by Nalini Singh
“Tamsyn?” He glanced at the healer.
“I’ve got her. Come on, honey.” She touched Sascha’s shoulder. “I’ll make you up a room and find you something comfortable to sleep in.”
Sascha stood and he felt the sharp rush of her disappointment. The vain cat in him preened, but the protective, possessive panther silently promised he’d make it up to her.
“Thank you. I should be fine by morning. Then we’ll hunt.” She didn’t even seem to realize she’d used the words of a changeling… of a leopard.
He smiled. Sascha Duncan was no longer Psy, even if she refused to see that. Poor baby. He was going to enjoy educating her about living life as his mate.
Tamsyn closed the bedroom door before giving Sascha the cup of hot chocolate she’d whipped up. There was such an intense look on the woman’s face that even without her strange ability to sense emotion, Sascha knew that whatever the healer had to tell her, it wouldn’t be easy.
“I’m going to share something about Lucas with you that he never will—his need to protect you overwhelms every other instinct. It’s not a choice he can make.” Tamsyn’s soft brown eyes were gentle but her tone held an edge of steel Sascha had never expected. “I’m telling you because I trust you.”
Don’t betray my trust.
She heard the unspoken words as clearly as if Tamsyn had opened her mouth and shaped them into sound. “Why tell me at all?”
“Because of what you said downstairs about needing an open mind when you go into the PsyNet.” She frowned. “Sit down before you fall down. The last thing I need is Lucas after me for neglecting you.”
Sascha sat. “What is it I need to know?” She put the drink on the bedside table.
Tamsyn sat down on the bed beside her and took a shaky breath. “When Lucas was barely thirteen, a small band of roaming leopards tried to infiltrate our territory. We weren’t as strong back then and the ShadowWalkers thought they could destroy our power structure and install themselves as alpha.” She sighed. “It’s been done before—we might be more humane than the Psy but we’re not perfect.”
Sascha didn’t interrupt, caught by the jagged shards of pain she could hear in Tamsyn’s normally even tones.
“Lucas’s mother was a healer, his father a sentinel.” She smiled softly. “Sometimes I think that’s why he allows me so much freedom in the pack.”
Sascha had barely begun to give in to her hunger for touch, barely begun to understand that it was as essential to her as food, but she could feel Tamsyn’s need like a second heartbeat. She put her hand over the other woman’s. Tamsyn’s fingers curled over hers.
“The ShadowWalkers couldn’t get to our alpha pair so they decided to attack a sentinel and get information on our defenses. Lucas’s family was on a run in the forests when they were surrounded. Afterward, we realized the original plan must’ve been to break Carlo by making him witness the rape and torture of his mate.” Tamsyn’s fingers threatened to crush Sascha’s weaker bones.
She took another trembling breath. “But the ShadowWalkers underestimated Shayla. She was a healer but she was also a mother and she fought for the life of her child. The other leopards couldn’t afford to lose Carlo but in the fighting, Shayla was killed.”
“Tamsyn,” Sascha began, alarmed by the depth of her anguish. It was so heavy, so old and potent, having matured over the years into pure sorrow.
“No, I can only do this once. After I leave this room, we’ll never speak of it again.” Her eyes asked for a promise, which Sascha gladly gave. “Lucas was so young, much weaker than the adult males who attacked them. He was easily contained when he tried to save his parents.”
Sascha’s heart hurt for the panther who was so possessive and protective. Now she understood his need to mark her, to hold her safe. “Was his father captured?”
“Yes. They took both Lucas and Carlo. Shayla’s body was removed and buried deep where her scent wouldn’t warn us. But it wasn’t deep enough. We found her.”
“How long?” How long had Lucas been in the hands of those merciless killers?
“Four days.” Tamsyn’s voice was haunted. “When we got to them, Carlo was so badly damaged that no one could save him. I was a trainee, a juvenile myself. Shayla had been our healer and she was gone. I burned myself out but I couldn’t save him. It was as if his soul had flown with Shayla’s.” Tears streaked down her face.
