Branded by Fire

by Singh, Nalini

Now he put an arm around her shoulders. “I’m getting this second hand,” he said, “but apparently it was so much of a mess that there’s no way the Council’s going to be able to keep it quiet. Some senior Psy professor put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.”

  “Suicide by a Psy is news, but you’re talking breaking news bulletin if Eamon got pulled off schedule. Why?”

  “ ’Cause the professor held his physics class captive for twenty minutes beforehand. He shot himself in front of them.”

  “Jesus.” Mercy rocked back on her heels, datapad dropping to her side. “You hear of any other episodes like this?”

  “I got a buddy up in North Dakota—he says they’ve had a couple of incidents of Psy acting out violently. One guy almost beat another to death before they managed to pull him off. And Garrick, up in Chicago, he’s had a couple of hits on his radar, too.”

  Which meant there were probably even more that hadn’t yet filtered down through the grapevine.

  “Oh, and this broke a few minutes ago—they found a human male stabbed to death in an alley in Tahoe. Looks like random violence, but it’s the second murder in that area in less than a week. First one was that woman in the shallow grave.”

  Mercy nodded, wondering if there was any connection between the two killings. Might be time for Dorian to hack into an Enforcement database. “Thanks, Herb.”

  “Cut it out.” Turning, he grabbed her in a full hug, squeezing tight, his forehead lined with a heavy scowl. “Take it back.”

  “Puh-leeze. I can flip you in one second flat.”

  “And how will you explain the bruises to Mom?”

  “Tattletale.” She fought not to smile.

  His eyes narrowed, but she saw the cat’s laughter. “Take it back.”

  “Or what?” When he bared his teeth in a mock growl and squeezed her even tighter, she blew out a breath. “Fine. I’m sorry. Happy?”

  He let her go with a grin that had caught her heart from the moment her mom had first laid him in her arms. “I’m still telling. You know how mad Mom gets when anyone makes fun of our names, Mélisande.”

  About to respond, she caught another scent entering the garage. “I’ve got company. Talk to you later.”

  Sage’s lip curled in disdain. “Wolf.”

  “We have an alliance.” She parroted Lucas. “Now, shoo, baby brother.”

  “Nice try but I know you can’t stand this one.” He bent to pick up his gear, missing her guilty expression. “Dinner tonight? Bas just got back from New York, and Grey’s got the night off.”

  Mercy nodded, her skin tight with expectation. “Text me the details.” But her attention was on the wolf who’d stroked her into wild ecstasy only yesterday. Her lower body clenched and she all but bit through her tongue to force down the rising wave of arousal. She so did not want Sage picking up on that little bit of info.

  Her brother said a civilized hello to Riley as they passed. Riley responded with a nod, then jerked his head toward the exit. She went—no way did she want an electronic audience to their conversation.

  “Can’t stay away from me?” she asked when they were safely on the grass verge outside the building. Set in an industrial/ professional area, foot traffic was light, the grass neatly trimmed. It appeared they were alone.

  Riley glanced up at the building behind them. “I can feel them watching me.”

  “Yep. So don’t try anything funny.” It came out an invitation.

  His eyes went dark with a kind of knowledge that made her internal furnace go straight from hot to explosive. “I was passing by, thought you might be interested in some stuff we didn’t discuss on the phone earlier.”

  “Passing by?” She raised an eyebrow.

  “I went to visit those kids from the burger place, check they were okay.”

  Something melted in her heart. “I called them today.”

  “Yeah, they said.” He held the eye contact, all calm and solid and practical . . . except for the blazing heat in that gaze. “Your cat wouldn’t leave it alone either, would it?”

  “Nope.” It was an integral part of them—that need to protect. “They seem to be doing good. That girl Jen, she’s a smart cookie.”

  “She wants to be you when she grows up.”

  Mercy grinned. “I forgot to tell you something else—we’re being stonewalled on what exactly Nash is studying.”

  “Give the kid a few days,” Riley said. “He might change his mind after he thinks it over.”

