by Nalini Singh
"I broke the rules," she admitted, voice trembling, "and went to a new club on my own. There's no one else around."
Kirby glimpsed the dark street behind the teenager, felt her stomach knot.
Bastien, however, didn't lose his calm. First, he made certain the girl wasn't injured, then got the exact details of her location. "I'll have someone there asap." He was already pulling out his phone as he spoke. "Will the car need to be towed?"
"Yes."
In the next few minutes, Kirby heard Bastien arrange a rescue with a man named Teijan, as well as a tow, all the while reassuring his anxious young packmate. He kept her on the comm line until she was safely picked up by a handsome, dark-eyed man in a crisp black-on-black suit.
"Thanks," Bastien said to the other male. "Sorry to interrupt your date."
"No problem--it was going downhill anyway." A lithe shrug. "I'll get your misbehaving cub home."
Call ended, Bastien finally sat back down.
Feeding him a slice of pear, Kirby said, "Is she a relative?" She was curious to know everything about him but wary of pushing too hard, even though her newly awakened cat rolled its eyes and said she was being silly. It was hard for her to trust instincts that had been dormant for a lifetime.
Bastien coaxed her into straddling his lap before saying, "Not blood, but she's pack, and pack's family." A simple statement that encapsulated so much. "I'm one of the emergency contacts for her year group." He pretended to bite her fingers when she fed him a second slice. "I also happen to be the one least likely to tear her a new one during the assist--I wait till after."
She went to pick up another piece of fruit from the plate to find he'd already snagged the last slice. "So," she said, the feel of his thighs beneath her a slow seduction, "you have the right to discipline younger packmates? I thought that was up to the alpha."
"We all take responsibility for the cubs." He touched her lower lip with the slice in his hand, coating it with juice before licking the stickiness off in a very feline way, all flicks and licks. "This time, the offense is bad enough that she'll be brought up before the maternal females." He shuddered. "I've been there, and it's not a comfortable place to be."
Kirby had so many questions, about these "maternals," about life in a pack, and when Bastien didn't seem annoyed or tired by them, she kept asking, kept learning.
"Will I have to be part of your pack now?" She'd fallen in love with DarkRiver through his words--to be part of such a close-knit "family" . . . she couldn't imagine it.
Bastien went motionless, his focus acute and eyes human--yet she could feel the cat brushing up against her. "Normally, no," he said. "You're lynx, and from outside the territory."
Disappointment crushed the hopeful joy in her heart. "Oh."
Seeing the way Kirby's shoulders slumped, the light going out of her eyes, Bastien's blood roared with a renewed wave of rage, his fury directed at the people who'd taught her to expect abandonment. He fought the anger with brutal force of will, because that wasn't what his mate needed right now. "If, however"--he held her gaze, made sure she was listening--"you want to join, you can become pack. You just have to ask Lucas and take the oath."
It wasn't that simple, of course, but he'd make sure that for Kirby, it would be. The fact was, she'd be welcomed automatically into the pack as soon as they mated--but damn if he'd use her hunger to belong to rush her into the bond. He needed her to choose him, the leopard far too adoring of her to accept anything else.
"I'll sponsor you," he said, strangling his own need and focusing only on hers, the protective, possessive heart of him unable to see her hurting in any way. "First you have to promise you're not a spy out to do dastardly deeds."
Her smile branded his heart. "You're wonderful."
Leopard arching under the verbal petting, he said, "We'll also have to discuss the fact you may one day find your lynx pack and want to be with them." Shifting packs was nothing a changeling did easily, but Kirby's situation called for flexibility.
"I can't imagine it." A wondering murmur, her claws kneading at his shoulders.
She had no fucking idea what it did to him to see her so comfortable with herself in his company. Deciding he'd better get up before he acted on his most primitive instincts where she was concerned, he took them both to their feet. Then, as they cleared the table, he luxuriated in the feel of her padding around in his space. Small and sexy and smelling of him, she was perfect.
