Branded by Fire p-6

by Nalini Singh

  “Damn.”

  “I’ve renewed the alert to our people in that area and they’ll get the word out to the nonpredatories. Drew’s handling the info-spread on the SnowDancer end. Problem is, Enforcement’s got nothing else yet, so we can’t get specific.” His voice dropped and he blew out a breath. “Where the fuck do they keep coming from?”

  “I wish I knew, Blondie.” She used the childhood nickname on purpose, nudging him away from the edge of darkness. He’d become so much more balanced since mating with Ashaya, but she knew he’d always mourn his murdered sister. So would she—as a child, Kylie had been determined to be included in all of Dorian and Mercy’s nefarious schemes, no matter that she was far littler.

  After Kylie’s death, Mercy had made a determined effort to remember the good times, the mischief, but her heart still hurt at odd moments—like when she saw something she knew Kylie would’ve loved. She couldn’t imagine how much worse it was for Dorian. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she said, “Or should I call you Boy Genius? That one seems to be catching on.”

  “Watch it, Carrot,” he said, then chuckled. “I’m handing things back to Shaya—Keenan says I’m missing the best part of today’s episode.”

  The comm filled with Ashaya’s face again, her curls looking wilder than before. “What’ve you been doing?” Mercy asked with a grin.

  Ashaya blushed. “Let’s say Blondie is a fast mover.”

  Any lingering concern Mercy might’ve had for Dorian disappeared. “I’ll be by in, say, two hours? That okay?”

  “We’ll probably still be curled up in bed, watching cartoons.” Her eyes filled with affection. “My mate and son have discovered a mutual love of superheroes and breakfast in bed. They’re determined to convert me.”

  The image Ashaya had sketched—of a lazy family morning—was so appealing that Mercy was almost surprised. Almost. Because she’d realized long ago that family was an integral part of her dream. “Don’t get crumbs on the sheets.” As she hung up to the sound of Ashaya’s laughter, she realized that Sierra Tech, where Amara worked, was smack bang in the middle of SnowDancer territory.

  Riley’s territory.

  The leopard came to attention. So did the woman. And that fast, all sensible thought was buried under a crashing wave of anticipation.

  Riley finished going over his worklist for the day, and handed out the assignments by phone. Unfortunately, the routine task didn’t succeed in keeping his mind off Mercy—for the first time in months, he’d dreamed not of Brenna’s abduction, but of a redheaded cat who refused to come to him. It had left him sweaty, the sheets tangled around his limbs like so much plastic.

  Even in his dreams, she defied him.

  However, despite his jaw-clenching frustration, he was almost finished when Hawke came in and grabbed a seat. “What’s my assignment?” he asked after Riley hung up.

  It was a serious question. Riley’s job was to coordinate their resources. Hawke was the best they had. It would’ve been a waste not to use him—though Riley always had to have a backup in place in case Hawke got pulled away on alpha business. “I’ve got an assignment you’ll love.”

  Hawke blinked, the slow, lazy blink of a predator very much on alert. “If the name Sienna appears in that assignment, I’m going to shred you open, tie your intestines in a bow, and feed you to the feral wolves.”

  Riley smiled and kept going as if Hawke hadn’t spoken. “You need to take care of a certain juvenile Psy female you gave sanctuary to when her entire family defected from the PsyNet.”

  “I should’ve given orders to eat them all.”

  “Psy taste rubbery,” Riley said straight-faced. “I know. I tried to chew off Judd’s arm once while we were hunting.”

  “Stop laughing,” Hawke said, though Riley hadn’t made a sound. “Just tell me what she’s done now.”

  “Nothing.” Riley dropped the bombshell and waited as Hawke’s mouth fell open.

  His alpha took several seconds to recover. “Nothing?”

  “Nothing,” Riley repeated. “But you’ve been slacking off. You need to find her a position in the pack.”

  “She’s—”

  “No more excuses, Hawke.” Riley folded his arms. “She’s been eighteen for almost three months now, and she’s been in training with Indigo for what—ten months?” He brought up Sienna’s file on his handheld. “No, you stuck her in training over a year ago. She can protect herself well enough to do a number of tasks.”

