by Nalini Singh
“Athena’s this artistic, slightly flighty, but very sweet woman,” she said instead of lingering on the strong line of Kenji’s neck, because that way lay dangerous temptation. “She’s gifted, no question about it. Her pencil drawings are incredible.” Garnet had one hanging in her quarters. “But Russ, he controlled her. Wouldn’t even ‘allow’ her to have a little show for packmates.”
Muscles taut, she shook her head. “I took her aside any number of times to ask her if she wanted out, but she always patted my hand and said she understood how Russ thought and that they were happy.”
Garnet blew out a breath, dropped her hands to her sides. “I had to accept that, since she’s an adult wolf and there was nothing actionable in Russ’s behavior.” The truth was that the heart wasn’t always sensible or logical or rational. If it had been, Garnet would’ve forgotten her personal green-eyed weakness long ago.
“It wasn’t even a hierarchy thing,” she said, intuiting Kenji’s next question. “They had about the same level of dominance.” Russ hadn’t been controlling Athena through her wolf. “Just a case of bad taste, I guess.” Her gaze met Kenji’s. “Woman like Athena, once she makes a choice about a man, she’s stubborn enough to stick to it no matter how bad the situation is for her.”
Those beautiful shoulders tensed, Kenji’s response holding the edge of a growl. “Seems to me she made a choice to stay. And when the situation became toxic, she walked away.”
Garnet had never walked away—Kenji hadn’t given her that chance. And even now, she wanted to ask him why. The question had dug into her brain for years. They’d been friends. If he’d had cold feet about a possible relationship, why hadn’t he just told her? Why hurt her? Why create a distance between them that had remained unbridged until they both became lieutenants and had to find a way to deal with one another?
They’d settled on biting wit, sarcasm, and razor-edged flirtation.
“So,” Kenji said when she stayed silent, his voice still rough. “We’ve done everything we can here. You want to have another look around before we leave?”
“Yes.” Suiting action to words, she began to cover the room, but there wasn’t much in the living area aside from the furniture she’d already noted, including the small glass-fronted display cabinet that held honors Russ had won in his field. He’d stripped the cabinet of all traces of his life with Athena, including the photos that had once fought for space atop it, while Athena had taken the sampler she’d made for the wall above.
Garnet had seen the room’s pre-breakup state the times she’d spoken to Athena while Russ was away at work. She’d talked to Russ, too, made it clear she was unimpressed by his controlling attitude toward his lover.
His response echoed in her memory.
“I would never hurt Athena.” Face stiff and shoulders squared, he’d ground out the words. “Just because our relationship isn’t what you think it should be doesn’t give you the right to interfere.”
Garnet had been forced to concede that Russ did love Athena. It hadn’t been a warm, generous love. No, it had been small and jealous and suffocating, but it had been a kind of love nonetheless. That understanding was why Garnet had made certain an older packmate checked in on Russ after the breakup—she’d known he wouldn’t talk to her, but she’d hoped he’d confide in a peer who was a friend.
He hadn’t, had shut down all efforts to offer comfort or friendly companionship.
Chest aching because Russ would now never have the chance to make another choice, she walked out of the living area and down the hallway to his bedroom.
She saw nothing she hadn’t seen earlier.
The bed was messed up, but there was no smell of sex. Just two masculine scents—Russ’s and Shane’s. Given their relationship, the only thing they were likely to have been doing in here was fighting. Sheets were tangled and half pulled off the bed and there were holes in the internal walls.
Like the main SnowDancer den, Garnet’s den was hewn out of stone, but the internal rooms were created much the same as rooms anywhere. Russ’s apartment was near the center of the den, which meant only the floor was stone; Russ had placed carpet over that. The same pale shade as in the living room, the carpet nonetheless clearly showed the flecks of white paint and fragmented shards from the damaged walls.
Rubbing a fleck between her fingers, Garnet had a thought. “Kenji,” she said without raising her voice, “did you notice if either Russ or Shane had broken skin on his knuckles?”
He answered from Russ’s study. “Russ, yeah. Not sure about Shane.”
Making a note to check that, she continued to examine the room. She even forced herself to go through the cupboards and drawers again. It was in the lowest drawer that she found a photo of Athena; Russ had hidden it facedown under a stack of math papers . . . but he’d kept it. “Ah, hell.”
People were so damn complicated.
• • •
Kenji exited the study and went to stand in the doorway to the bedroom. He could’ve gone elsewhere, but he wanted to watch Garnet work, wanted to drink her in. As it was, her scent sank into his cells between one breath and the next. Or that was what it felt like. As if she was already branded into his skin, a place only a lover or a mate had the right to be.
His gut twisted.
He’d sell his soul to have the right to call her either one of those two words.
“I still can’t make heads or tails of his study,” he said, going to shove his hair back only to realize he was still gloved. That hand, when he paused it midmove, held the finest tremor. Yeah, it wasn’t getting any easier to ignore the violent pull inside him when it came to Garnet. “It’s all math stuff. I don’t think it was disturbed—he was so neat, any search would be obvious.”
