Wild Invitation: A Psy/Changeling Anthology (Psy-Changeling)

by Nalini Singh

  “If anything happens to me”—Kristine’s fingers so gentle as she tucked the blanket around the tiny body in Walker’s arms, a silent indication of her imperfect Silence—“you will watch over her?”

  “To my last breath.”

  When Sienna, her smile lingering in her gaze, stood and took a step toward him, he rose, opened his arms, and held her close as he once had the babe his sister had borne. You’ll fly, Sienna, he said, his heart aching that Kristine wasn’t here to see the incredible woman her daughter was becoming. Higher and stronger than those who would’ve caged you could ever imagine.

  • • •

  LARA’s wolf was padding happily around her skin after a quiet pulse along the mating bond that was Walker’s touch, when her eye fell on the glass spiral of blue and green he’d repaired for her after it shattered.

  “It’s fixed. As long as you don’t mind more than a few scars.”

  Her chest grew tight as it always did at the memory. That was the thing with Walker—he didn’t say a lot, didn’t make big gestures, but when he did speak…“I am so in love with you,” she whispered, thinking of the way he’d held her, listened to her, spoken to her in the intimate dark of their bed.

  Her quiet, strong, intensely private mate was coming to her, one step at a time.

  If only patience would reap the same rewards with Alice. The human scientist lay unresponsive under Lara’s hands as she checked the woman’s vitals, her flesh pallid, her bones far too close to her skin. Lara continued to seek answers for the other woman, but having been able to unload her frustration had helped put her back on an even keel, and she was able to nudge Alice from her consciousness once she left the patient room.

  She and her nurse, Lucy, had decided to use the respite provided by the current healthy state of the pack to tackle a number of practical tasks, with Lucy volunteering to set the storeroom to rights. The chaos of battle had left little time for niceties like neatness and logging supplies, and the pre-battle inventory was woefully out of date.

  Lara, by contrast, was in the process of updating patient records. The fact was, she didn’t have to record anything. She had the encyclopedic memory of most healers, could recite every injury or illness that had ever befallen one of her patients. But, she had to think of the future, of the person who would take her place were she incapacitated or otherwise out of the picture.

  Two hours into it, eyes dry and fighting a jaw-cracking yawn, she looked up to find Riordan hovering in the doorway of her office. The young male was cradling his arm in a very familiar way. Boredom vanished under concern. “Broken?” she asked, already around the desk.

  Deep red under his skin. “Not really.”

  “Not really?” Having reached him, she could see significant swelling and bruising. “So your arm is just kind of broken?”

  He ducked his head.

  Surprised—Riordan had the usual youthful cockiness—she shepherded him into the infirmary proper and had him take a seat on a treatment bed. “You want to tell me about it?” she asked, ignoring the technical equipment to run her hands over his injury. As a novice soldier, Riordan needed to be fully functional as soon as possible.

  “No.”

  Her abilities told her it was a bad break. Frowning at the jagged edges she could sense, she bade him to lie down flat on his back. He resisted until she raised an eyebrow in a silent threat. They both knew she outranked him.

  “I’m going to have to straighten this,” Lara said once he was in the position she’d requested, then punched in a strong painkiller through his skin before he could argue against it. The dominants—young or old—were always the worst. The last time Indigo had been injured, Lara had had to threaten to bring the lieutenant’s mother into it before the long-legged woman would cooperate.

  Riordan winced at even the slight pressure of the dermal injection, which told her exactly how badly he was hurting. Conscious of his pride, she used her abilities to further dampen the lingering pain. Only when the tension leached out of his body did she run her hands over the arm again, confirming the position and seriousness of the break.

  “Is it like seeing a scan inside your mind?” Riordan asked, sounding more like his normal self.

  “Hmm?” This was an unusual injury—almost as if the bone had been crushed. Had Riordan not been changeling, with their race’s greater bone density, she’d likely have been dealing with a mass of splinters instead of pieces of solid bone.