  “She’s volatile.” Hawke’s jaw tightened.

  “She’s a telepath, a strong one.” Sienna was a cardinal—her abilities were off the scale.

  “She’s got abilities aside from telepathy. I’ve seen her lose control—she can do serious damage.” Hawke shoved a hand through his hair.

  “So can you,” Riley said pointedly. “She’s learning. Just because she—”

  “Don’t go there.” A growl.

  Riley raised an eyebrow. “I was going to say, just because she’s Psy doesn’t also mean she’s not an eighteen-year-old going stir-crazy.”

  “Fine.” Hawke was gritting his teeth. “I’ll handle it.”

  “Then I’ll leave it with you.” He’d made his point and Hawke was certainly not stupid. “I’m going to go up, check out the bear population in sector 2. There’ve been reports they’re getting sick.” If it was something serious, their vets would need to go up and investigate. Because whatever was affecting the bears could trickle down through the other animal groups in the area, decimating entire herds. And as the pack that claimed territorial rights over this area, SnowDancer was also its caretaker.

  More than that, Riley needed a chance to get out of the den before his frustration led him to strike out. The wolf was starting to claw at him, pacing this way and that, wanting blood if it couldn’t have sex.

  Mercy handed Amara the chip Ashaya had packed in a small, impermeable case.

  “Is it all good?” she asked Ashaya’s identical twin.

  Amara didn’t reply until she’d checked it under a microscope. “Yes.”

  Having a conversation with Amara was hard. She didn’t throw out verbal cues like most people—but at least she wasn’t homicidal any longer. “Anything you want me to take down to Ashaya?”

  Familiar blue-gray eyes looked into hers, but Mercy had a feeling she’d never mistake Amara’s gaze for Ashaya’s. “Not at this stage.”

  “Cool.” Nodding at the test tubes lined up on the workbench, she asked, “Looks interesting.”

  “Don’t worry,” Amara said, “I’m not creating another monster virus.”

  Since that was exactly what Mercy had been thinking, she grinned. “Never crossed my mind. What is it?”

  “A child’s game—to make colors.” She lifted a stunning blue one. “Copper sulphate.”

  “You don’t strike me as the playing type.”

  “A perceptive observation.” She put the test tube down next to one with a bright yellow compound inside. “But Sascha Duncan says I must try.”

  With any other person, Mercy would’ve waited for them to continue. With Amara, she had to be blunt. “Why?”

  “She says play appears to help with . . . emotion.” Shrugging, she picked up an empty test tube. “I don’t pretend to understand the workings of an E-Psy, but if I do this, she leaves me alone for a few days.”

  Mercy hadn’t known Sascha had been spending that much time with Amara—especially given what she knew of Sascha’s initial reaction to Amara’s absolute coldness. But their alpha’s mate was nothing if not determined. Amara needed to be helped in this unfamiliar new world, so Sascha was helping her. It was nothing more—and nothing less—than that. “Play teaches us things,” she said to Amara now. “It lets us try out ideas without worrying about whether they’ll work. Think of it as a creative form of brainstorming.”

  Amara stared at her. “That’s extremely astute.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think that was a compliment.”

&nbs
p; Amara said nothing. After a second, Mercy realized it was because she hadn’t asked a question. “Was it?”

  “Of a sort,” Amara said. “I thought changeling soldiers were pure brawn.”

  “Your sister’s mated to Dorian and you think that?” Her fellow sentinel was hella smart.

  “I still want to kill him sometimes, so Ashaya doesn’t leave us alone much.”

  Mercy’s lips twitched at the straightforward answer. “Don’t worry—he gives me homicidal thoughts at times, too.” Then she got serious. “Fight it. Fight whatever it is that wants to drag you down. Giving in is for wusses.”

  Isn’t that what you’re doing with Riley?

  Even as her mind bucked against that unexpected mental whisper, Amara blinked. “It’s no wonder my twin says you’re her favorite. She never gave up either. Even on me.”

  Deciding that would do for today, Mercy turned to leave—she couldn’t deal with her own rebellious thoughts and Amara at the same time.

  “Mercy?”