When he tugged playfully at her ear after she came to hug him, she shivered, then blushed. Grinning, he nibbled at the tip of one ear. "So, my lynx likes her ears touched." The discovery delighted both parts of his nature.
"It's weird." But she purred against him when he repeated the caress.
God, he was going to have so much fun with her in bed--fun his body wanted now. Gritting his teeth, he reminded himself she'd been through a hell of a lot in the past thirty-six hours, and snuggled her close. "Want to watch a movie and make out?"
"No." A glare out of eyes gone translucent gold. "Not when you're all talk, no action."
"You are so in trouble." Adoring her for making no effort to mask her desire, he stalked her backward to the large floor cushions in front of the comm screen. "Big trouble."
"I'm quaking in my boots." With that sassy comment, and though a blush shaded her cheeks, she slid one small hand over his erection.
Bastien lost it.
Her breasts were crushed against his chest the next instant, as he took her mouth in a kiss so sexual it burned, her nipples hard points he wanted to touch, to taste. Raising one hand, he went to close it over a plump mound when his leopard raked its claws through his gut in a harsh reminder of what was at stake.
Breaking the kiss so suddenly it left them both off balance, he cupped her face, spoke before she could. "I don't ever want you to regret being with me," he said, hiding nothing of what he felt for her. "I never want you to question the first night we spend together, wonder if your choice was driven by shock or fear." Agony seared him at the mere thought of it. "That would fucking break my heart, Kirby."
Kirby had been falling for Bastien since the second they met, but at that instant she tumbled head over heels. He was hers and he was wonderful. Retracting the claws that had sliced out when he so abruptly broke contact, she petted his chest. "I would never regret being with you."
Only Bastien would do for her, no one else. She didn't need experience to know that what they had was special, a gift. "But"--she pressed two fingers over his lips when he parted them as if to speak, fierce emotion threatening to choke her--"I can see how a protective, stubborn leopard might think tonight might not be the best time to get naked and have a really, really good time."
He growled deep in his chest.
Scrunching up her nose at him, she said, "I promise to protect your virtue." That was when she realized he'd given her the sexual reins, this strong, dominant male, who, instinct told her, liked to take the lead. How could she do anything but adore him? "I'll settle for first base."
Green eyes gone night-glow met her own. "I'm constantly being suckered by the women in my life," he muttered, and when she raised her eyebrows, added, "To think I took you for shy."
Grinning, she nuzzled a kiss to his throat. "Instead of a movie, maybe we could talk about your family?" she suggested, still diffident about asking for emotional intimacy.
It took him less than fifteen minutes to have her in hysterics with tales of his "feral" childhood. When he started in on Mercy's inspired ideas to run off women she didn't think were good enough for her brothers--including the "infamous" kitten defurring incident--Kirby gulped. "I guess I better prepare myself."
Bastien scowled where he lay on a large floor cushion, muscular arms crossed behind his head. "I was planning to tell her soon, but--"
"Don't worry about leaving me alone for a few hours," she interrupted before she could stop herself, shifting to her knees on her own cushion. Bastien's family was a core part of his life and sh
e needed to know they'd accept her. If they didn't . . . "I--I want you to tell her."
Scowl even heavier at her blurted-out statement, Bastien hauled her down to sprawl on his chest. "I was going to say Sage is going to blab anyway, so it can wait."
Kirby nodded but clearly didn't do a good job of hiding her nerves because, eyes narrowed, he continued to speak. "If I had my way, I'd have introduced you to the whole damn lot of them the instant after we met." The unadulterated pride in his tone made her eyes burn. "I just didn't want to scare you with the lunatic asylum straightaway."
Kirby's laugh was shaky, a little wet. "Really?"
Bastien stroked her hair off her face. "Really." Damn the people who'd taught his mate she wasn't good enough, the scars so deep even her lynx's knowledge of their bond couldn't keep them from breaking open. Only constant love and affection would achieve that goal. Bastien had every intention of showering Kirby in both. It would be his pleasure and his privilege.
