by Nalini Singh
“No way I was going to ask my men and women to do something I wouldn’t.”
Adria’s husky voice brushed over Riaz’s skin, snagging his attention. “I didn’t see a chip in the back of your neck. Did you change the location?”
“It’s there. Covered by a dermal patch that blends into my skin.” He jerked his head toward Adria, challenge and flirtation both in the faint smile on his lips. “You can feel it if you like.”
Once again, Riaz’s wolf flashed its canines but held its silence, well aware Bo was jerking his chain. Nonetheless, his focus was acute and deadly as he watched the woman who was his lover walk to stand behind Bo’s chair.
“Where?” she demanded.
“Here.” Reaching back, he tapped a spot.
Unable to see any difference in the honey brown of his skin tone, Adria pressed the pad of her finger over the warmth of his nape. The hardness was slight, but when she traced around the area, she realized it formed a small square. Looking at Riaz, she nodded, startled by the way the wolf watched her out of those eyes. Throat suddenly dry, she had to break the eye contact, clear her throat, before she could speak. “Could be a dummy.”
Bo shrugged. “I’m sane and alive after being taken captive by seven Psy. Think about it.”
She had, and in spite of her words, her instinct was to believe him.
Riaz placed his arm on the back of her chair as soon as she retook her seat, his attention on Bo, but his fingers just brushing her hair. Her heart slammed into her ribs, because subtle though it might be, she understood it for a possessive display—it was the first time he’d ever done anything of the sort in public, a warning of the notorious lone-wolf tendency toward possessiveness. The thing was, Adria had never expected him to train that aspect of his personality on her.
She was still trying to work out how to respond to the unexpected act when he spoke, his voice creeping under her skin to touch parts of her it had no business touching.
“If you didn’t ask Ashaya to help you test the implant,” he asked, eyes that had returned to their human shade locked on Bowen, “who did you trust enough to do the testing?”
Bowen took his time answering. “We heard about the Laurens,” he said when he did speak, his expression giving nothing away. “About how they’ve been alive all this time. How’d they do it? A familial net?”
Adria leaned forward in excitement, inadvertently breaking the contact with Riaz. “Another family of defectors?”
However Bowen shook his head. “No.” Another pause. “Let’s just call them a well-organized group.” His expression made it clear he’d share no other details of their identity. “They dropped out of the Net in degrees, changed their appearance, and blended into the population. No one would’ve been the wiser, except that one of them was injured in a freak accident six months ago—hit by bricks falling onto the street from a building undergoing maintenance.”
Adria found herself sliding back into her seat, her skin burning at the renewed contact with Riaz’s fingers.
“I saw him trying to limp away,” Bo continued. “I’m certain he wouldn’t normally have said a word, but he was concussed at the time, and kept repeating ‘no DNA profile’ as I was leading him to the ambulance. I figured he had a criminal warrant out on him, but then he mumbled the word ‘PsyNet.’” A shrug. “I did what any good security chief would do. I brought him here, had him patched up, and interrogated him while he was still dopey.”
A ruthless act—but then, from what Adria knew of him, Bo had never pretended to be anything else when it came to taking care of his people. The wolf in her respected that, even as it understood that the Alliance man would betray even the staunchest ally if it came down to a choice between that ally and those he considered under his protection.
“By the time his friends tracked him down,” he said, “we knew who they were and that blackmailing them would be a very bad idea, so we simply suggested that our interests might mesh and let it go at that.”
An intelligent and calculated decision, from a man Riaz had seen leak charm like a tap in a successful effort to divert people’s attention from his cold-eyed intelligence. “You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that.”
Bowen’s grin was a flash of canines. “The reason we know it was Tatiana behind the attack on Reuben,” he said, grin vanishing as quickly as it had appeared, “was that the men who were sent to take me in didn’t bother to hide the comm conversation they had with her once I was onboard, even though the stun had worn off.”
“Careless.” Riaz traced circles on Adria’s nape with the tip of his finger.
