by Nalini Singh
Taking the towel from her to hitch it around his hips, he turned and demanded a kiss that threatened to make her forget her own name, before saying, “No,” and tugging her to the living room. Datapad in hand, he sat down on the sofa with her curled up on his lap. “Read this page.”
Still suspicious, Faith began to scan the article…and felt her eyes widen. “What?! Who—I mean why would— No, it’s completely beyond my comprehension.” Exiting the article with a firm tap to her jaguar’s purring smile, she leaned her head back as he kissed her throat, one of her arms wrapped around his neck, the damp strands of his hair brushing her skin.
“So,” he said with another lazy kiss, “no go to that coffee as a birthday present?”
“You do that and I’ll give you the most ugly sculpture I can find, and make you keep it in your workspace.”
“You bargain tough, Red.” He ran his hand down her ribcage and to the dip of her waist, then slid lower to cup her hip with a raw possession she loved. “After all that manual labor, I’m starving.”
“We have a half hour until we have to leave to meet the others for dinner,” she said, deciding not to confess that she’d had him move a few pieces of furniture multiple times simply to watch the muscles flex in his arms and naked upper body. A woman, she thought with an inward smile, was permitted a sinful secret or two when it came to a man as rawly sexy as Vaughn. “Do you want a sandwich?”
“No.” A second later and she found herself trapped underneath a grinning jaguar who ripped off her towel and said, “I think I’ll just snack on you instead.” A growling bite at the curve of her neck, his teeth very, very careful not to hurt.
Instead of shying, Faith wrapped her arms around him. She was no longer the woman she’d been when they first met, a woman who believed herself weak and easily breakable. Now, she was the woman who loved and was loved by a jaguar…and who knew how to take bites of her own.
Vaughn jerked up his head when her teeth sank into his shoulder. Then he grinned, and tumbled her on top of him and she knew they were going to be very, very, very late for dinner.
Copyright © 2013 by Nalini Singh
Home
Author’s Note: This short story fits in between Play of Passion and Kiss of Snow, but if you haven’t yet read the series or those books, it does also stand on its own. Enjoy!
Home
By Nalini Singh
Clay wiped his hand across his brow to stop the sweat dripping into his eyes as he and Tally finished nailing up the final board. “Done,” he said with a quiet sense of satisfaction, stepping back from the extensions to the aerie. The changes they’d made when Jon and Noor originally moved in with them worked, but with Jon growing, Clay and Talin had decided he needed a little more privacy. Since they were already doing those renovations, it had been easy enough to complete a couple of other small modifications at the same time.
Noor’s room remained in the main aerie and on the same level as Clay and Talin’s room so she could run down the short corridor and snuggle into bed with them if a nightmare struck. Those nightmares enraged Clay for what they betrayed of the hurt done the child who was now his, but they were decreasing in frequency. Tamsyn and Sascha both thought Noor was healing in the loving atmosphere of the pack and of their home; Clay heard daily proof of that healing in her laughter.
The little girl was the sweet, affectionate heart of their home. She’d started calling Talin and Clay, Mommy and Papa two months earlier and each time she did, Clay felt as if he’d been given a gift. Tally had broken down in happy tears that first time, though his mate with her soft heart had managed to keep it together until Noor was out of earshot.
As for Jon, for a teenage boy, he had incredible patience with her. Yesterday, Clay had seen him carefully drinking tea from a tiny dolls cup just to make Noor happy, as Clay had once done with Tally.
He had a feeling Noor would always be able to count on her adopted big brother for anything. That brother’s new room perched on a sturdy spray of branches a short ways away from the main aerie, but was connected to it by a walkway Talin had warned the teenager would be in regular use.
“Don’t think you can get up to shenanigans in there,” she’d said with a scowl.
Jon, aware she was all bark and no bite when it came to those she loved, had kissed her on the cheek, the striking violet of his eyes alight in mischief. “Finally, a bachelor pad where I can bring all my girlfriends and have wild parties.”
