Psy/Changeling Free Stories
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Sometimes, while I’m working away on something else, I start to wonder how Sascha and Lucas from Slave to Sensation are doing. What generally happens then is that I write a scene from their lives. Since these scenes don’t really connect in the sense of being complete stories – they’re usually fleeting glimpses, like you’d see through a window, (maybe a page or so long), I generally don’t post them up. But this particular scene ended up being close to a short story, so I thought you might enjoy seeing it.
Timewise, this story is set after Slave to Sensation and before Visions of Heat. Enjoy!
“Sascha, darling!” Sascha felt her lips twitch at that childish shout. “All your fault,” she said to Lucas as he did a not very good job of hiding his grin.
“What can I say?” He spread out his arms. “Kid has good taste, not to mention excellent language skills.” Ignoring her mate as he trailed her out of Tamsyn’s huge kitchen and to the living room, she made her way to where Julian and Roman sat side by side on the sofa. “You called, your highnesses?”
The cubs giggled, then shifted apart. Julian patted the space in between and Sascha sat. They immediately snuggled up to her, small and warm and so precious. Every time she held these two, she wondered about what the future held for her and Lucas. Her eyes lifted and clashed with his as he sat down on the edge of the coffee-table in front of her. The beautiful green of his gaze held the most intense kind of promise. Her heart jerked. Impossible, her Psy mind told her. But she knew it was possible. Emotion had a strength most of the Psy had forgotten. It could hurt and it could give such joy it was beyond anything she had ever imagined possible. A small hand patted her left arm. Roman, she thought, turning to press a kiss over the top of his head. He was the quieter of the pair, but together, they were Trouble on four legs–eight if they had shifted into their animal forms. “Missing your Mom?” she asked.
Roman nodded. On her other side, Julian asked, “Back tonight?” His voice was uncharacteristically plaintive.
“Yes, back tonight.” Tammy and Nate had had to make a quick trip out of state, leaving their cubs in Sascha and Lucas’s care.
Sascha adored the pair–it kept surprising her that the adoration seemed mutual. Now she looked at both in turn. “I’ll make sure to tell her how good you two have been.”
That earned her a smile from Julian and a kiss on the cheek from Roman. Lucas watched, teasing her with his eyes. He knew she was a sucker for the kids. She made a face back at him.
“Story, Sascha?”
Sascha froze at Julian’s question. Even after months with DarkRiver, she kept getting caught flat-footed by things she hadn’t thought to prepare for. “You want to hear a story?”
Two nods, two pairs of shiny eyes looking to her in anticipation.
Lost, she glanced at Lucas. She didn’t know how to tell stories. Her childhood had been spent squeezing emotion out of her soul.
No one had ever told her any story but ones that warned her to keep emotion locked away, where it couldn’t destroy her. Her mother had whispered to her of the rehabilitated, the nightmare creatures who were nothing more than walking vegetables, their life drained away.
Her most powerful childhood memory was of standing inside the Center, watching the rehabilitated shuffle from one end of the room to the other, their features blank, their eyes empty of any but the most faded remnants of humanity.
The darkness of memory threatened to claw into her, but then a wave of love traveled down the twisting threads of the bond inside of her, this magical thing that tied her to the panther perched on the coffee-table opposite, his long legs spread to bracket her own. “I have a story,” he said, catching the twins’ attention. “But it’s scary.”
“Really?” Julian leaned forward in excitement.
“We’re not babies,” Roman added.
Lucas made a face. “I don’t know. Your Mom might get mad.”
“Please, Uncle Lucas!”
“Please!”
“Please! Please!”
“Please!”
Lucas gave a solemn sigh and leaned forward a little, forearms braced on his thighs. “Okay, but I did warn you. If you have nightmares, don’t come complaining to me.” Looking at him right then, his face indulgent, his voice gentle, no one would have pegged him as one of the most dangerous predators in the area, a panther who could tear enemies to shreds with his bare hands.
But, Sascha thought, he was still DarkRiver’s alpha. Except this time, he was seeing to the needs of two of the pack’s youngest members. And her. He was looking after her, too, with a quiet support that let her know he was there to help her as she figured out this new life, this new world.
“Once upon a time,” he said, “there was a princess–“
“A princess!” Julian’s disgusted shout, followed by Roman’s scowling nod.
Lucas growled low in his throat, making both cubs quiet and snuggle against Sascha with fearful shivers. She knew it was all for show but she hugged them anyway.
“As I was saying, there was a princess. She lived in a tower in the middle of a forest and she had seven servants.”
“Seven?” Julian dared whisper.
“One for each day of the week,” Lucas said. “You see, each day, one servant would go out to the nearby village and–“
“And?” Roman this time.
“I don’t know.” Lucas frowned. “This is the really scary part. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
Two very fast nods.
Nodding, Lucas leaned closer, his voice a whisper. “You see, the Princess had really big teeth, sharp as knives.”
Roman gasped but didn’t interrupt. Julian wasn’t so quiet. “Like wolves?”
Lucas’s lips curved. “Exactly like the wolves.”
She threw him a scowl. The wolves were supposed to be their allies now. Unrepentant laughter danced in his eyes as he continued the story. “The princess could cut through anything with those sharp wolf teeth–flesh and bone, wood and metal, even…little boys’ bedroom doors.”
As the cubs shivered again, Lucas looked up to catch Sascha’s wide-eyed look. She appeared as innocent as Julian and Roman at that moment, a child surrendering to the magic of story for the first time. A tearing rush of tenderness filled his heart, but with it came a steely determination. No one was ever going to hurt her again, not in his lifetime.
“Now, down in the village–the village that the servants went to every day,” he continued, spinning the story as he went, “there lived a little boy. Every night, he went to sleep after locking all the windows and doors in his house.”
“Why?” Sascha asked.
“So the princess’s servants wouldn’t get him,” he said, as if that should have been obvious.
“But why?” his analytical Psy mate persisted.
“Because,” he paused, let the tension build, then growled out the last words “the Cannibal Princess liked to eat little boys for dinner.”
His audience–all three of them–gripped each other. He almost laughed at the look of shock on Sascha’s face. She was probably wondering what he was doing telling such a bloodthirsty tale to two such small leopards. His darling kitten hadn’t yet realized that children were far more feral than grownups.
“Her favorite dish was roasted little boy with honey glazing and pineapple slices.”
“Lucas, maybe–” Sascha began
“Shh.” Two small voices, four hands clutching at her waist. “More, Uncle Lucas.”
“Well, sometimes she liked them nicely fattened up so she’d keep them in her special little pantry and feed them cake and pie and–“
“–sausage!” Roman added.
“Yes,” Lucas agreed with a solemn nod. “And that pantry–full of cake and pie and sausage, was where she put the little boy from the village. She told him to eat, eat…so she could eat him.” As he sat there and told a deliciously dark tale of how the smart little boy defeated the Cannibal Princess with his wits alone, he watched Sascha, felt her love for him, for the boys, surround them in a silken wave. She didn’t realize how extraordinary she was, how being in a room with her made people feel better about life, about hope, about everything.
And she was his.
The panther within him pleased by that thought, he smiled, bared his teeth and finished the tale with a growling grab at the twins and Sascha. All three screamed and then giggled. Julian and Roman pretended to bite him, while Sascha was a rainbow inside his mind. In front of him, her face streaked with laughter as the cubs turned, looked at each other and decided to make her their next victim.
Ten minutes of mock-wrestling later, she held up her hands in laughing surrender and declared herself “eaten.”
***
That night in bed, she turned to him and said, “Tell me a story, Lucas. No cannibals.”
He sighed, stroked a hand down her back. “I only know cannibal stories,” he teased.
“Please,” she said, in imitation of the twins. “Please, please!”
He kissed her, remembering how very restrained she’d been when they had first met. But even then, he had sensed the wildness in her. “If I can’t have cannibals, can I have deranged monkeys?”
Her eyes went wide and she nodded.
“Before I start–when are you going to tell me a story?”
She paused, thinking. “I need to do some more research.” Her hand laid against his chest. “Teach me.”
The panther purred in approval–this was a woman fit for a mate, this woman who didn’t give up, no matter what the obstacle. “How about”–he began to undo her braid–“we tell this story together.”
A slow, sweet, perfect smile warmed up her eyes. “Once upon a time,” she whispered, “there was a princess and she lived with a panther.”
Two days later, Lucas got a call from Tamsyn during which he was asked to explain how her cubs now knew the meaning of the word “cannibal.”
This takes place some time after Mine to Possess.
Teijan sucked back a beer and glanced at Zane, the sand warm against his bare feet. “Aneca’s growing up fast.”
The other man leaned against the rocks and shook his head. “I blink and she’s bigger. I’m almost scared to look away.”
“Never thought you’d make a doting daddy.” His fellow Rat had been as feral as they came, an animal barely contained in human skin. Until he’d found his mate. “Thank God for Rissa.”
Zane clinked his bottle to Teijan’s. “She makes me want to be the man she sees in me.”
“You’re succeeding.” Zane had gone from being a problem to Teijan’s right hand.
“So, this alliance with the cats…”
“Yeah.”
Zane’s eyes gleamed in the night. “Not what we expected.”
“No.” The truth was, no Rat had expected anything much from the alliance with DarkRiver. Teijan had made the promise in good faith, knowing that if he didn’t, DarkRiver would eliminate the Rats from the city. A harsh law, but one that maintained peace among predatory changelings. “They kept their word on the tunnels.”
“Yes.” A pause. “First time we’ve ever had a place that’s truly ours.”
Teijan understood. Despite the fact that they’d been in San Francisco longer than the cats, they’d never had the power to hold the entire city. As such, their residence had been precarious, all of them conscious that a bigger predator could come in and run them out without warning. “A permanent home—has a nice ring to it.”
His Rats, of whom only four were actually changeling, had only ever known chaos and disdain. The human Rats had come Down Below because the world Above treated them like trash. He’d held them together, turned them into a unit, kept them alive. But he’d never expected that the alliance he’d made to keep them safe would change so many things. “Did you see that fax yesterday?”
“Since when do we have a fax machine Down Below?”
“Smart-ass.”
A snort. “I saw it. They serious?”
“Money’s in the account.”
“Huh.”
They both stared at the stars for a while.
“Well,” Zane finally said, “if they’re serious, it’s going to be enough to send some of the kids Above for training we wouldn’t normally be able to afford.”
“More than enough.” Teijan had already worked it out. “We’ll have enough left over this time around to expand the living quarters Down Below.”
“This time around?” Zane all but choked. “What?”
“You didn’t read the whole fax, did you?”
“Aneca wanted to play tag.”
Grinning at the image of tough, wild Zane patiently letting his baby girl catch him, Teijan filled him in. “Fax said they’re passing on a percentage of profits from deals that come about because of our intel. As long as those deals keep generating income, we keep getting a percentage. And if there are new deals…”
Zane blew out a breath. “DarkRiver brings in serious money.”
“And we helped make some of it.” Teijan’s pride in his people flowed through his veins. “We’re their eyes and ears on the ground. We hear of opportunities before anyone else. It’s only right they share the profits.”
“But I bet you never thought they would.”
Teijan shook his head. “Honestly? I never gave the idea any thought. I figured if they left us alone, then it was a good deal.” His people had been hurt and brutalized more than enough.
“Guess the cats surprised us all.” Zane leaned back on the rock, looking up at the stars. “They all walk taller now, even those most afraid of going Above.”
“We see ourselves as part of something bigger.” He’d saved so many, but to do so, he’d had to hide them, turn the Rats into a closed society. Now it was opening up, and the air was sweet, beautiful, full of hope. “There’s danger in that.”
“If they go to war, so do we.” Zane’s tone was solemn. “I want to fight for my baby’s right to live, my mate’s right to survive.”
“That was always true,” Teijan said. “But now the others, the ones without mates or children, even they’re ready.”
“It’s not just about protecting our home,” Zane said quietly. “It’s about protecting the place we’re making for ourselves.”
Teijan nodded. His Rats were more than the dregs of society now. They were turning into one of the most well-informed and well-organized spy networks in the country. Any alpha would be proud to call them his own.
“Who woulda thought a pack of cats would keep their word to a bunch of Rats?” Zane mused.
Teijan smiled. “I guess we won’t be needing those cat-traps after all.”
This stand-alone short story was originally written for the February 2008 edition of Germany’s Love Letter magazine.
The first time Mac Tanner saw Cass Hamilton, he was six years old and she was ten.
“Mama,” he said, “I’m going to marry that girl.”
“Well, my dear,” was his mother’s startled response. “I know Tanner men make up their minds early, but you’re barely in school. It’s a tad soon to be talking about marriage, don’t you think? Especially with…that girl, even if they are our neighbors.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
His mother didn’t answer him that day, but he was a smart boy. He listened and learned. By the time he was eight years old, he’d figured out that Cass Hamilton was one of the mixed breed. Her father had been touched by the Keepers while he’d been up in space. He’d come back a little more than human. And when Cass was born, she proved to have inherited the Keepers’ gift.
Cass Hamilton had skin like gold, eyes as rich as chocolate, and a voice so pure, it made Mac’s chest tight with the best kind of hurt. Cass Hamilton was also a Dreamer. If she focused very hard on a dream, she could make it come true. People didn’t like that. It was a bit too strange. And so, whenever something bad happened in town, the police would come knock on Cass’s grandparents’ door and ask if she’d been Dreaming.
Like when Jim-Bob vanished and folks found out he’d been teasing Cass for being a freak.
Or when Maisie’s long blonde hair turned into stubble overnight, and she screamed that Cass was jealous because Cass only had that soft black fur on her head.
Mac didn’t understand why the police believed Maisie. She was a liar. Anyone could see that Cass didn’t have fur on her head. She just had really soft hair, like on a baby. It was pretty. In the sun, it shone blue. And, Mac thought, even if she had disappeared that stuck-up Maisie’s hair, it was no worse than a toothpaste prank.
As for Jim-Bob, he was discovered five days later, having decided to run away from home. He’d only gotten as far as the next town before realizing that he had no clean clothes, and he missed his computer games.
After Jim-Bob’s return, Mac waited for the police to come say sorry to Cass, but they didn’t. It bothered him. Tanner men knew what was right and what was wrong. And saying sorry to Cass was the right thing to do. Deciding that he might as well make up for the police’s rudeness, he climbed over the fence and up the trellis to Cass’s window. For, unbeknownst to his parents, not only had he not changed his mind about marrying Cass, he’d spoken to her. Not once. Not twice. Every night since the day he’d first been able to get up the trellis. But as he went to knock on her window that night, he saw something that made his hand freeze.
Cass was asleep and she was Dreaming. Something appeared on her bedside table as she slept. It was a card. Chocolates joined the card a few minutes later. It didn’t take long for Mac to put two and two together. His mother had been humming softly all night because his father had gotten her flowers. And his sister had come home squealing because a boy at school had given her a Valentine—a stupid card that played tinny music over and over and over again. It had made Mac so crazy, he’d wanted to jump up and down on it until it stopped. He hadn’t, of course. Ginny was a pretty good sister, and he liked it when she smiled.
But it wasn’t Ginny on his mind on that moonlit night outside Cass’s window. He wondered why Cass had to Dream her presents. She was the prettiest, most wonderful girl in town. Surely boys had given her things? He made a face. Mac didn’t like the idea of other boys giving her presents, but he knew he was only eight. He couldn’t expect Cass to know that she was going to be his wife soon as he finished growing up. As long as those boys didn’t kiss her, he’d decided it would be okay for them to give her presents.
But they hadn’t.
“You’re a sweet boy to think of her,” his mother said when he asked her about it the next day. “And I have to admit, I might not have been as kind to her as I should’ve been at the start, but I’m not liking how that girl’s being picked on. By the police no less.” There was a thread of anger in his mother’s voice that he knew spelled trouble. “I don’t know what her parents were thinking to leave her in this town where she’s one of a kind. Better to have put her in boarding school in some big city. I have a mind to write them and—”
“Mom.”
“Sorry, m’dear. It just makes me so furious. I think the reason Cass didn’t get any Valentines is that people are scared of her. They can’t see beauty in what they fear.”
Mac thought about that. He wasn’t scared of Cass.
That was the first year Mac Tanner gave Cass Hamilton a Valentine’s Day rose. “I picked it from my mother’s garden,” he whispered from where he sat outside her bedroom window. “It’s only a day late.”
Cass smiled so bright and true, he thought he might burn up in the glow of it. “Oh, Mac, you make me believe in hope again.”
He couldn’t keep his secret in his heart any longer. “I’m gonna marry you, Cass.”
“I know.” Then she leaned out the window and kissed him on the cheek.
He didn’t wash his face for a week.
The next year, she kissed his other cheek. “If only you were older,” she said with a laugh. But he noticed she hadn’t Dreamed herself a Valentine. She’d waited for his rose.
The third year, he asked her to kiss him on both cheeks. Eyes sparkling, she did.
The fourth year, she had something wonderful for him. It was a stamp with a postmark from the space station. “I thought you’d like this more than a rose. My parents sent me a letter.”
“Cass, this is…” He couldn’t finish his sentence, he was so thrilled. But even in his joy, he heard her pain. “You miss your mom and dad, huh?”
She sat on the windowsill and shrugged. “I don’t really know them. I love my grandma and poppa and I know they love me. My parents—I have a feeling they don’t know quite what to make of me.”
He dared to reach out and take her hand. When she let him, he felt as if his heart would burst. “Next year, I’ll be twelve and then I can tell you I love you, too.”
Stars shone in her eyes as she leaned closer. “Why twelve?”
“Because that’s when I’ll start becoming a man.” He didn’t have time to waste. “And when I’m sixteen, we’ll get married.”
A long silence as she watched him with that Dreamer’s gaze. “You’re already more a man than most in this town, Mac. I think being your wife will be a wonderful thing. I’ll be waiting to hear you love me, and next year, I won’t be kissing you on the cheek.”
But the next year, the year Mac turned twelve, Cass was no longer there to receive his rose and kiss him on the lips at last. The Keepers had come five months previously and taken her. She was too much like them, they said. Earth wasn’t ready for the beauty and wonder of Cass’s Dreams. Mac’s mother picked him up from school that day, even though they only lived a few minutes away. She took him to a field full of wildflowers, and then she told him Cass was gone.
His heart broke, but he didn’t cry. “Then I’ll just have to become an astronaut, Mom. So I can find her again.”
