Storm echo, p.14
Storm Echo, page 14
Ivan had been as surprised as Soleil when he’d unearthed that fact. Changelings had a reputation for being closed units; they were so powerful because they were so untrusting of outsiders and so protective of their own. In many ways, the Mercant family functioned exactly the same. No one got into their family without significant background checks and extreme vetting.
No one but the people with whom Ena Mercant’s grandchildren kept falling in love.
Ivan wondered what she’d think of his cat, then immediately squelched the possessive thought. Soleil wasn’t his, could never be his. Not if he wanted her to have any kind of a life. There could be no cubs for Ivan, no colorful sparkling existence in the outside world.
Monsters lived in the dark.
“DarkRiver,” he said past the crushing truth of that thought, “is seen as the protector of this entire city. Any local-body politicians have far less sway than the pack, though the pack doesn’t appear to wield that power for political gain. It’s a complicated situation.”
“You’re sure you can get us to their home?” Soleil rubbed her palms on her tights again, then lifted her hands to the soft beauty of her hair and began to braid it. “You can drop me off close by, and I’ll sneak up in my ocelot form.”
He stored away another memory, of her fingers so nimble in her hair. It was the kind of thing a woman might do in front of her mate. He’d never hold that position, but no one could begrudge him such a small theft. Of but a moment.
“Leopard guards will eat you before you see them coming.”
A rumble from Soleil’s throat, a reminder that she was far from helpless. “I’ve been keeping myself alive on my own for a long time.”
Ivan went to reply, was cut short by a sudden wave of memory in his mind. But … they weren’t his memories. A tall and thin body wove through a large crowd, contained and alone and hurting.
Alone. Alone. Alone.
It was a pounding internal beat alongside the noise of the crowd, the brush of arms and shoulders as people moved past, the high shrieks of a little girl who rode on her father’s shoulders.
Not his memories. Hers.
Chapter 22
Access to the severed section of the PsyNet has so far proved impossible to gain. Multiple attempts have been made by various parties across the Psy spectrum, including from Designation A and Designations Tk-V and E. All have failed.
—Message to the rest of the Ruling Coalition from Kaleb Krychek
THE QUEEN OF the Scarabs took in her domain.
The barriers she’d designed were holding, the ring of dead space around the island a total psychic emptiness.
Excellent.
No one that she didn’t bring in would be able to set foot on this island. It was now the perfect space for her to test her long-term plans. Because she did not intend to reign only over a single small island.
This was just the beginning of her conquest of the PsyNet and her attendant subjugation of its populace. “Step by step,” she murmured as endless power rippled through her web, her Scarabs small infernos of energy. “Piece by piece. It will all fall. They will all fall.”
Chapter 23
Your pack is the heart. The alphas who fuck up are the ones who start to think they’re the most important element of a pack.
—Lucas Hunter, alpha of DarkRiver, to Remington “Remi” Denier, alpha of RainFire
“I’LL BITE YOU if you keep ignoring me.” A threat made in a sharp tone of voice that cut through the sudden vision that had hit Ivan—of moving through a crowd wrapped in a cloak of aloneness.
Shaking it off, he said, “Unless you’re hiding something, you don’t have the skills to bypass trained DarkRiver soldiers.”
“Hmph.” She held on to the end of her braid.
Lifting his hand toward her, he said, “Here. On my wrist.” He’d slipped a black elastic band over it this morning … for no reason. He’d just done it.
A cat prowled in his mind, an edge of smugness to it.
And Soleil’s fingers touched him again as she rolled the band gently off over his hand. He knew at that moment that he’d never again be without a band for her hair. Even in his cage, he’d wear one, and he’d dream of the day he could offer it to her again.
Foolish, stupid dreams.
Didn’t matter. They were his.
Another unexpected image in his mind, of a small cat creeping through the grass toward him, a cat with markings similar to Soleil’s but its body much smaller. Then it was bunching that tiny body and launching itself at him.