“Tamsyn.” Using the strange, inexplicable, wonderful part of her soul that could heal hearts, she gathered in the other woman’s pain. As it settled in her, heavy and aching, Tamsyn’s voice seemed to lighten.
“The last words Carlo said to us were, ‘We didn’t break.’ That was when we realized Lucas must’ve survived. The ShadowWalkers had tried to hide him so they could retrieve him later—he was tied up in a cave not far from Carlo. Wh-when we found him, he had so many broken bones and bloody claw slashes on him that the only reason we recognized him was because of the Hunter marks.” She touched her face as if stroking Lucas’s mark. “His wrists and ankles were rubbed through to the bone from fighting the restraints.”
Sascha felt a sob catch in her throat. “They tortured him to break Carlo?”
Tamsyn nodded. “They wanted what Carlo knew—the locations of our safe houses, the routes we run, our alpha pair’s lair and defense grid.”
“How did Lucas survive?”
“I don’t know.” Tamsyn sounded utterly bewildered. “They’d held back with his father because he was the important one, but with Lucas…” She shook her head. “It was as if he refused to die. Some people said he survived because he’d been born a Hunter and had strengths we didn’t know about. I just think he wanted vengeance.”
“The ShadowWalkers escaped?”
Tamsyn nodded. “We were strong enough to drive them off but not to track and take them down without leaving our young vulnerable. As a result, we lived under a kind of martial law for five years, never leaving the group, never making ourselves targets.”
Her eyes met Sascha’s. “When Lucas was only eighteen and still a juvenile by our standards, he went out one night with a pack of sentinels and some others. The sentinels had given him their loyalty the day they learned that despite the torture, he hadn’t broken.”
Sascha couldn’t begin to imagine the strength of will it must’ve taken for Lucas to honor his loyalty to Pack. But he had.
“They went hunting every single adult male ShadowWalker.” Blood fury threaded Tamsyn’s normally gentle voice. “By the time they finished, the ShadowWalkers had ceased to exist and DarkRiver was a pack no one dared to threaten.”
Sascha wasn’t repulsed by the violence. It was far more palatable to her than the hypocrisy of the Psy, who let killers roam free while championing their peaceful image. At least the changelings were honest. At least they loved enough to hunger for vengeance. All the Psy hungered for was power.
“Five years later,” Tamsyn said, wrenching Sascha out of her bleak thoughts, “ Lachlan, our ruling alpha, stepped down in favor of Lucas. The sentinels vowed their blood oath without hesitation.” She shook her head. “He was only twenty-three. Most leopards are barely mature at that age but Lucas was already tougher than any of the other males.”
“He was honed in fire.” Sascha thought of the pain that had created Lucas and mourned for the boy who’d never had a chance to be a youth. What must it have been like to grow up in the shadow of his parents’ blood?
“Do you understand?” Tamsyn looked into Sascha’s eyes.
“Yes.” Tears fell in her most secret heart—she didn’t yet know how to cry in the open.
The healer wasn’t convinced. “The ShadowWalkers kept him tied up. They made him watch his father being tortured before turning on him. The things they did… Don’t ask him to be the one who anchors you.”
Don’t ask him to watch you die while he stands helpless.
“He’ll volunteer.” Sascha knew what kind of a man Lucas was, what kind of a leader.
&nb
sp; “Then stop him. Tell him he won’t do. I’ll take his place.” Raw pain darkened Tamsyn’s eyes.
Sascha nodded but they both knew that turning Lucas from his chosen path was an almost impossible task.
In spite of her mental exhaustion, she was lying awake in bed when she felt his presence nearby. A minute later, he pushed open the bedroom door and closed it behind him, treating her room as his territory.
She knew that to let him have his way would only reinforce his already autocratic tendencies, but she also knew that her chance of surviving her impending mental collapse, trap or no trap, was close to nil. Either she’d flame out or the Council’s mercenaries would hunt her down after her shields failed.