  “Especially since we only need enough information to protect him properly.” She made a note on her datapad to have Ashaya follow up with Nash—the lynx might respond better to a fellow scientist. “So, what did you want to discuss?”

  Riley’s mouth became bracketed by white lines. “Judd got confirmation that someone pushed that shooter to do what he did, some kind of a mental suggestion buried deep in his psyche.”

  Damn. Her sympathy for the poor man who’d been made a puppet mixed with a slow-burning anger toward those who used people so heartlessly. “Tempting to call it a Psy internal war and ignore it,” she said, “but it’s affecting everyone.” She told him about the professorial suicide. “He could’ve taken so many kids with him.”

  “No way to know if he was programmed.”

  “Funny coincidence, though, isn’t it?” She gritted her teeth. “You know, the Human Alliance might consider the Psy their enemy, but they’re fucking twins when it comes to harming innocents.”

  Riley’s eyes gleamed amber. “You need to burn it off. Come for a walk.”

  Anger exploded under a surge of raw desire. “No, thanks.” Especially when the urge to nibble at that strong throat, that stubborn jaw, was a drumbeat in her skull. And double especially when she was considering the mechanics of tangling limbs in a car.

  The wolf was a shadow in his voice. “Scared to be alone with me?”

  “Busy.” Despite her racing heartbeat, it happened to be the truth. “I want to finish what I’m doing here since we have some downtime.” And I need to get a handle on this hunger before it creeps into every corner of my life. Because if she fell too deep and then he found his mate . . . Mercy knew herself, knew the soul-destroying pain that would accompany such rejection—she wasn’t good at holding back. If she gave herself to him, it would be with everything in her. “Don’t you have work?”

  He ran a hand through his hair, mussing himself up so deliciously that she had to fight the leopard’s desire to play with the strands. “Yeah, but it’s with Hawke and he’s in a shit of a mood.”

  “Sienna?”

  “Who else?”

  Mercy thought about the girl who seemed to be the—very short—fuse on Hawke’s temper. “What’s up with those two?”

  “He’s my alpha,” Riley said, eyes full of challenge. “I’m not going to talk about him to a leopard.”

  “We’re not enemies anymore, remember?” she said, tone arch. “We’re allies.”

  “Political allies—our animals still don’t trust one another.”

  “Which is an excellent reason for us to stay away from each other,” she said, seeing another glaring truth—her pack was critically important to her life. Being with Riley, that whisper of tenderness growing and twining like a vine around her heart, it held the potential to shake the foundations of her link to DarkRiver.

  A sentinel couldn’t give her heart to a onetime enemy/ new ally and do her job as the first line of defense for her pack. She had to be able to rip out Riley’s throat if the unthinkable happened and SnowDancer broke the alliance to turn on DarkRiver.

  Her stomach roiled with nausea, but her voice, when it came, was calm. “I’m as loyal to my pack as you are to yours.” If those bonds were compromised . . . it would break something fundamental in both of them.

  Riley went about his remaining business in the city with impeccable competence, following a checklist in his head. It was the only way he’d found to control the wolf when it got this agitated. Mercy would
undoubtedly roll her eyes, but then she had her own ways of controlling things, didn’t she? He’d felt her hunger, hot and slick in the sunshine, and yet she’d denied them both.

  The light changed to red in front of him. His car came to an automatic stop.

  He slammed a palm on the dashboard as the wolf snapped out, frustrated and angry. And needy. That was the kicker. She’d turned him away, and he was drowning for her. “Fuck.” Thrusting his hands through his hair, he used every one of the tricks he’d learned over the years to calm himself down.

  It wasn’t as easy as Mercy might’ve believed. Riley made it a point to be in command of his instincts because he knew what would happen if he wasn’t. His wolf was wild, ferocious, quite capable of killing without a blink if those he loved were threatened. Only with Mercy did he dare let the leash slip a little. And when their bodies joined . . . hell, what leash? But she seemed to like him that way.

  “Not enough,” he all but snarled as the car started moving again. The worst of it was, he knew she was right. This wasn’t about them in isolation any longer, it couldn’t be—if it had been just sex . . . but it wasn’t. He’d felt it. So had she. So had his wolf. Now it crouched down in feral anger, but it was also thinking, considering . . . wanting.