He jolted within, but only so he could catch the cub. But they were gone, mist through his hands. And he knew right then. She was looking for a child. “I’ll get you in. But we’ll have a very short window of time to get in and out—if you intend to do violence, however, we won’t make it out alive.”
DarkRiver soldiers were some of the most highly skilled he’d ever seen; not only did they have the advantage of natural feline skills, it was obvious they’d trained those skills to a knife-sharp edge. They had to have been ruthlessly strong in the first place to hold their territory against the SnowDancer wolves—and now that the two packs were allied, it was highly probable that leopard and wolf trained together.
Underestimating them would be a serious—and probably fatal—mistake.
Even his cousin’s brash alpha bear mate, Valentin, had been known to slam down a tankard of beer and say, “Lucas’s cats are lethal. No one sees them coming when they don’t want to be seen.” A grin that creased his cheeks as he shot his mate a private look. “Good thing I know how to get along with sneaky cats.”
The only reason Ivan knew he could get Soleil through to the Ryder home tonight was that—if the schedule held to what he’d previously observed—the soldier on patrol duty near their entry point would be a junior in training. As to why he’d observed the security protocols—because all information was power.
The choice of guard was likely because Nathan Ryder was at home during those days and well able to protect his mate and cubs. A good opportunity to give a younger member of the pack live training. Any mistakes wouldn’t be terminal.
“If you’re thinking about entering their home, forget it.” He had to set the right expectations or she’d hurt herself through lack of knowledge. “Nathan is deadly, and while I can hold my own against him, it’ll leave me with no ability to protect you. And Tamsyn can take you out.”
He felt more than saw her head snap toward him, her scowl black. “I’m not a weakling.”
He thought of her broken body in the snow, and of the courage it must’ve taken to go out there in the midst of such brutal carnage. “I know. But DarkRiver trains all its people—even submissives and healers. She’s also a mother with cubs to protect. She’ll rip off your head before you see her coming.”
Ivan had needed no one to tell him that the maternal drive to protect would eclipse even the healer tendency toward gentleness. Not every mother was protective—he knew that all too well—and, from what he’d observed, Tamsyn Ryder allowed her boys a lot of freedom. But she also always put herself on the street side when they walked on the sidewalk, and even at her most relaxed, it was clear that she knew where her children—and any other cubs in her care—were at all times.
She reminded Ivan strongly of Ena. No harsh orders, no screaming or yelling, no rules so tough they stifled growth. But all the cubs listened when Tamsyn told them to do something. And they looked at her with the absolute and pure trust of children who knew she was the adult; they didn’t have to worry—because she’d handle anything that came at them.
Ivan had never known that kind of childish freedom until he came face-to-face with Grandmother. And then, he’d understood it down to the bone. As he understood that Soleil would one day grow to have that same calm presence, that same warm steel to her. He’d caught glimpses of it already in her determination to find the person she sought … and in her tenderness with him, a man who was nothing to her.
Now she folded her arms. “You’re right,” she admitted in a grudging tone. “But I don’t know if I’ll be able to find the scent outside.” She went to thread her hand through her hair, pulled back when she remembered the braid. “Whatever happens, I’ll get an answer tonight.” Fierce, implacable will. “Even if that means I go up to their door and knock.”
“What’s your plan B?” Ivan always had a plan B, and he’d come up with one for her if needed. “If you don’t find what you’re looking for?”
“My original aim was to kill Lucas Hunter.”
Soleil didn’t know why she’d blurted that out. She kept on crossing lines with Ivan, but it didn’t feel like crossing lines. It felt natural, as if they’d known each other in another lifetime.
A deep pang, skirts whipping around her legs as she ran through a forest while laughing and looking back at someone who was chasing her. She wasn’t scared. She was exhilarated, playful.
