Branded by Fire p-6

by Nalini Singh

  Dorian sat down beside her. “Hey.” When he put his arm around her shoulders, she resisted. “Come on, Sascha darling.” A gentle tease. “You’ve helped me more times than I can count. Just think of me as Luc’s stand-in.”

  Softening, she let him hug her. “What about Ashaya?” The other woman was both Psy and newly mated. She might not understand that at this moment, Dorian was simply giving a packmate what she needed to hold herself together until her mate got to her.

  “She’s seen inside me, seen how you helped me stay sane—”

  “You did that yourself.” He’d always been impossibly strong.

  He squeezed her. “I’m saying she understands. She’s the one who sent me to you.”

  “I thought—Lucas?”

  “I got his call after Shaya’s. She felt something from you in the Net.” He rubbed his cheek over her hair. “We get to look after you sometimes.”

  Giving in, she turned into his hold, but other than asking him to call Vaughn to make sure Faith had gotten a message to her father, she said nothing . . . not until Lucas appeared in the doorway. She was barely aware of Dorian leaving, her eyes focused on Lucas. He was sweating, his T-shirt soaked. Tearing it off, he threw it to the side and scooped her up into his lap as he sat down on one of the huge cushions that served as their sofas.

  Once, she would’ve considered her need for him a flaw, a weakness. Today, she all but crawled into him, the scent of him as familiar to her as the sound of her own heartbeat.

  “I’m all sweaty,” he murmured some time later.

  She pressed a kiss to the side of his neck. “You look good sweaty.” Laying her head on his shoulder, she sighed. “You must’ve broken a few speed records getting here.” He’d been in the city office, which meant he’d driven as far into the forest as he could, then run the rest of the way on foot.

  “We’ll be paying fines till the next century.” A stroke down her back. “You okay?”

  “It hit me hard. Hearing her voice.” She swallowed. “I’ve been avoiding any business meetings with her lately and you’ve been letting me.”

  “We all get a few free passes.” Another stroke. “She say anything to hurt you?”

  “No. She’s checking for explosives.” A tear streaked down her cheek even as she finished that sentence. “What’s wrong with me?” Frustrated, she dashed away the streak of wet. “I’m not this weak! I’m an alpha’s mate!”

  “Hey.” Lucas grabbed her fisted hand. “You had a shock, the adrenaline’s probably still screaming through your system.”

  “No.” She shook her head, scowling even as another tear escaped her control. “This is too much. I’m not this fragile, not anymore.” And it was true. She should’ve been able to handle Nikita without falling apart. “My emotions have been seesawing all over the place the past few days.”

  Lucas went very quiet against her. Then he buried his face in the curve of her neck and breathed deep. The joy that shot through her an instant later was so pure, so beautiful, and so utterly protective that she turned in his arms, eyes wide. “How can you know?”

  His smile was fierce. “I know.” His arm tightened as one hand spread over her abdomen. “I know.”

  Putting down the briefcase he’d carried in, Kaleb took off his suit jacket and removed his tie before opening the first few buttons on his shirt and rolling up his sleeves. He never ever did the latter while outside his home.

  No one could be allowed to see the mark on his forearm. Most would have no idea what it meant. Perhaps no one would know. But the PsyNet was the biggest data archive in the world—he couldn’t take the chance that someone, somewhere, knew the story behind the mark. The room had been processed by Enforcement, after all. There had to be pictures, though they wouldn’t have found DNA. Santano Enrique had been too careful for that. And he’d taught Kaleb everything he knew.

  Now, having neutralized the threat from the humans, Kaleb considered his next move. The men had been from the Human Alliance, but unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to tear their secrets from their minds. First, they’d had some kind of a block, and second, the instant he eliminated the first, the others had all been killed by remote.

  He looked at the chip in his hand. Each intruder had had one in the back of his neck. Clearly, it was equipped with some kind of a suicide strategy—or perhaps murder was more apt. But why would the Alliance target Kaleb? Not that their reasoning mattered. The assassins had signed their death warrants the instant they set out to destroy the house.