"The second my mother knows about you," he warned, "she's going to start knitting booties for her grandchildren--and she'll call you up, ask which patterns you prefer. Mercy's barely three months along and she's already in possession of enough booties for a football team. One with teeny tiny players."
Kirby's shoulders trembled as she struggled to keep a straight face. "No?"
"Oh, yes. Be afraid, be very afraid."
A firm shake of her head. "I already like your family."
"They'll love you--after they make you run the gauntlet. Because you know, you could be a devious wench out to break my heart." He thought about Mercy, decided another warning was in order. "My sister is really overprotective. Show no fear."
Kirby bared her teeth. "Bring on the kitten defurring tools."
"That's my lynx."
CHAPTER 10
After a night of exquisite torture holding Kirby's warm, curvy body against his own without it going any further, Bastien spent the day coaching her on how to shift at will, as well as how to handle senses that had become far more acute now that her lynx was out of hibernation.
With the mating bond not yet set in stone, he was brutally possessive of her, but suggested they call in Dorian for a couple of hours. "Dorian learned to move in cat form as an adult," he told Kirby, "so he'll be able to explain things better." The other male was also already mated, thus less apt to set off Bastien's aggressive instincts, instincts he couldn't fully control this far into the mating dance.
Kirby agreed to the instruction, but she was wary with Dorian.
However, and in spite of his violent dominance, the white-blond sentinel proved a patient teacher who had Kirby smiling at him by the time the session ended. "Thank you," she said. "I'm so glad Bastien asked you to come over."
Dorian didn't respond to the heartfelt words with an affectionate touch, as Bastien knew he normally would have; the sentinel had no doubt picked up on Bastien's precarious equilibrium. "You're doing me a favor," the other male said instead. "Finally I get to teach someone."
He thrust a hand through his hair. "You have no idea the razzing I took from the others when I fell on my ass my first few hunts." A scowl directed at Bastien. "Bas here sent me a nice sensitive card with a leopard in diapers on the front."
Kirby's mouth dropped open. "Bastien, you didn't."
Cuddling her close, he rubbed his jaw along her temple. "Sheesh, Kirby, it's not like I could hug him and say motivational bullshit."
Dorian's snarl was belied by the amusement in his vivid blue eyes. They both knew the razzing had been affectionate, the entire pack overjoyed at his ability to shift.
"I'll see you both later," the sentinel said now. "I promised my mate and son an after-school drive to get ice cream."
It wasn't long after Dorian's departure that Kirby's phone rang, the records request she'd filed answered not by social services, but by a detective who'd been on the job at the time of the fire. "I never forgot you," Detective Shona Bay said, the intensity of her dark gaze apparent even through the small screen. "You were so tiny, so shocked. I carried you to the hospital myself, your poor little feet were in such bad shape."
Then, as Bastien held Kirby, the detective told her why the victims had never been identified. "Your family was just passing through. Came in on the train, rented the vacation house with cash for a week. No paper trail outside the home, and everything in it went up in smoke when an electrical fault caused a fatal overload early that morning."
"The owner?" Bastien couldn't believe he--or she--hadn't remembered the names of the people to whom they'd rented a home.
The detective rubbed her hands over her face. "I went looking the first day, had a bad feeling it may have been a cash rental, given his habit of them." Lips twisting, she said, "Turned out he'd had a fall while doing maintenance on another one of his properties two days earlier, took a serious bump to the head. Ended up recovering totally, except for some short-term memory loss."
Bastien didn't need the detective to spell it out to realize the time span of that memory loss had included the landlord's meeting with a small lynx family. Luck had not been on the side of his little cat that long-ago day in Georgia, he thought, holding her tighter as her hand flexed and fisted convulsively against his back, her arm wrapped around him.
"Far as we could figure," the detective continued, eyes on Kirby, "you must've squeezed outside through a pet door your parents probably didn't expect you to fit through." Shaking her head, she said, "Your palms were burned, too, soot and tears on your face."