Ivan’s voice snapped the gauzy thread, the images fading into gray. “Your original aim? Has it changed?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, rubbed a fist over her heart. “It was a ridiculous aim from the start. Grief-crazy thinking. I could never take him out.”
“If you could, would you?”
Soleil shook her head, accepting the truth that Farah had been urging her toward from day one. “I saw who he is to so many people on that street yesterday. I felt the connections that bind him to countless others.” A burn in her eyes. “How could I, as a healer, end his life knowing that the flow-on effect would be catastrophic?”
Opening her eyes, she dashed away tears. “This city is stable. DarkRiver is stable. If I hurt him, I betray all it means to be a healer—but if I do nothing, I can’t live with myself. So I’ve decided.”
She stared straight ahead. “If I don’t get the answer I want tonight, if it’s all a dream created by grief, I’ll confront him. Ask him why.”
She could feel Ivan’s attention as he waited for her to tell him the rest, but Soleil couldn’t speak. She hadn’t spoken to anyone about the loss of her pack, about all the dead, all the blood. And now, today, when she parted her lips, all that came out was silence. While inside her head played two cubs in the grass. They’d been so mischievous, so intent on creeping up on her and pouncing.
She’d always known they were there, of course, their small bodies making the grass rustle as they crept along on their stomachs. But she’d pretended to be startled, pretended to fall back onto the grass as they “attacked” her. Such small, warm bodies wriggling on top of her in excitement at having made a successful hunt.
She’d growled and grabbed them close to her chest, and they’d nuzzled at her.
Her hand lifted to her cheek, the echo of their small furry faces against her an almost tactile sensation. Her throat closed, the knot of grief in her chest expanding until it filled every part of her.
She could barely breathe, each inhale jagged shards in her lungs. So when that silvery web shimmered into her mind, stronger, thicker, even more dazzling, she grabbed hold of it, wrapped it around her like a glittering blanket, and used it as a shield against the grief.
It tasted of Ivan. Of course it did.
And somehow, in the strange comfort offered by the beautiful stone frost of the man who’d saved her life and now thought he had rights to it, she found her voice. “My pack is dead. SkyElm is dead.”
“There were survivors.”
“Yes, seven survivors—and me.”
Ivan didn’t question the way she voiced that, simply listened.
“A human neighbor told me after I finally remembered myself and came home.” She’d learned of Monroe’s rejection by then, but she hadn’t come back for her erstwhile alpha. “The neighbor had lived next to the pack a long time.” So long that even Monroe had accepted him.
“Only seven,” she murmured, her heart breaking all over again. “But it was more than none. It was enough for us to start again. Then …” She exhaled on a full-body shudder. “Then they all vanished one night, and when the neighbor went looking, he found blood in the aerie that belonged to my former alpha.”
Still, she had hoped. Knowing who Monroe had been, she hadn’t been surprised that he’d ended in blood. “After seeing the blood, our neighbor got in touch with a nonpredatory changeling he knew from his work. That person picked up the scent of a leopard.”
Their reaction had been stark terror.
“It took me a long time to track down who the leopard might’ve been. A lot of rumors, a lot of whispers, but in the end it came down to this: my alpha, Monroe, did something to bring DarkRiver’s wrath down on him. Lucas Hunter executed him.”
“A rumor?”
“No, that last part isn’t rumor.” Black-and-white images in her mind, the text of the message crisp and clear. “Such executions are listed in a master document that was set up as an adjunct of the Peace Accord that ended the Territorial Wars. It’s to stop revenge attacks when the execution was warranted.
“I’m not senior enough to have access to the document, so I don’t know why Monroe was executed. But I have a friend in another pack—a librarian—whose alpha has openly said that no one has any argument with Lucas Hunter’s actions.”
“Your alpha broke a changeling law that couldn’t be forgiven.”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. And Monroe … he wasn’t a good person.” She felt no loyalty to the man who’d made her feel unwanted since childhood, then flat-out disowned her. “He was a bully and I think he picked the wrong target.”