  “I always wondered, when you do your healer thing, what do you see?”

  “It’s not like a scan,” she murmured, fixing the damage points in her mind, “not that visual.” M-Psy, by contrast, did see things in that fashion—Lara knew because she’d had the chance to have long discussions with a number of them in med school.

  It was largely as a result of those interactions that she’d had a more nuanced view of the Psy even before the Lauren family defected to SnowDancer. The Psy students she’d known might have used strictly technical language rather than emotive terms, but they’d all had a dedication to helping the sick and the hurt, a dedication that meant the M designation was the most well-known and accepted of all designations among non-Psy.

  “It’s more a ‘sense,’ I suppose,” she continued. “Hard to describe, but it’s almost as if I become part of your body for an instant, able to pinpoint every fragment of hurt.”

  Riordan looked down as she straightened his arm. “Whoa, that is so weird,” he said, happily buzzed from the meds, “how it doesn’t hurt, even though I know that’s my arm.”

  She kept a constant eye on his veins and fine blood vessels as she performed the maneuver, not wanting to nick or otherwise cause further damage. “This is a very severe break, Rory.”

  He made a face. “Shh.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “My friends have forgotten that baby name. Mostly.”

  Lips twitching, she said, “I won’t remind them if you tell me how on Earth you managed this.” Riordan wasn’t one of the more accident-prone people in the den.

  Color kissed his cheekbones, his gaze darting to the doorway. Lara went over and shut it before returning to work on him. As she did so, she counteracted the more heady effects of the medication, so he could think clearly but without pain.

  It took him almost five minutes to speak.

  “It was a dumb mistake,” he muttered. “Nothing spectacular. I was in the smaller gym, doing some weights. Strength training.”

  She kept her tone easy, nonjudgmental. “Okay.” Larger bone pieces in alignment, she worked at repairing the worst of the damage, which included removing any bone chips so that the shards wouldn’t turn into shrapnel in his bloodstream. Her ability allowed her to coax those chips to the surface, but she had to use fine surgical tweezers to pluck them out.

  Riordan groaned.

  “Don’t look.”

  “I can’t help it.” It sounded like he was gritting his teeth. “So will I be missing pieces of bone now?”

  “No, I’ll stimulate your body into fixing itself.” Not quite correct, as she was the primary source of energy, but close enough. “It’s why you’ll be hungry after. Make sure you eat a high-calorie meal.”

  “Okay.”

  Satisfied every tiny, dangerous fragment was out, she moved on to the task of healing the most severe breaks. “You were telling me how you did this.”

  Another heavy silence before he finally said, “I decided to up the weights a level, except I must’ve pressed the wrong button and suddenly the thing weighed a ton. It tilted sideways at a really bad angle—I had the choice of letting it crush my chest or my arm.”

  Lara frowned as she realized he was talking about the bench press. “Why were you working out alone?” Spotters were mandatory on the bench press, and Riordan had more sense than to flout that rule.

  “I needed to think.” Tight words.

  Chapter 6

  FOCUSED ON KNITTING the bone back together, Lara held her response. When she looked up after what the digi
tal clock at the head of the bed told her was over forty minutes of concentration, it was to see Riordan lying there with his lashes closed, a half smile on his face. “Rory?” she whispered.

  “I’m awake.” Lashes lifting, the smile warm in those gorgeous brown eyes that had made him a heartbreaker as a little boy. “When you heal…it feels like sunshine. It’s nice.”

  The words made her own lips curve. She kissed his cheek, ran a hand over his chocolate-dark curls, as she rose back to her full height. Rubbing away the ache in her back, she said, “What’s got you so stressed out, hmm?” She’d babysat him when she’d been a teenager, been charmed by his sweetness and sense of mischief—he’d grown up, become a responsible member of the pack, but he’d always maintained his joie de vivre. Never had she seen him so tense.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “You know what you say to me in private will stay between us.” Human physicians took an oath of confidentiality. Things worked slightly differently in a pack, as there were situations where the hierarchy meant Lara was permitted and expected to share information, but regardless of that, she never divulged information a packmate had asked her to keep confidential.

