by Nalini Singh
Judd didn’t need any further explanation—no alpha would ever want to air his or her pack’s dirty laundry. That Miane Levèque had trusted SnowDancer and DarkRiver as much as she had was a sign of BlackSea’s desperation. They’d tried to find their members on their own and failed. Miane’s people might rule water, but they needed help when their people had been abducted onto land.
“There are wolf packs in Canada.” Indigo folded her arms across her white T-shirt, her black hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail and her long, lean body standing shoulder to shoulder with the playful blue-eyed wolf who was her mate—and Judd’s other brother-in-law. Who also happened to be the pack’s tracker, charged with hunting down and executing rogues.
The Kincaid family grew them strong.
Judd’s mate was as tough as either one of her brothers.
“We have a good relationship with the majority of them,” Indigo added. “Just depends if Miane wants us to reach out.”
“I’m guessing not.” Drew’s handsome face was unusually solemn, his rich brown hair tumbled from whatever he’d been doing prior to this meeting. “BlackSea’s made it clear they don’t want it known that so many of their people have been taken captive.”
Judd could understand the other pack’s caution. The water-based changelings held significant power now, but it was a delicate balance. Their dependence on water and their scattered locations made the weakest of them easy prey—and the Consortium had recognized that. BlackSea couldn’t afford for anyone else to do so.
“Canada’s full of water,” Sienna pointed out from her position across the circle from Hawke, her navy blue T-shirt bearing paint streaks and tiny handprints that indicated she’d come from a shift in the nursery—and that the pups had been in a rambunctious mood.
Despite her position as Hawke’s mate and her own violent psychic abilities, Judd’s cardinal niece had made the choice to go step-by-step through the same training as her peers. As a result, she wasn’t technically a senior member of SnowDancer with the right to be at this meeting, but Hawke had asked her to attend such meetings when and if she could, because at a certain point in the future, their packmates would begin to look to her for answers in her capacity as the mate of their alpha.
It was good for Sienna to start bedding into that role now, even as she continued her normal soldier training. Judd had expected his niece to protest, since she’d made it clear she didn’t want to leapfrog up the hierarchy—not that anyone would’ve disputed her right to do so after what she’d done in defense of SnowDancer—but Sienna had agreed to Hawke’s request and appeared to be focusing hard on learning all aspects of what it meant to be the mate of a powerful alpha.
Love gives far more than it ever takes. And love makes us want to give.
Words spoken by Father Xavier Perez. Judd’s friend and fellow rebel was currently somewhere in South America, searching for the woman he loved. The human male should’ve already reached her, but he’d suffered significant injuries the day he arrived in Peru, after a driver lost control of his vehicle and plowed onto the sidewalk. It was only a month earlier that he’d finally healed enough to continue his search across rugged terrain.
Judd had offered to teleport Xavier to his destination, as had Kaleb, but Xavier was adamant he had to do this himself.
I have to prove I deserve her.
Understanding the depth of Xavier’s need in a way he wouldn’t have before he’d fallen for Brenna, Judd turned his attention back to the matter at hand. Riaz was nodding at Sienna’s point. “BlackSea must have high-risk people who use Canadian lakes as their primary habitat,” the other lieutenant said. “Miane won’t want to compromise them. On the flip side, it means the water changelings have plenty of eyes and ears in the country if they need them.”
“We take BlackSea’s lead,” Hawke said. “Riaz, Kenji, stay in touch with them, offer our assistance.” He shoved up the sleeves of his shirt. “Lucas also asked that we all keep an ear open for anything related to Naya. Looks like certain Psy in the Net are looking in her direction, and the interest isn’t friendly.” The wolf-blue of Hawke’s eyes had turned frigid as he spoke, the power that came off him a near-palpable force.
There was a reason even Psy were very careful when dealing with strong changeling alphas. At times, Judd wondered how his niece dealt with her mate. Sienna was a power, one honed in brutal circumstances, but she was young . . . and she had challenged Hawke from the instant she set foot in the den, never backing down, even when it would’ve been prudent. It was a reminder that his niece had her own wild streak, wild enough to handle the primal wolf who was her mate.