“Oh, Mac.” Tears glittered in his mother’s eyes. “I’ve never said you can’t do anything you put your mind to, but my darling boy, you’re too sick.”
The leukemia had been eating him alive for years, making him race with life. But that day, in that field bursting with life and color, Mac knew Cass had left him one last gift. “I’ll be okay, Mom. I promise.”
His mother didn’t believe him, but two years later, he had no trace of cancer in his system. “I bet Cass had to sleep a long time to do that.” He imagined her in a floating bed out in space, or maybe on the Keepers’ mysterious homeworld, sleeping, Dreaming . To give him a healthy body, Cass had slept two long years.
Time passed. Every Valentine’s Day, Mac would pick a rose and throw the petals to the winds. There were winds in space, he thought. Perhaps the petals would reach Cass.
When he was twenty, his mother sat him down for a talk. “My boy, I know Tanner men make up their minds early and never falter, but she’s gone. She’s a Keeper now. They care for humans but they don’t marry us. They’re too powerful, too extraordinary.”
Mac didn’t mind being ordinary. He never had. He didn’t think Cass had minded that about him either—after all, she’d promised to be his wife. “She was all those things when I fell in love with her.”
“You fell in love with a child, not the truth of what she is. Give real women a chance!”
For his mother, Mac agreed to go on a date or two. The women were quite lovely, and one of them even made him laugh. But come Valentine’s Day, he spent it studying for aeronautics exams. He didn’t forget the rose. He kept it beside him as he studied. And just before midnight, he found a good strong wind and sent the petals Cass’s way.
On the base, they called him Mad Mac, the only man to ever fall in love with a Keeper. But when it came time to pick training crews, they always chose Mac first. He was an engineer a pilot could trust, because Mac crossed every t and dotted every i. He couldn’t afford to make mistakes, not if he was going to reach Cass in time.
Because now, he was racing a different kind of clock.
One day, a long time after he first began, the training mission became a real one. Mac was sent up into the vast night that surrounded the Earth, to the space station where it had all begun. The touch of the Keepers was everywhere—in the clean air, in the trees that grew in zero gravity, in the blue skies that mimicked those of Earth—but there were none of the ancient race to be seen.
“They only drop by every few decades,” he was told. “Probably won’t be coming round again for another three at least.”
Mac felt the blow as if it was a physical hit. Too long, it was too long…because Mac was human, with a human lifespan. For the first time since he was six years old, he considered the possibility that perhaps he wouldn’t marry Cass Hamilton after all. Not in this lifetime.
That night, he dreamed. Cass was sitting on the edge of a white marble balcony, her legs crossed at the ankles, her eyes sparkling bright. She was older, even more beautiful. And her pretty soft hair had grown until it curled under her ears. He’d always known it would—she’d just needed a little more time.
“Well, Mac,” she said.
He knew she was a Keeper but he reached forward to cup her cheek in his hand. “I miss you.” She was in his blood, in his every breath. It didn’t matter that he’d loved her as a child. His love had been true, his devotion endless. Tanner men made up their minds early and never faltered.
Her hand closed over his, and her gaze grew troubled. “I can’t Dream you to me. I’m too young.”
All doubt disappeared. “I’m going to marry you, Cass.”
“I know.” Her smile grew until it eclipsed the sun. “Mac, you’ve got silver in your hair!”
He laughed as she stood and ran her fingers through it. “Finally, I’m older than you. Getting older every day.” While she remained ageless, a Keeper. “Will you still marry me now that I’m so decrepit?”
“I’d marry you if you were the oldest man on Earth.” This time, the kiss was a melding of mouths. She was so soft, so beautifully female under his hands. He’d waited a lifetime to hold her but the dream flickered and whispered and then was gone.
He got up, stared at his scarred engineer’s hands, and knew that one day soon, those hands would be too wrinkled for the agency to send them back up into space. But if he stole a shuttle and headed out into the unknown, Cass might gray herself trying to bring him home to her. Even a Keeper could hurt and graying was the worst kind of pain. He couldn’t bear to think of Cass graying. Not his vibrant, laughing Cass.
Before he left the space station that time, he threw petals into space, blown by the whisper of his kiss. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Cass.”
There were five more missions. And still the Keepers didn’t come. On the fifth, Mac watched the rose petals float out into space, and knew this was his last trip. Even Mad Mac, the perfect engineer, couldn’t go on forever. His hands were getting tired, his eyes less acute. But when he closed those eyes and dreamed, he saw in perfect clarity.
Cass, so beautiful, still a woman of barely twenty. She could only Dream to him when he was in space. Surrounded by the endless starlight of the cosmos, the kiss became a touch, the touch so much more. She was getting stronger, learning to hold on longer to the dreams. But she was only a baby Keeper. Thousands of years would have to pass before she gained the strength to Dream him home.
Thousands of years after his mortal body turned to dust.
For the last time, he considered stealing a ship and heading out into space. But no, he couldn’t do that to Cass. If she grayed, her pain would last eons. Better that he turn to dust and become a memory. As she grew ever more beautiful, his Keeper would remember Mac Tanner, the human who had loved her a long time ago on a blue-green world called Earth. “Ah, but who will give you roses, my darling?” It was a bittersweet whisper, borne on the icy winds of space to a world so far from Earth, it was beyond the edges of the universe.
“Sometimes,” a stranger’s voice said, “even a Keeper must surrender to human stubbornness.”
Mac turned, looked into ageless eyes set in a face with skin the color of beaten gold. “About time you got here.” Exhilaration raced through his bloodstream like liquid fire.
The Keeper laughed. “Do you know, when Cass was determined to sleep long enough to heal your childish body, we thought it a waste. She was a fledgling Keeper, born for greater things. You were a mortal, would forget her in a heartbeat.” Those dark, dark eyes grew sun-bright. “But you never forgot. So, mortal, are you ready to be touched by a Keeper? You’ll be immortal, but you will be no Dreamer.”
“The only Dream I ever wanted was Cass.” He held up a hand when the Keeper approached. “Wait. I have to get something.”
The Keeper was curious enough to give him the time. When he saw what it was, he laughed. “You will be a strange child.”
Mac couldn’t imagine being a boy once more. “Am I going to be younger than Cass again?” Damn it, he was ready to stroke her with the kiss of a man, not a boy.
“Yes.” The Keeper laughed and touched Mac.
It was an indescribable sensation. Death and rebirth, everything in flux. But when Mac opened his eyes, he found that he was following the Keeper home through the darkness of space. He was only a fledgling himself, so the older one was doing the work, feeding him the strength to continue. All Mac had to do was keep his gift safe.
Who knows how long it took? Keepers live eons, years are their seconds. The length of the journey mattered little—when they reached the Keepers’ homeland of mountain and sunshine, forest and water, Mac asked only one question. “Which way to her?”
She was standing on her white marble balcony when he found her, a beautiful woman with a waist-length mane of curling black hair.
“Hello, Cass.”
Her back stiffened and she turned. There were tears in her eyes, but when her gaze fell to what he held, she smiled. “Your delivery is about six decades late this time.” Taking the rose, she slid the thornless stem behind her ear. “Did you pick it from your mother’s garden?”
“This one’s from my own garden.” From the wild roses he’d planted for her. “I’ve come to collect what’s owed me.” He walked closer, put his finger under her chin and kissed her. Lush velvet and moonlight, eternity and forever, that was Cass. “Damn Keeper told me I’d be younger than you again.” Who knew immortal beings had a sense of humor?
“You are,” she whispered against his lips and reached up to touch his soft, so soft hair, “but you’re also a man. Will you marry me now, Mac?”
“Are you sure we’re not too young?” Laughter against his mouth, Cass under his hands.
And a whisper against his ear. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Mac.”
A glimpse into Judd and Brenna’s life when they have a night to themselves, no Pack business to handle and no enemies at the door. This story slots in a few months after Caressed By Ice ( not long before Branded By Fire).
“Do you want to go out for dinner?”
Brenna hid a smile at the question she knew Judd had asked only because he was trying to be a good mate. He hated eating in restaurants. Regardless of the fact that he was a master of subtle disguise, he spent the whole time tensed up, on alert for threats. “No,” she said, “let’s stay in and watch a movie. I have a couple of frozen pizzas I can throw in the oven, and the salad won’t take long.”
His smile was slow, quiet, wonderful. “Which movie do you want to watch?”
It made her heart ache that he hid nothing from her, though he was a man who’d been taught never to trust anyone. “You pick.”
“You like the dramatic romances that make you cry.” The last words were slightly puzzled.
Pulling out the pizzas and setting them on the counter, she shook her head. “No, I want you to choose something you like.” A small, many would say inconsequential thing, but those people didn’t understand that her mate had lived his life in the shadows, been forced to submerge his personality under a layer of ice—that ice had melted for her, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t left scars. Fun was still a new concept for Judd.
Now, not saying a word, he went to the comm panel and pulled up a list of recent releases. He was so serious, she wanted to reach out and kiss him stupid. Which would get her naked very quickly. Because in one arena, Judd definitely had the idea of fun down to an art—though he still refused to divulge his research sources.
“Here.” He input a choice on the large comm screen he’d moved so it hung on the wall in front of the couch.
Walking over, she put her hands on her hips. “Really? You want to watch a tearjerker romance set in the time of the Territorial Wars?”
“Yes.”
“Liar.” He’d just chosen something he thought she would enjoy. “It has to be your choice.”
“How do you know I don’t like the same movies as you?”
He was digging his heels in. She knew him in this mood. If she pushed him wrong, he would flat-out refuse to change his mind—that was the thing with Judd. He was sexy, strong, loved her until she felt the power of it in every cell of her body, but the man had a core of intractable stubborn.
“Sweetheart, come here.” Cupping his face in her hands, she met the bitter chocolate of his gaze, the flecks of gold pieces of sunlight. “I want you to enjoy this.”
A softening in his expression, his hand coming to settle on her waist. “I enjoy being with you.”
“I know.” Woman and wolf, both parts of her adored being cuddled up next to him, too. “I guess I want to see what you like as well.” Discover another hidden facet of the beautiful, complex man who was hers.
Judd paused. “I don’t know what I like.”
“That’s okay.” Sliding her hands down to his chest, she stole a small kiss before she went to the screen and pulled up a sub-menu. “These are considered boy movies. As you are a boy, choose one you think looks interesting.”
A glint in his eye, he went to the screen, went carefully through the choices. “This one.”
The promotional image was of a guy in a rainforest, with a machete, and a snake coiled around his arm like some kind of macho armband.
Brenna laughed. “Right, that’s the one.”
The movie was terrible. Awful. Everything that could go wrong did in terms of the direction, the production, the setting, the acting—though the leads weren’t helped by atrocious lines such as,
“I’ve got to suck out the venom from the bite on your breast, doll. It’s your only chance of survival, so just lie back and let the expert get to work.”
Even the snakes couldn’t save it. According to Judd, and she didn’t know how he knew this, the reptiles being used as the super scary monsters weren’t the least bit poisonous. She had a stitch in her side by the time the movie was over. “At least he had beautiful abs,” she said, wiping away her tears as the credits rolled.
A slight raising of eyebrows from the man who sprawled on the sofa next to her—a sofa that had somehow survived his Tk. She knew that look, too. It said: Why are you admiring another man’s body?
“Oh come on,” she teased. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice the rack on his co-star?” A co-star whose primary job had been to fall out of her indecent bikini—why she was wearing a bikini in the Amazon was another thing—and scream like a banshee. “Especially when he had to ‘save’ her by heroically sucking on her boobs.”
“I noticed her rack never moved,” Judd said in a cool tone. “There’s no excuse for that with the low-cost cosmetic procedures currently available.”
She choked on the wine she’d just sipped. Her mate, eyes laughing, though his lips were only faintly curved, patted her gently on the back until she could breathe again. Pointing at him, she said,
“That was a funny, Judd Lauren.” And some people thought he had no sense of humor. Hah!
Reaching for the remote, he tugged her to his side so she could snuggle close, and began to go through the menu again. “This one.”
“Oh God,” Brenna muttered in mock-horror when she saw the same guy they’d just watched fend off “deadly” mutant snakes, this time baring his teeth against—improbably—a saber-tooth tiger. “I’ve created a monster.”
Judd kissed her hot and hard. “You know you want to.”
She shamelessly arched her neck for another kiss. “Yes, I do.” Snagging the remote, she started the movie and settled in, one hand spread over his heart. There was no place she’d rather be, and no one else she’d rather be with.
Timeline: This story slots in before Bonds of Justice, and is part of my informal series that explores the everyday lives of the characters, away from politics and turmoil and tension. These are the stories of the hidden moments, glimpses through the window of their continuing lives.
I love writing these, and I hope you continue to enjoy reading them. (This particular story ended up being a bit longer than my usual shorts, but I didn’t want to split it into two parts and hey, it’s the holidays. So find a comfortable spot and settle in. 🙂 )
For those of you unfamiliar with the Psy-Changeling series, this story features several members of the DarkRiver leopard pack, including two sentinels (the most senior members of the pack aside from the alpha).
Dorian was a highly trained architect with a magical ability on computers, and a license to fly. He was also a sniper who could shoot with cold-blooded accuracy, had a former Psy assassin as his sparring partner, and had been called an overachiever by more than one person.
None of those people had ever seen him trying to deal with the plumbing.
“Crap,” he muttered for the third time in a row as the pipe dripped onto his face.
“I think that still counts as a bad word,” his son said from where he crouched in front of
the sink, shining a torch into the dark space beneath.
Wiping away the water and shoving the white-blond of his hair out of his eyes at the same time, Dorian twisted the wrench again. “Are you going to nark on me?” It was a whisper.
“Nu-huh.” Keenan shook his head as he whispered back. “Men stick together.”
Dorian’s leopard grinned at the boy who was his in every way but for genetics, and the latter mattered nothing to his cat. It knew only that this cub was its own to protect and to nurture.
“That’s right.” Lowering the wrench, he waited for another drip.
Nothing.
“Quick, let’s make our getaway before it decides to stop behaving.” Scooting out of the space, he stood up and in spite of his words, double-checked everything was functioning as it should.
“Excellent work partner,” he said, rubbing his hand over Keenan’s head, the silky dark of his son’s hair sliding through his fingers. “I think we deserve cookies.”
Ashaya looked up from where she was icing said cookies at the counter opposite the sink, the lush brown of her skin luminous in the early afternoon light. “I think Keenan deserves one but I don’t know about you, Boy Genius.”
He bared his teeth at his mate in a playful growl. “Don’t make me bite you, Shaya.”
“My terror knows no bounds.” Striking eyes of pale blue-gray bright with laughter, she bent down to cuddle a grinning Keenan.
“Traitor.” Grabbing the boy up into a hug when Ashaya rose back up, Dorian deposited him on the counter beside the tray of cookies.
“Dirty hands,” Ashaya said, and cleaned Keenan up with a wet wipe before allowing him to choose a cookie.
Dorian, having washed up at the sink he’d just fixed, came over to wrap his arms around Ashaya from behind, nuzzling at her curls until they started to escape the bun she’d put them in earlier that morning. He’d watched her do so as he lay sprawled in their bed, watching cartoons with a pajama-clad Keenan. And even then, he’d plotted to unravel the neat creation.
Now she cried, “Dorian!” in laughing rebuke.
Unrepentant, he used one hand to pull the entire mass free, wild curls going every which way.
“Pretty,” he said, pressing his jaw to her temple, his leopard endlessly fascinated by the vibrant life of her hair. Sometimes when he was in leopard form and she was lying beside him in front of the laz fire, he batted at it, just to see it bounce.
“Now give me my cookie.” He squeezed her to show her he meant business, nipping at
her neck at the same time.
“Sugar fiend.” Handing over a heavily iced chocolate cookie, she said, “It’s the perfect balance of nutrients and junk. I made sure to use vitamin enriched flour and vegetable protein.” Catching his dubious look, she laughed. “Don’t worry—you can’t taste anything but the chocolate, sugar, and fat.”
Taking a bite, he verified that was true. “I won’t take away your baking license,” he said with mock solemnity, surprised his scientist mate had taken to the domestic activity with such enthusiasm.
“Why do you enjoy cooking so much?” he asked, tugging gently on a curl as Keenan kicked his legs and licked the icing off his cookie.
“It’s a creative pursuit,” Ashaya said, “and it’s good for me to stretch myself in that way.” An unconscious reminder that she’d been permitted no such play while in the icy trap of the PsyNet.
“But,” she continued, “this is a creative endeavor with order—recipes have set ingredients, and while experimentation is permitted and encouraged, results are easy to judge. It calms me, makes me happy.”
“Lucky for me and Keenan.” And the occasional packmate who sniffed out the menu. Funny how often that happened.
Taking a second cookie, he kissed her cheek and stepped away to lean on the counter beside Keenan’s seated form. “Your cookies are even better than Tamsyn’s,” he said, naming the pack’s healer.
“Charmer.” A delighted smile. “Wait until you see what I made while you two were watching cartoons.”
Both he and Keenan waited curiously as she slid up the cover of the storage space on one end of the counter, and pulled out a tray holding a multi-hued array of cupcakes. Picking up two, she gave them one each, along with a kiss on the cheek for Keenan and the same for Dorian. “For my strong, capable men.”
Dorian was about to tug her into a much more adult kiss when a familiar face appeared in the rectangle of light that was the open back door. “Do I smell cookies?” Kit sauntered in, eyes fixed on the baking.
Ashaya pointed a finger at the muscled young male, halting him in his tracks. “One cookie, one cupcake.”
“I’ll take it.” Grabbing the items, he reached over to ruffle Keenan’s hair, his own dark auburn strands wind-tousled. “Hey, little man. Why’s your mama hoarding the cookies?”
“They’re for the pack’s Christmas party tomorrow,” Ashaya told him, her stern expression belied by the affection in her eyes. “I’m starting to understand why Tammy told me to bake twice what I intended to bring along.”
Hitching himself up on the counter attached to the sink, Kit finished off the cupcake in two bites. Not that long ago, Dorian had literally thrown the novice soldier out of a bar, Kit had been so drunk. Before that, Dorian and another sentinel had busted up a fight in which Kit had bloodied a packmate. But the youth had grown in many ways in the intervening time and was now one of the steadiest young soldiers in the pack, his strength not just in his body, but in his will and his loyalty.
“I like your hobby,” Kit said to Ashaya now, biting into the cookie and trying out a slow smile Dorian knew full well had coaxed more than one girl to follow him into the trees. “This cookie is amazing.”