  Because this wasn’t truly Kaleb’s house. He was only a caretaker. And he took his responsibility very, very seriously.

  Mercy got off the phone with Vaughn and blew out a breath. “Faith’s father is safe,” she told Riley as they stood in the driveway to her parents’ home. Dinner had come up on them so fast, they’d hardly had time to shower—luckily, Riley had begun to carry an overnight bag in his vehicle. Mercy’s cat was a little leery of that hint of permanency, but not enough to take a step back. Not now. Not when the vines around her heart had grown so fiercely strong. “They found explosives at a building where Anthony was supposed to have a meeting at tonight.”

  Riley glanced at her, eyes contemplative. “How about Nikita?”

  “A charge hidden in the elevator shaft—the working theory is that someone hacked into the surveillance system, intending to detonate the charge once Nikita was inside. Since she lives on the penthouse floor, it was a smart plan.”

  Riley shook his head. “How is she still alive?”

  “Blind luck. She made an unplanned trip to New York last night, and went straight from the airport into negotiations on the mezzanine floor when she got back today. The other party kept her longer than estimated. Almost certainly saved her life.”

  “Judd hasn’t been able to get in touch with his contact, but we should get more information when he does.”

  “Never thought we’d be helping Councilors stay alive.” Mercy reached over to brush away a lock of hair that had fallen across his face in a gesture that seemed exquisitely familiar, exquisitely theirs. Heat arced through her fingertips, and it took her a second to realize she’d closed the distance between them until their bodies met.

  “You’re connected to Nikita and Anthony through Sascha and Faith,” Riley said, his hands closing over her hips. “You couldn’t let a packmate lose a parent.”

  “No,” she agreed, wondering what he’d say if he knew Anthony’s true loyalties, wishing she could tell him. “But I think I’d have done the same even if we didn’t have Faith and Sascha in the pack—after Marshall Hyde’s recent assassination, I don’t think the world could survive the shock of losing a second Councilor.”

  He stood there and let her run her fingers through his hair, over his jaw, along his lips. “You’re right,” he said, eyes going wolf on her. “Much as I hate the Council’s guts, the Psy are still the most influential race on the planet—if they crash and burn, we’ll all pay the price.”

  “And the Net’s not ready,” Mercy said. “That’s what Sascha, Faith, and Ashaya all say. Too much too soon and millions of innocents could die.”

  “It’s like the Alliance wants to destabilize the world.”

  Putting both arms around him, she drew in the scent of him until it was in her very veins, twined with her own. “My theory—someone smart but morally corrupt has a thirst for power.”

  “Much easier to become king if the world’s in chaos,” Riley said, his lips brushing her own as his hands pressed her flush against his muscular frame.

  “Hmm.” She was rapidly losing interest in the conversation, far more—

  “Get a room!”

  CHAPTER 46

  Mercy released Riley to turn and face her middle brother as he lounged in the doorway. “You have something to say, Herb?”

  “I can’t believe you’re smooshing faces with a wolf,” came the acerbic comment. “You really that hard up?”

  Growling low in her throat, she ran towa
rd him, aware of Riley’s bitten-off curse as he followed. Sage, the idiot, had taken off through the house to come to a standstill behind their mother’s petite figure. Mercy skidded to a stop on the kitchen tiles and pointed a finger. “Wuss.”

  Sage stuck out his tongue from behind their mother, wrapping his arms around her waist as she stood shredding lettuce into a salad bowl. “That was so easy, Mercy. You must be seriously hormonal—ouch!” He raised a hand to rub at his left temple—where their mother had reached up to pull his hair. “What was that for?”

  “For being a brat,” Lia Smith said without stopping in her task. “Sometimes, I think you’re all still in short pants.”

  “Only when we come here,” Bas drawled from the back doorway. “It’s like I enter this house, and boom, I lose twenty years.”

  Mercy, adrenaline lowering now that Sage had gotten his comeuppance, found that she’d somehow ended up leaning against Riley as he stood with his back to a wall, his hand a rough warmth along her arm. He was petting her, calming her. Doing what a mate did.