“Is Lucas okay with my passing on the word to my contacts?” Judd asked, not saying Kaleb’s name though everyone present here knew he and the most dangerous telekinetic in the world were friends. It was old habit to protect the other man’s identity, from the time the two of them—and Xavier—had been rebels working in the shadows.
Hawke gave a short nod. “Use your judgment, speak only to people you trust to look after Naya’s interests.”
Kaleb wasn’t “good” in any ordinary sense of the word, but Judd knew the other man would never harm a DarkRiver child for the simple reason that DarkRiver was important to his mate. And whatever was important to Sahara, Kaleb protected. “I’ll do it now.” Breaking away from the group, he made the call.
It was early in Moscow, but he had a feeling the other man would be up.
He was right.
“I’ll release a tracking program into the Net to listen for mentions of the child,” Kaleb replied after Judd explained the situation.
Understanding as he did the complex amounts of data Kaleb could sieve through at any one instant, Judd thanked his friend.
Kaleb’s response was simple. “DarkRiver protected and nurtured Sahara when she needed it.”
Those words said a great deal about the loyalty of which this deadly man was capable, of the lengths he’d go to, to protect the rare few people who’d earned that loyalty. It also hinted at the other aspect of his personality, of the ruthless vengeance he’d mete out should anyone ever harm Sahara.
Black and white, both existed in Kaleb.
Living in the gray was something he did with ease.
“Have you heard from Xavier?” Judd asked, having long ago accepted the duality of nature that was Kaleb Krychek.
“A week ago,” Kaleb responded. “I offered to ’port to him, but he continues to insist that he needs to walk alone during this time.”
Kaleb never truly betrayed emotion, not even among friends. Likely Sahara alone saw that side of him. But right then, Judd had the feeling the other man was frustrated by Xavier’s intransigence. So was Judd. But some things, no one could force. “He knows he can call on us for help at any point.”
That they would respond at once should that call ever come was an unspoken vow.
Kaleb didn’t reply to that—nothing needed to be said, not between two men who’d fought side by side for so long. “I have to go,” he said instead. “Meeting with Ena Mercant.”
Judd raised an eyebrow. He’d been out of the PsyNet for almost four years, but he had deep links with his fellow Arrows. As a result of that connection and the information to which it gave him access, he knew the Mercants continued to be a shadow power. It was said the family had more moles and puppets in the Net than everyone else combined. Silver Mercant had long been Kaleb’s aide, but Ena Mercant was the reclusive matriarch of the family, one who hadn’t been seen in public for years. “Did you blackmail her?”
“I got an invitation,” Kaleb replied. “I’m considering taking Silver along to taste test any offered food or drink for poisons. Ena has a reputation for ruthless efficiency.”
There it was, that bone-dry sense of humor the majority of the world simply didn’t pick up on, much less understand. Judd knew Kaleb would never be anything but gray
, but his friend had far more light in him since Sahara came back into his life. Judd understood what love could do to a man. He, too, had once walked in the darkness, once believed he could be nothing but a murderer, his ability to move the very cells of a body a curse.
It had taken a certain stubborn wolf to teach him different, to remind him that he was a man, that he had a right to a life and to love. Never once had Brenna looked away from the darkness inside him—she’d embraced it as simply another facet of his nature. As Sahara had embraced Kaleb. As they hoped Xavier’s Nina would embrace their friend.
“I’ll send out a search party if you don’t return from your meeting,” he said to Kaleb now. “Though even Arrows agree that if a Mercant buries a body, it stays buried.” Interestingly, no Mercant had ever been in the squad; that family had a way of holding on to its children.
“You see why I want them on my side,” Kaleb said before hanging up.