“Forget it,” Ashaya said with a laugh. “I live with a cat, remember? I know all about sneaky charm.”
Looking disgruntled, Kit scowled at Dorian. “Way to ruin it for the rest of us.”
“Find your own woman, kitten.”
Keenan laughed, sweet and mischievous at Kit’s growl, a drop of icing stuck on his nose. Wrapping his arm around the boy’s neck, Dorian was about to pretend to steal Keenan’s half-eaten cupcake when he caught several familiar scents, followed by the sound of little feet running on the fallen pine-needles outside.
Releasing Keenan to grab Noor in his arms as she raced into the house, her pigtails bound up with bright orange ribbons, he smacked a kiss on the little girl’s cheek before perching her next to Keenan on the counter. His son’s best friend beamed, her beautiful dark eyes open and without guile.
“You want some?” Keenan asked, offering Noor a bite of his cupcake.
Nodding, she bit in, getting crumbs on the denim overalls she wore over a pretty blue sweater.
“Yummy.” When Shaya passed her a purple frosted cupcake, she said a happy, “Thank you,” and turning immediately to Keenan, offered it to him for a bite. “Your one was green. This one will taste different.”
“Do you think so?” Keenan asked, and at Noor’s nod, took a bite. “It’s like grapes!”
Dorian met Ashaya’s gaze over the two little heads, and he knew she was thinking the same thing he was: That it was good to see the children, extraordinary and unique, act exactly like the babies they were. It was the pack’s honor and their privilege to make sure Keenan and Noor had the chance to grow up loved and cared for, their incredible gift allowed to develop at its natural pace.
“Hey,” came another male voice from the doorway, “how come short stuff get cake?” Jon’s intense violet eyes, a startling contrast to the white-gold of his hair, held a scowl. “Did you get cake?” the teenager asked Kit.
Kit gave him a smug smile, just as Talin and Clay appeared behind the boy. Dorian’s fellow sentinel and his mate followed Jon into the kitchen, the two of them going around the counter to grab the stools on the other side, while Jon leaned up against the sink next to Kit.
When Noor offered to share her cupcake, the boy smiled an unexpectedly sweet smile and said, “It’s okay, Princess. That one’s yours.”
Dorian caught Clay’s gaze. “Good to see you.”
The green-eyed sentinel returned his fist bump.
“I tried to bake a cake for the party,” Talin was saying to Ashaya, “but it collapsed in the middle. It was so bad, I was going to throw it out—”
Kit made strangled sounds.
“—but Jon ran off with it.” A laughing glance at the teenage boy the couple had adopted into their family.
As Ashaya turned to look at Jon, Clay stole two cupcakes with feline stealth and threw one over to the teenager. Pretending innocence when Ashaya turned back, the dark-skinned sentinel stared at the cupcake sitting in front of him as if he had no idea how it had appeared.
Dorian stifled a laugh. Clay had always been too serious, too close to his leopard in a dangerous way, until they’d all worried he wouldn’t come out of the darkness—to see him play made Dorian’s own leopard drop its jaw in a grin full of gleaming white teeth.
Ashaya’s lips twitched and then she threw up her hands. “If you’re all going to demolish my cupcakes and cookies, you have to help me ice the spare set.”
Noor and Keenan, having been chatting to each other in their own language, which was all but incomprehensible to adults, clapped at the idea, and pretty soon, the kitchen was filled with laughter and color and sugar. Jon and Kit sat down good-naturedly at the kitchen table to help Keenan and Noor with their creations—though half the baked items ended up in the young males’ bottomless stomachs, while Ashaya offered to help Talin mix up a cake she assured the other woman wouldn’t collapse.
“I’ve experimented with it multiple times,” she was saying as she brought out the recipe.
Talin rolled her shoulders, her tawny hair pulled back with the same color ribbon as Noor’s—though Talin’s bow was wobbly, as if tied by little hands. “Okay,” she said. “Show me what to do.”
As Ashaya and Talin continued to talk, Dorian grabbed some coffee for himself and Clay, and walked around the counter to slide onto the stool next to the other sentinel. “Couple of years ago,” he murmured in a sub-vocal tone that would reach Clay alone, “could you have predicted this?”
The sentinel’s eyes lingered on the woman who was his mate. “I don’t think I even knew to dream this big.”
“Yeah.” In his wildest dreams, Dorian couldn’t have imagined that he’d be loved until it was a quiet, intense pulse inside him, his Shaya’s heart locked with his own. And Keenan—how could he have ever known what it would mean to him to be a father, to hold the trust of an innocent in his hand? It still rocked him at times, the gifts he’d been given.
“Did Tamsyn ring you up about the tree?” Clay asked into the companionable silence between them.
Dorian grinned. “She said her twins chewed through the wires last year, so she asked me to pick up a new batch of lights.” The pack’s healer had begun the tradition of a giant pack Christmas tree two decades ago, and that tradition had held through pain and loss and time.
As Clay shook his head in affectionate amusement, Dorian nodded subtly at Jon. “How’s he doing?” The boy had been through things that would’ve broken grown men.
“He’s settled in, made some rock-solid friendships.” Clay’s tone held a quiet, deep pride. “And he’s great with Noor—as far as she’s concerned, he’s her big brother and that’s that. He even sits through tea parties with her dolls in the miniature tree house I built for her, even though he has to squeeze inside.”
Dorian chuckled, as proud of the boy as Clay was. After what Jon had survived, no one would’ve blamed him for being too scarred to take care with the vulnerable heart of a child. That he’d overcome the ugliness of what had happened to him, learned to laugh again, it spoke of a strength that would hold him in good stead in the years to come.
“Kylie used to make me do the same thing,” he said, able at last to speak of his lost sister without being overwhelmed by rage at her stolen life. Her loss still hurt, but he tried to remember the good times now, tried to think about how much she would’ve adored being an aunt to Keenan and sister-in-law to Shaya. “Then she’d let me choose the game and I’d send her dolls into the jungles with my action figures.” His sister’s poor dolls had always met terrible fates at the hands of alligators and anacondas, only to arise anew for the next adventure.
“Know something?” Clay’s expression held surprise. “I’d forgotten until now, but I used to drink tiny cups of tea with Tally when we were kids. She had this rag doll and she used to be so strict about my not sipping my tea until the doll had hers.”
It made Dorian laugh, the thought of big, often silent Clay waiting patiently for a doll to have her tea. “Women—the things we do for them.”
“Talking about women”—Clay lowered his voice even further—“I meant to talk to you about Jon. He has a thing for Rina, so he might turn up while you’re training with her. Don’t be too hard on him.”
Dorian winced. Rina was Kit’s older sister, and one of the strongest, most headstrong female soldiers in the pack. “Even if he was a grown man, and not a juvenile, she’d eat him alive.”
“I think he’d die happy.” Clay’s cat prowled in his eyes, huffing with laughter. “Truth is, she’s being gentle with him.”
“Rina? Gentle?” Dorian was Rina’s trainer and supervisor, the task falling to him after the young woman wrapped her previous trainer around her finger. He liked her, and was dead certain she’d become one of the backbone pieces of the pack as she grew further into her strength, but gentleness was not Rina’s style. Like all adult leopard females who were dominant, she was more apt to challenge a suitor than to pet him. “You think she knows he’s into her?”
Clay nodded. “I figure she’s trying to let him down easy, since he’s just a kid—but my money’s on Jon. Give him a few more years and age difference or not, I bet you he goes after her.”
“Big call, man.” Dorian whistled softly. “But I tell you what—if you’re right, I will bake you a cake, complete with frilly pink icing.”
“You’re on.”
Ashaya came around the counter to lean against Dorian, the hair he’d messed up once more neatly in its bun. “What are you two talking about?” she asked as he resisted the wicked urge to undo her work all over again, his cat rubbing against his skin at having her so close, the feel of fur sliding underneath his skin no longer painful now that he could shift into his leopard form.
“You’re hatching something,” his mate added in a distinctly suspicious tone.
Grinning, Dorian did what he’d wanted to earlier and hauled her into him for a long, luscious kiss that had her fingers fisting in his T-shirt, the sound of the children’s delight swirling around them.
“We’re talking,” he murmured afterward, “about baking cakes.”
Ashaya, her lips swollen from the nips he’d taken during the kiss, and her voice a little husky, said,
“Didn’t you tell me you could make the best banana cake? I have some ripe bananas.”
“In fact,” Talin said from the other side of the counter, reaching out to tap Clay on the nose with her mixing spoon, “how about a contest? Dorian versus Clay.”
Kit and Jon, having turned to listen, gave the thumbs up. “We volunteer to judge,” they said magnanimously.
“You think I can’t bake a cake?” Clay said to his mate, a glint in his eye.
Talin’s cheeks creased, the freckles on the golden skin of her face adding to the mischief in her expression. “I think you’ll kick Dorian’s pretty butt.” She blew Clay a kiss that had the other sentinel’s lips curving.
“While I agree with your assessment of Dorian’s body,” Ashaya said mock-solemnly as she played her fingers through Dorian’s hair in a way that made a purr vibrate in his chest, “I must disagree with the rest of your statement.” His scientist leaned in close, all soft curves and warm femininity.
“My mate will leave yours in his baking dust.”
“I think that’s a challenge,” Kit said, a little bit of the hellion he’d been back in his voice.
“Way I hear it,” Jon added, “sentinels never back down from a challenge.”
***
Three hours later, Dorian clinked beer bottles with Clay as they stood outside the house, and said, “It wasn’t too rubbery. Truly.”
“And yours didn’t have too much salt,” Clay replied, loyal to the bone.
Looking at one another, they started to laugh, the sound carrying through the air to where the children played and their mates sat talking. Kit and Jon were gone—Kit had taken the boy with him as he continued on to his watch position, the teenager looking up to the young soldier, but they’d promised to return for dinner.
“I think,” Dorian said when he could breathe again, “we should give the judges big slices for dessert.”
“Serve the smartasses right for egging us on.” Clay took a drink of his beer. “That was a cruel and unusual death for those bananas.”
“You’re one to talk—what the hell did you do to the chocolate? I think Shaya and Talin are still in mourning.”
That sat them off again, until they ended up sitting on the ground, beers hanging from their fingertips.
When Ashaya turned to smile at him over her shoulder, the mating bond a wild brilliance inside him, Dorian knew that while baking and plumbing might not be on his resume, in one thing he was and would always be an expert: Loving Shaya
© Copyright 2012 by Nalini Singh
Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t yet read Kiss of Snow, you might want to save this short story to read later.
This is part of my series of shorts focusing on the everyday lives of the characters, away from politics and danger. Set soon after Naya’s birth, this short story features…well, I’ll let you read it for yourself! I hope you enjoy. 🙂
“Naya’s most important visitors are about to arrive.”
Sascha smiled at that pronouncement from the panther in human form lounging in the bedroom doorway, his black hair tousled from the way she’d run her hands through it earlier. “I wondered how long they’d last.” Julian and Roman had been talking to the baby in her womb for months, telling her all the things they were planning to teach and show her.
“I’m surprised it’s three days later,” Lucas said, his skin bronzed from the sun against the deep green of his favorite T-shirt. “I expected them here in twenty-four hours or less.”
“Tammy probably didn’t tell them.” Sascha folded away a soft one-piece in sky-blue that had been a gift from one of the elders in the pack. “I think she was worried I was getting overwhelmed.”
“Are you?” Lucas came over to massage her nape. “We’ve had a lot of visitors since the birth.”
“No.” She turned into his body, drawing the quintessentially male scent of him into her lungs. Always she’d loved him for the man he was. Now, she loved him for the father he had become, a predatory changeling alpha who made no bones about adoring his child. “It’s wonderful to have everyone so excited about the baby.” To live in a pack that showed affection with wild openness.
Lucas nuzzled a kiss against her ear and allowed her to turn to face the crib—located in the bedroom because neither one of them could bear to be parted from Naya.
Reaching into it, she gently touched their sleeping baby’s cheek with a careful fingertip. “I still can’t believe she’s ours.”
Chin propped on her shoulder and arms around her, Lucas said, “What are you talking about? She belongs to Rome and Jules. They were very clear on that.”
Sascha was still laughing at that affectionately feline comment when the twins tiptoed into the house, whispering, “Sascha darling,” as they came in, instead of yelling it like they usually did, cheeky grins on their faces.
Mystified, she crouched down to their level. “Why are you whispering?” she whispered.
They bent identical heads toward her, all hair of dark brown and eyes of midnight blue. “Because,” Julian replied, “Mommy said we had to be quiet because the cub was very small.”
“Really, really small,” Roman put in, forgetting to whisper until the last word.
Heart filled with love for these two babies who weren’t her own but who belonged to her as Naya belonged to the rest of the pack, she cuddled them close. “Want to meet her?”
Enthusiastic nods.
Tamsyn appeared in the doorway a second later, Nate beside her. “Sorry about that,” she said with a smile as warm as the twins was infectious. “They escaped soon as we got within sight of the cabin.”
“They were quiet,” Sascha told Tamsyn solemnly.
The twins beamed, neat little angels in their checked shirts—red for Roman and yellow for Julian—paired with jeans.
Sascha wanted to pick them up, but her body wasn’t quite ready. Rising, she held out her hands and the boys took one each. Once in the bedroom, she had them sit on the bed. Then, reaching inside the crib, she lifted Naya and came to sit between the two, conscious of Lucas returning to the bedroom after greeting Tammy and Nate. “This is Naya.”
“She is small,” Roman pronounced after staring carefully at the baby. “Does she have a long name, too, like me and Jules? Like I’m Roman.”
“Her long name is Nadiya.” She smiled as Julian touched the baby’s fisted hand with a little finger of his own.
Roman petted her silky cheek.
Naya yawned in her sleep.
Giggling, Roman said, “She smells all soft.”
“Is that going to be her real smell?” Jules didn’t sound too enthused about the baby scent that made every maternal instinct in Sascha’s body sigh in wonder.
She glanced at Lucas for help. Her panther came over to grab a laughing Roman in a growling hug before setting him down on the bed again. “No, that’s her scent for now. She’ll develop a deeper scent as she grows.”
“Oh, good.” Jules sighed. “’Cause she really smells like a girl right now.”
Sascha’s shoulders shook at the mournful statement. Tightening her stomach to hold in the laugh, she said, “She is a girl, you know. Will you still play with her?”
“Yes. She’s our baby,” Roman said, eyebrows drawn together and arms folded.
Julian’s nod was just as serious. “We even made her a present.”
They scrambled off the bed together. Rising, Sascha walked into the living/kitchen area with Lucas to find Tamsyn preparing coffee, the healer as at home here as Sascha was at Tamsyn’s house. A tin sat on the counter, likely something delicious Tamsyn had baked that morning.
“Dad.” Julian tugged on his father’s hand where Nate leaned against the wall nearest the kitchen area. “We want to give Naya her present.”
Nate reached into the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt and brought out a gaily wrapped package.
Taking it, Julian grabbed his brother’s hand and they ran over. “This is for Naya.”
Lucas accepted it on the baby’s behalf. “Thank you. Shall we open it?”
Two identical nods.
The package was closed up with so much tape and sparkly paper that Lucas had to slice out his claws to cut it open. “Ready?” he said to everyone.
“Yes!” Eyes bright, the boys were all but hopping up and down.
Lucas upended the open package and into his palm dropped a surprisingly pretty necklace made of multihued beads.
“That’s beautiful,” Sascha said, knowing she’d keep the gift safe until Naya was old enough to appreciate it.
“They chose all the beads themselves,” Tamsyn told her with open pride.
“Dad helped us put them together.” Julian went over to lean against his father’s leg.
Reaching down, Nate ruffled his hair. “Tell Sascha and Lucas what the beads mean.” The senior sentinel glanced at them. “They came up with that on their own, too.”
Sascha settled down into a large cozy armchair with Naya, the twins snuggling in on either side of her. Then Roman took the beads. “This is for Sascha darling,” he said, pointing to the black and white beads at the center.
“For your eyes,” Julian elaborated, then pointed to a green bead next to the black. “And this is for Lucas.”
“But the black one is kind of for him too, since he’s a panther,” Roman said, while Sascha listened, astonished. “So you have to share that one.”
“What about the brown ones streaked with gold?” They bracketed the green, white, and black.
“That’s us!” the twins said in unison. “Didn’t you know?”
“Well that makes sense,” Lucas said, having come around to lean on the back of the armchair. “Since Naya’s your baby.”
Roman gave a satisfied nod. “And this one is Mommy and this one is Daddy.” Both beads were a gorgeous cerulean blue. “Because Mom makes everyone happy and Dad likes it when Mom is happy, and it’s like when the sky is sunny and bright.”
Sascha’s eyes burned. Sensing it, Lucas ran the knuckles of one hand over her cheek and said, “Have you got everyone from the pack on there?”
That caused Julian to slap his forehead. “No! There are too many people!”
“It would be this long.” Roman threw his arms wide apart. “We’ll make her one for her birthday next year with more people.” Then they named the other packmates represented on this first necklace.
By the time they were done, Sascha was utterly undone. Kissing them each on the cheek, she said, “You’re wonderful. Naya is so lucky she’s your baby.”
Suddenly shy, they ducked their heads against her.
“Here.” Tamsyn held out her arms. “Let me cuddle Naya for a second. I think my monsters want a hug from you.”
Sascha passed Naya to the caring arms of the woman who’d helped her and Lucas’s precious baby be born. Her lap was immediately filled with little boy. Smiling, she cuddled them close. The moment lasted half a minute before they scrambled off to run outside to play in the trees. When they ran back in five minutes later, while the adults were having coffee, Naya cradled in the crook of Lucas’s arm, both were in leopard cub form.
“Boys.” Nate’s tone made them freeze, Roman with one paw raised off the wooden floor, Julian with his tail arched. “Did you take off your clothes before you shifted?”
Identical guilty looks, their eyes a stunning green-gold in this form.
Groaning, Tamsyn said, “There go two pairs of brand new jeans.” She scowled but it held no heat. “I ought to dress you both in potato sacks.”
Apparently realizing they weren’t in too much trouble today, the cubs ran over to jump up on the sofa and nuzzle their mom in apology. Tamsyn kissed their furry faces, while Nate shook his head, amused affection in his eyes. “You’ll have to go through this, too,” he said to Lucas and Sascha. “They’re so good about learning other things, but the clothes keep catching them out.”
Sascha grinned at Lucas. “I can’t wait to see Naya shift.” It wouldn’t happen until she was around one year of age.