  Awash in bittersweet joy, she looked at Bas. “Where’s Grey?”

  “Right here.” Her youngest brother came in through the kitchen doorway with her father. “Hi, Riley.”

  “Hi.”

  Her eyes narrowed when no one bothered to introduce themselves. Even her father just gave a curt nod and kissed Mercy on the cheek before going to his mate. She looked at Bas. “Did you four gang up on Riley?”

  Absolute silence in the kitchen except for her mother’s exasperated breath. “Michael T. Smith, I told you to leave the boy alone.”

  The “boy” held her tighter against him, obviously not the least bit worried. “I’m fine, Mrs. Smith. And I have a sister, too.”

  Lia turned her gaze on Riley. “Good God, Mercy. You brought another one into the family?”

  And Mercy knew it would be a good night, no matter the worry that continued to pierce her heart.

  Sascha stared at Tamsyn in the rosy evening glow. “You’re sure?”

  “Sascha, darling,” Tamsyn said with teasing patience, “it’s a pregnancy test, not rocket science. Even if it wasn’t positive, the fact that Lucas says you are is gold—you’re probably around two weeks along. That’s when males tend to pick it up.”

  “He told me my scent’s changed, that my body’s already shaping itself to accommodate the new life in my womb.” His eyes had glittered with protective emotion, his soul there for her to see.

  “A mate always knows,” Tammy said with a gentle smile. “The rest of the pack will begin to pick it up now that he has.”

  “How?”

  “Something happens when the male member of a pair knows—it’s like his protectiveness coats you, and your own scent changes with it, to something unique, something that speaks of life newly begun.”

  Life. Sascha laid a fluttering hand over her abdomen. “I still can’t quite believe it.” A soft warmth lay curled in her belly, a presence that she sensed with every empathic sense in her. It was a spark now. No, a tiny fraction of a spark. So tiny that she had to focus all of her power to feel it. “I never expected to be a mother.” Perhaps that’s why she hadn’t understood what her body had been trying to tell her.

  Tamsyn looked surprised. “Really? But you love children.”

  “Yes.” She reached out for Tammy’s hand, wanting to share the depth of her joy. “But when I was in the Net, when I thought I was flawed, I swore I’d never submit a child of mine to that kind of an existence.”

  Tammy leaned forward to kiss her lightly on the cheek. A gift. A comfort. “You’re not in the Net any longer.”

  “And,” a deep male voice said from the doorway, “you were never flawed.”

  She raised her head to look into the face of the panther who was her heartbeat, and now, the father of their unborn child. “You were supposed to stay downstairs.”

  “Yeah,” Tammy said, even as she released Sascha’s hands and walked to the doorway, “this was a girls-only session.”

  A slow smile crossed Lucas’s face. “I wonder if it’ll be a girl.”

  Tammy passed him, brushing her fingers over his arm in an affectionate gesture. “Way too early to tell.”

  Lucas stayed in position after Tammy left, his green eyes stroking a caress over her. “Scared?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t know how to be a mother. “Nikita was hardly a good role model.”

  “I’m scared, too.”

  “You’re the alpha of the pack,” she said, finding they’d somehow moved toward each other without realizing it. “You’re only saying that to make me feel better.”

  He took her hand, placed it over his heart. “Listen.”

  It was jagged, touched with a tinge of sheer terror. “Why?” she whispered.

  “My parents were wonderful,” he told her, continuing to hold her hand. “But they couldn’t protect me. It terrifies me that I won’t be able to protect our child.”

  She shook her head, pressed her hand more firmly against him. “They died fighting for you. If that’s the legacy we leave our child, that child will grow up knowing he or she was loved, loved so completely.”

  “Such faith in me, kitten.” He cupped her cheek with his free hand, his touch warm, wonderfully familiar. “Have the same in yourself.”

  Leaning into him, she drank in the beat of his heart. “Give me a few months. I have to study the mother thing.”