Clay knew Jon would never betray their trust in him. The kid had had some hiccups settling in, but that was long past—he was all DarkRiver now and Clay knew he’d do the pack proud. Any trouble he got into was nothing out of the ordinary for DarkRiver kids his age. As for sneaking up girls, well, he was a teenage boy. Clay grinned, and putting his arm around Tally, drew her to his side. “Happy?”
“So happy.” She hugged him tight, her smile brilliant. “I’m glad we decided to do this last bit ourselves.”
Clay was too. Dorian and Vaughn had helped out with the planning and the majority of the building, but Clay had wanted this moment to be private, between him and the woman who was his best friend as well as his lover and his mate. Reaching over, he rubbed a speck of dirt off her cheek, exposing the gold of her freckles. It was instinct to kiss those freckles, her laughter wrapping around him.
His leopard arched, batting playfully at the scent of her, so familiar, so necessary to his existence. Every day he woke to her scent, and every night when he fell asleep, it was with the touch of her skin against his own. Now, she gripped his hips and stood on tip-toe to pepper his face with kisses, as affectionate as a kitten. Noor might still be healing, but Tally and Clay had completed the journey and together, were building their future as they’d built this home—with a love nothing could ever break.
Leopard delighted at the petting, he bent to make the task easier for her.
“Shall we go pick up the kids?” she asked in between kisses.
Stroking his hands up and down her back, he nodded. “I missed the hooligans today.” Noor was determined to help and considered herself the “Holder of the Nails,” while Jon had put in hard labor with the men. The only reason they weren’t here right now was that Clay and Talin had wanted to surprise the both of them with special gifts.
They’d bought Noor a brand new princess bed, canopy and all—it had been a mission to get it up the levels of the aerie. As for Jon, Tally had asked the boy if he wanted to decorate his own place and he’d picked out what he wanted, but they’d bought him a small comm screen of his own as a reward for the excellent grades he’d made at school over the past twelve months.
~
Noor was so excited when she saw her bed that she couldn’t breathe or speak. “Oh, oh.” Running across the room, she patted the bedspread, touched the curtains that were currently tied to the posters on each corner, and physically pushed Jon away when he teased her he’d like to lie in it and mess it up.
Allowing himself to be “pushed” by the five-and-a-half year old, Jon began to pick up her soft toys from the shelf to the left of the bed and arrange them against the pillows. Noor decided that was acceptable, though she did direct him to put certain toys next to certain other toys, “because they’re friends.”
Jon was more teenage-boy in his appreciation of his own gift. Slouching down in the comfortable old armchair he’d brought in from the main aerie, he thrust a hand through the white gold of his hair and grinned. “Awesome.”
Noor, leaning against the side of the armchair with both hands so she could peer at the screen, made a face. “It’s not as nice as my bed.” A worried look. “You can come in my room if you like. I’ll let you sit on the bed.”
Laughing at the generous offer, Jon scooped her up and plopped her in his lap. “Watch this, Noorel Squirrel.” He flicked the comm screen to a cartoon Noor loved and had her immediate attention. “Bet you want to come to my room now.”
Noor gave a decisive shake of her head, her ponytail�
�which she insisted on having just like Tally’s—bouncing. “No way. My bed is the most beautifulest ever.”
Standing in the doorway, watching the children in his care and in his heart, while his smiling mate stood in front of him, her back against his chest, Clay’s leopard purred in utter contentment. “Come on,” he murmured in Tally’s ear as he ran his hand along her ponytail. “They’ll be busy for a while yet.”
Her response was immediate, the scent of her a hot caress. Turning, she slipped her hand into his and they snuck away, secretive as teenagers themselves. Young, Clay thought as he locked the bedroom door behind them, he felt so young when he was with Tally. So full of possibility and hope and faith in the future. Then she shrugged off her shirt while watching him with a smile in those gray eyes ringed with amber, and there was no more thought, only a hot, slow loving between two lovers who knew each other down to the soul.