“Me too.” Lucas’s grin was as deep as her own. “I have a feeling she’ll be a panther, too.”
Having had a play-fight with their father in the interim, the twins ran over to jump up on the arms of the chair where Lucas sat. Perching carefully, they sniffed at Naya, patted her with their paws—claws carefully sheathed—then jumped back down to curl up beside their parents.
Where Julian shifted in wild sparks of color, his face a scowl. “She’s still sleeping!”
“I’m afraid she’ll sleep a lot for a while,” Sascha told him, the love she felt for these two boys who’d shown her joy before she’d ever imagined she might have a right to it, an ache in her heart. “You’ll have to be patient.”
Cuddled up against Tamsyn, Julian looked at his brother. Roman made a small growling sound. Julian growled back, then turned to Sascha, conversation apparently completed. But before he could tell her what had been decided, Naya opened her mouth on what sounded like a tiny, tiny baby growl.
Instantly on alert, Rome ran over to jump on the chair arm while Julian shifted before joining his brother. Where two pairs of green-gold leopard eyes looked into one pair of bright green, the moment frozen in time. Then Julian patted at Naya’s fisted hand with a careful paw. The baby reached out, clutched at him.
Julian huffed in laughter as Roman nuzzled the baby’s face. Naya sneezed, making Julian laugh so hard he fell off the chair arm, while his brother jerked back…then touched her with his paw. This time, the baby got a bit of his fur in her tiny grip. He could’ve easily pulled away, but he didn’t, curling up against Lucas instead.
Scrambling up to his former position, Julian licked at the baby’s other hand. Instead of being frightened, Naya’s lips curved in a baby smile. Linked as she was to their child on the mental plane, Sascha could feel her contentment, her sense of safety. Naya knew she was with Pack.
Tamsyn shook her head. “Watch out,” she warned. “Your Naya is going to be led off the straight and narrow as soon as she can crawl.”
Nate took his mate’s hand, brought it to his mouth and pretended to bite. “Careful what you say about my cubs.”
Leaning into his embrace, Tamsyn said, “Where do you think our children got it from, Nathan Ryder? Hmm?”
Nate squeezed her. “In that case, Naya won’t need any help. Luc pulled some pretty spectacular stunts of his own as a kid.” A raised eyebrow. “Didn’t I once have to fish you naked out of a mud pool?”
Lucas scowled. “I was eight! And it was a very nice mud pool. I don’t know why you had to steal my fun.”
Delighted at this new glimpse into Lucas’s past, Sascha went to ask Nate to elaborate when she became aware of two sets of pricked ears. The others realized it at the same time. Tammy poked Nate in the ribs. “Get the hose ready. I see more mud-bathing in a certain twosome’s future.”
Nate pretended to wince…and winked at his boys. “I’ll show you the best spot.”
“What do you know about the best spot?” Lucas countered. “I know the best spot.”
The twins heads went from one to the other, eyes bright. And Sascha wanted to pounce on everyone, enclosing them in a huge hug. Naya would grow up loved and a little wild, with two friends who’d teach her to be naughty and to play and Sascha couldn’t wait to experience it all. Complete with a mud-coated cub who had her daddy’s green eyes.
This is set around the same time as the start of Heart of Obsidian but contains no spoilers for that book. It features Mercy and Riley from Branded By Fire.
Seated at the breakfast counter, Mercy chopped a carrot, eating half in the process. “I never knew I liked carrots so much.”
Riley grinned from where he stood on the opposite side of the counter, and passed her another. “So, the pupcubs like their vegetables.”
Laughing at the word he insisted on using for their unborn children, she began to chop again, while Riley sliced the sweet green peppers she loved. “I have a belly now, did you notice?” she asked the wolf who was her mate.
“I examine you very carefully every day, kitty cat”—gleaming eyes of chocolate brown—“and the belly hasn’t yet appeared.”
Mercy scowled and got up, walking around to his side of the counter. Lifting up her T-shirt, she patted the slight curve of her abdomen. “See?”
Kneeling down, Riley closed his hands over her hips and pressed a kiss to her stomach. “Your mama’s seeing things, but I love her anyway.”
She pulled playfully at his hair, tugging him to her when he rose. “Smartass.” Nipping at his lower lip, she pushed him back to the counter. “I want my soup.”
“Demanding cat.” Tapping her lightly on the butt, he continued to chop and slice as she stood beside him. “Why don’t you take off your clothes so I can judge this non-existent belly of yours?”
Stealing a stick of celery, she munched. “Let’s see how good your soup is first.” She shifted to wrap her arms around him from behind, leaning her chin on his shoulder. Solid and strong and gorgeous, that was her Riley.
A kiss to the side of his neck. “I love you.”
Turning, he smiled that slow Riley smile that was just for her. “I—” He paused and looked to the door, the smile for her changing into one full of affection. “We’re about to have visitors.”
Mercy didn’t change her position. “Go away!” she called out when heavy steps sounded on the verandah.
“Aw, sis,” Sage said, shouldering his way through the door, “don’t be like that. We bought dessert.” He held up a box from a gourmet bakery in town. “Upside down pineapple cake.”
Mercy’s stomach growled. “Okay, you can come in.” The demons knew all her weaknesses. “Boots off, all three of you.”
Bastien and Sage groaned, bent down, but Grey winked and walked in. “I already took them off.”
“That’s why you’re my favorite brother.”
“Hey!” Two disgruntled male voices.
Riley’s chest rumbled as he chuckled. “Grey, you’re on potato peeling duty. We weren’t cooking for six extra people.”
“Ha ha.” Bastien walked over. “I’ll make a potato bake. You have bacon?” He was already opening the cooler. “Cheese, onions…milk.” The ingredients gathered, he made a space for himself beside Grey. “Thin slices, Shadow,” he said, using their baby brother’s nickname. “Yo, Herb, grate the cheese.”
Sage gave Bastien the finger for using that hated nickname, but got to work. Looking over at Mercy, her middle brother jerked up his chin. “Why do you get off kitchen duty?”
“Because I can trade it for sexual favors.”
“La-la-la-la,” Grey sang. “I do not hear anything. My sister does not have sex. Ever. She doesn’t even know what it is.”
Rolling her eyes, Mercy kissed a grinning Riley’s neck again, then walked around to retake her seat on the counter stool, beside where Sage stood. “So,” she said to Bas, “you’re dating someone new.”
Bastien pointed a knife at her. “No, just no. You do not go near her.”
Glancing at Sage, Mercy waited. He grinned and took his revenge on Bas. “She’s a kindergarten teacher, drawl like molasses, smart as heck.”
“Hmm, sounds like I need to meet her.”
Bastien gave her the death glare. “I swear to God, Mercy, if you scare her away, I will teach your pupcubs the worst tricks I know.”
Mercy just smiled. She had no intention of scaring Bastien’s girl away—if the other woman turned out to be legit. Her brothers might be demons, but they were wonderful demons who deserved to be loved. “Riley, darling, put some chillies in the soup. I want it hot.”
Her mate shot her a narrow-eyed look. “Stop baiting, Bas, kitty-cat.” A slow smile. “You know he’s sensitive about his kitten-defurring tools.”
Mercy, Sage, and Grey hooted with laughter at the reference to the trick Mercy had played on Bastien’s last would-be-girlfriend, while Bas gritted his teeth and chopped onions with the speed of a professional chef. “Why?” he asked. “Why did I have to be stuck with such loving family members?”
Having pity on him, Mercy walked around to hug him from the side and press a kiss to his unshaven cheek, the bristles rough against her lips. “I promise to be nice.”
Bastien wrapped an arm around her waist and snorted. “She can handle you, so do your worst, Carrot Top.”
Mercy elbowed him to get away, reaching up to pull at his own dark red hair. However, she was intrigued and encouraged by the fact he thought his girl was tough enough to handle her—the fact was, anyone who couldn’t handle Mercy couldn’t handle Bastien. Her brother might not be a lieutenant, but he had a steel core. They called him a shark in the financial world; he was the reason DarkRiver had such a good investment portfolio.
Stealing a piece of cheese, she walked over to ruffle Grey’s hair. “What’s up with you, baby brother?”
Grey, who despite his wicked eyes was the sweetest of her brothers, smiled and pecked her on the cheek. “Studying, training, chasing girls when I get the time—which isn’t often. Emmett’s busting my ass.”
She knew Emmett was pushing Grey, and she knew why. Her gorgeous little brother was a very strong dominant with aggressive tendencies that made him perfect soldier material. Only the thing was, most people didn’t realize it, he was such a sweetheart—and because his strength had developed later on in his teens than it did in most changelings. But it had become crystal clear to every one of the senior people in the pack that Grey was built to protect, built to be one of the cornerstones of the pack.
Not only that, he had the right personality and temperament to be in the highest level of the pack’s hierarchy. “Don’t worry, Shadow,” she said. “You can handle Emmett.”
Her eyes met Riley’s as she walked over to let him wrap her in his arms, the soup she’d asked him to make for her bubbling on the stove while her brothers stuck the bake in the oven and argued over whether or not to make the entire box of chicken schnitzel they’d discovered in the freezer.
Leaning up, she whispered, “See, I was worried about having multiples, but then I realized I’ve been riding herd on three hooligans most of my life.”
The hooligans protested as Riley grinned and drew her in for a kiss. When he released her, her heart was threatening to thud out of her ribcage, her claws pricking at the warm wall of his chest as her leopard rubbed against the insides of her skin. Had they been alone, she’d have dragged him to bed and spent an hour kissing and nibbling her way across his muscled body.
Eyes telling her he was reading her mind, Riley ran a finger down her nose and to her lips. She nipped at it, made his smile deepen.
“Tut, tut, that’s what got you into this situation in the first place,” Sage said in a sonorous tone. “Barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.”
Turning to lean her back against her mate’s wide chest, Mercy smiled at her brother, in charity with the world. Riley’s touch had a way of doing that to her. “So, what’s the betting pool saying today?” Everyone was trying to figure out (1) how many babies she was carrying and (2) whether the babies would shift into leopard or wolf form.
“What betting pool?” Total innocence from Bastien, the ring leader and treasurer of said betting pool.
Knowing that look, Mercy knew she’d get nothing. Bas could be a Sphinx when he wanted to be. “Come for a walk,” she said to Riley instead. “The demons will finish making dinner.” Pointing at Bas, she said, “Don’t ruin the soup.”
As Riley walked outside with her, their fingers tangled, she drew in a deep breath of the crisp air. Forgoing shoes, they strolled lazily to a spot that overlooked a meadow bursting with wildflowers, and stood with their arms around one another, watching the sun set.
It was a beautiful, romantic moment, but for Mercy, the greatest romance was in the way Riley unconsciously angled his body to protect her from a light wind. That was her wolf, protective to the core. They’d butted heads about it, would undoubtedly do so again in the future, but she knew some things were instinct. Asking him not to take care of her in such a way would be akin to asking him to change the very core of his being.
And she wanted to change nothing about Riley. “You’re going to be an amazing father, you know that?”
A startled look, pleasure in eyes gone wolf. “I think we should spike the betting pool so we take it.”
Mercy’s leopard prowled forward in interest. “How?”
When he told her his plan, she threw back her head and laughed in delight. And when he nibbled on her ear, curling her toes, she hauled him in for a kiss as hot as her blood. The last rays of the setting sun hit the wild amber of his eyes as their lips parted, the beauty in them haunting.
Fascinated, her leopard rose to the surface of her own mind.
He growled playfully at her, said, “Run.”
Backing away, she gave him a teasing little wave… then she ran, joy in her every step. Riley might be protective, but he hadn’t forgotten who he’d mated, hadn’t forgotten that she was a sentinel with fire in her heart and the hunt in her soul. God, but she loved her amber-eyed wolf.
***
Forty-five minutes later, the three demons who were her brothers—suddenly pious as monks—took great pleasure in pointing out that she had twigs and leaves in her hair, while Riley’s clothing bore grass stains.
This short story fits in between Play of Passion and Kiss of Snow, but if you haven’t yet read the series or those books, it does also stand on its own. Enjoy!
Clay wiped his hand across his brow to stop the sweat dripping into his eyes as he and Talin finished nailing up the final board. “Done,” he said with a quiet sense of satisfaction, stepping back from the extensions to the aerie. The changes they’d made when Jon and Noor originally moved in with them worked, but with Jon growing, Clay and Talin had decided he needed a little more privacy. Since they were already doing those renovations, it had been easy enough to complete a couple of other small modifications at the same time.
Noor’s room remained in the main aerie and on the same level as Clay and Talin’s room so she could run down the short corridor and snuggle into bed with them if a nightmare struck. Those nightmares enraged Clay for what they betrayed of the hurt done the child who was now his, but they were decreasing in frequency. Tammy and Sascha both thought Noor was healing in the loving atmosphere of the pack and of their home; Clay heard daily proof of that healing in her laughter.
The little girl was the sweet, affectionate heart of their home. She’d started calling Talin and Clay, Mommy and Papa two months earlier and each time she did, Clay felt as if he’d been given a gift. Tally had broken down in happy tears that first time, though his mate with her soft heart had managed to keep it together until Noor was out of earshot.
As for Jon, for a teenage boy, he had incredible patience with the little girl. Yesterday, Clay had seen him carefully drinking tea from a tiny dolls cup just to make Noor happy, as Clay had once done with Tally.
He had a feeling Noor would always be able to count on her adopted big brother for anything. That brother’s new room perched on a sturdy spray of branches a little ways away from the main aerie, but was connected to it by a walkway Talin had warned the teenager would be in regular use.
“Don’t think you can get up to shenanigans in there,” she’d said with a scowl.
Jon, aware she was all bark and no bite when it came to those she loved, had kissed her on the cheek, the striking violet of his eyes alight in mischief. “Finally, a bachelor pad where I can bring all my girlfriends and have wild parties.”
Clay knew Jon would never betray their trust in him. The kid had had some hiccups settling in, but that was long past—he was all DarkRiver now and Clay knew he’d do the pack proud. Any trouble he got into was nothing out of the ordinary for DarkRiver kids his age. As for sneaking up girls, well, he was a teenage boy. Clay grinned, and putting his arm around Tally, drew her to his side. “Happy?”
“So happy.” She hugged him tight, her smile brilliant. “I’m glad we decided to do this last bit ourselves.”
Clay was too. Dorian and Vaughn had helped out with the planning and the majority of the building, but Clay had wanted this moment to be private, between him and the woman who was his best friend as well as his lover and his mate. Reaching over, he rubbed a speck of dirt off her cheek, exposing the gold of her freckles. It was instinct to kiss those freckles, her laughter wrapping around him.
His leopard arched, batting playfully at the scent of her, so familiar, so necessary to his existence. Every day he woke to her scent, and every night when he fell asleep, it was with the touch of her skin against his own. Now, she gripped his hips and stood on tip-toe to pepper his face with kisses, as affectionate as a kitten. Noor might still be healing, but Tally and Clay had completed the journey and together, were building their future as they’d built this home—with a love nothing could ever break.
Leopard delighted at the petting, he bent to make the task easier for her.
“Shall we go pick up the kids?” she asked in between kisses.
Stroking his hands up and down her back, he nodded. “I missed the hooligans today.” Noor was determined to help and considered herself the “Holder of the Nails,” while Jon had put in hard labor with the men. The only reason they weren’t here right now was that Clay and Talin had wanted to surprise the both of them with special gifts.
They’d bought Noor a brand new princess bed, canopy and all—it had been a mission to get it up the levels of the aerie. As for Jon, Tally had asked the boy if he wanted to decorate his own place and he’d picked out what he wanted, but they’d bought him a small comm screen of his own as a reward for the excellent grades he’d made at school over the past twelve months.
Noor was so excited when she saw her bed that she couldn’t breathe or speak. “Oh, oh.” Running across the room, she patted the bedspread, touched the curtains that were currently tied to the posters of the bed, and physically pushed Jon away when he teased her he’d like to lie in it and mess it up.
Allowing himself to be “pushed” by the five and a half year old, Jon began to pick up her soft toys from the shelf to the left of the bed and arrange them against the pillows. Noor decided that was acceptable, though she did direct him to put certain toys next to certain other toys, “because they’re friends.”
Jon was more teenage-boy in his appreciation on his own gift. Slouching down in the comfortable old armchair he’d brought in from the main aerie, he thrust a hand through the white gold of his hair and grinned. “Awesome.”
Noor, leaning against the side of the armchair with both hands so she could peer at the screen, made a face. “It’s not as nice as my bed.” A worried look. “You can come in my room if you like. I’ll let you sit on the bed.”
Laughing at the generous offer, Jon scooped her up and plopped her in his lap. “Watch this, Noorel Squirrel.” He flicked the comm screen to a cartoon Noor loved and had her immediate attention. “Bet you want to come to my room now.”
Noor gave a decisive shake of her head, her ponytail—which she insisted on having just like Tally’s—bouncing. “No way. My bed is the most beautifulest ever.”
Standing in the doorway, watching the children in his care and in his heart, while his smiling mate stood in front of him, her back against his chest, Clay’s leopard purred in utter contentment. “Come on,” he murmured in Tally’s ear as he ran his hand along her ponytail. “They’ll be busy for a while yet.”
Her response was immediate, the scent of her a hot caress. Turning, she slipped her hand into his and they snuck away, secretive as teenagers themselves. Young, Clay thought as he locked the bedroom door behind them, he felt so young when he was with Tally. So full of possibility and hope and faith in the future. Then she shrugged off her shirt while watching him with a smile in those gray eyes ringed with amber, and there was no more thought, only a hot, slow loving between two lovers who knew each other down to the soul.
This small vignette slots in during the peaceful lull after Kiss of Snow, soon after Naya’s birth, and while Lucas and Sascha are still living in the cabin below their aerie.
If you’re new to the Psy-Changeling series, this story features Lucas (alpha of the DarkRiver leopards and a man who shifts into a black panther in his animal form), and Sascha (Lucas’s mate and a cardinal empath. She has the power to heal wounds of the heart, to take the most painful of emotions and neutralize them).
And of course, it includes the very recently born Naya. 🙂
“We need to go grocery shopping.”
Lucas looked up from where he was watching a football game on the comm screen, his feet up on the ottoman and a bottle of unopened beer in his hand. “You know,” he said, solemn as a priest, “there’s a spare mobile comm in the other room. If you enter what you want, they have this thing called delivery. Right to the edge of the pack’s forested territory.”
