Storm echo, p.10
Storm Echo, page 10
Her hands fisted, tears hot in her eyes.
A rumble in Lucas’s chest. “You’re not marked by an alpha. Have you come to ask for sanctuary?”
She stared at him, at this man she’d come prepared to hate. It was an out he was giving her, a way to skate under and around the laws that required she be punished for breaching DarkRiver’s territorial boundaries. But if she said yes and he accepted her request for sanctuary, then she knew he’d require a blood bond. A symbol of her commitment to the pack and vice versa.
“No,” she said sadly, because she thought she could’ve liked him if he hadn’t committed such a heinous crime. Meeting his gaze, she searched for the evil in the panther green.
Healers weren’t submissives, and she’d heard that senior healers could gainsay even their alpha, but those were complex bonds she’d never witnessed. Even Yariela hadn’t been able to make Monroe listen. She couldn’t imagine how it could be otherwise—especially when Monroe’s power had been nothing in comparison to Lucas Hunter’s.
This man was lethal beyond anything she could’ve imagined.
“I ask for no sanctuary,” she said, her throat thick. “I ask only for answers.” If she was going to die, she’d die having forced him to face the shame of his actions.
Scowl dark, he growled at her again.
And she became aware of Ivan going very, very still next to her.
Lucas’s eyes snapped to Ivan at the same time. “I’ll deal with you later, Mercant.”
Mercant.
She sucked in a breath. Everyone knew that unusual surname. It was that of the icy blonde who headed the Emergency Response Network—EmNet for short. It made total sense to Soleil’s cat that her enigmatic rescuer belonged to the same powerful family.
“If you believe I’ll sit here and allow you to harm Soleil, it’s best you recalibrate your assumptions.” Ivan’s voice was oddly … relaxed. No frost to it as might’ve been expected—but that did nothing to erase the threat in his words.
He was a cold-eyed predator coiled and ready.
Soleil braced for an alpha’s rage. From what she’d seen in her grandfather, then Monroe, alphas did not like being challenged. And while Ivan was no doubt powerful, he was exhausted and they were in the heart of leopard territory. A single nod from Lucas was all it would take to bring multiple predators down on Ivan.
“It’s fine,” she said quickly. “I can look after myself.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow with … was that amusement in his gaze?
Her cat was arching its spine in mortal insult when he said, “Sure, little healer,” as if she wasn’t five feet nine in her bare feet. “While you fall flat onto your face because you’re so wiped.”
“I certainly will not,” she said, while hoping he didn’t notice the tremor in her hands.
“Stubborn. It’s like you’re all born that way.” A grumbling mutter. “Sit. Eat. I’ll get nutrient drinks sent over for both of you.”
He shoved a hand through his hair, his eyes capturing hers. “I see you.” A low and deep murmur that made her cat stand at attention, because those words had been meant for the animal heart of her, not the human part.
“As for you,” he said, turning his attention to Ivan, “we’ll be having a long-overdue discussion. Until then, look after the little healer.”
A hot flare in her gut that razed reason to ash. “I am not little.”
Lucas pinned her with his gaze. “No,” he said slowly. “You’re not, are you?” A glance at the bar clutched in her hand. “I said, eat.”
She hated that his growl affected her. Lifting the bar, she bit off a piece and chewed in angry silence as Lucas rose and went to talk to a tall redhead in jeans and a fitted black shirt who appeared to be checking in with the traumatized humans and nonpredatory changelings in the street.
That redhead was a cat, too, her grace sinuously feline. And despite the stylish cut of her clothing and the cute black boots on her feet, she was a soldier. Soleil could see it in the cool grit in her expression, the lithe musculature of her body. She was also someone senior in the pack hierarchy—that was obvious from the way she interacted with Lucas.
DarkRiver’s senior dominants, she realized, were tougher than Monroe had ever been. Forget about Lucas Hunter; the redhead alone could’ve taken him down.
SkyElm had never stood a chance.