Copyright © 2014 by Nalini Singh
Poker Night
Author’s Note: For those of you unfamiliar with this series, this story features the DarkRiver Leopards (Alpha: Lucas) and the SnowDancer wolves (Alpha: Hawke). The narrator is Nate, the most senior sentinel in the DarkRiver pack.
Poker Night
By Nalini Singh
Nate didn’t know how poker night at his and Tamsyn’s place had been invaded by a bunch of wolves, who well, played like wolves. “Damn it.” He scowled as a grinning Drew gathered up the pot. “I think we need to ban you and Hawke from the table.”
The wolf alpha glanced up at the sound of his name, husky-blue eyes amused. “Scared, cat?”
Nate bared his teeth. “Now you’re just trying to make trouble.”
“No bloodshed until after I win back my money,” Lucas said, the four slashing lines on the right side of his face catching the light as he looked around the table. “We’re meant to be thinking about plans for Riley and Mercy’s one-year-anniversary.”
Nate drank half his beer before replying. “Did anyone ask Mercy or Riley?” Leopard sentinel and wolf lieutenant, both were dominant predatory changelings with strong personalities, likely had plenty of ideas of their own.
“If asked my brother,” Drew pointed out, counting his chips, “he’d be unable to resist the temptation to take over the whole planning process, and this is meant to be a gift for the two of them, not more work for him.”
Nate had to agree with the blue-eyed wolf on that. Riley was Hawke’s right hand—the entire SnowDancer den depended on his quiet, implacable strength. If anyone had asked Nate prior to Mercy and Riley’s mating if he saw them as a pair, Nate would’ve answered with an immediate and surprised no. Not that he didn’t respect the hell out of Riley, but where the wolf male was a rock in a storm, Mercy was wildfire. Two more different people, he couldn’t imagine.
What he’d forgotten was that they were both protectors, both blood-loyal, and that love wasn’t always a simple equation. Wild and vibrant Mercy adored her solid, strong wolf mate—a mate who looked at Mercy the same way Nate knew he looked at his own Tamsyn. As if she was the greatest, best surprise of his life.
“We’ll have to do something that pack members from both SnowDancer and DarkRiver can easily attend,” Dorian said as Lucas dealt the cards, the leopard sentinel’s surfer blonde hair bearing a streak of citrus-orange paint—he’d played babysitter to a group of the littlest DarkRiver cubs this afternoon while their normal caregivers had their monthly meeting.
Finger painting had apparently been on the menu. Mostly on Dorian.
Grinning at the memory of what the younger male had looked like before the shower he’d taken an hour ago, Nate said, “The Boy Genius is right,” and laughed when Dorian growled at the nickname that refused to die. “Location choice is critical.” Much as both the alphas at the table liked to jerk one another’s chain by claiming Mercy and Riley solely for their respective packs, the fact was, the couple straddled the line. They were part of the very core of DarkRiver and SnowDancer, beloved by their packmates.
“Thing is”—one of the wolves, a senior soldier, grabbed some nuts from the bowl on the table—“Riley might not appreciate us trampling over his own romantic plans for the evening.”
“Details, details.” Drew waved away the concern with an insouciance that so often blinded people to the fact that like Lucas, he was a hunter, born with the ability to track down and if necessary, execute violent rogue changelings. “We’ll do the celebration a week before the actual anniversary. That way, we stand a better chance of surprising them.”
“How about the eastern border between leopard and wolf lands?” suggested the sentinel seated across from Nate, green eyes so vivid, it was clear his leopard prowled close to his skin tonight. “Canopy cover in that section wasn’t impacted by the battle, so it’ll be private, and security’s airtight.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow at Hawke.
Leaning forward, the wolf alpha clinked his beer bottle to Lucas’s.
“Great.” Nate scowled at the hand he’d been dealt. “Now, what are we actually going to do?”
“Can I ask a question?” Drew said in a tone that had everyone around the table going, “No.”
Ignoring the sound negative response, he said, “Where the hell is Bastien?”, naming the eldest of Mercy’s brothers. “He swore to me this afternoon that he’d be point man on DarkRiver’s end if I took SnowDancer.”