She made a face at her gorgeous, infuriating mate with his deep black hair and vivid green eyes. “Why do you always torment me?”
His smile was feline. “Because your love of grocery shopping fascinates me.” Swinging his feet off the ottoman, he put his beer aside with a loud sigh. “Didn’t we just go last week? What do we need?”
“Diapers.”
Lucas gave a pointed look in the direction of the nursery—currently full of so many baby supplies courtesy of their packmates that he’d started talking about opening a store. “Diapers.”
Bending over the bassinet she had on the table, where she could talk to Naya as she finished writing up her notes about a pack project, Sascha rubbed their baby’s tiny nose. “Your father is making fun of us. What shall we do to him?”
“Since when does Naya like grocery shopping?”
“Since she was born.” Melting as Naya’s soft fingers closed over her own, she made those nonsensical mother sounds she’d never before understood, but now knew intimately. “She’s my daughter, after all.”
A growl from the panther she adored beyond life. “Just because you’re a telepath, don’t think you can fool me. I know my girl has better sense. She likes football.”
Sascha picked up the bassinet. “I’m going out to the car.”
Muttering under his breath, Lucas got up. “I can’t believe you’re making me miss the rest of the game. It’s the first one I’ve had time to watch live all season.”
“Want to know the score? 5-2, the red team will win. Faith told me.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Very funny.”
She grinned and leaned forward to kiss him. “You and Naya can watch the rest in the car. I’ll drive.”
Nipping at her lower lip for her impertinence, he took the baby from her. “Come on, princess. Let’s go indulge your mother’s strange fetish.”
Sascha started up the car and waited while Lucas got into the passenger seat after securing the bassinet into the special seat in the back. He flicked on the small comm screen on his side, and reclined back to watch the game as she pulled out. It made her happy that she was about to head out to do something so mundane as grocery shop with her slightly surly mate while their baby slept in the back.
Lucas’s mood was even darker by the time they arrived. His team (not the red one) had lost.
Nuzzling a kiss to his neck when he bent down to get Naya, she drew in the warm, masculine scent of him. “I love you even when you’re snarly.”
He handed her Naya. “I’m going to need more petting after this expedition ends.” A gleam in his eye that said he was going to take advantage.
Then again, Sascha wasn’t averse to being taken advantage of by her mate. “I’ll see what I can do.” She snuggled their baby, kissing her sweet face as Lucas undid a few buttons on his shirt, before taking Naya back and placing her against his skin, his left hand almost totally covering her tiny back, his other one cradling her head.
Changelings almost always carried their babies so close, and Sascha thought it was wonderful. Their baby would never ever wonder if she was loved, wanted. Right now, Naya was wide awake and listening to her father’s steady heartbeat, her little hand curled up on his skin, even as her mind touched Sascha’s.
Even so tiny, Naya was as curious and as tactile as any feline changeling—but she was also showing signs of strong psychic abilities. What shape those abilities would ultimately take remained an open question, but there was no doubt in Sascha’s mind that their daughter would grow into an extraordinary woman.
I’m here, sweet baby, she telepathed, her heart huge with love for her child and her mate both, and went for the hover cart.
Shifting, his hold so he was supporting Naya with one muscled arm that likely barely felt her slight weight, Lucas said, “Give me that. You know the man controls the cart.”
“Right, how could I forget that rule?”
Lucas growled at her again, but she saw the panther’s amusement in his eyes.
Holding Naya safe and protected, he easily handled the cart as they walked down the aisles of the old-fashioned grocery store. Even though most people opted for delivery, there were enough that wanted the physical experience that boutique places like this thrived. Heading straight for the fresh goods isle, she picked a small pumpkin, tapped the outside. “Lucas, does this sound right?”
Lucas murmured a response, but he was far more fascinated by Sascha than he was by the pumpkin. Ebony hair tumbling over her shoulders and the stunning night-sky eyes that marked her as a cardinal intent against skin of dark honey, she had such delight in the whole shopping process, wanted to touch and smell and feel everything. She was always the first to line up at the taste centers, often had long conversations with the produce manager about the best vegetables.
“Your mother,” he whispered to Naya as Sascha frowned at a bunch of spinach, “is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
He felt a curious mental touch, knew it was his daughter. “Of course you’re the prettiest girl.” And a piece of his heart that existed outside his body. As it did with Sascha.
Sensing eyes on him, he looked up, saw another male with a baby cuddled to his chest. Lucas immediately identified him as a deer changeling named Theo, one of the more dominant bulls; as the alpha of the strongest predatory changeling group in San Francisco and the surrounding areas, it was Lucas’s job to know these things.
Theo wandered over when their eyes connected. “Hey, Luc. I heard your mate had given birth. Little girl, right?”
“Yep. How’s your boy?” Theo’s child had been born a month or so before Naya.
“Laid back but stubborn.” A proud grin. “According to my mate, he clearly takes after his father.”
They stood there in companionable silence, watching the women. Even if Lucas hadn’t already known, it would’ve been clear from their scents which family belonged to Theo: his mate, a slender woman with a sleek cap of black hair streaked with red and skin of deepest brown, held the hand of a pigtailed little girl. The two were in serious discussion over the grapes. Sascha smiled at the girl as she reached them, and a second later, they were all chatting away.
“Women,” Theo said.
Lucas nodded. “Tell me about it.” Then he grinned, having caught the twitch of the other man’s lips. “How long do you think it’ll take before they figure out we actually like doing this?”
“Hopefully never.” Theo rubbed his son’s back in gentle motions. “Half the fun is being coaxed to come along.”
Naya made a ‘pay attention to me’ noise, so Lucas looked down and kissed the top of her head, while inside him, the panther batted its paw gently at its cub. “Shall we walk, pretty girl?”
At the same time, Theo bent to catch the hand of his daughter as she ran over to him, her face shy as she looked at Lucas. When he smiled, she gave him a little wave. Her father stroked his hand over her hair just as his mate called him over.
“See you again sometime, Luc.”
Saying good-bye, Lucas walked across to Sascha. “Done?”
She scowled. “We just got here. Behave or I’ll cook tonight.”
“That’s just mean.” Tugging on an ebony curl, he sighed. “Fine, let’s go get the diapers.”
“We don’t need diapers. We have enough to diaper the entire nursery school,” Sascha muttered, moving on to the oranges. “Touch this, Lucas. I love how it feels.”
He did, enjoying seeing the world through her eyes. Never, he thought, would Sascha lose her wonder in sensation, not after having been deprived of it for so very long. “You told me we needed to come out to buy diapers,” he said with a straight face, realizing she’d forgotten her fib.
A pause. “Did I?” Smile innocent, she took his hand. “I think Naya wants you to talk to her.”
His panther was impressed with her sneakiness. “You’re a cat under that Psy skin, Sascha darling.”
“Thank you.”
Wrapping his arm around her, he dragged her close and claimed a kiss from his unrepentant mate. “I’ll go get the cart. How many oranges do you want?”
A beaming smile that kicked him right in the heart, just as Naya’s hand opened on his chest, a quiet second punch. And he knew he wanted to be nowhere else on this earth.
Author’s note: This short story stands alone, so you should be able to read it without problems even if you’ve never read the Psy-Changeling series. It features the SnowDancer wolf changelings. For series readers, “Wild Night” slots in during Chapter 9 of Kiss of Snow.
Setup: The SnowDancer alpha, Hawke, has just driven down to the dance club, Wild, and ordered the young SnowDancers there to get themselves home, after they almost started a massive bar fight with other predatory changelings.
Hawke and Sienna leave in one vehicle. Tai, a young SnowDancer soldier, volunteers to drive one of the other trucks. And this is where the story begins.
I hope you enjoy!
Wild Night
By Nalini Singh
Tai helped a silent Evie into the passenger seat of the truck he’d volunteered to drive up to the den, made sure her seat belt was properly on. “You guys belted up?” he asked the two passengers in back.
“Yes.” The response was muted, Cadence and Amos conscious their pissed-off alpha was still getting into his own vehicle.
Jogging around to the driver’s side after shutting Evie’s door, he got in and, putting on his own seat belt, started up the engine. Hawke pulled out just ahead of them, his rugged all-wheel drive passing on Evie’s side.
Tai saw Sienna mouth “Traitor” at Evie. Evie giggled and mouthed something back, and then the alpha and Sienna were gone.
Cadence groaned at the same time, sounding like she was thumping the back of her head against the headrest. “We are so in trouble.”
“What do you think Riley will do?” Amos asked in his deep rumble of a voice, his dark brown eyes catching Tai’s in the rearview mirror. “Put us on patrol in the middle of nowhere?”
Cadie snorted. “Dream on. We’ll be lucky if we’re not scrubbing toilets for the next month.”
Wincing, Tai blew out a breath. “We deserve it.” They’d fucked up. The wolf and leopard changelings would’ve held their own in the fight that had been brewing in the bar, but there’d been humans inside. They’d have been shredded in the ensuing carnage.
“I’m not a soldier,” Evie said, reaching over to stroke Tai’s denim-clad thigh with slender fingers. “Riley can’t do anything to me!” A gleeful tone.
Squeezing her hand when it began to wander up into dangerous territory, Tai put it firmly back in her lap. He had zero self-control when Evie decided to seduce him and right now, he needed all of it to drive them home through the dark of night. “Baby,” he said gently, “that means you have to deal with Hawke.”
Evie pouted, her deep gray eyes morose. “Boo.”
“Tai, how much did Evie have to drink?” Amos asked from the back.
“Only one drink!” Evie protested. “Or”–a deep frown—“was it two?” Lifting her fingers in front of her face, she started trying to count, except she kept forgetting the number two and had to start over.
Lips twitching despite himself, Tai said, “She’s a lightweight.” Two drinks and his beautiful, smart Evie became giggly. A third put her over into adorably drunk, where she was now. Normally, she cut herself off at one and a half, but she’d been having so much fun today watching Sienna dance up a storm on the bar that she’d lost track.
Tai hadn’t.
The reason he was sober wasn’t only because he had a patrol shift in the morning; it was because he wanted to be sure he could look after Evie. No one would ever hurt her on his watch.
“Tai.” Her hand landed back on his thigh, her skin delicate cream against the blue of the denim. “I wanna snuggle in your lap.”
Groaning inwardly as his muscles bunched under her touch, Tai ignored the choked laughter from the backseat. “When we get home,” he told the woman who owned him body and soul.
When her face fell, he lifted her hand and playfully nipped at her fingers. A smile lit up her eyes and he couldn’t resist a soft kiss on the fingertips he’d nipped. Her scent was spring and earth and an intoxicating feminine warmth, soothed his wolf as much as it made him wild.
This time when he put her hand back in her lap, she kept it there. Kicking off her heels, she ran her palm down the shimmering silver of her strapless dress. Her teeny tiny strapless dress. “I’m gonna wear this dress again.”
“I vote for that,” Amos said helpfully. “Shows off your legs.”
“Keep your mind on your own damn legs,” Tai growled, though he knew Amos was just messing with him.
“Yeah, Amos.” Evie turned to scowl at the tall, dark-skinned soldier. “Only Tai can put his mind on my legs.” She bit her lip. “Can you put a mind on legs?”
Cadence was in hysterics now, while Amos solemnly replied that minds could be on legs and his mind wanted to be on her legs. It belatedly dawned on Tai that Amos was also very drunk; he just appeared sober. Cadie wasn’t much better.
When he heard Amos growl, he used the rearview mirror to check up on the two. Cadie was pretending to be a vampire gnawing on Amos’s arm, her blonde hair falling around her face. Since Amos was laughing through his growls, Tai left them to it, and answered Evie’s question about how many fingers she should have on her hands.
All three were asleep by the time he pulled into the garage under the SnowDancer den high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He noticed that Hawke’s truck wasn’t there. Interesting. He’d have to tell Evie when she was sober; she’d love the idea that Sienna may have finally gotten under their alpha’s skin.
Getting out, he went around to the back and shook Amos’s shoulder. The other man came awake at once, his jaw cracking on a yawn. “We home?”
“Yep.”
“Cadie.” Amos tugged on her hand. “No more sleepy-time.”
Waking on a groan, Cadence slid out through the same door as Amos, then threw her arm around her bigger packmate’s waist. “Come on Mind-on-Legs. I’ll escort you home.”
Amos wrapped his own arm around her shoulders. “’ppreciate it. Think I’m drunk.”
“No shit.”
Watching the two until they made it out into the main corridors, where packmates would help them along if they stumbled, he shut the door and went around to the front passenger side. He opened it with care, undid Evie’s seat belt, then slid his arms very gently around her.
“Tai.” Nuzzling his throat sleepily, she wrapped her arms around him.
“I’ve got you.” He nudged the door shut with his hip just as the truck Elias was driving pulled in. Leaving the garage before the others tumbled out and disturbed Evie, he carried her through to the den. Her long black hair tumbled down her back and over his arm, her legs—gorgeous legs—dropping over his other arm.
She wasn’t wearing her heels. No matter. Any packmate who found them in the truck would make sure the strappy shoes made their way back to Evie.
Riaz passed him halfway to his destination, raised an eyebrow. “Indigo just got back from her shift.”
Oh fuck. Evie’s lieutenant sister was highly protective and she kept a sharp eye on Tai. Rationally speaking, he couldn’t blame her—Evie was a sweet, gentle submissive, while Tai was a strong dominant.
Relationships with such a large differential between the two parts of a couple weren’t common in the pack, and though dominants were taught to be careful, mistakes did occasionally happen, with the end result being horrifying for both parties. No dominant wanted to compel a submissive lover to say yes. No submissive wanted his or her choice stripped from them by the primal drives of the wolf within.
Tai had been painfully careful with Evie. He’d taken baby steps, always watching to ensure he had her full consent, that his dominance wasn’t forcing her acceptance of his courtship. She’d finally lost patience and hauled him into a kiss that blew his circuits.
“I might be submissive,” she’d whispered against his lips as both their hearts thundered, “but I know my own mind. And I’ve known you my whole life. I trust you.”
Hearing that from her had broken him in the best way. He’d been hers, utterly and without question.
“Where?” he whispered to Riaz.
Taking pity on him, the lieutenant told him to avoid the corridors near the lieutenants’ offices. “She’s going over a report.”
“Thanks.” Tai cuddled Evie closer and kept on walking.
He made it to her room without running into either Indigo, or Evie’s parents. Evie had lived with her folks until recently, now had a room in the section for unmated packmates who weren’t soldiers—the rooms were more internal and protected than the ones assigned the soldiers. She was only here part of the time, spent the rest at college. Tai missed her with his every breath, but he knew he couldn’t clip her wings. Evie had to grow, as he had to grow.
And he had to have faith that they’d grow toward each other and not away.
Walking into her room after managing to open the door, he nudged it shut behind himself, then took her toward her neatly made up bed. Soft white comforter with fluffy white pillows printed with cherry blossoms, that bed shouted “female” loud and clear.
He’d never been in it with Evie, the two of them going slow so Tai could be dead sure Evie was with him every step of the way. He had a feeling she might lose patience again and haul him right into bed one of these days, and he’d be fine with that, but for now, they were enjoying learning one another piece by piece, kiss by kiss, touch by touch.
Tai had never been as frustrated or as happy.
When he tried to lower her to the comforter, she clung to him. Eyes still closed, she kissed his throat, her hand sliding around to the back of his neck. His skin prickled, his cock pounded, and his mouth watered at the thought of her kiss, her taste. “Baby, stop.”
“I don’t wanna.” More kisses.
Tai could’ve broken her hold in a heartbeat, but he wasn’t about to hurt Evie, not in any way. “Let go,” he coaxed, “and we can get in bed.”
“Bed?” A suspicious glance through her lashes. “Really? You won’t run away?”
Tai wanted to laugh despite the aching stone of his arousal. “Promise.”
“’Kay.”
He placed her on the bed, but she got off and onto her feet. Before he knew what was happening, she’d undone the zipper on her dress and shimmied out of it. Her panties were lacy pink and tiny. Tiny. She wasn’t wearing a bra.
Someone hates me, Tai thought. Someone really hates me.
Flipping back the comforter, he said, “In.” It came out a growl, but Evie just smiled, well aware that as far as she was concerned, his growl had no bite.
She jumped in, then pinned him with reproachful eyes when he just stood by the bed looking down at the gorgeous woman he couldn’t have. Not tonight. “You said you wouldn’t run away.”
Shoving his hands through his hair, Tai sat down on the bed and took off his boots. Otherwise fully dressed, he lay down on top of the comforter after pulling it back up to cover Evie to the neck. When he stretched out his arm, Evie snuggled up to him, placing her head on his shoulder, but when she tried to tug the comforter out from under him, he turned around and nipped at the tip of her ear.
“Owie.”
Evie did not say things like “owie.” Ever. She was more drunk than he’d realized. Not that it made a difference. As soon as she’d finished her second drink, he’d known he wouldn’t be sharing any sexual skin privileges with her tonight. “Go to sleep,” he said, holding her snuggled up against him.
Her hand crept over the top of the comforter to lie on his chest, her fingers on the buttons of his short-sleeved black shirt. “Tai.”
Closing his much bigger, rougher-skinned hand over hers, he squeezed. “Go to sleep and if you still want to when you wake up in the morning, we’ll do anything you want.”
A brilliant smile. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
Throwing her arm possessively over his chest, she relaxed beside him…and was asleep in seconds. It took him longer. A lot longer. Turning to take in the woman he held, the silky strands of her hair sticking to his arm and her slender body curled so trustingly against him, he said, “Grow with me, okay, Evie?” He wasn’t sure if he could bear it if she found her wings and they took her far from him.
“Love you, Tai.” It was a sleepy mumble but it dug right into his heart and held it tight.
Closing his eyes, he allowed sleep to tug him under. When he woke, it was to find the comforter kicked to the bottom of the bed and Evie’s near-naked body spooned against his chest. Smooth and warm, her skin invited his petting hand, his wolf rubbing up against the inside of his own skin in an effort to get closer to her. He was about to run his palm over her arm when his eye fell on his wrist and the watch he wore.
Six a.m.!
Shit. His shift started at six-fifteen. Sliding carefully out of bed and soothing Evie with a stroking hand when she complained, he pulled the comforter back over her, then thrust his feet into his boots. About to leave, he remembered his promise and scribbled Evie an I.O.U. on the notepad atop the card table she used as her nightstand.
Eight hours later, he came off shift and walked into his room to find Evie waiting for him. Her panties were peach colored this time and just as tiny. In her hand was his I.O.U.. She held it up between two fingers, smiled. “I’ve come to collect.”