Judd returned to the meeting to find the others discussing details of something SnowDancer’s healer, Lara, had proposed in concert with DarkRiver’s healer, Tamsyn, two weeks earlier. The two healers had strongly recommended a SnowDancer-DarkRiver function, to be arranged around the birth of Mercy and Riley’s pupcubs. Hawke and Lucas had agreed, so now it was a case of hashing out the details and figuring out who should do what.
“Put Mercy in charge,” Indigo said, to Judd’s surprise.
It wasn’t because Indigo had nominated a leopard—the two women were close friends. No, it was because planning parties wasn’t exactly in the dominant-predatory-changeling-female job description. The maternals and submissives were far more experienced at wrangling everyone who needed to be wrangled to pull off an event.
Then Indigo added, “She’s going stir-crazy, and this is something she can work on with Riley’s input for the wolf side of things. For the physical stuff, she can haul in helpers from either pack.”
“Luc suggested the same.” Hawke’s eyes gleamed with wolfish humor. “I think the cat is afraid Mercy will rip off someone’s head if she doesn’t have something to do now that she can’t run patrol and the healers have asked her not to go in to work at CTX.”
Judd knew Mercy worked in communications when she wasn’t carrying out her duties as a DarkRiver sentinel. It was a job she could’ve kept doing, but it would’ve required daily and likely tiring round-trips to San Francisco, which would also mean she wasn’t in close proximity to the DarkRiver healer for much of the day.
No one wanted to take that risk, least of all Mercy or Riley.
“It’s a good idea,” Judd found himself saying after he’d processed Indigo’s points. “Mercy’s sociable and she has experience with communications. Plus, with her already off the rotation, it won’t mean a change in DarkRiver’s duty roster.”
“And we don’t have to worry that she won’t take the wolf perspective into account,” Drew said in a voice that held open love for his brother and Riley’s leopard mate. “She and Riley want the pupcubs to grow up at home in DarkRiver and SnowDancer both.”
Hawke grinned. “My bet is four wolf pups.”
Golden eyes going wolf, Riaz snorted. “We’re talking about Mercy here. She’ll probably smugly produce all cubs. Five of them.”
The others booed his prediction, calling out their own bets as they spoke. Judd had placed a two-and-two bet. Word was the pupcubs’ changeling animal would be linked to the dominance of each respective parent, and Judd wasn’t about to bet against either Mercy or Riley. They were the most evenly matched dominant changeling pairing he’d ever seen. And he didn’t think Mercy was big enough to be carrying quintuplets. Triplets or quads were far more likely.
A sudden rise in the noise level broke into the group’s friendly argument.
Chapter 6
CHILDREN POURED INTO the White Zone seconds later, having clearly been given permission to escape whatever it was they’d been corralled into the den for. Judd wasn’t the least surprised when they made a beeline for the adults—big playmates to climb over were always welcome.
“Hawke! Hawke!” Brown-eyed, silky-haired Ben tugged on his alpha’s hand as the lieutenants who’d attended the meeting remotely signed off with good-byes that held smiles. “Are we really gonna have a party with Julian and Roman and Keenan and everyone?”
That explained the excitement in the air, Judd thought as he reached down to pick up a little girl who was too small to push through the pack of pups. Putting her on his shoulders, he held her gently in place with one hand rather than with telekinesis. Children this young sometimes got scared when they couldn’t feel his hand.
She laughed and kicked feet clad in sparkling blue sandals. Before living in the pack, Judd would’ve never understood why changeling parents spent time and money on dressing their children when those children could shift without warning at any minute, destroying the items. Now no one had to explain it to him. Judd had given Ben the superhero T-shirt he currently wore.
The six-going-on-six-and-a-half-year-old was jumping up and down at Hawke’s positive reply. “Will we get to play games? And climb trees?”
Ben was one of the few wolves who could really climb, even in his wolf form. All thanks to his leopard playmates—Julian and Roman might be a year younger, but they were as prone to getting into mischief as Ben. The last time the three had been together, when Tamsyn came up to consult with Lara, they’d somehow managed to get into a supplies cupboard and gorge on the fancy chocolate the maternal females had been saving for dessert after a planned working dinner.