  A long, steady look. “Even now that you’re mated?”

  “Walker understands who I am,” she said, turning her attention to the muscle, ligaments, and blood vessels he’d bruised or torn. “He doesn’t expect me to betray confidences.”

  It was a subject important enough to Lara that she’d brought it up during their courtship. “I will keep some secrets from you,” she’d said, aware how crucial honesty was to Walker after his experience with Yelene. “But those secrets are given to me in trust, not to be shared. You do understand?”

  Walker had brushed her hair off her face in that way he had, held her gaze. “The secrets you hold are a tribute to your packmates’ faith in you. They’re not for me to know.”

  The memory shimmered as Riordan’s chest rose in a deep breath, fell in a long exhale. “You remember that time Hawke busted up our group at Wild?” he asked, referring to the bar/club not far from SnowDancer territory frequented by younger members of the pack—though as far as Lara knew, no one had been there since the battle.

  Right now, it was about being with Pack.

  “That incident is legend.” The news that Hawke had carried Sienna out over his shoulder had spread through the pack with the rampant fury of a wildfire. “Never to be forgotten so long as we all should live.”

  Riordan’s lips kicked up in a wicked smile. “That was some night.” His smile faded as quickly as it had appeared, an unexpected maturity taking its place.

  And she thought—this is the man he’s going to be. Quick to laugh, big of heart, but with a depth that would surprise people who saw only the surface.

  “I met someone,” he told her. “From DarkRiver.”

  “Ah.” She started checking each fine blood vessel, noting with a corner of her mind that she wasn’t feeling as depleted as she normally would after a complex operation of this kind. “Is your girl leading you a dance?”

  “No, I mean, that’s not it. I don’t mind playing with her.” Another grin, that of the wolf he was. “I think this has the potential to be serious.”

  “Okay. So what’s the problem?” Catching his look, she said, “I know she’s a leopard, but a leopard/wolf relationship is hardly taboo these days. Not after the success of Mercy and Riley’s mating.”

  “Yes, but they’re sentinel and lieutenant,” Riordan pointed out. “Hawke’s talked to us about the subtle differences between the two packs, and how we should be careful to make sure both parties are on the same page during any kind of a courtship.”

  “But?”

  “But I don’t know if we’re supposed to inform our alphas when a relationship turns serious, whether there are rules we’re meant to follow to make sure we don’t inadvertently hurt the alliance if something goes wrong. Riley and Mercy had direct access to that information—and the standing to fix any problems before word ever reached Hawke or Lucas.”

  Lara saw his point. Though the DarkRiver-SnowDancer alliance was rock solid, the two packs were still learning how to navigate these particular waters. “If I know Hawke, he’s already aware of the issue.” The alpha was nothing if not plugged in to the beat of the pack. “But I’ll drop a word in his ear anyway—not about you and your girl specifically, but about the whole inter-pack dating situation.”

  Riordan reached up with his good hand to touch hers. “Thanks, Lara. I’d do it myself,” he said, and she knew it for the truth, “but I don’t want him or Lucas paying too much attention to us yet. It’s…new.”

  “I understand.” She’d appreciated the fact that her courtship with Walker had been a private matter for the most part, and could understand the need Riordan had for the same. “But will you tell me about her?”

  His lush brown eyes warmed from the inside out. “Her name’s Noelle.”

  “Zach’s sister?” The other male was a DarkRiver soldier.

  “Yeah. He’s real protective of her and Lissa,” Riordan muttered in the way of young males trying to court other men’s baby sisters the world over. “Lissa is Noelle’s twin.”

  “That’s right.” Lara’s mind filled with the image of two identical girls, both with long black hair, vivid aqua-colored eyes, and skin the shade of sun-kissed copper. “They’re lovely.” Had grown into their coltish bodies over the past two years. “How old are they now? Eighteen?”