Someone freaking loved him, Tai thought, locking the door and grabbing her around the waist to lift her up against his aroused body. Laughing, she kissed him, her arms tight around his neck and her trust an aphrodisiac nothing could beat. There wasn’t a lot of conscious thought after that, just Tai and Evie loving one another. Two wolves growing into their skins…and toward each other.
© Copyright 2015 by Nalini Singh
Marlee wondered where Ben had gone. He’d miss all the cake if he didn’t get here quick. Grabbing an extra slice while no one was looking, she wrapped it up in a tissue and put it in her pocket, then went looking for her friend.
“Whoa, Marlee!” Uncle Drew and Hawke lifted up the big table they were carrying so she wouldn’t hit her head as she ran underneath.
“Thank you!” Ducking past more busy adults setting up for the big party, she waved at her other friends but didn’t stop. She’d be back soon anyway. First, she had to find Ben.
She went straight to the edge of the white zone and the tree where he had a treehouse. It wasn’t really his treehouse; all the pups were allowed to play in it, but it was his favorite place to sit when he wanted to be alone. She was always invited though—Ben hardly ever wanted to be all alone.
“Ben!” she called up, but there was silence from above, and when she searched with her telepathic senses, she didn’t catch any hint of his bright, smart mind. Marlee would never read anyone’s mind without permission—not that she could with changelings anyway, but her daddy said it was all right to use her senses like this. It was the same as a wolf using his ability to smell things she couldn’t.
Realizing Ben wasn’t up there, she decided to go a little ways into the forest full of pine trees heavily dusted with snow. She was glad she was wearing her boots that Aunt Indigo had given her, and her pink coat with the black velvet collar that she’d chosen herself with her mom, Lara, when they had a “girls day out.”
The forest was outside the perimeter for pups but Ben was naughty and he liked to go to the waterfall sometimes to watch it. It’d be pretty right now, all frozen and shimmery under the mountain sunlight. Marlee knew because she was often naughty, too. She’d go with Ben and they’d sit and talk by the waterfall, the spray cool on their faces.
Ben shifted at times into his wolf pup form and then his fur would be soft under her hand while they sat there. Marlee’s other friends were nice, but now and then, they teased her for being friends with a “baby.”
Ben wasn’t a baby but he was several years younger than her. He didn’t understand more grown up things that she did now, but he understood the inside of her. He knew when she was scared or worried and he’d put his hand in hers and they’d stand there and she’d feel better.
He was her best friend even if he was small and still wanted to play with trucks. After a few more years, she’d learn to drive—then she’d drive him around in a real truck.
“Ben!” she called again halfway to the waterfall. No reply but…there he was! Sitting on the pine-needle strewn and snowy ground with his head down, his dark hair glinting with snow that must’ve fallen from the branch above.
“Ben!” She ran over, expecting to see that he was looking at an interesting bug.
But when he lifted his head, she saw dried tears on his face. Marlee froze in place for a second. Ben never cried. Ben was always happy. “What’s wrong?” She fell to her knees beside him and immediately hugged him close, the snow cold through her jeans. “Did you fall?”
“Yeah.” He nodded against her. “I broke my bobble.”
Marlee looked down to see that he was holding his ornament for the party. They and the other pups had spent a whole week after school making each of theirs. “It looks okay,” she said.
Turning his hand, Ben showed her the big dent on the side. “It’s broken.”
Marlee sat down beside him. She thought about saying he could have hers, but she knew he wouldn’t want it. He’d made this one special for his mom—it had cut out pictures of him and his mom and dad and baby Elodie, plus Ben had drawn beautiful snowflakes with a glitter pen. He was better at that than even the juveniles!
He’d drawn them on her ornament too when she asked. “Maybe we can fix it,” she said.
Rubbing the back of one hand over his eyes, Ben shook his head. “It’s all crushed in. See?” He showed her.
“Yeah, it’s got a small hole too.” When she took the ornament and gently shook it, she heard something moving around inside. “I think the piece is inside.” She bit down hard on her lower lip. “We could make a new one together.”
“It won’t be the same.” Ben took it back real careful. “I don’t want to give my mama a broken bobble.” A new tear rolled down his cheek and it hurt Marlee’s heart.
One arm around his shoulders, she hugged him closer. “Your mom won’t mind.” Lara never minded if Marlee’s gifts weren’t perfect; she used the mug Marlee had made in pottery class even though the mug was lopsided.
“I know,” Ben said, “but I keep breaking things.” He sighed. “I wanna give her a not-broken thing.”
Seeing his face crumpling again, Marlee dug desperately into her pocket and held out the squashed piece of cake. “I saved you this.”
He took it and, putting his ornament carefully in his lap, opened up the tissue to eat the cake with his fingers. But he was still sad, she could tell. She didn’t like it. Ben had sparkly dark eyes and he laughed all the time.
She’d learned to laugh with Ben. Before, where her family had lived, in the PsyNet, she hadn’t been allowed to laugh or feel any emotions and so she hadn’t known how when she’d come to live with the wolves. But then Ben had just decided to be her friend and he’d kept on laughing until one day, she’d laughed too.
“Come on,” she said, getting up. “I have an idea.”
Ben gave her the tissue and she stuffed it into her pocket. His face still had chocolate icing on it when they found Uncle Judd. He was talking on the phone on the snowy whiteness outside the den entrance, a serious look on his face. But he smiled when he saw her and Ben.
Knowing then that it was all right to interrupt, Marlee kept Ben’s hand in hers as she walked over to her uncle.
He hunkered down in front of them after hanging up, and opened his arms. They both walked in to stand inside them. “What is it?” he asked in that quiet but serious Uncle Judd way, a way that made Marlee feel that what she had to say was important to him.
“Ben broke his gift to his mom.” She showed him. “See?”
“Ah.” Taking the ornament in one hand while keeping the other one around Ben, he said, “Is that why you’re so quiet, Parrot?”
Ben’s lips curved, his eyes a little sparkly again. “Yeah. I’m sad.”
“Well, that won’t do.” Uncle Judd’s own eyes, a dark chocolate brown with gold specks in them, met Marlee’s. “Did you try yourself?”
She shook her head. “I might break it more.” Her control wasn’t that good and she had nowhere near her uncle’s telekinetic strength. He was powerful. Sometimes, the tiny hairs on her arms stood up near him. Not because she was afraid but because he had so much telekinetic energy in his body.
“We’ll test that another day, but today…” He looked at the ornament with quiet concentration and slowly, the dented part began to round outward. It wasn’t glass. They weren’t allowed to play with glass. But Marlee had hoped that meant the dent could be fixed.
“There’s a broken bit inside,” she whispered as Ben’s smile grew bigger.
“I have it.” The broken bit flew up from the inside to slot neatly into the hole and then Uncle Judd did that thing only he could do: he made the piece unbroken from the rest. He was a special kind of Tk-Psy and he mostly fixed people, but sometimes, he fixed things if Marlee asked.
“What do you think, Ben?” He held out the ornament to her friend.
Eyes shining, Ben cradled it gently in his hands. “It’s perfect! Thanks, Uncle Judd!” He hugged Uncle Judd with his head over Uncle Judd’s shoulder—he was holding his bauble with both hands. “I’m gonna give it to my mama right now! I don’t wanna break it again.”
“I think that’s a good plan.” A smile that wasn’t big but that Marlee knew was big for her uncle who’d had to spend his whole life in the PsyNet where they’d hurt him and hurt him again. All to make him into an Arrow, the most dangerous kind of soldier.
People thought she didn’t know that, but Marlee was big enough to understand that her daddy and Uncle Judd and Sienna hadn’t ever got to play like she did. No one had ever hugged them or tucked them into bed or read them a bedtime story. It was hard for her daddy to show his emotions too, but Marlee felt his love like a warm blanket around her.
As she felt Uncle Judd’s playfulness at that moment when he said, “Want a ride? I’m sure Ava is in Indigo’s office.”
When they both nodded enthusiastically, he teleported them right into the den!
“Benny!” Ben’s mom smiled that big warm smile from where she sat in the chair on this side of Indigo’s desk. “And Marlee sweetheart. Have you two been bugging Judd for lifts again?”
“Mama, I made you a bobble!” Ben held it out with both hands. “It’s special. And I broke it and I cried and I was sad but Uncle Judd fixed it and now it’s perfect again.”
Ava took the ornament with a soft look in her eyes. Moving over to stand next to Indigo’s chair, the wolf lieutenant sitting with her legs up on one side of the desk, Marlee leaned in close. “I think Ava’s gonna cry,” she whispered.
Putting one arm around Marlee’s shoulders, Indigo nodded. “Yep. I think you’re right.” She raised an eyebrow. “Even my tough, stony heart is melted. Your friend has a way about him.”
“Your heart’s not stony.” Marlee frowned. “You sent Uncle Drew roses last week.”
“Shh.” A finger to her lips, Indigo scowled. “I have a reputation to protect.”
Marlee laughed as across the office, Ava cried and snuggled Ben.
But these tears were happy tears and Marlee knew about those now, too. Never again would she have to squash her emotions into a hard ball in her heart. She’d grow up free—and she’d grow up with a friend who wouldn’t always be so young.
She wondered suddenly what Ben would be like as a grown up. But then he laughed and kissed his mama on the cheek and the thought flew away.
“Let’s go steal more cake!” he called to her.
Grinning, she ran out of the office with him, while his mother wiped away a tear and placed Ben’s bauble on Indigo’s desk, where it caught the light and sparkled like Ben’s eyes.
Author’s Note: This short story is one that many, many of you have requested since Allegiance of Honor came out last year. I hope you love. 🙂
Kaleb glanced once again at the message he’d received from Zachary Quinn. He’d met the other man at the party the DarkRiver leopards had thrown to celebrate the birth of three new cubs, and now Zach was reminding him about their dinner plans. Because that dinner mattered to Zach’s mate, Annie.
Kaleb had met Annie long before he’d ever known Zach. Both of them children, both of them trapped in different ways. Kaleb hadn’t been able to free himself then, but he had been able to help Annie, had used his vast telekinetic strength to lift the train compartment off her crushed leg so that she could be rescued. And she hadn’t forgotten.
All this time, all these years, and she’d remembered.
Not only had she remembered, she’d held the memory close enough that her baby’s name was Rowan Kaleb Quinn. Kaleb wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that. It wasn’t the use of his name that concerned him. It was the impact the connection would have on an innocent child’s life.
He’d even said so to Annie when he first learned of her intention. “Are you sure you want him linked to me?”
“Yes,” Annie had responded, her voice gentle yet immovable. “You will always be a part of our family.”
Now, Kaleb looked across at where the woman whom changelings called his mate—and Kaleb called his everything—sat in the armchair she’d dragged into his office one day. It was very definitely her chair. Even when she wasn’t there, he found his eyes drawn that way, his lips parting to speak to the only person who had ever truly known him.
It helped that he was a telepath who could communicate across vast distances. Sahara never turned him away when he reached for her, whether in person or on the psychic plane. She knew that the twisted darkness deep within him needed her like he needed air. “Zach and Annie are insistent.” He told her about the reminder.
She looked up from her organizer with a smile, her unbound hair dark against the white shirt she’d stolen from his wardrobe and wore with the sleeves folded partway up her forearms. “Why do you sound like you were thinking about pulling out?”
“I keep hoping you’ll change your mind.” He’d do anything for her but social interaction wasn’t exactly something with which he was familiar or comfortable. It was one thing to go to a large gathering like the DarkRiver party. There, he could find a quiet space to himself.
But to go into someone’s home? It would be a far more intimate encounter.
Sahara’s laugh was a warm caress, the midnight blue of her eyes inviting him to laugh with her. “Forget it. We said we were going to go and we’re going.”
Realizing he’d been bested, Kaleb walked over to lean up against the wall beside her armchair. “We have to take a gift, don’t we?”
“Yes. This is the first time we’ll really be meeting Rowan,” she said. “We did meet him at the party, but this will be… more official.”
Kaleb had the same feeling, a sense that this event would be a momentous one in both his and Rowan’s life in some way he didn’t yet understand. “What shall we get?”
Sahara just stared at him. “Why do you think I know?”
“Because you know things like this.” Straightening against the wall, he turned so that he could see all of her. Sometimes he wondered if she knew, if she had any idea of what it did to him to simply look at her and know that she was his, that she chose to be his even though she saw all his darkness, all his mistakes, all his nightmares.
Despite it all… No, not despite it all. Sahara didn’t put limits on her love for him. He could feel the untamed wildness of it like a tidal wave inside his mind, a storm that surrounded him in a love that had defied time and horror and pain and the cruelty of those who’d sought to destroy her.
“I don’t often have—” She stopped herself. “In fact, I’ve never had a reason to buy a gift for a baby.”
Kaleb wanted to trace her lips with his finger. “You seem to have forgotten the triplets. I’m certain we must’ve given them a present.” He hadn’t even worried about it, certain Sahara would take care of that social necessity.
“Of course we did.” She put aside her organizer. “But I didn’t actually have to think of anything myself. I asked Sascha and she said that a number of packmates were getting together to open up a roaming account for the children.”
“A roaming account?”
“For when the cubs grow up and want to go off and explore the world. Usually they’re responsible for themselves during that time—apparently, it’s part of roaming. Being independent, growing into adulthood.”
“Then?”
“Changeling parents are like any parents. They have trouble letting their children go off into the wilderness completely alone,” Sahara told him. “All roamers start off with a little fund. Just enough to get them started and cover their costs for the first few weeks. After that, they’re on their own.”
Kaleb had never had family except for Sahara, felt as if he was hearing about an alien culture. “I’m happy to pay the suggested amount into Rowan’s roaming account.” It would be a simple solution to the problem of what to get a being who didn’t yet speak and couldn’t make his wishes known.
Sahara bit down on her lower lip. “I don’t think that will do,” she said, frown lines forming on her brow. “It has to be more personal. Rowan and you will always be connected. As you are to his mother.”
The only woman in the world with whom Kaleb had an indelible connection was Sahara. For her, he’d burn down empires and destroy civilizations. Except she kept asking him to save them and so he had to turn away from the darkness and attempt to walk toward the light. He knew he would never be a creature of that light, but he was comfortable walking in the gray.
“Do we need to call one of our friends?” It felt odd to say that even now, to acknowledge he had friends who’d find it nothing extraordinary should he contact them for assistance; they’d also provide that assistance without hesitation.
“No.” A stubborn set to her jaw. “We’re two intelligent people. We should be able to figure this out.” With that firm statement, she got up and went over to his desk, taking a seat in his chair.
Walking over to behind the chair, he played with her hair as she brought up the Internet on the transparent screen of his computer. Like Kaleb, she never used the interactive immersion feature built into the Internet—they already had one data network in their heads, didn’t need another.
As he watched, she typed in “baby gifts.” Pages upon pages of results followed. “Maybe we should just buy the one at the top,” Kaleb suggested. “It’s clearly highly ranked.” It looked to be some type of a plush creature. “Why is it purple and orange and pink?”
“Babies have strange tastes.” Sahara turned both hands palms up, her shoulders rising at the same time. “Sascha and Lucas’s child is incredibly attached to a plush toy wolf. According to Lucas, it’s unnatural for a leopard. But when she loses it and starts to cry, he finds it for her anyway.”
“That still doesn’t explain what we’re looking at. How can it be good for a child to believe in orange and pink and purple creatures with three tails and seven eyes?”
“How do you know they don’t exist?” Sahara shot him a grin. “It’s about the imagination—but I don’t think that gift will do. It looks like the most recent popular toy. You need to give Rowan something more classic, something that will last.”
They spent the next two hours going through the listings, discarding most of the suggestions. Kaleb would’ve picked five or six items by then if not twenty. But as it was, he’d ’ported in another chair and now sat beside Sahara while she scowled at the computer screen. “You have to take this seriously, Kaleb.” She glared at him when he began to play with her hair again. “It’s important.”
“He’s an infant. We could give him a potato and he’d find it as interesting as he would that creature with seven eyes.”
Sahara held his gaze, the emotion in the midnight blue changing to something deeper and far more poignant. “You understand giving gifts that matter,” she said softly. Her fingers went to the charms that hung from the bracelet she wore almost every day. The only times she took it off and left it in their home was when she might be doing something that could cause damage to the bracelet.
“That’s different.” That charm bracelet was about Sahara and everything about Sahara was important to him.
“You saved a child’s life.” Sahara reached out to run her own fingers through his hair in a caressing stroke. “And because you did, that child grew up into a woman who fell in love and had a child with the man she loves. And now she’s honoring you by giving that child your name as part of his. It’s important.”
Kaleb still didn’t truly understand until Sahara dropped her shields and let him twine around her on the deepest level in an act of trust that always, always destroyed him… and he began to get a glimmer. Rowan’s life was now tied to his. For the rest of Kaleb’s own life, part of him would be monitoring Rowan’s health and status.
Because Rowan Kaleb Quinn was part of his family.
“How about this?” He brought up an image they’d scrawled past without really noticing several pages back—except that Kaleb’s brain noticed everything.
Sahara looked at what he’d chosen. And her lips curved. “See? You understand.”
***
Two days later, Kaleb teleported himself and Sahara to the location for which Zach had given him the visual. It brought them in right in front of Zach and Annie’s home. Surrounded by woods and with the scent of pine redolent in the air, the graceful house was clearly very much a home; neat flowerbeds by the front, a pebbled pathway, warm-hued curtains in the windows, and an outdoor furniture set that looked to have been lovingly handmade. “They really shouldn’t have given me such a close visual of their home.”
Shaking her head, Sahara slipped her arm through his. “Well, if you decide to indulge in any megalomaniacal urges, let me know so I can beat some sense into you.”
Sometimes, Kaleb wondered why Sahara wasn’t scared of him. The answer, of course, was that she knew every corner of his battered soul, knew better than anyone that he’d cut off his limbs before he put a bruise on her. “You have the gift?”
“Safe and sound.” Rising on her toes, she kissed his jaw. “I love you, Kaleb.”
He’d almost become used to those words and to the emotions that rippled down their mating bond. “Good,” he said. “I would definitely turn megalomaniacal if you stopped.”
Sahara laughed with unhidden delight.
That was when the door of the house opened and Zach walked out, Annie following with the baby in her arms. She wasn’t using her cane today, her balance appearing to have improved since the party.
Zach’s handshake was firm and welcoming. “It’s good to have you here. Welcome to you both.”