“I can get you out of here.” Ivan’s voice was a subvocal murmur that shivered over her skin.
Favors always come with a price.
One of the things her father had often said. While it might be true of many adults, it was never true of children. Children didn’t keep score. They gave you their treasures just because they thought those treasures might make you happy—even if it was a cookie they’d been waiting to eat.
Soleil missed the children the most.
Her heart hurt.
“Why would you?” she asked this man who was nothing like those innocent souls.
“Because I saved your life,” Ivan said, the compulsion to be with her no less powerful than the first time they’d met; Soleil had been written into his life, never to be erased. “It’s now mine to protect.”
A flash of temper in eyes that were ocelot, not human. “I be—” She slumped over, and it was only by moving with all the speed at his disposal that he managed to catch her before she slammed sideways into the ground. As it was, he stopped her downward motion with her head a bare inch from the asphalt.
Chapter 16
Alpha.
Healer.
Sentinel.
They are the foundations. The firm soil on which we all stand.
—From A History of DarkRiver by Keelie Schaeffer, PhD (continuing project)
SHE WAS INCREDIBLY light, far too light. Changeling bones were heavier than Psy or human, and Soleil was light with that factored in. Her shoulder bones—revealed by her tank top—jutted out against her skin, her arms were barely clothed in flesh, and he could feel her ribs against the arm he’d used to stop her from falling.
“Shit.” Lucas crouched down in front of her as Ivan straightened her up again, holding her protectively to his side. “I knew she’d burned herself out but I was hoping she had more reserves.”
Green eyes landed on Ivan, the alpha’s power a thing of claws and teeth, primal in its intensity. “This isn’t your fight, Mercant.”
Ivan didn’t bristle. That wasn’t how he functioned. Rather, he did a mental analysis of his psychic reserves, a count of the weapons on his body, and decided he could reach a single small shock device before Hunter decapitated him.
Not good enough.
Yet he didn’t release Soleil, driven by a protective urge that had nothing of reason to it. He didn’t care. Not when he felt whole for the first time since she’d walked out of his life. “She can’t fight for herself right now, so it’ll have to be me.”
Lucas stared at him for a long moment. “I should gut you, but turns out I can’t gut a man who’s putting his life on the line to shield a healer.” Hidden, unspoken things in that statement, a reference to information Ivan didn’t possess.
“I give you my word nothing will happen to her while she’s under DarkRiver’s care,” Lucas continued. “She needs that care. She’s showing all the signs of a healer who’s gone beyond her limits. What you’d call a flameout.”
Of course Hunter knew how to refer to a psychic burn that threatened to collapse a Psy mind for a day or more; the alpha was, after all, mated to a cardinal Psy.
Ivan was yet weighing up whether to trust Lucas’s words when the alpha said, “My mother was a healer.” His expression grew shadowed. “No one in my pack will ever harm a healer.”
Family, Ivan knew, was the core of a changeling pack. And Soleil was not only a changeling but a changeling healer. She had needs about which he knew nothing. In holding on to her, he could cause her irreparable harm.
So, even though allowing her out of his sight made a cold black rage boil within, the spider stretching its limbs in a nightmare fury, he permitted Lucas to gather her up in his arms.
The alpha stood with Soleil held to his chest. “Are you about to flame out?” he asked. “Do you need psychic protection?”
“Why would you help me?” Ivan was, after all, a spy in Lucas’s city.
“Because you saved lives today.” Grim words, an even grimmer expression. “The information coming out of the PsyNet is fragmented, but one thing is certain—a lot of people died during the incident. According to what we’re hearing, most of the Psy in this location should be dead—that they aren’t is because of you.”
Ivan knew he should look on the Net, check on the situation, but he had little to no reserves. “I’m not going to flame out.” He was, however, teetering on the edge and needed rest. Else he’d fall, his mind exposed and without shields.
“Then we’ll talk later—we know the location of your apartment.” Lucas walked away, taking with him a cat who’d prowled so deep behind Ivan’s defenses that she’d become embedded inside him.
