by Nalini Singh
“How long would the batteries last in those things?” Indigo asked. “Best guess?”
“I’ll confirm when we dismantle one, but three months would be the outer limits,” Brenna said, looking at Dorian.
He nodded and added, “The transmitting function sucks juice. Three for safety, but I’d say two months would be a more realistic estimate.”
Andrew saw where Indigo was going. “So we can probably eliminate all the areas where the snowpack has been pretty much solid for over two months.” That would take care of a good chunk of their territory.
“Yes.” Brenna’s eyes sparked. “A telekinetic could have moved the snow, but one, it’s a massive waste of power, and two, against all that white, any intruders would have stood out like sore thumbs to our satellite.”
Indigo nodded. “I agree—we can safely eliminate the snowpack areas for now. We can also eliminate all those areas that get a high amount of traffic.”
Andrew looked at his sister. “You got a piece of paper, Bren?”
“I think there’s a pad in this bag . . .” Turning to rummage in it, she made a sound of success. “Here it is. And a pen.”
“Thanks, baby sis.” Grinning at the kiss she blew him, he flipped open the pad and sketched the basic outline of their territory. “Okay, so this is here.” He made an X on the map. “The other one’s useless as a marker since it could’ve come from anywhere, but how about this?” He drew a rough semicircle, using their current spot as the center of the arc.
Indigo looked over his shoulder. “The entire area’s equidistant from the very edge of den territory.” She took a moment to think about it, nodded. “We’ve got enough light that we can test the theory at least.”
“We have two scanners,” Brenna reminded them, “so we can go in both directions.”
“Drew,” Indigo said, her tone crisp as she slipped into full work mode, “you go with Bren. I’ll work with Dorian.”
He knew what she was doing—pairing each tech expert with someone who could keep an eye on security, but he found he didn’t want her alone with the good-looking leopard male. Her eyes met his at that moment, and from the sudden frost in them, he knew she’d accurately read the hotly possessive urge. Gritting it back with sheer strength of will—and having to fight his wolf to do so—he turned to Brenna. “You need all the gear?”
“Just the scanner pack.” She slid the little computer into a carry bag and swung it crosswise over her body, the scanner itself held in her hand. “Dorian, are you okay using the—”
“No problem, sweetheart.” Setting the computer over his body the same way as Brenna, Dorian picked up the somewhat bulkier scanner. “It’ll do the trick, but the range is shorter,” he said to Indigo, “so we might cover less distance.”
Brenna began to move out. Andrew followed, forcing himself to keep his attention on his sister and not on a woman who was quietly furious with him. Brenna didn’t say anything until they were well out of earshot. “Judd told me.”
Andrew grunted, not in the mood to be teased.
“She’s a lieutenant, dumb-ass,” Brenna muttered. “Going all he-man on her isn’t exactly going to put you in her good book.”
He blinked. “You have eyes in the back of your head now?”
A beatific smile. “I have experience with hardheaded men—though I never thought I’d be giving you this little talk. I always thought Riley was the one who’d have trouble. And he went and got himself happily mated to a sentinel.”
Checking the area for threats and making the assessment that they were the only two out there, he allowed his attention to return to the subject of him and Indigo. “I couldn’t help it,” he muttered, feeling sulky and grumpy—though he’d have shown that to no one but the sister he’d watched over since she’d been but a babe. “My brain knew I was doing something stupid, but my hormones tell me to protect her—and right now, instinct is kicking reason’s whiny ass.”
Brenna shook her head, the late afternoon sun making the fine strands of her hair shimmer like spun gold. “The easy fix is that you grovel and she forgives you . . .”
“But?” He nudged her shoulder with his, his wolf willing to listen to her even if she was younger and far less dominant.
“But this is who she is,” Brenna murmured, her eyes troubled when she looked up. “You stood in front of a bullet for me, Drew.” Her voice hitched. “That’s who you are.”
