Wild Embrace

by Nalini Singh

  “Yes,” she said, knowing there was no point delaying this. “Let’s go into my office.” She’d seen juveniles padding around in wolf form farther down the corridor—they wouldn’t intentionally listen in, but all pups had big ears.

  Revel spoke the instant they had privacy, his deep voice quiet but potent. “You’ve never once looked at me the way you look at Kenji.”

  Not ready for such a blunt assault, Garnet sucked in her stomach, clenched one fist. “You’ve only seen us together for a few minutes at most.” The idea that she was wearing her heart on her sleeve, it aggravated her wolf.

  She might do that after, but right now, a big part of her was still pissed at Kenji.

  Revel smiled that slow, beautiful smile that had always drawn her . . . but not the way Kenji’s green eyes and wicked grin drew her. It didn’t make her insides flip, didn’t make her brain go kind of fuzzy. “I really thought we’d be good together,” she said before he could speak. “I wasn’t jerking you around.”

  “I know.” Revel cupped her jaw with one hand. “As for you and Kenji, I saw the two of you dancing together at Hawke’s mating celebration, too.”

  Leaning in without warning, he kissed her, an unexpectedly hot and wet and tangled thing, his hand gripping her jaw and his body heat buffeting her senses. “Sorry.” A grin that was utterly unrepentant. “Had to try and make you breathless at least once.”

  “Goal achieved,” she gasped, but even then, deep within, she was steady, watchful.

  Pretty and intelligent and dangerous though he was, Revel wasn’t for her.

  “When you asked me out,” he said after releasing her, “I figured whatever you and Kenji had, it must’ve burned out, but it’s obvious to anyone with a single functioning brain cell that your flame’s going strong.” He rubbed his thumb over her cheekbone. “What I don’t get is why you two aren’t already together.”

  She scowled. “Reasons.”

  “If it’s because Kenji was a bit of a horn dog for a while, you should know he’s been a monk for the past year.”

  Garnet stared at him. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “Emi’s a senior soldier in Kenji’s den,” he reminded her, naming a year-mate. “We gossip.”

  All wolves gossiped. It was part of being in a pack. “Do you gossip about me?” It came out a growl.

  “Of course we do.” His eyes turned wolf-amber swirled with green. “But only among the three of us—me and Emi and Pia.” The latter SnowDancer was his twin and had transferred with him to Garnet’s den, the two having always worked well as a unit.

  Pia had also recently been promoted, but where Revel was good when it came to dealing with the management of a den, Pia did better with more practical matters like taking charge of the training and security schedules. Regardless, the two were as thick as thieves—and best friends with Emi Lucenko. As Revel now proved.

  “We act as one another’s vaults and release valves,” he said. “It’s good for Pia and me to have a non-twin in the mix and the contact’s good for Emi, too. You know how quiet she can be, how she holds everything inside.”

  “Hmm.” Arms folded, Garnet leaned against the door.

  She told herself not to ask, but she couldn’t stop herself—Kenji’s indiscriminate behavior when it came to skin privileges was something she needed to understand. And if her response was fueled by a jealousy she’d never before consciously acknowledged, well, it was time to stop lying to herself. “How does Emi know Kenji’s been a monk?”

  “Not one but two women suddenly asked her if he was sick. It took a little careful questioning but she finally figured out it was because he was turning everyone down, even friends with whom he’d previously exchanged skin privileges.” Revel’s expression turned solemn. “So she started keeping an eye on him and it looks like Kenji’s been sleeping alone for a long time.”

  Worry woke in Garnet, a sharp, biting beast. Changelings needed skin contact, needed physical connection. It fed their souls, soothed the animal that was part of their being. Without it, they could go into a deep depression, turn violently aggressive, or just start to lose emotional and mental cohesion. “Why didn’t Emi do anything?” The senior soldier had to know Kenji’s physical isolation was dangerous.

  “She talked to him, said he seemed fine. No edge, no sudden temper or mood swings, same Kenji he’s always been.”