Time was rushing out from between her desperately cupped hands—she didn’t want to pretend not to adore him tonight. Quite simply, he was everything she’d ever dreamed of and never dared to touch.
In the soft darkness he was all masculine prowl as he got into bed beside her, lying atop the blankets while she lay below, barely dressed in an old T-shirt that Tamsyn had found. She’d given it to Sascha with an odd comment: “No other scent will pacify him.”
He put one arm over her body. “I want to be naked under those sheets with you.”
She felt herself blush and gloried in finally being able to just “be.” Death was certain. She might as well enjoy the life she had left. “Is that how you usually woo prospective lovers?” She was teasing; this felt right, as if she’d been loving him forever.
He nuzzled at her neck, one hand moving up the sheet to clasp hers as it lay open beside her head. “Only women who already know my body inside out, who know my every desire, my every pleasure point. Only you.”
Her heart threatened to stop beating. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve loved me in my dreams, kitten. What about in reality?” He raised his head and those cat eyes glowed eerily.
For an instant, she was completely fascinated. “Do your eyes always do that in the dark?”
“No.” Leaning down, he nipped at her lower lip, startling her… pleasuring her. “I just don’t want to miss even an inch of your body.” He tugged at the blanket.
She pulled it back up. “I’m not responsible for your dreams.”
He spoke against her lips. “Do you know my favorite part?” Not waiting for her response, he said, “It was where you tasted me. I’ve never orgasmed so hard in my life. I was mad as hell to wake up and find myself alone.”
Sascha couldn’t breathe. It was suddenly far too hot. Pushing at the confining blanket, she shoved it down, helped along by Lucas. Too late she realized that her legs were now bare to her upper thighs. It didn’t matter. Only the dreams mattered.
“How could you have seen my dreams?” she whispered. They’d been her most secret, most precious treasure. In those dreams she’d been who she might’ve been had she not lived the life of a Psy.
“You invited me in.” He sat up above her with his knees on either side of her thighs. As she watched, dry-mouthed, he raised his black T-shirt over his head and threw it to the floor. “Do you know what I like?”
Without stopping to think, she scraped her nails down the hot steel of his abdomen. Hard. He purred and she froze. “I don’t know how I did it—it wasn’t intentional.” She’d never have had the courage to taste him if she’d thought him real.
“You’re a cardinal Psy.” When she didn’t continue to pet him, he raised her fingers and nibbled at them in playful warning. Her stomach filled with a thousand butterflies. Tugging her hand away, she tried to sit up. He wouldn’t let her. “No, kitten. I like you like that.” He braced himself on his palms beside her and sniffed at her neck like some great hunting beast.
Which was exactly what he was.
Then he did something utterly unexpected and mind-blowingly sensual. Giving her no warning, he moved his head and bit her nipple gently through the T-shirt. Her back arched. A scream threatened to rip from her throat. Instead of letting go, he sucked hard, making her mindless with lust. By the time he released her, his knees were on the inside of her thighs and he was slowly spreading her open.
“You smell of me,” he growled against her throat, giving her a quick lick. “All over, you smell of me.”
She moaned. “Wh-what?”
He pushed himself up above her and used the fingers of one hand to tug at the nipple he hadn’t sucked. She had to fight herself not to reach out and pull down the zipper of his jeans, knowing precisely what he’d feel like in her palms. Hot, hard, silky smooth, and perfect.
CHAPTER 18
“This T-shirt is mine.” He let go of her nipple and sat up again so he could run the palms of both hands along her torso to close over her breasts.
Her entire body was a heartbeat pounding in time to the pulse between her legs. “Why did Tamsyn give it to me?”
“Because you smell of me anyway.” With another gentle squeeze, he released her breasts and ran his hands down to the edge of the T-shirt, pushing it up. “Even the damn wolves could smell me on you.”