As he rose to his feet, he looked for the small daypack Soleil had abandoned when she went to assist one of the injured. It lay ignored in the shadow of a closed doorway.
Once upright, he began a lazy and unremarkable walk toward the daypack, while never looking directly at it. The redheaded DarkRiver sentinel—Mercy Smith—spotted him, said, “You planning to collapse in the street? Be easier to give you a ride to your apartment than have to scoop you up later.”
“No. I’ll make it.”
Eyebrows drawing together, she went to say something else when another member of DarkRiver came up to her. Ivan took that opportunity to grab the daypack and slide away. He knew the changeling facility for scents—Mercy would’ve tagged the bag as Soleil’s if she’d gotten close enough.
Ivan didn’t think anyone from the pack would steal her belongings. But they would go through the bag. That was simple security protocol. His hand tightened on the strap hung over his shoulder; no one had the right to take what Soleil wasn’t ready to give.
Not even Ivan.
She’d made her choice about him, and he wouldn’t manipulate her into another decision now that she no longer had all the facts … but he couldn’t deny himself the pleasure of being around her in any capacity. The truth was, he hadn’t even understood pleasure before her.
To Ivan Mercant, pleasure was Soleil Bijoux Garcia.
Despite his assurance to Mercy, he barely made it through the door of his apartment. After locking it, he stood and looked at the stairs that led up to his bedroom until he’d gathered a few more fragments of energy.
At which point, he literally pulled himself up using the banister.
Dropping Soleil’s bag in the corner where it would be safe from prying eyes, he shut and bolted the door, set his security perimeter, then collapsed onto the bed, shoes and all. An image flashed against his closed eyelids in the moment between wakefulness and sleep—of a black spider, its carapace gleaming, that sat at the center of a web of shining jet, hundreds of cobwebbed black lines trailing out from its sleek body.
His vision telescoped into a pinprick of light … then was gone.
Chapter 17
Drug 7AX has passed all levels of testing and is now approved for usage. Dosage calibration needs to be exact to achieve intended “super soldier” effect.
Any deviation from the calibration guidelines will lead to severe side effects, including but not limited to mental decline, memory loss, erasure of personality, myocardial infarction, lung disease, and major neurological changes.
—Classified Report to the Psy Council by PsyMed:
Pharmaceutical Development & Testing. Project Manager:
Councilor Neiza Adelaja Defoe (circa 2017)
HE DREAMED THAT night. According to the Silence Protocol, Psy weren’t meant to dream, but Ivan had always dreamed in vivid color. He’d wondered if his nocturnal stirrings were a remnant of his unusual childhood, but then one of his cousins had mentioned a dream—so it appeared the Psy Council had lied about dreams, too.
Or, he’d simply been raised with people whose Silence was as imperfect as his own. Most outsiders would see Grandmother as having the most perfect Silence of all, but Grandmother was also the head of a family that would coolly and calmly dissect any enemy who dared come for one of their own. Mercants took family with dead seriousness—and they didn’t only see family in the perfect.
Ena Mercant’s devotion was not a thing of Silence.
As for Ivan—his color-drenched dreams had been the only real freedom he’d had as a child. Things had changed, his life his own; perhaps that explained why the hues of his dreams had faded. Tonight, however, the dreamscape glittered, awash in the light of the woman formed of stars who stood in front of him under the canopy of a forest giant.
Lifting her hand, she laughed. “I’m made of stars!” Delight in every syllable. “Look!”
He took her hand, felt it, though he couldn’t have explained the sensation. It wasn’t of flesh on flesh. It was as delicate as starlight … and yet not. And though he wasn’t a man to hold hands with anyone, he allowed her to wrap her starlight hand around his and tug at him.
Because he knew her, even if she was clothed in stars.
“Come on!” she said. “There’s a lake over there—I can see the moon’s reflection.”