“They figured I wouldn’t be in a position to say anything after she got through with me.” Bracing his forearms on the gleaming wood of the table, Bo bit out his next words. “The bitch does her own reprogramming—she made it clear no one else was to touch me.”
Considering the facts, Riaz made the tactical decision to share some knowledge. “Tatiana is thought to have the ability to penetrate almost any shield.”
Bo’s pupils contracted. “Shit.”
“Yes. No way of knowing if the chip would’ve held her off, since it’s technological, not natural,” Riaz said, “but seems she can get into most minds without causing major damage.”
“Less scars to hide,” Adria said, and he heard the empathy in her, the soft heart she hid beneath the tough exterior.
“But,” he added, cupping her nape gently with his hand, “Tatiana’s ability is noteworthy because of how unusual it is, so it doesn’t change the impact of the chip. Still, your people need to make sure they don’t get cocky.”
“Noted.”
“Once you take away their psychic advantage,” Adria said into the silence that had fallen after Bo’s curt nod, “Psy are very vulnerable.”
As, Riaz mused, Bowen had proven with deadly efficiency on the yacht.
“They have a tendency to rely on their abilities,” the human male agreed. “The ones I took down on the yacht were armed, but they paid so little attention to me it was the easiest op I’ve ever completed. A single guard on the door?” He snorted. “Soon as I had his weapon, it was all over. None of the others were on alert because they assumed their telepathic sweeps would warn them of an intruder.”
“Why kill them?” Adria’s question betrayed the inherent compassion of her nature. “Why not simply incapacitate?”
“A message,” Riaz answered, the predator in him recognizing the one who sat three feet away. “He was sending a message. They fuck with the Alliance, you aren’t going to take prisoners.”
A small shrug from Bowen, his jet-black eyes steely with lethal purpose. “Leaving them alive would’ve been a sign of weakness, and Tatiana expects weakness from the ‘emotional’ races. What the bitch doesn’t understand is that rage is an emotion, too.”
Chapter 40
HAVING SPENT TWO hours with Bowen, going over the advantages the artificial shields might present the humans in SnowDancer and in the packs of their allies, Riaz reported in to Hawke via a highly secure satellite comm link set up using equipment at a small SnowDancer office hidden in Venice. Though the office was unmanned except for when Pierce was in the city, it had multiple layers of security not even a teleporter could breach without setting off a silent alarm. Not that they’d find much except some expensive comm equipment—the call history was set to erase itself the second after a user signed out.
“Bo says he couriered Ashaya the final chip earlier today, after making the decision to let us in on the secret,” he told his alpha. “Have her test it as well as she can.” Riaz wasn’t certain how far the scientist could go without implanting it in anyone, but it was worth a shot. “No way I’m taking Bo’s word on the effectiveness of the technology.”
Hawke nodded, and Riaz could almost see him weighing up every possible variable before he said, “I also want to send Judd in, test the one Bo has in him.”
“I figured. Bo’s expecting it.”
Hawke glanced to the
side, his head cocked at a listening angle. Turning back to Riaz after a couple of seconds, he said, “Judd won’t be able to get there until tomorrow night. You okay to stay?”
“Yes.” He turned to the woman beside him. “You?”
Adria nodded and spoke directly to Hawke. “I cleared two days just in case.”
“Even if you hadn’t,” Hawke said, the wolf’s laughter suddenly in his eyes, “Riley’s so happy right now, he’s granting leave to anyone who asks. I’m half afraid to turn around and find the entire den has left for the Bahamas.”
They all grinned at the idea of solid, stable Riley in a spin of joy. Riaz couldn’t imagine it happening to a better man. “He drive Mercy to violence yet?”
“Not so far, but I have popcorn for when the show begins.”
Signing off after another round of laughter, Riaz and Adria reset the office’s security and left via an ingenious passageway that spilled them out into a small but busy shopping district.
The walk to the hotel was quick, the streets around them swathed in velvet darkness broken by the twinkling lights from several eateries spilling warm conversation onto the street. “Dinner on the balcony?” he suggested as they entered their second-floor room.
