by Nalini Singh
Cooper, as one of the more senior sentinels—his place in the hierarchy similar to Riaz’s—looked on with open amusement, his skin gleaming a rich dark bronze in the sunlight pouring in through what Indigo knew to be a huge window to the left of his office, the jagged scar along his left cheek adding a rough accent to his features.
Women tended to look at him and shiver in a mix of fear and anticipation.
That was the closest they’d ever come to him, because Coop was crazy in love with—and courting—a woman so sweet, it had the whole pack abuzz. No one had expected mad, bad, and dangerous Coop to fall head over heels for the submissive wolf, least of all the wolf herself. Indigo bit back a grin as she thought of how bewildered Coop’s beloved had looked when it had dawned on her that she was being pursued by one of the most lethal men in the pack. That hadn’t lasted long. Because she might’ve been sweet, might’ve been submissive, but as Coop was learning, that didn’t mean she didn’t have a mind—and a will—of her own.
Then there was Tomás, who happened to be one of Drew’s closest friends—and consequently, seemed to take nothing seriously and had a way of smiling with those chocolate-dark eyes that made most women melt into puddles of goo.
Indigo gave Tomás a quelling stare when he glanced at Jem and Kenji and winked. But she couldn’t help her wolf’s answering grin. Because seriously . . . “You two need to get a room.”
Jem didn’t even stop arguing to give Indigo a highly specific nonverbal gesture with one deceptively delicate-looking hand. Kenji echoed the move with such unerring accuracy, it was as if they’d synchronized it across two different parts of the state. Next to Indigo, Riaz mouthed, “Kenji” to Tomás, who shook his head and mouthed, “Jem.” Riaz held up a hand, fingers spread. Tomás nodded, accepting the bet.
Judd said nothing from where he sat two seats to Indigo’s left, but he was relaxed to an extent he’d never have been a year ago, his chair tilted back to lean against the wall and his legs stretched out in front. But no matter his apparently lazy pose, Indigo had no doubts that he’d seen and logged every word that had passed since he entered the room.
Pushing back her own chair, Indigo put her legs up on the table in front of her and raised a hand in a casual wave as Hawke arrived to grab the empty seat on her right. “Now that we’re all here, we can begin.”
“Cut me a break, Indy.” Hawke grinned at the look she shot him, but his next words were pure growl. “I just spent ten minutes explaining to the juveniles why they can’t go around sniffing after the leopard girls without expecting to get their asses kicked by the leopard boys at least once. When the hell is Riley coming back?”
Alexei and Matthias both smiled, slowly and with the wolf in their eyes, while Tomás rocked back and laughed with open amusement, the lean male dimples that creased his cheeks turning his handsome face even more gorgeous. Shaking her head, Indigo reached over to tap Hawke lightly on the cheek with her pen. “You’ll live.” Turning back to the others, she said, “Kenji, cut the foreplay. Report.”
Kenji switched into lieutenant mode so fast, Indigo would’ve gotten whiplash if she hadn’t seen him do the exact same thing before. “Nothing significant to report. We’ve had a few extra Psy move into the region, but our intel says they’re no threat—looks like most came in for a job at a new Psy computronics factory.”
“Any indication the factory is a front for something else?” Hawke asked. “We’ve seen that before.”
“I’ve got my eye on it.” Kenji thrust back strands of his stick-straight black hair. “But everything checks out so far. And it’s one of Nikita Duncan’s—she tends to like to keep her profits separate from her politics.”
Indigo agreed with that assessment, but made a note to have the den’s resident hackers dig deeper into the factory’s files nonetheless. “Tomás, how’s your patch?”
“No change.”
Jem went next. “We’ve had a spike in the murder rate, but it looks to be human-on-human gang violence.”
“You on it?” Hawke tapped a finger restlessly on the arm of his chair.
“We’ve already had a talk with the gangs. They want to make trouble, they don’t do it in our territory.” What was left unsaid was that if they continued, they’d soon find themselves hunted down like so much prey. The pack didn’t hold the largest territory in the country because it played nice. One warning was all you got.