“Hey.” He hugged her to him, kissing the top of her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Holding on to him for a couple more seconds, Brenna stepped back and started scanning again. “What I’m saying is that you protect—do you think you can handle, really handle, being with a woman who not only doesn’t need your protection, but for whom it would be an insult that you’d even offer?”
The words hit hard, cut deep. But the truth had nothing to do with his acceptance of Indigo’s rank.
“I’m jealous,” he admitted bluntly, to the one person with whom he could admit the vulnerability. “I know I don’t fit the image she has in her mind of her perfect partner, and it rubs me the wrong way whenever she interacts with another male who does fit that image.” A male who was probably far more acceptable to her wolf, for all that that wolf had accepted him on a certain level.
“Even though Dorian’s mated and a leopard to boot?”
“Yeah. Stupid, huh?”
“We’re all a little stupid when we’re in love.” Her machine beeped on the heels of her statement. “Hold up.”
He waited patiently while she did a deeper scan.
“Nothing,” she said after a minute. “It was set off by some metallic content in the rocks, I think.”
Dorian, Indigo thought, moved like the cat he was. All fluid and graceful. She’d have pegged him for a leopard even if she hadn’t known his changeling affiliation. Hamilton, the leopard she’d dated a couple of times a few months back, had moved with that same feline grace.
Sexy . . . except that it wasn’t for Indigo.
Of course, in human form, Dorian was also ridiculously attractive with his white-blond hair and eyes of electric blue. In the sharp mountain sunlight, his hair burned with pure white fire, drawing the eye. Hamilton, too, had made every female head turn when they’d gone out together in public.
Indigo had appreciated the visual impact—the same way she appreciated Hawke and Riaz. Her lungs had functioned just fine, her heart continuing to beat in a steady rhythm even when Hamilton kissed her. She’d allowed the caress, allowed him to slide his hand to her nape and hold her in place as he explored her mouth—because she’d wanted to know if there was any chance of chemistry. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
In comparison, Drew only had to—
“Earth to Lieutenant Legs.”
Indigo snapped her attention to Dorian. “You pick up something, Blondie?”
“Not sure.” A feline smile that made her instincts prickle in warning even before he said, “Is that a love bite I see on your neck?”
She wasn’t gullible enough to fall for that. “I know that’s a great big bunch of baloney I see on your face.”
The leopard male laughed, utterly unashamed of his blatant fishing as he returned his attention to the scanner. “I was trying for subtle.”
“Uh-huh.” Needing to burn off this restless energy, she looked at him. “Can you keep an eye around you while you scan?” He was one of the strongest cats in DarkRiver, and he trained in hand-to-hand combat with a former assassin—she was pretty sure there were very few things Dorian couldn’t handle.
He gave her a curious look. “Sure. You going somewhere?”
“I want to do a bit of a scout around—might see evidence of places being dug up.”
Dorian didn’t tell her that was a crapshoot, simply nodded. “Hey, Indigo.”
“What?”
“You can run,” Dorian said in a neutral tone that did nothing to lessen the intensity of his expression, “but sooner or later, you run out of places t
o run to.”
Already loping up the slight incline to her right, she didn’t answer. But his words circled around and around in her head as she sliced through the cold mountain air. Was that what she was doing? Running? It made her wolf shake its head in violent rejection; she’d always stood her ground, taken the hits as they came. Dorian was talking out of his ass. He was a cat, so really, why was she surprised?
That kept her going for a few more minutes, until her practical nature pointed out that it wasn’t the cat she was mad at. It was Drew. She’d seen that look, seen the way his hackles had risen when she’d given him the assignment. Though, to his credit, he’d kept his mouth shut. “Not too much credit, though,” she muttered under her breath. Because the fact was, he was a dominant predatory changeling male. The words “possessive,” “protective,” and “annoying” were indelibly etched into his profile.
Just as independence, control, and stubbornness were etched into hers.
There.