Adria lit up.
And something in him gentled, wild tenderness invading his veins. “What do you want?” He picked up the room service menu.
TIPPING the waiter at the door, Riaz took the food out to the balcony himself. The temperature had cooled but remained comfortable, the night below dotted with pretty colored lights from a nearby restaurant, the golden-hued windows of another small hotel, the old-fashioned streetlights. Not far in the distance, water danced black and silken through a canal.
Pouring two glasses of wine, he handed one to Adria. “To Venice.”
She clinked her glass to his, her hair tumbling around her shoulders. “To Venice.”
It almost felt as if they’d made a vow … but to what, he didn’t know.
The food was simple but the flavor satisfied, as did the darkly romantic music lilting up from an evening busker. Wineglass in hand after they’d eaten, the wine midnight rubies in the muted light, Riaz watched Adria. She’d twisted in her chair to cross her arms on the curlicued metal of the railing, her face tilted into the soft wind and her ear cocked to the music. All her cares seemed to have vanished, the hardness created by life gone, until her beauty was exquisite, the lines of her face elegant and graceful.
This, he thought, this was who she was beneath the wariness and the hurt and the shields. A woman who, he suddenly knew, would tell him truths the other Adria never would. Dangerous though it was, this tightrope he was walking, he put down his wine and held out a hand. “Dance?”
A startled look, the gold streaks in her eyes vivid in the dark … her wolf coming to the surface. But she stood, flowed into his arms, one of her hands at his nape, the other locked with his own as he wrapped his free arm around her waist. She was tall enough that he didn’t have to bend, didn’t have to do anything but step closer. Their bodies aligned in sweet perfection, her head coming to just below his chin.
A faultless fit.
Drawing in the hidden notes of earthy warmth in her scent, he moved to the sway of the music, his blood hot, his body ready. But neither part of him was in any rush. He’d rushed too much with Adria, always been in too much need. Tonight, that need was tempered by the sexual pride of a dominant male, the desire to show her the lover he could be when his head wasn’t messed up.
The fact it wasn’t, even though he stood in Venice, where it had all begun, was because of her, this strong, guarded, complicated woman turned into a lazy-limbed goddess in his arms. He couldn’t quite understand how it had happened, how he had come to trust that she would never betray his secrets, but he did. So when she lifted her face to his, long fingertips stroking his nape, he bent his head and met her kiss halfway.
Hot and lush and open, it was a languid tangling of mouths. The softness of her, the curves, the lean strength, it all intoxicated. Her scent was in his every breath, and he wondered if she was becoming embedded in his skin, becoming part of him. It happened with lovers—he’d fought the change, not wanting another woman’s scent on his skin … but his wolf didn’t claw away the idea this time.
Painful as it was, the wild heart of him had accepted what could never be, though he couldn’t yet forget. But it wasn’t simply that, would never have been enough. Man and wolf both, they were fascinated by the enigma of Adria. The courage he’d witnessed under fire was only a single facet of a complex gemstone. Already, he knew her harsh, prickly surface to be a facade, the woman underneath one who understood SnowDancer’s most vulnerable … and who knew how to offer comfort to a broken male without unmanning him.
Spreading his hand on her lower back, he urged her closer. “Do you know what the words to the song mean?” he asked as the busker began to sing a song in Venesiàn, a language Riaz had made an effort to pick up during his time in Europe.
She shook her head, strands of ebony silk catching against his unshaven jaw. “It sounds beautiful, though.”
Nuzzling at her, he began to translate, their clasped hands held against his chest. Her sigh at the poignant emotion of the romantic ballad was eloquent, the lips she pressed to the dip at the base of his throat lush and inviting. It stroked a low, deep sound of pleasure from him, his body primed. “Stop that if you want me to keep translating.”
A teasing feminine chuckle. “I’ll behave.”
Riaz murmured the words to her until the song ended, the busker’s voice replaced by the sweet sounds of his fingers caressing the strings of his guitar.