“Russ’s been tutoring a couple of grad students.” Closing the drawer she’d been examining, Garnet got to her feet with a grace that seemed more akin to the cats than to a wolf. She’d always been like that, lithe and fluid and beautiful in motion.
“Once we’ve confirmed the sequence of events,” she said, “I’ll have the students help Athena go through the study.”
Folding his arms, Kenji leaned against the doorjamb. “You think she’ll want to?”
“Love’s a hard beast to slay,” Garnet murmured, her eyes on the holes in the walls. “Athena came to me a month ago, wanted to make sure Russ was all right.” A faint, sad smile. “Two people can’t live together for a decade and forget each other in a heartbeat.”
Kenji wondered if he’d have been strong enough to walk away from Garnet had they already been a couple. The answer was a visceral hell, no. He’d have been selfish, held on to her with bleeding and broken fingers if need be . . . and he’d have watched her slowly realize what it meant to be with him.
It would’ve killed him.
“Kitchen’s the only place left,” Garnet said on the heels of the silent sucker punch of his thoughts.
Not trusting himself to speak, he followed her to the small kitchen in back of the apartment. It was spic-and-span. Neatly set out on the counter was the lonely tableau they’d noted in their first sweep: one cup, one plate, a pair of utensils.
“Sad,” Kenji murmured.
Garnet’s mouth was bracketed by white lines on either side as she shook her head. “He could’ve chosen to eat with packmates at any time.”
Kenji wanted to rub those lines away with his thumb, tell her this wasn’t her fault. “Yeah.” The only time Kenji ate on his own was when he was so exhausted he just wanted to bolt down a meal and crash—or during the rare times when he felt like being alone. Otherwise, he ate in one of the communal break rooms. That was every packmate’s right, paid for by SnowDancer’s various business profits and investments.
The pack had made that decision in the aftermath of the Territorial Wars, at a time when the wild game had long since migrated to areas without war.
SnowDancer had survived the wars with enough members to remain a pack, but it had also absorbed members from other more devastated groups. Those people had become pack under a searing mountain sky, and together, they’d created a charter that held to this day.
Part of that charter was that no pack member would ever go hungry in pack lands.
Too many of the survivors had known hunger.
However, ask any wolf and that wolf would tell you it wasn’t only about the food, but about togetherness, about being a pack. Kenji’s bonds with his packmates had been sealed into stone over years of meals taken together, hundreds of times when he’d casually taken charge of making sure a small pup ate properly or the occasional time when he’d laughingly participated in a food fight.
Couples and families usually had more meals on their own than single wolves, but even then, the balance was weighted toward being with pack, using the time to catch up and connect. As a child, Kenji had eaten with Garnet’s family more than once and he hadn’t been the only nonfamily member at the table.
“I guess Russ either liked eating alone,” Kenji said, “or wanted to wallow in self-pity.” He shrugged, feeling more than a twinge of sympathy for his dead packmate. “He’d been dumped, then seen his ex hook up with a younger man—big hit for anyone.” The male ego could be a fragile thing. “And from what you’ve said, I don’t think he’d have seen it coming.”
“You’re right.” Garnet walked around the kitchen, checking cabinets and drawers once again. “He’d probably have made it out given enough time.”
Kenji saw the tension bunch across her shoulders, but he wasn’t prepared for her to turn around and slam her hands down on the counter as her claws sliced out, perforating her gloves. “No one had to die!”
His wolf rose up into an alert position inside him, hackles raised. Not because of her growled statement. Because of the distress hidden beneath her anger—and because she was still growling low and deep, her eyes having gone pure wolf. Placing his hand on one deceptively delicate-appearing shoulder, he made his tone hard. “Throttle it.” It was an order. “Your denmates need you calm and in control.”
Baring her teeth at him, she said, “Get your hand off me,” in a voice that was more wolf than woman.
He heard the unspoken coda: Don’t you dare give me orders in my own den.
Kenji decided to dice with his life.
Because what most people didn’t realize was that Garnet was actually more feral than Kenji. She ran her den with aplomb, gave off the image of being totally civilized . . . but she wasn’t. Piss her off enough and the wolf was right there, ready to rip off your head. Or punch you in the face. Of course, that wolf only appeared with those she considered equals.
Raising an eyebrow, he leaned in close enough that he could count every one of her golden eyelashes. “Make me.”
He didn’t even try to avoid it when she shoved off his hold with a clawed hand, leaving four thin scrapes on the skin of his wrist. “Feel better?” His heart pounded at the scent of blood, at the wild physical contact, at the feeling of being marked by the one woman whose brand he’d always wanted to wear.
“Or,” he added with a deliberately wicked smile, “would you like to beat up on me some more?”
“Bite me,” she muttered, but her eyes were less gold and more blue now . . . though the wolf, it was still very much present.
So present that he could almost see her fur bristling.
Chapter 4
Kenji wouldn’t have been surprised had Garnet drawn more blood, but she narrowed her eyes at him and said, “Let’s go talk to Athena. If anyone knows what led to this, she will.”
After they both stripped off and disposed of the forensic gear they’d been wearing, Kenji stayed back with Eloise while Garnet first took the samples to Lorenzo; the healer was authorized to run most of the necessary biological tests. Anything he couldn’t process, he’d keep in a special locked and temperature-controlled storage cabinet.
