack bonds, but he'd never met any two who were less suited to being loners.
Big, quiet Theo had a marshmallow heart when it came to the cubs, while competent and outwardly hard-assed Lark was never as happy as when she was poking her nose into packmates' lives and doing everything she could to smooth over any flare-ups or personality clashes.
Beside them, Angel, much more self-contained and solitary by nature, folded his arms. His "straight-from-amarble-statue" bone structure, as described by Lark, combined with eyes of deep ultramarine and flawless brown skin, made him a magnet for both men and women--only Angel seemed to prefer to walk alone in every way.
Of all the people who had agreed to help Remi set up RainFire, it was Angel's agreement that had most surprised him.
"We've got plenty of supplies," the other man said. "We can wait this out, though it might take a few days. Last comm transmission I caught before lines went down said the meteorologists were calling this a once-in-two-hundred-years storm."
"Yeah." Lark's elfin face twisted into a scowl. "Damn mountains seem to have forgotten it's spring."
Weather was always changeable in the Smokies during this part of the year, but the sentinels were right: it was never usually this bad. While RainFire had only been in the area approximately two and a half years, Remi had kept a sharp eye on the region over the past five years, ever since he'd targeted the land for the pack he wanted to build, and not once had the mountains turned this dark and wet and cold in spring.
"Our position on a rise should protect us from any mudslides," he said. "Theo, I want you to take a team and make sure there's nothing to worry about around us regardless--be careful, but check to see if the ground shows signs of becoming unstable."
"Will do." Theo rubbed at his jaw, as if his stubble itched. "I think we should be good. These trees have roots so deep nothing but the earth cracking open's going to shake them."
That was why Remi had chosen this place for the pack's heart. These "aerie trees" had been planted over three hundred years before by a small pack named RainStone. Then had come the Territorial Wars; RainStone had been decimated in the ensuing fighting, their land passing into the trust created after the wars to hold pack lands that no longer had a living pulse.
Remi and the other founding members of RainFire had flat-out bought a great big chunk of land around this section for their new pack and they had certain changeling rights to areas in public ownership, but the heart piece, they'd had to request from the trust. The trust's founding document decreed that the entrusted pack lands could never be sold, only be given--to new or old changeling packs that needed it.
As a result, the testing process for those who applied for a land grant was stringent. For an inexperienced alpha who wanted to set up a brand-new pack, it was brutal. That process was overseen by the ten most powerful alphas in the country at any given time. Remi had had to show those tough men and women not only that he had enough committed people and resources to set up a pack and hold the land against outside threats, but also that he had the strength to keep his new pack safe.
Not every changeling with the dominance to be alpha has the heart for it.
It was Lucas Hunter, alpha of DarkRiver, who'd said that to Remi at the start of the three-month period in which
he'd acted as Remi's mentor--a condition of the land grant. His task had been to give Remi a crash course in what it meant to be alpha of a vibrant, growing pack, and assess if Remi had the goods to be entrusted with the task.
Lucas had gone on to add, "You have to create bonds so strong that your packmates know you'll always have their backs."
"That's not even a question." Remi would fight to the death for his people. "It might've taken time for my alpha nature to assert itself, but it's fucking wide awake now. All I want is my own pack, my own sprawling family to protect."
Lucas's green eyes had glinted in approval. "Never forget that--your pack is the heart. The alphas who fuck up are the ones who start to think they're the most important element of a pack." A shake of his head, his hair gleaming blue-black in the sunlight, the savage clawlike lines that marked one side of his face clearly delineated. "We're just the lucky bastards who have the honor of protecting the heart."
Remi would allow nothing to harm that heart. He intended for RainFire to put down roots as deep and as strong and as unshakable as those of the trees in which they'd made their homes. "Cubs?" he asked, his mind on the most vulnerable of their packmates.
Theo was the one who answered. "All accounted for and where they should be." His smile reached the warm brown of his eyes. "I did have to chase a couple who thought we were playing hide-and-seek."
Lark pointed her chin toward the infirmary, her pixie cap of hair standing up in all directions after she ran her fingers through it. "What's the story with those two?"
Remi gave the three sentinels a rundown of everything he knew to date. With the comm lines down, he couldn't touch base with Lucas, find out if the more experienced alpha--who also had direct contacts among the Psy--knew what the hell was going on. It looked like he'd simply have to wait for the Arrows to wake up.
If they woke up.
Because right now, from the grim look on Finn's face, he knew that wasn't a guaranteed outcome. "How bad?" he asked the healer when Finn paused to gulp down some water.
Wiping off his mouth, Finn just shook his head.
Chapter 10
SELENKA DUREV, ALPHA of the Moscow-based BlackEdge wolves, glanced at the report one of her senior lieutenants had just brought in. Her wolf's claws immediately pricked at the tips of her fingers, a growl building in her throat. "This is confirmed?"
"As far as it can be." Gregori's expression was harsh. "The bones of a hostile competing company are all there--Krychek's gone so far as to buy the Cavzi plant out from under us."
Selenka wrestled her wolf into patience, flipped through the report again. As one of the strongest and most established packs in Russia, BlackEdge had a diversified business base, but a large part of the pack's income came from producing environmentally friendly components for various vehicles. They'd been building up their reserves to go into the full-on production of vehicles within the next three months. Except it appeared Kaleb Krychek had stealthily put his own plan in play to serve the same market.
It was exactly what Selenka might expect from the most ruthless man she had ever met, but for a single fact. "Something smells off." Krychek and BlackEdge successfully coexisted in the same region because they took care not to step on one another's toes. "The payoff isn't big enough for him to sacrifice his relationship with us."