The chocolate-smeared miscreants had been found snoring away in the cupboard.
“I don’t think it would be a party without play,” Hawke answered with a grin before he hitched Ben onto his back, where the little boy clung like a monkey. “I don’t know about climbing though. I like the earth under my paws.”
“It’s fun!” Ben insisted, the chorus repeated by other children nearby.
“Have you been contaminating your packmates with leopard ways?” Indigo asked darkly, though her eyes were dancing.
“No,” Ben said, then frowned. “What does contami-ating mean?”
Laughing, Indigo clapped her hands. “Who wants to play tag? Hawke is it.”
“Yay!” The sound wave of agreement shook the trees before the kids scattered, Ben scrambling down to run away as fast as his little legs would carry him.
A slightly older group of kids, meanwhile, was huddled in another corner of the White Zone. As a grinning Riaz jogged past them to the den to safely stow the mobile comm, Judd managed to see between the children’s bodies, realized they were filling colorful water balloons from large bottles of water they’d smuggled out.
In front of Judd, Hawke narrowed his eyes at Indigo. “Right, I know who’s next.”
The lieutenant took off without a backward glance, weaving between delighted children while Drew got in Hawke’s way. “Can’t let you tag my mate,” the tracker said, hands open palms-out on either side of his body.
Having lowered the little girl he’d been holding so she could toddle away to hide, Judd used his telekinetic abilities to move Drew out of the way.
“Hey!” His brother-in-law scowled at him as Hawke took off after Indigo, their alpha pretending to growl and go after several small children along the way, who all ran off squealing. Sienna, meanwhile, was laughingly trying to herd Indigo into a trap, with a returned Riaz’s help.
“What the hell was that for?” Drew snarled, his shoulders moving fluidly under a dark blue tee with a silver design on one side as he threw up his hands.
“Remember that time we played war games and you almost broke my ribs?” It had been before Judd and Brenna’s mating, at a time when Drew was certain Judd was no good for his baby sister. “I decided I’m still holding a grudge.”
“You got your own back!” Drew’s response was half wolf, his claws sliding out o
f his skin. “You almost dislocated my shoulder that day!”
Judd pretended to think about it. “I did, didn’t I?” Having telekinetically stolen a water balloon from the enterprising group in the corner, he said, “So maybe I just wanted you here so I could do this,” and threw the balloon at Drew.
It caught the wolf in the face.
Growling as water dripped from his face onto his chest, Drew body-slammed Judd, and they went down. At which point, the other man clawed up dirt and grass and stuffed the mass down Judd’s back. Judd attempted to flip his brother-in-law off him, was foiled when pups drawn by their commotion ran over.
“Here, Drew,” one said, holding out a bright pink water balloon.
Drew bared his teeth and smashed the balloon right on Judd’s neck, which meant the water went down his back and chest, turning the dirt to mud. “Oops.”
Fighting dirty now, Judd got him with a couple more balloons. This time they were supplied eagerly by the children. Then he got lucky and managed to rub dirt onto Drew’s face. The pups, young and old, loved this new game. Mud was soon being rubbed onto both Drew and Judd with enthusiastic little hands, while the pups laughed like little demons.
Judd, sitting up now, with Drew behind him, back-to-back, felt something build inside his chest.
“Your fault,” Drew growled. “Remind me to wring your neck.”
“Noted.” That powerful feeling kept building and building.
And then a pup stopped squishing mud into Judd’s hair to peer at him with big blue eyes. “Uncle Judd’s laughing!”
He was, he realized. Quietly, shoulders shaking, but the laughter, it wouldn’t stay inside. Drew elbowed him from the back. “Not funny, man. I had on a new T-shirt.”
Judd just laughed harder, until Drew gave in and began to chuckle, too. Judd’s stomach was aching when he looked up and saw a beautiful blonde SnowDancer step into the carnage of the White Zone. His mate was dressed in sleek gray pants cropped at midcalf, her formal white shirt tucked into the pants. Colorful orange flats rounded out the professional look.