  CHAPTER 20

  For the first time in months, the Ghost heard whispers that perhaps Silence wasn’t all bad, that perhaps they’d been hasty in beginning to condemn it. He listened, said nothing, but knew something had to be done.

  For while the Ghost had nothing against Silence—nor the peace it granted so many—he knew the Protocol was what gave the Psy Council its power. Take away that method of control, and perhaps the Psy race would rediscover other kinds of freedom.

  But first, he had to cut this off at the root, discover who was pulling the strings. The M-Psy in charge of the shooter, the Ghost’s unwitting source, had known only of the compulsion, not the why or the who. Now he scoured the Net for information, but this person had been very, very careful. He or she had allowed not even the merest sliver of thought to escape into the Net.

  A very clever adversary. But the Ghost had assassinated a Councilor. He knew how to wait, how to listen, how to learn. Sooner or later, everybody betrayed themselves. And he was well versed in how to start rumors that spread like wildfire.

  At this moment he whispered that the shooter and others had been manipulated, that the Council was trying to cow the populace with terror. He could’ve said more, but sometimes, it was better to let people fill in the gaps themselves.

  CHAPTER 21

  Mercy’s brothers had picked a little place in Chinatown for dinner. She walked in to find them arguing over the menu. Grinning, she messed up Sage’s hair, kissed Grey on the cheek, and let Bastien grab her in a hug that lifted her off her feet. All her brothers were strong men, but Bastien, the closest to her in age, was the biggest.

  “Not if you want to live,” she said, after he laughingly threatened to throw her into the air. She saw the pretty waitresses give her envious looks—though it was obvious she was related to Bas. He had hair as darkly red as her own, though his eyes were a sharp, incredible green. Her brothers were all gorgeous on their own, but collectively, they made temperatures rise like nobody’s business. She’d spent half her teen years scaring off the girls who’d come sniffing after one or the other. Not that the idiots had been grateful.

  “You look good, sis.” Putting her on her feet after another squeeze, Bas let her get into her seat.

  “Yeah, nice dress.” Grey actually sounded sincere.

  Mercy looked down at the short, royal blue cheongsam she’d bought in this very part of town. With her hair pulled up into a high ponytail and some makeup on her face, she felt good. Even if the knife-edge of need continued to twist relentlessly in her stomach, immune to the practicality with which she’d held Riley at bay this afternoon. “Thanks, Shadow.”

  “How come he gets a cool nickname?” Sage muttered. “I get Herb.”

  “Hey, don’t knock it,” Bas said. “You want to be called Frenchie instead? Sounds like the name of a fucking condom.”

  They all choked on their oolong tea and one of the waitresses fluttered over, ready to offer all kinds of help. She saw her brothers check out the petite beauty—men—but though they gave her charming grins, they didn’t extend an invitation. Clearly disappointed, she took the order they finally put together, and headed off.

  “What?” Mercy looked around the table. “You guys take up a vow of celibacy?”

  “Now that you ask,” Grey murmured, brown eyes twinkling.

  “Hah.” She snorted. Grey might be the quietest, but he was also the most cunningly feline. “I’ll believe that the day I”—Normally, she’d have said “sleep with a wolf” but since that option was out, she settled for—“grow wings and fly.”

  Bas put a hand on her back, as if checking for wings. “This stuff is really soft.”

  Sage, next to her, fingered the sleeve. “Yeah, it is. How come we rate getting you in a soft, pretty dress?”

  “How come I rate the three of you all shiny and spic-and-span?” She raised an eyebrow at their outfits. Jeans, shirts, and T-shirts, nothing out of the ordinary. But all new, or clean and pressed, much nicer than necessary for dinner with their sister.

  “We thought we’d go dancing.” Grey winked. “You’re coming.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes. We need you as bait to draw the other women.”

  And since Mercy was a sucker for her brothers when the three of them ganged up on her, she went dancing with the demons. The serving staff at the restaurant looked so mournful as they left that she wrapped an arm around Bas’s waist and shook her head. “I don’t think the three of you should be allowed out in public together.”