That relationship had taken time to build, and while Selenka would probably never actually trust Krychek--and vice versa--they respected one another as adversaries who should not be messed with. "Why this venture? Why not just attempt to mount a hostile takeover of our already established businesses?"
Gregori folded his arms, the tattoos that covered them going taut as his eyes took on a flinty cast. "Maybe he's decided he doesn't have to play nice anymore now that he has that black ops squad on his side. The Arrows."
Selenka could see Krychek unleashing the squad against the pack. If he thought it would be a quick, quiet execution, he had no idea of the strength and ferocity with which Selenka's wolves would fight. Only . . . Krychek was aware of that truth--he'd also always struck woman and wolf both as a man who'd make it a point to know the other powers in the area--so he had to realize that not only would the wolves howl for blood at an unprovoked attack, so would the other predatory packs.
Krychek was too smart and too politically cutthroat to incite bloodshed in his territory, bloodshed that would suck up his resources at such a critical time. He needed Moscow and the surrounding areas to remain stable, especially now when he was dealing with the aftermath of the deadly psychic infection that had claimed so many lives. BlackEdge had stepped in to help contain the insane violence, as had the StoneWater bears.
All three parties had ended that exhausting, painful, and sad period feeling as if the fragile balance in the region had become far more deeply stable. Krychek kept an eye on the Psy and the humans, while between them, BlackEdge and StoneWater handled the changelings, predatory and nonpredatory.
And yet, what was this business maneuver if not the opening salvo of a silent war? The alpha wolf in Selenka curled its upper lip over its teeth, blood hot. Containing the urge to go for Krychek's throat took every ounce of her human control. "Can we dig any deeper?" She held up the report, her fingernails painted a vivid pink courtesy of one of the pups who'd waylaid her that morning.
Gregori shook his head, his blond hair tumbled from the wind outside. "We've gone as far as we can."
Which meant the ball was in Selenka's court. Even a year ago, she'd have taken immediate countermeasures, likely by subverting one of Krychek's own business interests. However, a year was a long time. As Krychek no doubt kept tabs on the pack, Selenka did the same when it came to him. So she understood that Krychek had changed in a way Selenka didn't think most people realized.
He had a mate now, and the one time Selenka had seen them together, she'd realized it was a true mating, not a false front. Of course, mated pairs could fuck things up together as easily as those who were single, but no matter what people said about Psy in general and Krychek in particular, a man who had the ability to mate was capable of an intense level of loyalty and commitment.
His relationship with BlackEdge was a cold thing in comparison to the raw fury of a mating, but he'd given Selenka his word that he wouldn't attempt to encroach on her territory. It was why the pack had never made any aggressive moves against him.
"I'll talk to him," she said. "Find out what the fuck is going on."
And if Krychek wanted a war, she'd give it to him.
*
KALEB was still in Venice with the Arrows when he received an urgent message from Silver. "Sir," his senior aide said, "Selenka Durev is demanding an immediate meeting. She wouldn't give me details, but her tone makes me believe this is serious."
"Is BlackEdge showing any signs of aggression?"
"Negative at this point."
"Monitor the situation. I'll connect with Selenka." Walking to the edge of a canal, he made the call. "Selenka," he said in Russian when she answered. "I received your message." Even without Silver's determination, he would've known there was a problem: Selenka had the inbuilt arrogance of any predatory alpha, but she never demanded a meeting unless it was necessary. Like him, she was too busy to waste time on petty politicking.
"I need to talk to you," she replied. "Face-to-face. Can you make the usual spot in a half hour?"
Having already come to the conclusion that there was little further he could do in Venice, Kaleb agreed to the meet, then located Vasic. The other man had been checking up on a sedated Alejandro, who Ivy Jane had apparently managed to put into a natural sleep before the sedatives were administered.
"I'm heading out to handle another situation," he told the teleporter, "but I'll keep trying to get to either Aden or Zaira every ten minutes."
Vasic fell into step with him as they walked out into the courtyard in the center of the compound. "I'm still sensing nothing."
That was not a good sign. Of the two of them, Kaleb was the more
psychically powerful, but Vasic was a Tk-V, a born teleporter. He'd also worked with Aden for decades. If Vasic couldn't find him, then Aden was either dead or had suffered a traumatic brain injury. The fact that the NetMind, the guardian and librarian of the PsyNet, was confused about both Aden and Zaira, and unable to inform Kaleb if they were alive or dead, further pointed to massive neural damage.
"Did Santos confirm he had a meet with Aden?" he asked instead of stating a fact of which Vasic had to be well aware. The squad had finally narrowed down the time period in which Aden had to have been taken, and it aligned closely to his meeting with the leader of the Forgotten--descendants of those Psy who'd dropped out of the PsyNet at the dawn of Silence.
"Yes." Vasic's eyes met those of another Arrow a short distance away and Kaleb knew telepathic orders were being given or data shared. The teleporter had always been the less vocal member of the partnership with Aden, but this incident made it clear that Vasic was fully capable of stepping into the leadership breach if necessary.
A Psy such as Ming would've taken the opportunity to stage a coup, permanently pushing out Aden. Vasic, on the other hand, was holding things together for his partner's return and using all his resources to find him. Kaleb wouldn't have understood Vasic's choice once, but that was before he'd built friendships of his own and gained the loyalty of men and women who would never sell him out.
Kaleb would never betray any of them, either.
"There's nothing to indicate Santos had a hand in the disappearance," Vasic added. "Visual records confirm Aden left the building after the meeting."
That didn't completely clear Devraj Santos, but the other man had no reason to make an enemy of the Arrows. According to Kaleb's intel, the squad was assisting the Forgotten in figuring out a way to handle the violent new psychic abilities that had started to appear in their population. "I'll go to New York after my meeting," he said. "I have contacts there, may be able to run down more information."