She was almost fifty meters away in the time it took her to realize what she’d seen. Stopping, she circled back to the clearing that bore several patches of spring green grass that were starting to brown—where the blades had been crushed . . . as if by the tread of heavy boots. She could see nothing that indicated a device might’ve been buried there, but she didn’t like the look of the place. Trusting her instincts, she marked the location in her mind, then ran back to get Dorian.
It took him less than ten seconds to find the transmitter. “Been here awhile,” he said as they began to dig using their claws. “Grass has grown up over it.”
“But these patches of crushed grass say the Psy returned recently, maybe to check up on it.” Narrow eyed, she felt her claw tap the edge of the device. “There.”
“Rusted a little, but otherwise in good condition,” Dorian said after they unearthed it, “and identical to the other one we found.” His gaze met hers. “What the hell are they planning?”
They met back at the starting point an hour later. Drew and Brenna had come up empty, but with the second device Indigo had found, they now had a better idea of how to structure the search radius.
“These objects can’t go anywhere near the den,” Indigo said. They’d spent too much time and effort hiding the exact location of the pack’s true home to give it away so easily. “Can you deactivate them?”
Brenna conferred with Dorian, then nodded. “No problem. Like I said, they’re fairly basic at the tech level. To be safe, I won’t even take the components down, but do all the work up here—the one Silvia found was a husk, so we’re safe on that front.”
Drew rubbed at his jaw, his eyes narrowed. “I don’t think we should deactivate them, not yet.”
CHAPTER 27
When they all looked at him, he put his hands on his hips, the glossy brown strands of his hair lifting in the early evening breeze. “If we switch off two in such close proximity, the Psy might come out to check—and we haven’t got the numbers to cover them if a whole lot arrive at once.”
Indigo’s wolf was still irritated at him in spite of her acknowledgment that he almost certainly hadn’t done what he had on purpose, but she could see the logic of his suggestion. “We should find as many of these things as possible before we start disabling them.”
“If we put all the soldiers and trainees from both packs to searching,” Dorian said, “we’ll probably find the majority of the transmitters, but as soon as we start deactivating them en masse, the Psy will know they’ve been discovered.”
“And we lose our chance to collar them.” Indigo blew out a breath, frowned. “I think we take that hit; get these things off our land and worry about the why later.” She pulled out the cell phone she’d retrieved earlier. “I need to discuss this with Haw—Damn.” She looked at Brenna. “The cell transmitter up here needs to be checked.” That made her wonder—“Any chance these devices are affecting it?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Brenna said. “But I’ll oversee the maintenance myself to make sure.”
“Probably just storm damage.” Dorian was taking something out of his pocket as he spoke. “Satellite phone,” he said, passing it over. “I thought you guys switched over.”
“We did,” Brenna said as Indigo stepped away to make the call. “But there was a problem with the batteries in the shipment. We’re waiting for replacements.”
Indigo returned to their side less than a minute later. “Bren,” she said, “you and Dorian go down, gather up as many techs as you can. Hawke’s already organizing the soldiers. Drew and I will stay up here, keep an eye on things.”
“I’ll leave the phone with you two,” Dorian said.
Thanking the cat, Andrew borrowed it long enough to call Max and reschedule their meeting before handing it to Indigo. She took it and left to camp out at the second site—just in case their actions had alerted the Psy.
“Best-case scenario,” Hawke said at daybreak the next morning when everyone converged at a central meeting point, “they take the hint and stay out of our territory.” His voice shifted, turned wolf-rough. “But somehow, I doubt that’ll happen.”
Indigo nodded. “We need to extend our patrols even farther than we’ve already done. It might be an idea to ask units of men to spend a few days roaming the more far-flung areas in rotating shifts.”
“Organize it,” Hawke said before turning his attention to Riaz. “Can you pick up some of Indigo’s normal duties?”
The male lieutenant gave a quick nod. “Has Judd got anything yet?”
Hawke’s breath was white in the early morning chill. “This smells like Council, but he’s confirmed the Council is no longer functioning as a cohesive unit so it could be any one of them.”