  Riordan nodded. “Only a year younger than me.” A pause. “Lissa’s this wild, chatty tornado”—an affectionate grin—“while Noelle’s gentle, quiet. It’s like she’s a peaceful spot in the world, but she holds her own.” His wolf prowled to the surface of his eyes. “First time you meet the two, you might think Lissa runs the show, but I’ve seen how Lissa always asks Noelle for advice anytime it’s anything important.”

  He was, Lara thought, falling very much in love with Noelle. “Does Zach know you two are dating?”

  “No, but Lissa does—I don’t think Noelle’s ever kept a secret from her.”

  “Does that bother you?”

  He took a moment to think about his answer, which made her believe him when he said, “No. I knew how close they were from the start.” He held out his arm for the scanner, waited while Lara did a double-check to confirm all was as it should be.

  “I hate sneaking around,” he bit out after she put down the device, “and that’s part of why we need clear guidance on the situation from Hawke and Lucas. As things stand, Noelle doesn’t want to cause Zach any extra stress.”

  Lara frowned. “Why? Zach’s as tough as any soldier.”

  “Yeah, but he’s a bit crazy right now, with Annie being pregnant and everything.”

  “What? As of when?” While Lara didn’t know Zach particularly well, she did know his mate. The other woman was a teacher at a school that drew from changeling territory, and ever since the DarkRiver-SnowDancer alliance, enough wolves had moved into the area that there were more than a few pups who attended the school.

  Lara had met Annie at a parent-teacher conference she’d gone to on behalf of a couple who’d been out of town at the time, and stayed in touch with her ever since.

  “They just found out a week ago,” Riordan said with a grin.

  “Well, I’m delighted for them both.”

  She was still smiling over the news an hour later when she met Walker for lunch, the two of them choosing a spot on the slope overlooking the lake.

  The sun was out and so was the first-grade class of the internal SnowDancer elementary school, the pups having the time of their lives on the pebbled shore of the lake while their teachers stood indulgent watch. Deeply content, she opened the container that held the lunch Walker had brought for her and laughed. “You’ve been in cahoots with my mother again.”

  • • •

  WALKER shook his head when Lara offered him a forkful of her mushroom and herb risotto, which he’d picked up for h
er from the kitchens—Aisha and he were in perfect agreement when it came to looking after Lara, though his mate didn’t always appreciate their partnership. “I prefer my boring chicken and bacon sandwich.”

  She snuggled closer to him, her hip pressing against his, the warm feminine scent of her in his every breath. “Are you ever going to let me forget I said that?”

  He finished half a sandwich, picked up the second half after taking a swig of the coffee Lara had taken responsibility for bringing. “No.” It felt strange and yet perfect to tease her, to know that he had the ability to play in this way.

  Wrinkling her nose at him, she ate another forkful before saying, “Can you look into the web for me?”

  “Anything you ask.”

  Pausing in her meal, she pinned him with eyes gone wolf. “I adore you.”

  Her love stunned him, as it always did…but he thought he might be becoming used to it deep within. Never would he take it for granted, but he might just come to expect it, and that was an agonizingly beautiful gift she’d given him, that expectation of love, of tenderness. “What do you want to know?”

  “I did a fairly complex healing earlier,” she said, sipping from the coffee when he lifted the cup to her lips, “but I don’t feel drained at all.”

  Interest spiked. “You think the neosentience in the web is feeding you Sienna’s excess power.” Every psychic network had a “mind.” The one in the SnowDancer Web, which now included his entire family, was but a speck, nothing like the vast NetMind that was the guardian and librarian of the PsyNet. But it did exist, and as they’d seen in the aftermath of the battle, it could influence the web.

  Lara chewed and swallowed before answering. “It crossed my mind.”

  Opening his psychic eye, Walker looked at the energy currents that rippled along the familial and blood bonds, saw the rerouting that must’ve taken place this morning. “You have priority,” he murmured, closing one of his hands over her raised knee. “When you need the energy, it goes directly and only to you.”