“She’s amazing,” Eloise said softly as Garnet strode away, the younger woman’s voice full of shimmering hero worship.
“Yeah.” Leaning against the wall, Kenji held his grazed arm by his side and fought not to go after Garnet, beg for more contact. He’d take another clawing if that was all she’d give him.
And it wasn’t because he was a player.
Contrary to general pack opinion, Kenji hadn’t exchanged intimate skin privileges with anyone for over a year.
Changelings needed touch to stay stable, but the affectionate cuddles he received from pups, the hugs from friends, had helped paper over, if not fill, the void. His body hurt with a deep sexual ache and his wolf was desperately lonely, but it had started to hurt being with anyone, too. Because no one else was Garnet. No one else would ever be Garnet.
Neither wolf nor man wanted anyone but her.
Rubbing his fist over his heart again, he tried not to think about how things could’ve been different, how he could’ve had the right to call her his own as they grew into their skin and strength side by side, but his brain, it was a runaway train. And it wanted to go straight back to the most painful moment of his life.
For so long, Garnet had just been his friend Steele’s tiny kid sister. Smart and funny even when she was butting in and being annoying. She’d also been painfully kind. He’d never forget how she’d hugged him fiercely tight when she’d found him crying as a ten-year-old after his parents had another massive fight—and she’d never told anyone, keeping his hurt to herself.
Then the night of her high school graduation, she’d laughed and hugged him after he gave her a journal for her upcoming trip to France, and his wolf had quivered in shocked understanding inside him: after all that time, he’d finally seen her. Seen the strong, highly intelligent, and beautiful woman she’d become. But she’d still been Steele’s kid sister, still only eighteen to his twenty.
So he’d gripped his need in a merciless fist and given her the room and the time to spread her wings, find her feet, all the while knowing she was his, the key to his lock. Too fucking bad for him that Fate didn’t agree.
Hearing Eloise scuff her shoe on the stone of the den floor, he focused on the young soldier, all determination and ruler-straight spine and lines of strain around the eyes. “Garnet must respect your skills a hell of a lot.”
A wide-eyed look that turned shyly hopeful. “Really?”
Kenji gave a small nod. “Most juniors would’ve been relieved the instant the alarm went up.” He didn’t know this pup well enough to offer her a touch or a hug, but he could give her the same in words. “Remember that when you are relieved. It’s not because she has any concerns about your ability to do the task, but because it’s not your time right now.”
Eloise swallowed, blinked. “I just . . . I was freaked, you know?” she admitted in a whisper. “I didn’t maintain.” A jagged breath. “I screamed for a second before I stopped myself.”
“That just means you’re flesh and blood, with a heart. It’s what you did afterward that matters—you summoned help and held the scene. No senior could’ve done better.”
Eloise’s shoulders straightened, a smile lighting up her eyes.
Garnet’s boot-clad footsteps sounded at that instant. She appeared around the corner seconds later, her expression grim once more. With her were a male and a female Kenji knew, both dominants far more experienced than Eloise.
“Eloise,” Garnet said, and walked a short distance away with the younger woman, her hand on Eloise’s back.
Whatever she said had Eloise nodding before she returned Garnet’s hug and left.
Since Kenji and the new guards had exchanged hellos by the time Garnet returned to them, there was no further delay. He fell in beside her, ready to back her up whatever came next.
“You still speak French?” he asked, his mind yet filled with snapshots of how she’d looked
when she’d returned from France—so bright and confident and bursting with life. Like Eloise, she’d been hopeful and wide-eyed, but unlike Eloise, she’d already had a core of steel that marked her as a dominant with the strength to become lieutenant.
Only she hadn’t been hard. Hot tempered, yes, but never hard, not even when she’d been a teenage girl bloodying the noses of boys who thought they could dominate her in the hierarchy simply because she was petite. She’d brought Kenji back a braided leather bracelet he still wore, but only when there was no chance she’d see it.
“And that’s a relevant question, how?”
“I figure I get a random free question after you mauled me.”
Eyes flicking to his arm, she scowled. “Let me see that.”
It was nothing but a scratch, but he lifted his wrist toward her anyway, let her put her hands on him. “Faker,” she muttered, dropping his arm . . . after a gentle pat over the scratches. “You should know better than to challenge another lieutenant, especially in her territory.”
His skin burned where she’d touched him, licks of fire that warmed the cold places within. “Danger’s my middle name, don’t you know.”
Garnet’s response was a stream of fluent French.
“Hell, that’s sexy.” He pressed a hand over his heart, his wolf so delighted she was playing with him that it ran around excited as a pup. “You probably said something about spinach, right? Or told me to eat a sock.”
Her lips quirked, that adorable, unlieutenant-like dimple peeking out. “You’ll just have to live in suspense, Kenji Danger Tanaka.”
Undone, he said, “Where are we going?” Not that he cared, so long as he was with her.
Her expression turned solemn. “Athena and Shane’s place is down this way.”
It took a brisk five-minute walk to reach the apartment.
Kenji frowned. “Did they request these rooms?”