That, Andrew thought, was very, very interesting. He’d have to bring it up with Max when he met with Nikita’s security chief.
Hawke turned to Indigo. “Do we need to ask Riley and Mercy to cut short their trip?”
“I don’t think it’s that serious yet.” Indigo’s eyes were almost azure in the light up here, vivid against her golden tan. “We can handle it for the time being—some of the soldiers can pull a few extra shifts to cover.”
Andrew leaned up against the trunk of a nearby pine, folding his arms to keep from reaching for Indigo and making his claim clear to the other dominants—especially Riaz. “They both need the break.” His brother had been shattered when Mercy was injured just after they had mated. The couple had come through the trial with their bond even stronger but—“I don’t think they’ve had much of a chance to honeymoon.”
Hawke’s lips curved upward. “I wonder if Riley considers his current situation a honeymoon or purgatory.”
Everyone laughed, but the sound was muted, their instincts on alert for any sign of intruders. As soon as there was enough light, they split up into their assigned groups and headed out to comb for needles in haystacks.
“We found ten devices located on the northern edge of our territory,” Andrew told Max over a beer that night in a dark little Chinatown tavern that served the best microbrew in the city. “We did a fairly comprehensive sweep along the other sides, but got nothing.”
“Still, it’s an enormous area,” Max said, “and these devices sound small.”
“Yeah.” Watching the condensation run down the glass of his bottle, he met the cop’s eyes. “But whatever they were up to, we’ve put a dent in their plans by increasing security across all the isolated sections.”
“You have a theory?”
“A couple.” He left it at that.
“I can confirm it’s not Nikita,” Max said, without waiting for Andrew to ask.
“How can you be certain?”
“No reason to hire me if she’s got someone capable of organizing that kind of an operation.” A shrug. “And, given the access she’s handed me to Psy data, I don’t think it’s some kind of a massive double cross.”
The only other Councilor in the area was Anthony Kyriakus, whose daughter, Faith, wa
s mated to another DarkRiver sentinel. The cats had already sent through word that Anthony wasn’t involved. It wasn’t like SnowDancer to accept anything on face value, but this time, Hawke had. Which said a hell of a lot about the SnowDancer-DarkRiver alliance.
“Did Nikita have anything else to say about this?” Andrew asked.
Max took a sip of his beer, making an appreciative noise at the back of his throat. “She paid attention when I told her, but something else is keeping her distracted.”
“Want to share?” He drank some of his own beer.
Max leaned back against the maroon leather of the booth. “I didn’t want to work for a Councilor, but now I do—and as long as she doesn’t break the deal we’ve got going, I’m loyal.”
Andrew didn’t ask what the deal was. He could guess. “Fair enough.” It would make his task harder, but at the same time, it solidified his wolf’s respect for the cop. “But does it have anything to do with dead Psy in the city?”
Max tilted his beer bottle at Drew. “I wondered how long it would take for you lot to twig to that.” Putting down the bottle, he braced his forearms on the table. “Four suspicious deaths, all psychic hits.”
“Nothing in the media. You covering up for Nikita?”
Max’s skin pulled tight over his jaw. “I’ll allow that only because I would’ve come to the same conclusion six months ago.” His anger was a cool flame in his eyes. “It’s no cover-up. Enforcement’s fully aware of the situation, just keeping its mouth shut for once.”
Andrew heard the ring of truth in that. “Sorry, man. I had to ask.”
“Yeah, well, don’t do it again.” The cop blew out a breath. “Look, we’ve warned the targeted group—low-Gradient Psy—but we’ve done so quietly because there’s a good chance the kills are politically motivated, meant to cause unrest in the civilian population.”
“We’ve heard rumors of trouble in the Council ranks.”
Max nodded. “Probability the murders are part of that is very high.”
“Interesting.” Andrew shared the e-mail Pure Psy had sent to SnowDancer wolves. “Connected, you think?”