  “Ah, Sascha.” He laughed, and the sound of it wrapped around her like a sensual blanket. “I’m sure you’ll have a graduate degree in it by the time the kid decides to pop out.”

  She fisted her hand and thumped him on the chest, fighting the smile that threatened to edge her lips. “Don’t tease.”

  He kissed her, a quick, wild burst of easy male affection that echoed down the mating bond. “I’ll take you to the bookstore.”

  “Will you read the books?”

  “I won’t have to—you’ll read them to me.” He smiled and it was a slow, feline curve of his lips. “I do love the things you say in bed.”

  She burst out laughing, the emotional chaos of the day buried under the incandescence of their mingled joy.

  Everyone was early to the Council meeting. “Are we all secure?” Nikita asked.

  There was a round of confirmations.

  Kaleb asked the next question. “We need to have an idea of what they’re capable of. I’m willing to share what I found—I’m assuming I was the hardest to get to?”

  “Correct,” Ming responded. “Your teleportation abilities made you the most difficult target. However, Tatiana is also close to impossible to get to without warning.”

  Kaleb had heard rumors the other Psy could strip shields, enter any mind she chose. She hadn’t yet broken his shields, and he made sure never to be anything but absolutely guarded against her. “Tatiana?”

  “I see no harm in sharing the information,” the other Councilor said. “Downloading the details now.”

  Streams of silvery data began to flow against the pure blackness that was the psychic vault of the Council chambers. Kaleb caught the vital facts on the first pass. “They planned to poison you.”

  “It appears that way,” Tatiana said. “It’s difficult to fully guard against insects in my part of Australia. The perpetrators released a number of toxic funnel-web spiders around my property.”

  “That strategy has a high chance of failure,” Shoshanna pointed out.

  “Yes,” Tatiana agreed. “From what I discovered afterward, I think it was an opportunistic ploy after their first one failed. I was meant to be on a private jet to Papua New Guinea today—that jet, I’m now told, developed mysterious engine failure and crashed into the ocean, killing all on board.”

  “How did they get to the jet?” Kaleb asked. “I assume it was yours?”

  “That’s a critical security breach—I know it wasn’t any of my people.” Her tone of voice made it clear how she knew. “We’re still working on it.”

/>   Kaleb decided to speak next. “They attempted to blow up my house from a distance.” He gave them the necessary facts without betraying his own security protocols.

  One by one, the others laid out their data. Surprisingly, it was Ming who’d come the closest to being killed. The assassins had made no attempts at stealth for the most militarily inclined Councilor. Instead, they’d fired at his armored vehicle using high-explosive antitank rounds. The car was so much twisted metal. The sole reason Ming was alive was because one of his Arrows, a true teleporter, had been with him at the time. Vasic had blinked everyone out of the vehicle in the minuscule fragment of time after the rounds hit.

  “We have a leak,” Kaleb said after scanning the data. “Someone in the upper tiers.”

  “The body of a man who was known to sell sensitive information washed up yesterday,” Nikita told them. “I had it sent to the lab for processing.”

  “I agree with Kaleb,” Ming said. “Even a top-level information thief couldn’t have discovered all our locations on a particular day and time without massive effort—even if he was the conduit, he needed to have sources.”

  “The other option,” Nikita pointed out, “is that this was a long-term plan. They watched and waited for the perfect opportunity.”

  “Possible,” Henry agreed, speaking for the first time. “With the recent defections, they consider us weak.”

  “That’s their mistake.” Kaleb would allow no one to shatter that which he considered his. And for now, the PsyNet needed his fellow Councilors. When it no longer did . . .

  “Perhaps, instead of speculating, we should reconvene once we have further details of the attacks.” Shoshanna.

  “We do have another issue to discuss,” Kaleb pointed out. “The programmed violence. It’s stopped.”

  A pause of several seconds as the other Councilors brought up their files. Tatiana was the first to speak. “Councilor Krychek is correct. All the most recent interpersonal violence has been one on one, or in families. No cases with the potential for mass fatalities.”