  Garnet had to admit Kenji looked fine, but as she’d already remembered, Kenji Tanaka was great at putting on a front. He’d done it all the time as a child while his parents were yelling down the den and snarling at one another. Satoshi and Miko Tanaka were a rare changeling couple who’d been together and stable long enough to produce a child, but who now couldn’t stand one another.

  They’d separated for good when Kenji was twelve, but their relationship had been a battlefield long before then. Kenji had never seemed affected by the loudness of their fights or how passionately they made up. He’d always been the fun kid, the one who could make everyone laugh—and who could play the violin with so much wild emotion that it made adults weep and children dance.

  Garnet had seen below that talented, laughing surface only because she’d caught him out when he was ten and she was eight.

  She’d found him curled up all alone behind a tree by the lake, crying so hard his body shook. It had hurt her to see her friend so sad. Going up to hug him hadn’t even been a question, and Kenji had let her. He’d always let her hug him, no matter how annoyed they might be with each other. She’d take advantage of that.

  “All right,” she said in a meticulously even tone. “Go find out about Mitchell.”

  Revel nodded.

  She touched his forearm as he went to open the door, his skin lightly dusted with dark hair. “When you do meet her, she’ll be a lucky woman.”

  A cocky smile she might’ve expected from Kenji but never from Revel—which showed exactly how deeply she knew one man and not the other. Because if her normally serious right-hand man had such cockiness in him, he needed a mate who could bring out that playful side . . . just as Kenji needed a mate who saw beneath the carefree face he presented to the world, a woman he could trust with his hurts as well as his joy.

  “I know,” Revel said, grazing his fingers over her cheek.

  Leaving the office, the two of them headed in different directions. Garnet decided to go to the packmate who was in charge of the junior soldiers, see what he had to say about Eloise.

  “Good kid,” was Yejun’s summation. “A little too straitlaced, but she’s loosening up.” His grin made it clear the experienced trainer liked Eloise, regardless of her straitlaced nature. “You think she had something to do with what happened to Russ?”

  Garnet kept her answer simple, uninflammatory. She had no intention of causing Eloise any trouble if her young packmate had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. “She found him—I have to clear her.”

  “Right.” Yejun’s nod made the simulated sunlight of the den gleam on his cleanly shaved head. “Well”—the grizzled old wolf scratched his stubbled jaw, his brown skin lined with life—“I can’t see her getting heated up over Russ.” A dubious expression. “That girl has the pups trailing after her with their tongues hanging out.” He shook his head. “Boys these days, they have no pride when it comes to a strong woman with dangerous curves.”

  Garnet wasn’t about to fall for his morose tone. “Did you at that age?”

  A big laugh, eyes glinting mischievously. “Hell no. Pride gets you a lonely bed.” His expression turned smug. “My bed is filled with a gorgeous armful of strong woman with highly dangerous curves—you think I lassoed my mate by being a shrinking violet? Hah!”

  Garnet’s lips twitched. Since Yejun’s mate, Sabrina, was a powerful wolf who’d held Revel’s position until she decided to semi-retire—emphasis on the semi, Garnet had a good idea of what
their courtship must’ve involved. “Anything else I should know about Eloise as it applies to this situation?”

  Tinkering with a small device he was apparently fixing, Yejun took a moment to think. “I know Eloise is studying as well as doing her soldier training. I’m fairly certain it involves math, so she could’ve been a student of Russ’s.” Lines formed between his eyebrows. “And yeah, she picked up a few hours of work with the den maintenance team to save up for a special trip.”

  “Thanks, Yejun. I’ll check it all out.” She touched his shoulder as she left—just because he was a mature packmate in a stable relationship didn’t mean he didn’t need the occasional physical sign of affection from the most dominant wolf in the den.

  Every wolf needed to know he or she was valued.

  Popping in to see the pack’s overall chief of education afterward, Garnet affected a mock-stern expression. “Putting up your feet on the job? Tut-tut.”

  Ruby poked out her tongue in Garnet’s direction. “I think my baby is going to be a twenty-pound sumo wrestler.”

  Chuckling, Garnet walked over to where her sister was stretched out on the sofa placed against one wall of her office. “I thought I authorized your maternity leave.”