She knew she should protest the way he was acting but this was what she’d dreamed about, fantasized about. The only question was, was she going to survive the inferno she’d unleashed? A big male hand cupped her so boldly that she felt lights explode behind her eyes. He was rubbing at her with the heel of his palm, arousing her to fever pitch through the cotton of her panties.
“Where’s the lace?” He paused in his caress.
“D-don’t stop.” It was a husky plea. Her reward was the renewal of his sensual movements.
His eyes glowed in the darkness and he was at once intensely beautiful and intensely wild. “In the dreams you wore lace panties.”
“Psy don’t have those kinds of garments.” Hungry for more, she moved against him. He understood, changing his movement to a hard rotation that made her throat lock. For the next few seconds, she was completely insensitive to anything but the delirious onrush of sensation.
He thrust her over the edge with rough tenderness that tore a scream from her throat, her Psy mind no longer caring who was in the house, who was listening. She let the almost violent pleasure rip through her until she was damp, limp, and sated against his palm. When she opened her eyes, it was to find that he hadn’t changed position.
Meeting her gaze, he removed his hand from between her legs, brought his palm to his mouth, and licked his fingers clean. It was the most erotic thing she’d ever seen. Her body quivered with aftershocks but something deeper was already awakening within.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“Yes.” Her eye fell to the erection pushing against the zipper of his jeans.
“Are you going to do something about that?”
If she hadn’t had those dreams, if she hadn’t learned that he gave far more pleasure than he ever asked for, if she hadn’t already tangled with his male demands and hunger, she might’ve balked.
Biting down on her lower lip, she ran a finger down the length of him.
“Stop teasing,” he ordered, but made no move to halt her exploration.
“In my dreams,” she whispered, accepting what she’d known from the start. Those dreams had been far too vivid to have been figments of her own imagination. How could she have dreamed up the wild lover who’d shown her the ways of pleasure when she’d never known anyone like him? “In my dreams you told me you loved my mouth.”
“I adore your mouth.” He was braced on his hands by her head again. When he spoke it was against her lips and then he was kissing her with sensual enthusiasm that made her feel like she was his every fantasy come to life.
She couldn’t break away, couldn’t stop herself from grabbing onto his waist and digging her fingers into his flesh. He pushed his tongue into her mouth and she responded instinctively, tangling hers with his. His body was pure heat and sensation under her hands, the body of a male who’d never say no to touch.
“Skin privileges,” she said when he let her breathe.
“We’re way beyond skin privileges, darling.” His smile was wicked as he sat back up to kneel between her spread thighs. Aware what he wanted, what he needed, she raised her hands to the button on his jeans and undid it. He hissed out a breath, his eyes appearing to glow even more brightly. When she tugged down the zipper, he growled in the back of his throat. “Careful.”
“Always.” The zipper was down. She could see the head of his erection pushing against the white fabric of his briefs. “You have to let me up.”
He thought about it for a while, his fingers playing with her wet nipple through the soft cotton fabric. “I don’t want to.”
Her stomach clenched each time he plucked at the bud he’d sensitized to the extreme. “How can I… take you in my mouth if you don’t?” In the glimmering darkness, the question was an erotic invitation she hadn’t known she had the capacity to make.
He moved and it was so fast she barely caught it. Watching him stand beside the bed stripping off the rest of his clothing was a pleasure all on its own. There was no need for light, not when his skin seemed to shimmer with a fine layer of savage energy to her Psy senses. She was stunned by the dangerous beauty of him. When she sat up, his head whipped to pin her to the spot. “I don’t want you to move.” Alpha to the core, his order was arrogantly assured.
“But I want to move.” To let him have his way at this point would equal disaster later.
He pounced with that stunning speed and she found herself flat on her back with his length pressed along her front. He’d clasped her wrists together and had them pinned above her head before she could gasp in a breath. “Now you’re all mine.” The comment held a hunting cat’s pleasure at cornering his prey.
But this prey had claws. Reaching out with her mind, she wrapped mental hands around the erection that was nudging at her entrance. His body arched as a shout was torn from him. “What are you doing, kitten?”