Showing impeccable timing, all three of Mercy’s siblings walked in that very second to pull up chairs around the already crowded table. “No trust,” Bastien said with a sigh. “Such a sad, sad world.” A shake of his head. “And this after I recruited these two”—nodding at his younger brothers—“to be our minions.”
Drew snorted. “I have Indy and Brenna. My mate and sister leave those two scrawny cubs in their dust.”
“Back to the point,” Nate said as one of the six-feet-tall “scrawny cubs” threatened to beat Drew dead, then went to raid the cookie jar with the ease of a packmate who’d been in and out of this house since he truly was a cub. “Ideas for the celebration?”
It was Hawke who came up with the winner. “Riley loved that trip he took with Mercy to Rio for Carnaval.”
“Carnaval themed party?” Dorian’s teeth slashed white against tanned gold skin. “It’s perfect—especially since Riley’s no longer holding a grudge against the South American cats who came sniffing around while he was courting Mercy.”
The blond sentinel’s statement was echoed around the table, and with the theme set in stone, Drew and Bastien parceled out tasks.
“Done,” Bas said ten minutes later, and the game resumed…to leave Drew and Nate as the sole survivors after the others folded with muttered imprecations about the blue-eyed wolf’s luck.
“Time to show and tell.” Drew fanned out his cards and proved he hadn’t been bluffing. “Full house.” A grin. “Your poor sad face informs me I’m about to go home a happy, happy man. Thank you very—”
Leaning forward with a slow smile, Nate laid out a hand that would make the angels themselves weep. Drew groaned and fell back, while the others around the table hooted, wolf and leopard in harmony—Riley’s brother had fleeced the lot of them.
“One more game.” Rolling up the sleeves of his checkered shirt, Bastien picked up the cards to deal the next round. “I feel lucky.”
The other man was shuffling the cards when Nate heard a suspicious whisper from the doorway to the kitchen. “Julian. Roman. In here now.”
His sons, both in sky-blue pajamas patterned with racing cars, feet bare, sidled over to stand beside his chair, heads ducked. He wasn’t fooled. Only this afternoon, the four-and-a half-year-olds had decided to coat each other in mud they’d dyed red using food coloring filched from the pantry, and he’d had to hose down the demons while they laughed like maniacs. “I thought I put you two to bed.” Tamsyn had gone to spend some time with a packmate who was pregnant with her first child, leaving him in charge of the twins.
“I was thirsty,” Ju
lian said, meek stance forgotten as he tried to crane his neck to see the poker table.
“And I’m hungry,” Roman added.
“I saw you eat half a chicken an hour ago.” Reaching out, Nate poked at his boy’s stuffed belly, got a giggle.
By this time, Julian had wiggled his way between Nate and Bastien and had his hands on the edge of the table, standing on tiptoe to peer at the game. His leopard giving a feline grin, Nate rubbed at Jules’ hair, then pulled Rome up onto his lap and down over the other side, so he could copy his brother’s position between Nate and Lucas. “We have two new players.”
To the boys’ wide-eyed delight, Bastien dealt them in. Taking the cards, both his cubs shifted closer to him, their bodies warm and small against his own. “Daddy?” Julian whispered, pointing at the neat pile of chips in front of him. “Do I put those in the middle?”
Nate looked at his son’s cards, advised him to call. Jules did so with a serious expression on his face. And so the game continued, with Nate bowing out in favor of guiding the twins. He’d half-expected them to become bored, but they were fascinated all the way through, and Julian crowed in delight when Roman took the pot.
Grinning his thanks at the others around the table as Dorian exchanged the chips for cash, he pushed back his chair. “Right, off to bed or your mom will never leave me alone with you two again.”
This time, they didn’t argue or attempt to stay behind, knowing that tone in his voice. Discipline was as important to young predatory changelings as affection, and his leopard knew instinctively when they needed a stronger hand—as it knew when they needed room to give in to the wildness within. Because they weren’t human, were changeling, their leopards an integral aspect of their nature.