“Thank you,” Kaleb replied, while Sahara smiled.
“We thought we could sit outside,” Annie said, “since the sun’s out.”
Kaleb nodded—he’d much rather be outside. It felt less confining, even though he knew the feeling was nonsensical: he was a teleporter, wasn’t confined by anything. Not anymore. Once, he’d been a child trapped by psychic chains, but he hadn’t been a child for a long time.
It was after they sat down that Sahara handed over Rowan’s gift. “We spent forever choosing it,” she admitted. “We hope you like it. And that Rowan does, too, when he’s old enough.”
Zach had taken Rowan by now, so it was Annie who accepted the small envelope and opened it to retrieve a thin electronic card.
“You have to put it into an organizer,” Sahara said.
Kaleb teleported in a spare he had at home so that Annie didn’t have to get up. She blinked before her shoulders began to shake. “Well, that’s definitely handy.” She slipped the card into the organizer’s slot.
Stars filled the screen, a galaxy that slowly disappeared as the program zoomed in and in. Until in the center was a single pulsing star. Below it were the words: Rowan’s Star.
Annie gasped. “Oh, this is wonderful.” Her eyes glowed as she turned the screen toward her mate. “Our baby has a star named after him.”
“He’s going to get all the girls.” Zach’s grin betrayed his own pleasure.
Rowan yawned at that instant, raising his fist before settling down.
Catching Kaleb’s gaze, Zach held out the infant. “Would you like to hold him?”
Kaleb knew the socially approved response was to say yes. It was what people did with things like babies and kittens and cubs. But while he had accepted a certain responsibility for Rowan Kaleb Quinn, he felt no compulsion to hold that small life in his hands.
Annie laughed. “You’re looking at him like he’s alien,” she said, no insult in her tone.
“Here.” Sahara held out her own arms. “I was hoping to get a chance to hold him.”
As Kaleb watched, she snuggled the child to her breast, her gaze on the baby’s sleeping face. “He’s beautiful,” she said to Annie and Zach, her fascination with the tiny being in her arms clear.
Kaleb found himself reaching for her mind. Does it matter?
Sahara’s telepathic voice wrapped around him like a soft vine that didn’t attempt to strangle, just to caress. No, she said, it doesn’t matter. I know that if this child was in danger, you’d do what it took to protect him. Wouldn’t you?
Yes. He didn’t have to think about that. In his darkest hours, he’d thought of destroying the entire PsyNet, but even then, he’d spared the children. Because he’d been a child once and he’d been innocent. Sahara had been innocent. A child didn’t have a choice. The sins of their fathers were not their’s.
That was what Sahara told him often. Because his own father had been a monster.
Then, Sahara said, that’s all that matters. She looked up then, her gaze holding his in a cage without walls, one he never wanted to escape. You don’t have to hold babies and you don’t have to understand why it is that so many people want to, you just have to be you. A man who will step in front of danger without hesitation to protect this child. That’s enough. That’s you. And that’s who I love.
© Copyright 2017 by Nalini Singh
Toby stole his new cousin from his crib, cuddling his small and sleepy form to his body. Heath Knight Lauren yawned and lifted fisted hands as if readying himself for a fight, before a baby smile curved his lips and he fell asleep again.
Toby felt his own lips tug upward. He’d never been so close to a newborn. At only two weeks old, Heath registered uniquely against Toby’s empathic senses. The baby was very much a person, but he was…soft. Most of his emotions were basic. Hunger, discomfort if he was too cold or too warm, happiness. But below it all was need. The need for touch, for family, for pack.
Toby didn’t know if a baby who wasn’t half wolf would be the same, but right now, Heath was happy. He knew Toby already, though Toby couldn’t explain the whys or hows of it—the baby’s emotions were too undefined for that. What he knew was that he felt a deep sense of contentment from Heath, a sense that only magnified after he opened his shirt so he could hold Heath directly against his skin.
The baby was very wolf in that, in liking skin privileges.
Arranging the blanket over Heath’s back, Toby turned to the woman who’d come to the door of the nursery. Corkscrew curls of black with reddish highlights dancing around her face, Lara smiled at him, before walking over to muss his hair and kiss him on the cheek. “Stealing Heath again?”
“He wants to go for a walk,” Toby said with a straight face.
Tawny eyes bright with humor, Lara kissed him again. “Bring him back when he starts to get hungry.” Love emanated from her, until it wrapped Toby in maternal warmth. He knew it wasn’t only because he held Heath—Lara had been the same before the baby was even a possibility. She loved him and Marlee even though she hadn’t given birth to them.
Toby had reassured Marlee of that when he’d found his younger cousin sitting alone in her room, worrying that Lara wouldn’t love them anymore now that she had Heath. “Lara thinks of us as her kids,” he’d said. “You know I have empathic abilities—her love toward us is as potent as what she feels for Heath.” It was, however, different from what she felt for Toby’s uncle, Walker—but that was normal.
How grownups loved each other wasn’t the same as how they loved children. He’d asked Sascha about that when they had one of their sessions where she taught him more about the empathic side of his abilities, and she’d thought for a moment before saying, “Love has many hues and variations.
“With a child, in involves a strong thread of protectiveness and care, while with adults who choose each other as Lara and Walker have, it’s a meeting of equals.” Then she’d smiled. “You’ll always be a child to Lara and Walker, no matter how big you get. Their love will always have a parental flavor.”
Toby was more than okay with that. Especially after sensing the same kind of protective love from Lara’s mother toward Lara. “Call me Grammy,” Aisha had ordered him after his uncle and Lara mated, her love for Toby and Marlee different again—it held deeper tones of indulgence, less of discipline.
“I’m going to take Heath to see the pupcubs,” Toby told Lara. “Riley brought them with him today.” The triplets were older than Heath, but he thought his new cousin would like to be around other babies.
“I can already see the formation of a new gang,” Lara said as she walked him to the door. “I’ll be in the infirmary, checking in on some of my patients.”
Toby nodded; Lara couldn’t stop being a healer as he couldn’t stop being a telepath. “Don’t work too hard,” he said with a frown. “You know you’re supposed to take it easy for a couple more weeks at least.”
Lara looked at him with infinite tenderness. “Just like Walker.”
Chest swelling because he’d like nothing better than to grow up to be like Uncle Walker, Toby walked out, Heath cuddled up against his chest. Packmates who saw them inevitably stopped to look at the baby, or to whisper hello, or to touch a finger to his cheek. Changeling in his ways, the baby slept through it all, content in the embrace of pack.
But he wasn’t all changeling—and the featherlight touches Toby felt now and then against his mind were like those tiny fists that opened and closed against his chest. Instinctive, without intent. He’d asked his uncle if he felt them too, and Walker had nodded. “He’s got some telepathy.” Quiet words. “We’ll all watch over him to make sure he gets the training he needs—but right now, you just get to be his big cousin.”
So Toby allowed the featherlight touches to continue, allowed the baby to explore. He didn’t have to be a grownup with Heath, not yet. When a very small wolf padded up to him, he smiled. “Hi Elodie.” He bent down to pet the wolf pup with one hand, the baby held in his other arm.
“We’re going to see Riley and the pupcubs,” he said after Elodie greeted Heath with a gentle nuzzle. “Want to come?”
Yipping excitedly, Elodie ran off ahead—stopping every few steps to make sure he was coming. Toby laughed and followed his small guide. When his yearmate Miyoko stopped to pet first Elodie, and then Heath, he wished Elodie would yip again in impatience, giving him an excuse to get going. It wasn’t that he didn’t like his fellow juvenile…but that he liked her too much.
Tall, black haired, with skin of darkest brown, and a brain that didn’t stop, Miyoko was going to be a soldier, everyone knew it. She was tough and dominant and scared of nothing. She also had zero interest in Toby beyond friendship.
He didn’t read emotions on purpose anymore without permission, but stuff leaked in now and then. He couldn’t exactly turn off his empathy. Most of the time, it was fine, and he supposed at least he wouldn’t humiliate himself by asking her out when she would only say no, but he wished he didn’t know.
Then, he could pretend in his daydreams.
As it was, he felt his cheeks begin to color as his body reacted to the closeness of hers. After telling Heath how adorable he was, Miyoko looked up with eyes gone wolf-amber. “I better go. I have a date.” She beamed, her smile effervescent. “My first proper one!”
“Um, congratulations?” Toby managed to get out past his choked throat.
Grinning, Miyoko leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. “Thanks, Toby. You’re such a good friend.” Then she was gone, and his cheek, it burned, his nostrils filled with her scent.
A playful bite at his ankle, Elodie’s small furry face looking up at his when he glanced down. “I’m coming,” he said, and carried on. “Girls,” he told Heath. “They have soft skin and they smell really good, and they make a guy crazy.”
The baby snored.
Toby scowled. “Some cousin.” He kissed Heath’s nose.
Elodie, glimpsing this, came running back for her own kiss. He was crouched on the floor grinning when a pair of booted feet came into his vision. His entire body tightened. If Miyoko made him feel all hot and stupid and excited, Hawke’s presence made things get all tense.
The SnowDancer alpha had always been kind to Toby—even when he hadn’t been sure about the adult Laurens who’d defected to SnowDancer, he’d accepted the children. But everyone else in Toby’s year group knew their place in the hierarchy of the pack. Miyoko would be a soldier, and so would Toby’s friend Iain. Mara was heading into healing, and Angie was planning to be a tech specialist, but she was also at peace with her submissive nature.
Toby was the only one who didn’t fit. Where in a wolf pack did you put a shy telepath with low-level empathic abilities?
“Yes, I see you,” Hawke’s deep voice before he scooped Elodie up in one arm. Then he reached for Heath.
Who smiled in his sleep at his alpha’s touch.
Both pups were all but purring by the time Toby stood up. But Hawke’s strikingly pale blue eyes, eyes that didn’t change shade whether he was in human or wolf form, were focused on Toby. His breath caught in his chest, his pulse ratcheted up. Toby wasn’t a wolf, but it was impossible not to be affected by Hawke’s alpha dominance when you were the focus of his attention.
Hawke said, “We need to talk.” He bit lightly at Elodie’s snout before handing her over to Toby. She snuggled into him, already half asleep.
Throat dry and Elodie’s warm weight held with care, Toby fell into step beside his alpha—and brother-in-law. Sometimes, he didn’t know which side of Hawke he was speaking with, but today, he had zero doubts: he was with his alpha.
“Am I in trouble?” he asked, because he had joined in with a recent prank that involved wrapping every single thing in Hawke’s office with festive paper—down to the paperclip and pen.
“Why? What have you done?” Wolf eyes glinting in amusement because Hawke always knew exactly what the juveniles were up to.
Toby whistled.
Hawke’s laughter held the wolf’s growl. “You’re not in trouble. I just want to know why you haven’t signed on to the basic soldier module—the one that’ll give you a good idea of what a future as a pack soldier would entail.”
Toby blinked. “I didn’t think I’d fit.” He wasn’t like his uncle Judd, who was one of Hawke’s lieutenants. “I don’t have an offensive ability.” His telepathy was long range and crystalline in its clarity, and he supposed he could destroy minds with it, but not only would his empathy not allow him to do that, changelings didn’t fight that way.
Hawke was silent for several steps. “Do you understand what Riley does for the pack?” he said at last. “All the things he organizes and schedules and clears up so we work as a smooth machine?”
Toby chewed on that. “A little bit,” he said hesitantly. “He doesn’t teach classes at the juvenile level.”
“Maybe we need to change that,” Hawke murmured. “But for now, I’ve spoken to Riley, and he’s happy to have you shadow him for a while, see what he does.”
A pause, pale, pale eyes holding Toby’s. “Sometimes, Toby, communication and organization is all that stands between victory and defeat. Wolves are not simply brawn. Wolves are so powerful because we work as a unit, as a pack. And we utilize every skill and talent at our disposal.”
A sudden wave of emotions against his senses. Affection entwined with pride. From an alpha to a young packmate. From Hawke to Toby. And it wasn’t by accident. Hawke was mated to a cardinal Psy. He understood how Toby’s abilities worked. He wanted Toby to know.
“You have the heart of a wolf,” Hawke growled as he gripped the back of Toby’s neck with his free hand. “A heart built to protect, built for family, built for pack. You fit. Perfectly.”
Throat thick, Toby nodded. The tightness in his chest disappeared, his breath coming easier and his recent confusion erased by the truth he’d learned long ago and just forgotten in this age where everything was changing: he, Toby Lauren, wasn’t only Sienna’s brother and Hawke’s brother-in-law. He wasn’t only Heath’s and Marlee’s cousin. And he wasn’t only a Psy telepath with empathic abilities.
He, Toby Lauren, was also a SnowDancer. A boy with a wolf heart.
Copyright © 2020 by Nalini Singh
This short story comes after Hostage to Pleasure and before Branded by Fire.
“Kit!”
Kit pulled a pillow over his head.
“Kit!”
“What?”
A wave of crackling energy and then the pillow was being yanked off his head. “Up and at ’em, little brother.”
He snarled at Rina. “Do you have to be a morning person?”
“Do you have to be a pain in the ass?” Perching on his bed, she reached over to muss up his hair.
“Cut it out, I’m a soldier now.” But he didn’t move away.
Rina grinned. “My baby brother, a soldier. My heart’s all aflutter.”
“I’m going to bite you—after my nap. Go away.”
Instead, Rina leaned over to give him a smacking kiss on the cheek. “Naw, you love me too much. Now get your lazy butt out of bed,” she said as she left the room.
“Why? I’m off-shift.” And he was feline enough to enjoy lazing in bed. Especially since it was only—stirring himself a fraction, he focused on the wall clock—seven o’clock on a Saturday morning.
“I have a surprise for you,” she called out from the kitchen.
Curiosity spiked. Kit’s leopard wasn’t as inquisitive as some, but the word “surprise” definitely acted like catnip. As Rina well knew. “Is it a troop of naked dancing girls?”
“Maybe. And I’m making you breakfast, so hurry before it gets cold.”
His eyebrows rose. Rina was a tough-ass to the rest of the world, but she really did treat him as her baby brother—he’d always known she’d be there for him through hell itself. But despite that bond, she’d never coddled him. So the breakfast was a rare thing. Rare enough to have him seriously intrigued.
Wide awake now, he got up, showered quickly, then dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt. Running a comb through his hair, he decided he was done and walked out to the smell of banana chocolate-chip pancakes. “Oh man,” he said, making a beeline for the plate Rina was putting on the table. “Whatever I did to make you happy, I promise to do it again every week.”
She grinned, looking about fifteen with her long blonde hair tied up in a loose ponytail. “You tell anyone I was this nice, and I’ll put spiders in your bed.”
“Hah.” He swallowed the mouthful he had. “I’m not scared of spiders.”
“Yeah, yeah, tough guy.” Sliding into a seat across from him, she made quick work of her own breakfast. “You done?”
He nodded. “I’ll clean up since you cooked.”
“Leave it for now.” Jerking her head toward the door, she got up. “Let’s go for a drive, handsome.”
Wondering at her mood, he laced up his boots and followed. When he went to the driver’s side door, she rolled her eyes and got into the passenger seat. He hated being driven, and though Rina was a dominant, too, this was one thing she’d learned wasn’t worth fighting over. “Where to?”
“Waterfall Alley.”
Smiling at the thought of the beautiful patch of forest they’d named as children, he settled in and took the manual controls.
“So,” he said as they drove through the early-morning fog, “how’s it going with the cub who has a crush on you?”
She groaned. “Shut up.”
“You guys would make a cute couple—you’d probably have to teach him some moves though.”
“Keep it up, hotshot.” Her cat came through loud and clear in her voice.
Laughing, he continued to drive through the beautiful Yosemite valley, the trees softened by whispers of mist. “So, you still reporting to Dorian?”
“Yeah.”
“How’s it going?” He knew she’d had problems with Barker—the guy had fallen for her, and Rina was too strong to accept direction from a man who’d let her take the reins in another area of life.
She made a humming sound of contentment. “He busts my balls on a regular basis.”
“Er, Reen? You don’t have those.”
“According to some, I do. Big brass ones.” She grinned. “Dorian’s okay. He knows his stuff. If I could shoot like him…”
“You don’t have the patience.” A cool, analytical part of his brain knew the strengths and weaknesses of everyone in DarkRiver. “But you have the skill and aptitude to be an exceptional front-line fighter.”
“That’s what Dorian said.” She shot him a piercing look. “You’re growing up Kit-ten.”
He growled.
Smiling, she leaned back in her seat. “You wouldn’t have said something like that a year ago.”
“A year ago, I thought I was hot shit.” Pulling up to the designated parking area, he got out and they took the familiar trail. “I love this, being out here.” His leopard stretched out, happy, playful. “Want to go for a run after?”
“Yeah.” This time, her smile held an edge of sadness.
He put an arm around her. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Not yet.”
They walked in silence until they reached the fallen log that was their personal marker. From there, they could see out over the entire valley, shrouded in mist and beauty.
“When you were a sprout,” Rina said, sitting beside him on the log, “and I was twelve, Dad told me something.”
“Yeah?” Kit’s chest tightened at the memory of his father’s grizzled face.
“He said he knew there was a chance he and mom wouldn’t be around to see you grow into an adult.”
Kit nodded. These days, most people lived to well over a century, but his and Rina’s mom had not only had them late in life, she’d been born with a genetic illness not even late twenty-first century science could cure. Kit had had her until he was fourteen. His father had only lived a couple more years after that—just long enough for Rina to turn eighteen, for Lucas to promise that Kit and Rina would never lack for anything.
“I miss them like hell,” he said. “I wish Dad was here to see me, you know? He’d be so proud I made soldier. And Mom, she’d spoil us like crazy, no matter how old we got.”
Rina touched his cheek. “They had absolute faith in you.” Reaching into a pocket, she pulled out a pair of silver dog tags.
He stared as she put them in his hands.
“I was supposed to give them to you when you made soldier.”
Emotion crashed into him as he read the inscription on the first tag. “We’re so proud of you, son. Mom and Dad.” The second tag blurred and he had to blink to swallow the rush of feeling so he could read what it said. This one had his name, his rank as a DarkRiver soldier, and on the back, the names of his mom, dad and Rina. His hand clenched around them.
When Rina rose to walk a little distance from the log, he knew she was giving him the privacy to mourn, to remember, to cherish the gift. “Thanks,” he whispered up to the heavens.