"Were you able to recover anything?" Bastien smoothed his hand down Kirby's spine, able to feel the fine tremors shaking her frame. "The smallest piece could help Kirby trace her family."
"I found a photo that looked like it was taken in a maternity suite of two adults with a baby," the detective said. "Posted it everywhere I could think of, used it to search through missing persons files for years, but I made a mistake." Her shoulders slumped. "I searched only through the missing tagged human, figured it had to be right since you were human."
Kirby, his strong Kirby with her courageous heart, shook her head. "You had no way of knowing." Taking a deep breath, she said, "The photo . . . do you still have it? Even a copy in a database?"
Shona Bay blew out a breath. "We had a major server meltdown ten years back that affected a lot of systems, so I can't promise. I'm sorry." The other woman tapped a finger on her desk. "I'm going to hunt for the physical file and the original photograph, but given the time that's passed, there's a good chance it's already been destroyed."
Kirby nodded, holding it together until the detective signed off. Then she screamed, thumping her fists against Bastien's chest. "It's not fair! I just want to know who I am! I just want to know!"
Aware she couldn't hear him right now, Bastien simply kept her safe while she worked out her rage and sorrow, then held her skin to skin all night, his own fury a wild thing inside him. He wanted to fix this for her, make it better, but there was nothing he could do but be with her as she built a new life for herself out of the ashes of the old.
*
IN the three days that followed, Bastien grew even prouder of Kirby's strength. She came back fighting, determined not to let the dead end of the records search stop her from living her life. "I made it this far alone," she said, then touched her fingers shyly to his jaw. "Now I have you. No excuses for not going forward."
Owned utterly, he took her to meet Lucas so she'd know she had the DarkRiver alpha's sanction to join the pack. She handled the meeting with a sweet self-assurance that had Lucas giving her an approving look and a gentle kiss that was more than simple acceptance; it was the welcome of a predatory changeling alpha pleased with this new member of his pack.
Smug and happy because she was his, Bastien showed Kirby more about being changeling, watched over her during another session with Dorian, taught her about pack life, and introduced her to a lynx family that lived in the territory. The Bakers were a mature couple, with a grown son and a
younger daughter, but Enid and Kirby clicked at once.
As a result, she felt comfortable enough to go off on exploratory trips in the forest with the older woman, Bastien and Kirby both aware Enid had much to teach her about her unique lynx senses. Bastien remained violently proud of his mate for her courage, but he had to fight his protectiveness each time she disappeared into the trees. He refused, however, to stifle her confidence or damage her new friendship by insisting on accompanying the women.
Instead, he spent the time working via a comm link to the office . . . and worrying, conscious of how new Kirby was to her animal form, her reaction times slow. The forest was their home, but it had its dangers, and she didn't yet know them all.
Now, late afternoon on the third day, she tugged him down with her hands gripping his hair and nipped at his lower lip. "Go to dinner with your brothers." It was a passionate order, her brow dark. "Otherwise you'll pace a hole in the floor, and I won't be able to concentrate for thinking about you."
Seeing the truth of the latter in the pale gold of eyes gone lynx and hating that he was causing her anxiety, he forced himself to do as she asked. Somehow, he even managed to fool Sage and Grey into thinking he was on an even keel as the three of them unanimously decided to invite themselves to dinner at Mercy and Riley's, the couple having returned from Arizona the previous night.
"We'll take upside-down pineapple cake as a bribe," Grey said with mischievous feline cunning. "Mercy can't resist it."
Bastien wasn't the least surprised to discover his sister already knew he was seeing someone--though Sage had apparently kept quiet till then. The normality of his siblings' ensuing ribbing helped the time pass, soothed the ragged edges inside him. He especially got a kick out of telling Mercy to do her worst; his lynx, he thought with snarling confidence, could handle it.
Back at the aerie just after nine thirty, he didn't panic when he found it empty, despite the fact the plan had been for the two women to return by nine. Following Kirby's scent--as vivid to him as if it was his own--he found her a short distance away, having a grand old time playing a game with three non-changeling lynx.