  He swung his own arm over her shoulders. “And I just know I’m going to have to punch someone for trying to paw you in that dress.” He sounded very eager.

  She didn’t remind him that she was fully capable of punching out people on her own. Bas was her brother—he couldn’t help protecting her. As Riley couldn’t help it. It was like a switch went off in them at times. Mercy could bend when necessary, she wasn’t always a hard-ass. Bas had in fact, punched out people for her. She could deal.

  The problem with Riley was, he didn’t seem to have any give in him. She didn’t want her only glimpses into his soul to be after the crushing darkness of nightmare. For her cat to trust him, he needed to trus—

  “Hey.” Bas squeezed her shoulder. “Where did you go?”

  She glanced ahead to where Grey and Sage were strolling, checking out the window displays in the adjacent shops. “I’m dealing with stuff.”

  A silky pause. “What’s his name?”

  “As if I’d tell you.”

  “You chased off my last girlfriend.”

  “She was a hyena.” Not literally, but in heart. “Wanted you for your money.” Bas was smart, crazy smart. He made money on the stock market simply by breathing. Which was why he was in charge of DarkRiver’s financial assets.

  “My ego bleeds.” A hand rubbing pitifully over his chest.

  “We’re going to be wiping up blood for weeks, it’s so colossal.”

  He hugged her closer. “Come on, you can tell me. It’ll be our secret.”

  “And you’ll go hunting him the second I’m distracted. I don’t think so.” But she hugged him back. “So, no new hyena for me to chase off?”

  “I’m still healing the scars from the last one.” A piercing look. “I know who it is.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Riley.”

  Her mouth fell open. She looked up. “What?”

  “Jesus.” He stopped walking. “It was a guess, but I’m right. You’re . . . they’re . . . he’s a wolf!”

  She snapped around to make sure the other two hadn’t heard. “How did you even make that guess?”

  He thrust a hand through his hair, almost making a woman on the other side of t
he street trip, she was looking at him so hard. “Only dominant male I could think of that you’d been reacting to lately. You bitch about him a lot.”

  She glanced again at her two younger brothers, currently distracted by a display of lanterns. “Don’t tell them.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “Because you know they’ll do something stupid.”

  “So will I.” He jerked his head and they started walking again. “I might not be a sentinel, but I’m your brother. And I know how to kick wolf ass.”

  “Bas.”

  “Don’t ‘Bas’ me. You might be able to control Grey and Sage but don’t even try it with me.”

  She glared at him. “This is my business.” She trusted Riley not to hurt her brothers, but a lot could go wrong when men got stupid—especially when those men had claws and teeth meant for hunting prey.

  “Should’ve thought of that before you told my ex-girlfriend I eat live kittens for breakfast.”

  A tiny twinge of guilt. Then the cat wondered what Riley would think of her last successful “shoo-away.” “Who knew she’d believe me?”

  “Oh no? When you ‘accidentally’ opened the cupboard to expose my ‘kitten cage’ full of the poor, sad kitties I was going to snack on?” A raised eyebrow. “Wasn’t the cage next to my special ‘kitten defurring’ tools?”

  “They were obviously fake.”

  Bas just stared at her.

  Mercy snarled. “Damn it. Let’s go dancing.”

  “Yeah, let’s. I need to plan how I’m going to fillet this bastard if he hurts you.”

  Riley couldn’t do it. He couldn’t stay away from Mercy. However, her cabin proved empty. He debated calling her, then realized that would betray far too much of the driving need in him. And he couldn’t let her learn that, couldn’t give her that much power over him. Shoving the phone into his pocket, he headed back to his vehicle.

  That was when he scented him. Another male. One of the South Americans. His wolf bared its teeth inside him, but it was possession, not rage. The man had been here but wasn’t any longer. He’d probably come looking for Mercy. It was tempting, oh-so-tempting, to track him down and make sure he understood that Mercy was off-limits, but Riley knew his cat. She wasn’t the kind of woman to play off one man against another.