Releasing his hand halfway there, she ran to the water, her movements sinuous and graceful. “Cat.” His whisper didn’t reach her where she now knelt by the lake.
“What do you see?” he asked, coming down on his knees beside her.
She pointed down at the water, and when he looked, he saw their reflections. His hair dark and his face shadowed, except for the side illuminated by her light. She was stars on the water, a creature of such beauty that it seemed impossible she should exist.
Reaching out a finger, she dipped it mischievously in the lake, the motion reminiscent of a small cat playing with a bowl of water.
“Why did you do that?” he asked as their reflections rippled.
A shrug. “For fun,” she said with a laugh. “Want to go swimming?”
“It’s cold,” he said. “You shouldn’t get cold right now.” She needed to conserve her energy.
Her smile faded, and she went down into a seated position with her feet in the water of the lake. “I’m hurt.”
Echoing her, he dipped his own feet in the water. He could’ve sworn he’d been wearing boots just before, but his feet were now bare, his jeans rolled up. “No, it’s just exhaustion. A little rest and fuel and you’ll recover.”
Head lowered, she leaned her body against his. “Inside,” she whispered. “I’m hurt inside. I can feel it.” She spread her hand over her heart. “They’re all gone.”
He understood loss, understood loneliness, and so he did the one thing he did with no one, not even Grandmother. He put his arm around her, holding her to his side, this fragile creature of starlight.
“I tried to save them.” Her voice trembled, wet and broken. “I tried so hard.”
“I know.” That was why she’d been lying under all those bodies, with an ax in her back. “No one could’ve asked more of you.”
Her shoulders jerking under his arm, her tears sparkles in the air. He didn’t know how to deal with tears, but he knew what it was to lose the very foundation of your world, to become a planet with no sun, a place of ice and frost.
Shifting, he slid one arm under her legs while keeping his other around her back, and scooped her up into his lap. “You’re not alone,” he told her. “I’m here.”
No answer, but she stayed against him, stars dazzling his vision.
Pressing her hand over his heart after her tears faded into a silence heavy with pain, she said, “Why is your heartbeat so strange?”
He looked down, saw the glow of arteries and veins shining through his T-shirt. They pulsed a vivid orange with an edge of scarlet. “That’s the color of Jax when it’s heated up. Some people like to drink it.”
“Jax?”
“A drug.” So strange, that it would be in his heart. No medic had ever warned him of deposits in that region of his body. “It opens the mind, intensifies the world, offers false freedom.”
Sitting up without warning, her spine rigid, she took his face in her hands. “Don’t put poison inside you.” An order, the stars in her eyes shifting to a primal tawny gold. “Promise me.”
“I’ve never taken Jax of my own free will,” he told her, because this was a dream and he didn’t have to fear that the truth would make her see him as defective. “My mother used it while I was in the womb—and she gave it to me when I was a child.”
A haze of red in her gaze now, flames of anger licking at the gold and husky brown. “It harmed you?”
“My brain pathways are abnormal.” There was no way to dress that up when the configuration of his brain was so bizarre that the neuro specialists his grandmother had hired didn’t know what to make of it.
What was known was that of those adult Psy confirmed to have been exposed to Jax in utero, ninety-six percent experienced episodes of “serious mental instability” in their late twenties to midthirties. Ivan sat right in the center of that zone. “I thought I had it under control, thought my brain had figured its way around the toxic deposits. I was wrong.”
She ran her fingers through his hair, and he thought she must be leaving behind a trail of starlight. “You’re so afraid.”
“Fear is useless. I’m pragmatic.” He knew what awaited and he’d prepared for it, planned for it. But … he hadn’t prepared for her, had never foreseen how desperately he’d want to fight the fate his mother had chosen for him.
“You’re so sure the worst will happen.”
“Ninety-six percent,” he said, not quite ready to tell her that it was already happening; his short clock was now in its final countdown. “The remaining four percent had significant other abnormalities. I might have fooled myself for a time, but the fact is that no one escapes Jax when it’s present during cell development and growth.”