“Yet you wanted to kill Lucas Hunter.”
“Because there were seven survivors.” She tugged the silver web tighter around herself in an attempt to ward off the chill that was the incipient death of hope. “Monroe and six others: our senior healer, Yariela; a submissive packmate; two young soldiers—and two cubs.
“All gone without a trace. My librarian friend was also able to confirm that SkyElm is now a dead pack. Our line no longer exists in any of the records kept among changelings, and our territorial lands have been forfeited back into the trust that holds open territories.”
She strangled the sob that wanted to escape; tonight wasn’t about tears but about answers. But she couldn’t stifle the pain that bled into her words. “I need them to be alive, Ivan. If they’re not …”
“Is there any other reason your pack would be listed as dead?”
“No. It’s tradition for a pack name to be put into a holding pattern even when they have no alpha and so need to join another pack. It leaves room for a child of the original pack to one day pick up the mantle. A pack is never listed as dead unless there are no surviving members.”
She’d made very certain of her understanding of that point. “But my pack stops at the moment of Monroe’s death. There is no continuity, no future possibility. And my friend confirmed that no one has had any contact with the survivors.”
Ivan could see why Soleil believed what she did, but he was a hundred percent certain that she was wrong. Everything he knew of Lucas Hunter told him the man was a protector. He might be aggressive in his defense of his pack, but that didn’t extend to harming innocents caught in the crossfire. Ena, too, had been known to get those innocents out of the way, even when she was on a quest for vengeance.
True alphas didn’t need to subjugate the vulnerable to be powerful.
But Soleil needed to know the truth without question—so he would help her find out. With that in mind, he got them back on the road toward leopard territory—but he pulled off onto a dirt track before reaching the official start of the highly secure zone. After driving for about ten minutes, he brought the car to a stop in the shadow of multiple forest giants.
This area was just far enough out from the pack’s core Yosemite territory that it wasn’t as heavily patrolled. He’d spotted a number of sensors, but two individuals shouldn’t set off any alerts. It could easily be members of the pack out for a stroll. Because, as far as he could tell, there were no cameras.
It made sense given the precautions that kicked in beyond this point.
Stepping out into the soft dark of a night lit only by a half moon, he led Soleil along the path he’d already mapped out in his head. They walked in silence until he said, “Will you tell me why Monroe refused to claim you?” If the alpha hadn’t already been dead, Ivan would’ve done the task.
That’s what healers are built for. For family. For pack.
The devastation in her voice was not a thing Ivan would ever forgive. And Monroe had sentenced her to that agonizing aloneness with the full knowledge of what he was doing.
“I failed to protect the pack,” Soleil said flatly. “Monroe told me so when we met in the midst of the massacre, both of us covered in blood and close to exhaustion. He screamed at me that I’d failed, that I was pathetic, that I had no right to call myself a packmate.”
“Healers heal. It’s an alpha’s job to ensure that the pack is protected.” Ivan’s voice was a stone honed to a killing blade. “I know a bear alpha. He would’ve eaten your alpha alive for speaking such an ugly and dishonorable lie.”
She swallowed hard. “Monroe’s mate and child died in the massacre. I couldn’t do anything to help them.” Their blood had flowed like water, drenching the soil to a viscous darkness. “I think he must’ve gone a little mad from the loss.”
“A healer’s heart is a too-kind thing at times, Lei.” He lifted a finger to his lips on the last word and she realized they’d reached the boundary from where they’d have to move in absolute silence.
“Be sneaky like a cat,” Ivan murmured.
She stared at him. That hadn’t sounded like a Psy thing to say. But she’d ask him about that later. For now … she’d be sneaky like a cat.
Chapter 24
Loving
Extraordinary
Ocelots (*Teacher’s note: interesting choice, K. Tell me why it fits.)
Playful
Aleine!
Roaming
DarkRiver