  “I’d go mad if I wasn’t looking out for my kids.” Ruby moaned as Garnet sat down and began to massage her feet. “Did I ever tell you you’re my favorite sister?”

  “You can never tell me enough.” Kissing her older sister’s belly with the easy skin privileges that existed between siblings, Garnet said, “Talk to me about Eloise. Any connection to Russ?”

  It turned out that Russ had been Eloise’s senior adviser—the man who was meant to guide her through her studies. It also meant he’d held a certain power over her.

  Deciding she now had enough to go to Eloise, Garnet left her tardy nephew with a pat on his mother’s straining belly and tracked down the young woman to her room in the section reserved for junior soldiers. “Russ was your adviser,” she said bluntly when Eloise opened the door.

  Face paling under the warm tone of her skin, Eloise nodded jerkily. “That’s why I was by his room,” she said without prompting. “I was going to see him about—”

  “About what?” Garnet prompted when a look of pure panic flashed across Eloise’s features, her hand tightening to bone whiteness on the edge of the door.

  “I swear I didn’t hurt him,” the younger woman said in a pleading tone, her wolf rising to turn her eyes a tawny golden brown. “I wouldn’t.”

  Going with gut instinct, Garnet leaned in to cup Eloise’s cheeks. “Talk to me, sweetheart.” As lieutenant, she had to be tough, but she also had to be flexible. SnowDancer wasn’t a pack that ran on fear—it ran on respect and affection and loyalty.

  Shuffling closer when Garnet lowered her hands, like a pup seeking contact, Eloise all but whispered her next words. “He was blocking me from progressing to a graduate degree, even though I’d met all the requirements.” She bit down hard on her lower lip. “He said I needed to do another year of undergraduate papers.”

  Garnet wrapped an arm around the girl. “I see.” Technically, Russ couldn’t have stopped Eloise, but his words would’ve held weight with the SnowDancer education board.

  All SnowDancer pups had an automatic right to education up to and including an undergraduate degree—or comparable courses outside the tertiary system. Anyone who wanted a graduate education or further training could also get it on the pack so long as they then worked for the pack for a certain number of years, ranging from three to five. However, to access the graduate fund, students had to keep up their grades throughout and report regularly to their advisers, which advisers then in turn apprised the board.

  “He only did it out of spite,” Eloise rasped, her eyelashes wet and clumped together. “I solved an equation he couldn’t. I didn’t mean to show him up. I just thought that was what I was supposed to do, so I did it.” She hiccuped and sniffed, rubbing at her tears with the sleeves of her sweater—which she’d pulled over her hands like a child. “I could tell he was mad, but I never thought he’d be vindictive. He was meant to be my teacher, my support.”

  Garnet felt sick, her wolf standing at tense attention inside her. Wrapping Eloise in both arms and rubbing her cheek against the younger woman’s, she said, “Why didn’t you come to me?” If her packmates didn’t feel like they could talk to her about such situations, then she had a serious problem on her hands. Protecting the vulnerable was her job and her responsibility.

  The idea that she might’ve failed rocked her very sense of self.

  Eloise cuddled into her, tall and strong and suddenly as needy as a hurt pup. “I put myself in your diary for next week,” she said. “But I wanted to talk to Russ one more time, try to figure things out on my own. I’m old enough.” That last was said with a mutinous edge that made Garnet’s stomach stop twisting.

  A young wolf flexing her claws was normal. It said good things about Garnet’s leadership that Eloise had the confidence to stand up against a much older packmate. “Good,” she said. “You are old enough to start to fight your own battles—but I’m glad to see you’re also sensible enough to go to a senior packmate when the situation is beyond your ability to handle.”

  Straightening, Eloise scowled, the fierce SnowDancer soldier in her rising back to the surface now that she’d been reassured her dominant wasn’t angry with her. “I was planning to tell Russ that I was going to you—I thought he’d back off then because we both knew he was wrong. All my grades prove it.”

  The younger woman’s scowl faded as quickly as it had formed, her throat moving as she swallowed. “And even though he was being nasty, I didn’t want to get him in trouble. He never showed it, but I could tell he was hurting from losing Athena.”