Matthias spoke for the first time, and his deep voice was a pleasure to listen to, resonant and with an almost impossible clarity. “I sent you that note about some weird ship movements. We haven’t been able to pin anything down yet, but I’ll keep you updated.”
Indigo looked at Cooper. “Anything new?”
“I’ve got two female novices who’re showing signs of skill at sharpshooting.”
“Send me their details,” Judd said. “I’ll evaluate them and set up a training schedule.”
“Hey, Coop,” Tomás called out, the devil in his eye. “How’s it going with your pretty little wolf?”
Cooper glanced over, unruffled. “You’ll be the last to know. But the next time you send her flowers, I’m going to come over for a nice friendly visit and shove them where the sun don’t shine.”
Ignoring the suspicious cough that seemed to have affected everyone in the meeting, Indigo pointed at Alexei.
“This sector’s stable,” the young lieutenant said, making a valiant effort to fight a laugh, “though I think we need to organize one of the packwide parties again. I’ve got too many unmated adults in my area and they’re starting to irritate each other.”
The last thing Indigo needed to be thinking about was the sexual hunger of their animals, but she set her jaw and got to it—because fact was, touch-hungry changelings, especially wolves as aggressive as those in SnowDancer, needed an outlet—and if they couldn’t have sex, they’d choose violence. Add in the lack of choice in Alexei’s comparatively small sector and you had a recipe for trouble.
“May,” she said, checking her calendar. “We can have a week-long event in den territory. That’ll give us the flexibility to ensure security doesn’t slip.”
No one had any issues with that, so they moved on.
“The falcons are making use of the flight treaty,” Matthias said toward the end, his thickly lashed eyes dark and intense. “I’ve seen them flying over my sector.”
“Me, too.” Alexei leaned forward, bracing his arms on a glowing cherrywood desk. “Where are we on a possible alliance?”
“I think it’s a real possibility,” Hawke said. “I sent Drew to spend some time with them on the ground a month ago, and his report backs up my instincts.”
“He in the den?” Cooper asked. “It’d be good to hear what he has to say.”
When Hawke nodded, Indigo said, “Ten-minute break,” in a tone she hoped sounded practical and nothing else, “then we reconvene. I’ll hunt down Drew.”
That proved to be child’s play. He opened the door to his room with a towel wrapped around his waist, his hair wet. “Indy.” Blinking water from his eyes, he stepped back and angled his head. “Come in. I was just about to throw some clothes on.”
Heat uncurled in her abdomen—because no matter how pissed she was at him, Andrew Kincaid made her fingers itch to touch. Smooth, gleaming skin, toned muscle, and those eyes that never lost the edge of wickedness. “You’re needed in the main conference room, five minutes.”
Heading back inside when she remained on the doorstep, he disappeared behind the door. “What about?”
“Falcons.” Her mind insisted on providing her with all sorts of salacious images as she heard the soft rasp of the towel leaving his body to pool on the floor, the rougher sound of him pulling on jeans—“Don’t be late,” she bit out and swiveled on her heel.
Andrew’s fingers clenched convulsively on the T-shirt in his grasp. She was still mad; that much was clear. And no matter that keeping her angry was part of his ultimate strategy, he had the violent urge to tug h
er close and kiss the anger right off her lips.
Of course, he thought, in her current mood the only thing that would get him was a nicely eviscerated chest. “Charm,” he muttered under his breath. “Don’t forget that—it’s all about charm. Stick to the plan.”
Pulling on the T-shirt, he laced up his sneakers and made his way to the conference room. “Nice to see everyone hard at work,” he said when he walked in to find them playing virtual poker.
There were a slew of responses to that, some rude, some friendly, but the game was cleared away in under a minute, with Alexei declared the winner. After the golden-haired lieutenant took a mock bow, Andrew—viscerally aware of Indigo’s silent presence on Hawke’s other side—laid out his impressions of the falcon wing.