“We should tip him.” She moved the hand at his nape down to curve over his shoulder, her breath blowing a delicate kiss across his skin when she spoke.
“Do you want to go down?”
She looked up, violet eyes lit by amber. “Yes.”
Fingers tangled, they left the room and made their way to the busker. The tip they dropped into his open guitar case made him grin. “Come,” he invited with a flourish of chords, “dance!”
Adria’s smile was shy. “Would you like to?”
Riaz had his arms back around her before he realized he was moving, the familiar cobbled streets of Venice made new by her laughter as she navigated the uneven surface high enough to have escaped the flooding, her fingers tightening on his hand.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured.
His wolf, so long trapped in pain and confusion, pressed against her, happy. Sliding his hand down her back, he danced with her under the half moon, barely aware of passersby until an older Italian couple, the woman’s hair a luxurious mink streaked with gray, her mate’s face lined with age and life, swirled in to join them.
The dark truth he carried inside him struggled to awaken in the face of their unspoken bond, but the night was too beautiful to mar with regrets. Man and wolf, he focused every part of himself on dancing with the captivating woman in his arms. He didn’t know how long they swayed in the sultry warmth, but when they drew apart, it was in silent agreement. Leaving the other dancers, they walked back to their room, the music following them upstairs.
He’d left the balcony doors partly open, and the gauzy curtains floated in the gentle breeze. Keeping the lights off to assure their privacy, he ran his fingers over Adria’s cheek, luxuriating in the warm smoothness of her skin. “No,” he said when she went to take off her T-shirt. “Let me.” Running his hand down the curves of her body, he drew up the soft fabric with slow anticipation.
SHE was being seduced, Adria thought, as Riaz gripped her hips and pressed a kiss to the bared skin of her breastbone, her T-shirt having crumpled soundlessly on the rich cream of the carpet.
“You taste like berries,” he murmured, kissing his way up the slope of her neck. “Ripe, lush, juicy.”
Except for when he’d asked about her fantasies, he’d never before spoken much in bed. The deep timbre of his voice hazed her mind, his ca
llused skin on her own threatening to tangle what threads of reason remained. “You never told me your fantasy,” she whispered against his mouth.
He angled his face to rub his jaw delicately against her cheek, his thumbs shaping the vee of her hip bones. “A strong, sexy woman in my bed, mine to do with as I wish. You.”
“That’s a very dominant male fantasy.”
Sensual amusement in his eyes, he just looked at her.
She laughed, though her pulse was a staccato drumbeat. “Yes, why am I surprised?”
His kiss was as slow, as romantic as the night, the kind of kiss a man might give to a new lover he was wooing into his bed. “Let me,” he whispered again, unhooking her bra to pull it off and drop it onto her T-shirt before pressing her against him again, big hands splayed on her back in a way that shouted possession. “Let me.” A kiss pressed to the sensitive spot behind her ear.
Shuddering, she wove her fingers into the thick silk of his hair, willing to be petted and caressed and adored enough to surrender the reins to this man she trusted not to betray her faith.
It had been so long.
“Yes.” It was the barest whisper, but he heard her.
Fingers on her jaw, another gossamer kiss, his body so big and hot. “Hold on.” With that, he reached down and swung her up into his arms, carrying her to the bedroom … and to the bed made up with soft white linen on which some romantic soul had scattered rose petals. They were velvet bites against her back when he placed her on the bed, the faint light spilling in from the balcony the only illumination.
They were wolves. It was all they needed.
“We should turn down the bed,” she said, her eyes on him as he reached back to strip off his T-shirt, baring a body she craved even more today than the first time they’d shared the most intimate skin privileges.
“No sheets,” he said, kicking off his shoes and reaching down to tug off his socks with curt male efficiency. “I want to see you.” He came around to get rid of her boots and socks as quickly, before prowling up over her, his hair falling across his forehead. “You are so beautiful.” He sounded almost … surprised, as if he was seeing her for the first time.