  She turned back at the door. “Yeah?”

  “Look.” Ashaya held up a new vial. “It’s the color of your hair.”

  Hawke strode toward the Laurens’ quarters—Sienna had chosen to remain with her uncle, Walker, his daughter, Marlee, and her own brother, Toby, even after she turned eighteen and was entitled to a separate one-bedroom unit in the den. Whatever else he might say about Sienna, one thing was undeniable—she was a good cousin, a good sister. Marlee and Toby both adored her. So, for that matter, did a lot of the other pups.

  Too bad she turned into a demon every time he came within breathing distance. “Riley’s right,” he muttered under his breath, staring at the closed door of the apartment. Half the reason Sienna was bent on driving him insane was that she had too much spare time on her hands.

  She was bright, and her uncles had ensured she was enrolled in a distance-learning degree course run by a major university. But that did nothing to release her physical energy. Indigo, too, had been nudging at Hawke to get Sienna into a position within the pack—because, for better or worse, she was now part of SnowDancer, and not being given a position was an insult.

  Hawke felt his jaw set. Insult or not, he had to balance the rights and well-being of every single member of the pack—Sienna had less control over her impulses than almost anyone else in her year group. He couldn’t chance her not following orders when it might mean life or death for the rest of her team.

  And how do you think she escaped the PsyNet? By being a ninny and disobeying Walker and Judd?

  Sometimes he hated that voice in his brain, the one that slapped him upside the head anytime he got too stupid. Funny, it happened a lot with Sienna.

  “Whatchya doing?”

  He glanced down at the owner of that tiny voice, having scented his miniature shadow several feet down the corridor. “Looking for Judd.” The lieutenant hadn’t been in his quarters, and Hawke wanted to get his take on Sienna’s psychic control.

  Ben took a slurp of his orange popsicle. “Not here.”

  “Yeah?” Crouching down, he made eyes at the popsicle.

  Ben immediately turned it in his direction. “Wanna bite?”

  “No, I was just kidding.” This pup, he thought, would grow up into the kind of man any pack would be proud of. An alpha simply knew with some. “Do you know where Judd is?”

  “Outside. With Brenna.” Another slurp. “Doing kissy stuff.”

  Hawke grinned. “And you know this how?” Ben was too young to be allowed out of the White Zone, and Judd surely wasn’t doing “kissy stuff” in the area where the little ones played.

  “He told me.”

  “He told you?”

  “Yeah. I asked him how come I couldn’t come, and he said he was going to kiss Brenna so I’d probably get grossed out.” This time he took a bite and chewed. “I decided to come visit Marlee instead.”

  “She in there?”

  “Yeah. With Sinna and Toby.”

  “Then I guess I’ll be speaking directly to Sinna,” he said, saying the name as Ben had. “You knock.”

  Ben tapped with a little fist. “Are you mad?”

  “No.”

  “You’re scowly.”

  And that was when Sienna opened the door.

  CHAPTER 24

  The Information Merchant had a partial list. He considered how to get that list to those who had hired him. Most people would’ve used a comm screen, or a secure phone link, but the Information Merchant took being careful to the extreme.

  He thought about a face-to-face transfer, but determined that that wasn’t necessary at this stage. Instead, he decided to use an old-tech method. Slipping into an office building utilized mostly, though not exclusively, by humans and changelings, he dropped the envelope containing the data into a nearly full out-box while the receptionist’s back was turned, and sat down to read a newspaper on his organizer.

  The automated mailroom cart came by ten minutes later, impeccably on schedule, and emptied the out-box. It would be in the post within the hour. Satisfied, the Information Merchant got up and walked to the elevators, heading up to a meeting he’d set up earlier that week. He didn’t believe in leaving loose ends.

  Especially when he was trading the most treasonous of secrets.

  CHAPTER 25

  Riley was an hour out from the bears’ territory when he caught a very familiar scent. Wolf and man both came to a halt, on alert. The wind ruffled the wolf’s fur, a cool, gentle stroke. The earth, the wind, the sharp bite of the evergreens, it all served to calm him . . . normally. Today, excitement beat in his blood.