“Good, strong unit,” he said. “Well drilled and trained to work together. The ancestors of the core group formed the wing prior to the Territorial Wars, so they’ve been around several hundred years.”
“Why aren’t they bigger in numbers by now?” Judd asked from his position at the far end of the table.
Hawke was the one who answered. “Birds tend to keep their wings small. I think it has to do with ensuring enough open sky, though I’ve heard they stay in close contact with other wings across the country.”
“Hawke’s right,” Andrew said, even as his wolf picked out Indigo’s scent from all the other threads in the room and rolled around in it like a pup. “I asked Adam, their wing leader, about that. He says their flight paths often overlap, so it makes sense to keep things pleasant. But the end result is that while WindHaven might not be huge, we ally with them, we gain access to a network of wings across the country.”
Cooper raised an eyebrow. “Nothing to sneeze at. So long as they can handle us.” A blunt truth. “Otherwise, the dominance issues will make a mess of things.”
Hawke rocked back in his chair, linking his hands behind his head. “Having dealt with Adam, and Jacques, his second, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”
“So we’re going to start the ball rolling?” Indigo’s voice, slicing through Andrew’s concentration with the ease of a razor.
“I’ll talk to DarkRiver,” Hawke said, “see if they have any further information, but yeah, I think we should take advantage of the opportunity.”
Andrew listened as Indigo went through a couple of other matters before ending the meeting. Her words were crisp, her commands clear, and her intelligence as sharp as a blade—there was no way in hell she was going to make this easy for him.
His wolf sat up in anticipation—he’d never wanted easy. He’d always wanted Indigo. And tomorrow, he’d have her all to himself, far from the den and the hierarchy . . . and the rules that she used to keep her own explosive response to him under vicious control. But he knew. He’d tasted it.
And he was going to make Indy admit it—even if he had to sneak in under her defenses using every dirty trick in the book. This was war. Who the hell cared about playing fair?
CHAPTER 10
Councilor Nikita Duncan met Councilor Anthony Kyriakus outside a small house situated on the heavily forested edges of Tahoe, having driven herself there in a bland gray sedan with tinted windows. “Was this where your daughter lived while she was in the Net?” she asked Anthony when he pushed open the door.
Anthony’s black hair, silvered at the temples, lifted a fraction in the forest breeze as he answered. “Yes.” He nodded at the door. “Please.”
“Thank you.” As she entered, she took in everything about the place. The room immediately to her right may once have functioned as a living area, but was now an office/meeting room with a small table featuring a built-in computer panel and four chairs. “Does the F ability make an appearance every generation?” The NightStar Group’s grip on the market for foreseers was all but airtight.
“There are sporadic skips, but overall, yes,” he said, as they took their seats opposite each other. “It is the same in your family, is it not?”
Nikita answered because it was no secret—the “flawed” E designation was the Duncan family’s genetic millstone. “It tends to skip a generation.” Not quite the truth, but close enough that it would pass. “You know why I contacted you.” And why she’d done it away from the dark skies of the PsyNet.
Anthony’s eyes were penetrating as they met hers across the table. “Something is happening with the Arrow Squad.”
“Yes.” Ming was the official leader of the assassins who were the Council’s most lethal army, but Nikita’s spies had caught ripples that said things might well be changing. “If the leadership shifts, there are only two possible successors.”
“Kaleb and Vasic,” Anthony said. “But while Vasic is an Arrow and the single true teleporter in the Net, my information is that he doesn’t consider himself a candidate for the position.”
“However, with his support, someone else could take the leadership.” The squad was incredibly secretive, but Nikita wasn’t a Councilor because she gave up at the first hurdle. She’d unearthed enough data that she felt confident in saying, “There are rumors of another Arrow the squad may accept as a leader.”
Anthony took a moment to reply. “His name is Aden. I’m keeping an eye on affairs as they develop.”