  Proud of this child of the pack and dead certain she’d had nothing to do with Russ’s death, Garnet cut to the heart of the matter. “Where were you between seven and ten this morning?” Lorenzo hadn’t yet confirmed time of death, but Garnet was certain that whatever had happened had occurred soon after Shane’s arrival in Russ’s quarters.

  No way the two men had sat around chatting for hours.

  Eloise’s eyes widened before she began to pink up until even the dark cinnamon brown of her skin couldn’t hide it. “Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered after glancing around to make sure no one else was close enough to listen in, “but I was with Chase. We slept in.”

  “Ah.” At eighteen, Chase was younger than Eloise by three years. He was also a strong wolf unlikely to be intimidated by Eloise’s own strength. “I won’t breathe a word.”

  “I’m not embarrassed or anything.” Eloise’s continuing blush was adorable, the way she was twisting her hands together even more so. “He’s younger but he’s . . . wow!” A sound that reminded Garnet of how, at the same age, she’d sighed over a certain green-eyed wolf. “I just want it to be private and secret between the two of us for a while.”

  “I understand, sweetheart.” Packmates were wonderful and Garnet would never want to live away from a busy, active den, but it was also nice to have a little private time to become a couple before several hundred curious wolves started poking their noses in. “Stay right here.”

  Walking a short distance away, she made a couple of calls. Thanks to the weather, Chase hadn’t driven out to the technical college he attended five days a week, instead choosing to study in the den. SnowDancer had an excellent remote-access system they’d set up in conjunction with multiple schools for exactly such circumstances.

  Coming on the line when she located him, he confirmed that Eloise had been with him at the time of the murder. To his credit, he also immediately asked after his girlfriend. “Is she okay? I wanted to stay with her, but she kicked me out.” Raw frustration and worry in every word. “Said she was fine, but I could tell she wasn’t.”

  So young, Garnet thought affection
ately. “Here’s a tip, Chase. Sometimes you have to fight to look after a woman as strong as Eloise.”

  “I’m on my way. I can catch up on this lesson tonight.”

  Hanging up, Garnet asked Eloise about her part-time job.

  The young soldier answered without hesitation. “The den maintenance team needed a few bodies for manual labor. Cleaning out ducts, that kind of thing. It’s low-stress, plus”—her eyes grew brighter—“I get to watch the engineers work on the behind-the-scenes systems.”

  “Did you work often with Shane?”

  Shaking her head, Eloise said, “Only a couple of times.” Her face turned solemn. “He was so nice. I dropped one of his special tools and it went to pieces, but he didn’t get angry, just showed me how to fix it.”

  That was Garnet’s impression of Shane, too: calm and patient, no violent temper. “And his knife collection? Did he invite you to look at it?”

  “No, I asked. I was just curious.” Eloise lifted up both shoulders. “One of my friends had seen it, said it was interesting.”

  Garnet caught no hint of subterfuge in any of Eloise’s answers; she let the young woman go with the admonition that she wasn’t to share any details of what she’d seen at the scene.

  “I won’t,” Eloise promised. “Not even with Chase.”

  Ten minutes later, Revel told Garnet that Mitchell had no connection to either Russ or Shane; he’d just tagged along to see the knives because he’d had some free time to kill. “I’d bet my place in the pack that he wasn’t lying,” Revel said. “I got the impression he was more interested in Athena’s art than in the knives.”

  Garnet continued to investigate, managed to unearth a couple of packmates who’d seen Eloise and Chase sneak into his room—she’d known the two couldn’t have fooled everyone. Sometimes, though, even wolves could be circumspect. Not often, but now and then.

  Walking to the main den entrance after confirming the young couple’s whereabouts, Garnet poked out her head. Her den had been dug out of the side of a mountain, similarly to the main SnowDancer den; it was solid stone and quite safe. It was also naturally soundproof, so it wasn’t until she opened the door a crack and looked outside that she saw the night darkness beyond, mature trees bent over like saplings by a merciless wind.