  Instead of chasing the scent, he stalked it. Careful, careful, the wolf whispered to the man. Be patient, or she might disappear. And he didn’t want her to disappear. He used every trick he knew to hide his scent as he came ever closer. And then there she was, curled up on a warm, exposed rock, her coloring golden, the rosettes on her body dark. She was his natural enemy, but the wolf agreed with the man this one time—this leopard was too magnificent to attack. Perhaps he stood there for a minute, perhaps ten. But when he finally padded out of the shadows, her head didn’t jerk up in surprise.

  Instead, sleepy eyes opened to half-mast. They were a vivid color close to gold in this form, as if the brown had been heated by internal sunlight. Her eyes seemed to say, “What?” and “Go away, I’m napping,” in equal measures.

  Holding her gaze, he shifted. The pleasure/pain of it swept through his body. A familiar thing. And yet, new each time. He came to crouching on the forest floor, his eyes still locked with the leopard’s. “You’re in my range.”

  A disdainful sweep of her tail. Even in this form, she found ways to sass him.

  “Kitties get eaten up here.”

  A yawn this time, full of teeth. Oh yeah, Mercy knew how to play.

  “I’m heading up to check on the bear population,” he said, realizing he’d intended to make the offer all along. “Come with me.” His entire body tightened as he waited for her answer.

  I’m as loyal to my pack as you are to yours.

  As a lieutenant, he knew he was playing with fire by continuing to pursue Mercy. He knew that . . . but he was also a man and she was a woman who acted like a drug to his senses. If she denied him again, would he continue to try to change her mind? Yes, he thought, unsurprised. He was stuck on Mercy, and when Riley got stuck, unsticking simply wasn’t on the agenda.

  But he could be patient, which was good, because the leopard female took her time thinking about it, yawning several more times before reluctantly getting up and padding off the stone. He knew it was all for show—she was as curious as her feline brethren. She stopped face-to-face with him, showing him her teeth.

  “I’m scared.”

  Those teeth threatened to bite his neck. He jumped out of reach and shifted, trusting her to follow the rules of play and not interrupt. She didn’t. But the instant he was wolf, she attacked. He rolled in the lush richness of the fallen leaves, knowi
ng the scent would cover him when he returned. He might play a game with the kids, get them to guess where he’d been. It was how they learned.

  But for now, he was intent on avoiding Mercy’s jaws. Her claws were sheathed this time, and she wasn’t really coming at him. Neither was he. He blocked the attack, then rolled her, threatening to grip her neck. Shaking him off, she shot him a haughty look and began to pad away. Time to go.

  Coming up beside her, he deliberately pushed at her with his shoulders, so they walked side by side, their flanks rubbing. A little warning light went off in his brain at the act, an act the wolf in him recognized immediately, but he was in too good a mood to listen. The run to the bears’ territory passed in easy play. Mercy took off more than once, daring him to catch her. When he did, she sniffed and continued on in a lazy way, as if it mattered nothing.

  More games.

  More alarm bells.

  He ignored them all.

  When they reached the bears, he nodded as she went left, while he went right. Mercy might be wildfire to his solid, rooted earth, but when it came to work, they functioned with clockwork synchronicity.

  They met an hour later at the starting point. By unspoken agreement, they went back to the stone where he’d first met her before shifting. “The sun’s moved,” she complained.

  “There’s another stone as good.”

  Making a face, she walked over to the second flat slab with silent feline grace. She had no shame in her naked body. Neither did he. But, he noticed her. And that wasn’t the changeling way. Not with normal members of the pack—either SnowDancer or DarkRiver. Nakedness after shifting simply was. Nothing to be remarked on.

  But his brain was remarking plenty on Mercy. Her fire red hair curled just above the curve of her buttocks, drawing his eye to their sweet, toned shape. Mercy was a soldier, her muscles lean and strong. But she was also very much a woman—all smooth, soft skin and luscious, strokable curves.

  And her breasts. He swallowed a groan as he caught teasing glimpses of them as she jumped lightly on top of the rock—very much like the cat she was—and lay down on her front, giving a moan of pure, sensual bliss at the heat. “Stop checking me out and come give me a massage.”