It was, Nikita understood, a very deliberate sharing of information. “Good. But that situation, while important, isn’t the critical one as far as we are concerned.” Neither of them was in the fight to lead the Arrows.
Anthony made no pretense of not understanding her meaning. “Henry and Shoshanna,” he said. “They support the idea of Purity to the exclusion of all else, though it is clear that Silence is failing.”
“Divided, we have a high chance of falling to their stratagems,” she said, having made her decision the first time she called Anthony, “but together, we are a force to be reckoned with.” Then she asked the most important question. “Where do you stand, Anthony?”
Anthony took a drink from the glass of water at his elbow, answering only after almost ten seconds of thought. “I do not support any group or system that would erase my individuality, and the Scotts are determined to create a true hive mind in one form or another.” He put the glass on the table. “More importantly, they have interfered once too often in this territory—and in my business interests.”
Nikita wondered if the Scotts had attempted to meddle in Anthony’s subcontracting agreement with his daughter. Not that the details mattered; whatever they had done, it was to Nikita’s benefit. “If we are to work effectively together,” she said, “there is something else we need to discuss.” And then she spoke of death.
CHAPTER 11
It had taken Judd more time than he’d expected to track down Xavier’s missing parishioner, Gloria. His mate, with her brilliant mind, had done most of the cyber-detective work, backtracking the phone number and digging through layers of security to unearth the address that went with it.
“No activity on her charge cards for the past four days,” Brenna had said, worry a dark shadow in her eyes when she gave him the information. “And it appears she’s given up her lease. She might not even be there.”
Now, in the chill quiet of the midnight hours, Judd picked the low-security lock on Gloria’s former apartment and slipped inside. If there was someone within, he’d teleport out before they ever saw him. But he felt only the cold emptiness of a place in which there had been no life for days.
Using a flashlight with its beam set on low, he checked both rooms. The furniture was still there, but from the looks of it, it might well have come with the apartment. There were no clothes in the wardrobe, no toiletries in the bathroom, and no food in the kitchen. More importantly, the apartment was clean.
Very, very clean.
The kind of clean that meant someone had been erased out of existence.
Gloria was dead.
His instincts told him someone—likely in the Council superstructure—had sent in a cleanup crew to ensure no trace remained of the woma
n who’d found herself in Xavier’s church. But Judd wasn’t going to give the priest that information until he was certain—because there was a slight chance Gloria had been rehabilitated instead.
A fate worse than death.
Deciding to work SnowDancer’s Psy contacts when morning broke, he focused on the image of the bedroom he shared with his mate, and then . . . he was home. Dressed in a strawberry satin and white lace slip, Brenna lay curled up on his side of the futon. She always did that when he wasn’t with her, as if she was holding him close even in sleep.
Taking off his clothes with a silent grace that came from a lifetime of training, he slipped in beside her, and then, bracing himself on one arm, leaned down to press a kiss to the silky warm curve of her neck.
She shivered, her body relaxing from its curled-up position as she turned to face him, her hands reaching out to press against his pectorals. “Judd.” It was a sleepy murmur of welcome, her wolf apparent in the brilliant night-glow he glimpsed between her barely parted lids.
Claiming her lips with his own, he moved his hand down over her pretty little nightdress until he found skin. Then he indulged in a pleasure that seemed to get ever more piercing, ever more intense. Once, he hadn’t been able to touch her without causing himself pain. Now, it only hurt when he didn’t touch her.
Though the day dawned clear and bright, the sun promising a brilliant show, Indigo was in a snippy mood and she knew it well enough to keep it under control. It wasn’t the fault of these poor teenagers milling in the White Zone that Drew was an idiot who’d changed everything between them with an imbecilic play for sex—then made the whole thing worse by refusing to face up to it.
Beating her snippiness into submission, she helped one of the juveniles tighten the straps of her small pack. “You looking forward to today, Silvia?”
The girl swallowed, flushing under the lush coffee of her skin, and her words, when they came out, were hesitant. “I’m not strong like you.”