A gentle flurry of leaves fell over his shoulders, as if in answer. Smiling, he swung the tags over his head and rose to walk over to Rina. “You’re a good sister, Reen.”
She elbowed him. “Shh.”
Laughing, he held up a hand. “I won’t tell. Promise.” But, he thought privately, the man who was able to win her wild heart would be one hell of a lucky guy.
“Come on bratlet, let’s go for that run.”
Kit hesitated. “Can we do it in human form?”
Rina’s eyes went to the dog tags. “Sure.”
He couldn’t wear them always—they were too precious to chance losing in a shift, but for today, he would…and feel his parents’ love in every clink the metal made as they swung against each other.
This standalone short story features two characters from the Psy-Changeling series. Both are wolf changelings. (For those of you who like to know the chronological order of things, the timeline of this story intersects with Shards of Hope.)
“Do you know how difficult it is to romance Drew?” Indigo muttered, glaring at Platty. The ragged stuffed bear with his dashing eye patch gave her a smirk.
Okay, maybe that was her imagination, but she bet the bear was on Drew’s side. “Hmph,” she said, and stood up to pace around their bedroom before heading out to pace in the living area.
It was their one-year-anniversary tomorrow and she was determined to do something for Drew. Her mate had romance down—last week, she’d found a note in the pocket of her jeans that had made her wear a goofy smile all day. She wasn’t as good at that stuff, not that Drew seemed to mind; he loved her exactly the way she was, but she was determined to surprise him this time.
There had to be something she could do.
Flowers were too obvious. So were chocolates after Drew’s playful way of leaving her chocolate kisses where she least expected it. The memories made her smile go goofy again.
“Damn it, stop thinking about what he’s done and think about what you can do,” she ordered herself. “You are not being helpful,” she said to Platty, then picked him up and kissed his eye patch before putting him back down.
Pacing back and forth across the room, she knew she could ask some of her more romantic-minded friends for help, but she wanted to do this herself. For Drew. He deserved it.
Never had she thought she’d be courted so outrageously and so sweetly at the same time. She just wasn’t the type to inspire that kind of response in a man—was too tough, too strong, too much a SnowDancer lieutenant. Only Drew had proved her wrong. She inspired him all the time.
Picking up Platty again, she sat down with the bear on the bed from which she’d had to push Drew out this morning so he’d make his shift. She didn’t know what he’d done before her—the man hated getting up in the morning.
His all-time favorite thing to do was to curl up in bed on a day when they didn’t have early shifts and tease her to distraction. Indigo had zero complaints about that—she enjoyed teasing him in return.
Her watch beeped. “Right, I have a meeting,” she said to Platty. “Keep thinking of ideas.”
It was as she was walking into that meeting that it hit her, what she had to do. And it involved talking to Riley.
*
Drew cracked open a single eye the next morning to find himself looking into the smiling face of the most beautiful woman in the world. “Happy anniversary, lieutenant.” He had plans for them, but they had to wait. “Damn morning shift.”
Reaching out, Indigo ran her fingers through his hair. “Happy anniversary.” She leaned in close to nuzzle her nose to his. “Guess what?”
Bones liquid because she was playing with him, his wolf utterly hers, he said, “What?”
“I got you the day off.”
He began to smile. “No shit?” It was kind of a rule with him that he didn’t use his connection to his brother to get special treatment. Since Riley made the schedules, it would’ve been easy to hit him up for a shift change, and lots of packmates did, but it seemed wrong to do that when he was Drew’s brother.
“I promised we’d do swing shifts for a week,” Indigo said. “So no guilt.”
How did she know him so well? Because she was his mate. His gorgeous, smart, perfect mate. “I love you.”
“I haven’t even gotten started,” she said, and snuggled close. “Now go to sleep.”
Yawning, Drew threw his arm around her. “I like this anniversary,” he mumbled even as his eyes closed.
The next time he woke, his mate was missing from his arms and he could smell bacon in the air. Blinking, he looked around to find Indigo sitting cross-legged in bed. She’d put on a short robe and was holding a mug of coffee, her hair tumbled around her face. “Morning, sleepy.”
“Morning.” Rising to a sitting position, he stole her coffee.
It was only after he’d drunk half of it, returned the mug, stumbled to use the facilities and back, that he woke up enough to realize there was a cart next to the bed with covered dishes on it. “Hey, is that…”
“Breakfast in bed?” Indigo kissed the side of his face. “Yes.”
His mouth fell open as she jumped out of bed and put a wooden tray on his lap. “I can—” he began.
“Hush.” Her fingers under his jaw, her mouth coming down on his for a toe-curling kiss. “Let me.”
Completely captivated, lost in her, he let her put a plate of bacon, eggs, toast, hash browns, and grilled tomatoes on the tray. She added a fresh cup of coffee and a side of strawberries. That done, she knelt on the bed beside him and filched a piece of bacon. Putting it to his lips, she let him take a bite, then took one herself.
He grinned, got with the program, fed her some of the toast, ate the rest of the bacon—and nibbled on her fingers while he was at it. She nipped at his jaw in return. And that was how it went.
It was the best damn breakfast of his life.
Later, he put aside the tray—after picking up the last strawberry and feeding it to her. She took a bite. A drop of red juice dripped down her chin. Leaning forward, he licked it off, then rubbed the berry on her lips so he had more to lick up. After which, he felt like running that strawberry down her throat and lower…and lower.
*
An hour later, he lay beside Indigo, both their chests heaving. Reaching over to link his fingers with hers, he said, “Best anniversary present ever. Blows my plans out of the water.” He didn’t even care.
“Good,” Indigo said after gulping in a breath.
He could hear the grin in her tone.
“Love you.”
His heart ached in the best way, his wolf rubbing against his skin. “Love you, too, Indy.” Always, he’d love her. Always, he’d belong to her.
Shifting over, Indigo, his tough, strong mate curled into him. “Wanna nap again?”
“Best. Mate. Ever.”
Her laughter followed him into his dreams.
© Copyright 2016 by Nalini Singh
This scene was originally written as part of Play of Passion, but I think it works quite well as a fun short story. I hope you enjoy!
A few hours after her discussion with Hawke, Indigo glanced around the clearing and felt her heart warm with pride. The young soldiers lounging in a rough semi-circle, their legs stretched out and backs against the trees, were all strong, smart and honorable. She’d be happy to have any of them at her side in a fight.
“Tactics,” she said after they’d settled in. “I know most of you want to—” Pausing, she cocked her head and frowned, hearing something unexpected on the breeze. It sounded like a child—and this area was off-limits to children unless they were with an adult.
Glancing at Tai, she nodded at him to begin the discussion while she went to check out the noise. The young male did so with a confidence that made it clear he was almost ready to be promoted to full soldier status. Making a mental note to discuss the situation with Riley, she thought about which of the others might be near to “graduation”. Charlie was right on the edge, but the girl had a temper problem. Then again, so had Jem once upon a time—channeled right, that temper could become strength.
The wicked temptation of Drew’s scent whispered over her before she saw him crouching beside a small wolf pup, the boy’s fur soft, his scent innocent. Ben, she realized at once. Though Drew had to have scented her, he didn’t look in her direction, so she stood with her shoulder against a tree and watched, trying to figure what in the world they were doing.
Ben angled his head upward, drew in a breath and then made a sharp whistling noise.
The look of embarrassment on his face threatened to make Indigo smile but she caught it. Yes, he was a baby male, but he was still a male. Pride was something that seemed to come hardwired in the Y chromosome.
“That’s better,” Drew said, one hand on the pup’s back, “but you need to bring the sound from lower down.” Lifting his own head, he took in a deep breath and let it out.
The haunting music of a wolf’s howl echoed over the trees.
It wasn’t as strong as the sound that came from the wolf’s throat, but it was powerful enough. Several packmates responded from far and wide and it made the hairs on Indigo’s neck rise, her wolf immediately ready to join in the joyful singing. But understanding that this was a lesson, it agreed with her silence.
“See?” Drew said, eyes locked with Ben’s. “Bring it from your heart. Be your wolf.”
Ben took another deep breath, held it, then raised his head.
The howl that came out was cut off summarily as the pup stopped with a yip, having apparently startled himself. Drew began to laugh even as packmates responded again, a concerned question in their tones this time. As she watched, Drew replied, telling them all was well.
Ben wiggled out from under Drew’s hand at that moment and ran over to Indigo, his body bursting with pride and excitement. She bent down to stroke back his ears. “Well done, Ben.”
Butting up under her hand, he lifted his head and showed her his throat. It was a gesture of active submission, a sign that he wanted to play. Leaning down, she touched noses with him in open affection. “I have to go work, but we’ll play later, okay?”
Drew picked the pup up as she rose to her feet. “Don’t let him fool you—he’s already got a play date with Marlee.”
As Ben hid his face against Drew’s chest, Indigo began to smile. That was when Drew streaked out a hand, pulled her close and kissed her with such heated thoroughness that steam came out her ears.
“Hello, Lieutenant,” he said afterward.
Hawke walked down the corridor, well aware he was being followed by stealthy little wolf paws—or paws that were trying to be stealthy in any case. Inside him, the wild predator who was his other half opened its mouth in a wolfish grin.
Halting at the open doorway to Riley’s office, he poked his head inside. “Did you get the report?”
A nod from his senior lieutenant. “You want to talk about it now?”
“No. Let’s do it tonight—you still up for that?”
“Absolutely.” Riley saluted him with his coffee mug. “Mercy is calling it Testosterone Night by the way.”
“She’s just jealous because girls aren’t invited.” Grinning, he continued down the corridor, accompanied by the clicking of tiny claws on the stone of the den floor. They hesitated when he turned toward his own office and he could almost feel the keen disappointment that colored the air.
Popping in quickly, he grabbed his sleek black sat phone and walked out again, careful to keep his back to the tracker on his trail.The little paws scampered to keep up with him, stopping only when he ran into Riaz.
The dark-haired lieutenant raised an eyebrow. “You realize you have a tail?”
“He’s not bad. Just needs a bit more seasoning.”
Riaz’s eyes, a dark gold, filled with affectionate laughter. “Along with a few feet of growth.”
Lips tugging up at the corners, Hawke said, “Pretend you don’t see him.”
“See who?”
As they talked Pack business, Hawke was very aware of sharp little wolf ears listening in. Once he and Riaz were done, he carried on down the corridor and to one of the exits into the White Zone, the safe play area directly outside the den. Heading to the trees, he stashed his phone in his jeans, stripped, and shifted into his wolf form.
The paws behind him ran to follow as he shook his body to settle his new skin, the silver-gold of his fur rippling, then loped deeper into the forest. Aware the little tracker wouldn’t be able to keep up with even a fraction of his adult speed, he kept his pace at one the other wolf could maintain.
Stopping at the edge of the waterfall nearest the den, he looked down at the froth of water, and after a moment, the owner of the stealthy paws padded up to stand beside him. The pup hadn’t yet gained his adult color, was still a soft brown as he leaned his body against Hawke’s, his small heart beating faster than an adult’s.
Hawke growled a greeting before returning his gaze to the water.
When he turned away from the crashing fall after several minutes, the pup fell in with him as they ran the short distance back to the den. Shifting to human form, Hawke pulled on his jeans and watched the pup change in a show of light and color. A little boy stood in front of him seconds later.
“Did you see me?” Ben asked, pure delight in eyes that were still wolf-amber. “I stalkeded you!”
“You did very well.” Hawke crouched down in front of the boy. “You’re an excellent tracker.” He wasn’t lying—for his age, Ben was very, very good. In point of fact, he was better than many older children. “Have you been practicing?”
“Yes! I stalkeded Mama and Papa and even Uncle Judd!”
Hawke ruffled the boy’s hair. “That’s what I used to do when I was younger. I’d follow my father all around the den.” His father had allowed him to believe he was getting away with it, as Hawke had just done with Ben—he wouldn’t be much of an alpha if he didn’t help raise the boy’s confidence in his own skills. “But you know you can’t try to stalk people out of the safe areas?”
Ben nodded again. “And when they’re kissing. That’s boring.”
Hawke bit back a laugh. “Yeah, kissing is pretty boring,” he agreed solemnly. “Go on back inside now. I have to head out of the White Zone.”
“Okay. ‘Bye!” Waving vigorously, Ben ran toward the doorway to the den, shifting halfway through into his pup form. Hawke’s smile grew deeper. No doubt, someone else would soon find themselves “stalkeded”.
This story is an entry in my ongoing series of vignettes exploring the everyday lives of the Psy-Changeling characters – glimpses through the windows of their day to day world.
Clean and Dirty features Vaughn and Faith. For those new to the series, Vaughn is a jaguar changeling and a sentinel in the DarkRiver pack, while his mate, Faith, is a cardinal F-Psy or foreseer (born with the often painful ability to see the future…though she also has a more fun ability, as you’ll see in this story).
Timeline: This story happens around the same time as Play of Passion, but it stands totally on its own.
I hope you enjoy!
Faith thought Vaughn was the most talented sculptor she’d ever seen, his works vibrant with life and fluid with energy There was just one problem. “I don’t understand how marble dust can take over our entire living space when your studio is in another area.” She wiped her hand along the edge of a table and it came away white.
Vaughn, the amber-gold of his hair dulled by the same dust, gave her a smile that was pure cat. “You look really clean.”
“No. Absolutely not.” Laughing, she held out a hand in an attempt to halt the jaguar in human form who’d begun to stalk her, slow and silent. “I mean it, Vaughn!” She ran around the sofa when he continued to prowl toward her with unhidden intent.
“What?” Pure innocence in his expression as he came to a stop. “I just wanted this datapad.”
Eyes narrowed, she watched him flick through the magazine she’d downloaded on the thin device but hadn’t had a chance to fully read. “We really have to clean the house.” Though it wasn’t technically a house, but a set of connected caves made both functional and lush by Vaughn’s artistic eye. It still stunned her, the beauty he created from hunks of cold marble and stone.
“Okay.” Apparently absorbed in an article, he tapped the screen to turn the page. “Did you see this? It’s about the world’s most expensive coffee.”
Her ears perked up. “I like coffee.”
“Huh, I don’t think you’d like this coffee.”
“Why?” Since he appeared genuinely involved in the article, she began to pick up the cushions from the sofa and stack them on a nearby armchair, thinking they could dust that off last.
“This coffee,” Vaughn said, “is made from animal droppings.”
“Very funny. I’m not that gullible.”
“I’m serious. It says civets eat the coffee berries, then the coffee makers collect their droppings and pick out the beans.” A small pause, another tap. “They used to farm the civets”—a growl low in his throat—“but that was banned decades ago and now the coffee is even more expensive because the coffee makers have to hunt wild civet droppings.”
Staring at him, a cushion in her hands, she shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”
“Here.” He held out the datapad…and would’ve pounced when she reached for it if she hadn’t caught the gleam in his eye and run backward and around the other sofa.
“Vaughn.” Her attempt to sound stern was utterly ruined by the laughter that overtook her body.
Trying again when he put down the datapad and resumed his stalking, she pointed a finger. “House! Cleaning!”
“I’d rather make you dirty, Ms. Faith NightStar.” Jumping over the sofa with feline ease, he chased her into the bedroom.
At a dead end, she used a minor psychic ability to create a solid illusion of tall sunflowers between them. It was meant to surprise him enough to give her time to get over the bed and down the other side, but she found herself watching delightedly as he tried to touch the leaves with a wondering hand.
“I still can’t work out how you do this,” he said as she peppered the illusion with impossibly tall poppies. “Do an elephant.”
“An elephant?” Intrigued at the challenge, she visualized the animal in her mind…and the flowers winked out to be replaced by a miniature pachyderm.
Vaughn grinned and ran his hand over the elephant’s big, floppy ears, as if he could almost touch the motes of light and shadow. “This one’s the best you’ve done yet.” He pounced with a jaguar’s feral grace before she realized his intent. “You’re mine now, Red.” Holding her hostage, he shook his head to cover her in marble dust.
Her escape attempts foiled by laughter, she gave in and grabbing his dusty face in her hands, kissed him, both of them laughing the entire time. Vaughn was reserved with those he didn’t trust down to the bone, but with her, he could be as playful as any cat. It melted her each and every time he got like this.
Nuzzling him, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “You are so pretty.”
He nipped at her lower lip. “Watch it.” Still grinning, he said, “Maybe we can borrow Judd for an hour and he can telekinetically magic away the dust.”
She giggled, and it was a silly, girlish sound. A sound she’d never made as a girl or as a young woman, trained as she’d been to be Silent, without emotion, her every action monitored for signs of mental degradation. Even now, she only ever did it in Vaughn’s presence. “What if I wear a French maid’s outfit and use a feather duster?”
A gleam in the near-gold of his eyes. “All at once, I’m inspired.”
***
An hour later—and despite the fact that she didn’t have a French maid’s outfit handy—their living space was sparkling clean, and so were they. Wrapping a towel around her body after stepping from the beautiful waterfall shower that Vaughn had built by hand, she let down the hair she’d pinned up, and turned to watch him finish rinsing off the soap on that golden-skinned body rippling with the lithe muscle of a predator.
Never, she thought, would she get enough of her mate. His touch, his scent, the sound of his voice, his laughter, his teasing, the untamed jaguar at the heart of his nature, each and every part was forever intertwined into the fabric of her life.
Stepping out, he turned off the shower and crooked a finger. It didn’t take Faith even a second’s thought to obey the sensual command; grabbing another towel, she patted him dry, her lips moving over his spine as she indulged in her need to be close to her mate. “You made that up about the coffee, didn’t you?”
Taking the towel from her to hitch it around his hips, he turned and demanded a kiss that threatened to make her forget her own name, before saying, “No,” and tugging her to the living room. Datapad in hand, he sat down on the sofa with her curled up on his lap. “Read this page.”
Still suspicious, Faith began to scan the article…and felt her eyes widen. “What?! Who—I mean why would— No, it’s completely beyond my comprehension.” Exiting the article with a firm tap to her jaguar’s purring smile, she leaned her head back as he kissed her throat, one of her arms wrapped around his neck, the damp strands of his hair brushing her skin.
“So,” he said with another lazy kiss, “no go to that coffee as a birthday present?”
“You do that and I’ll give you the most ugly sculpture I can find, and make you keep it in your workspace.”
“You bargain tough, Red.” He ran his hand down her ribcage and to the dip of her waist, then slid lower to cup her hip with a raw possession she loved. “After all that manual labor, I’m starving.”
“We have a half hour until we have to leave to meet the others for dinner,” she said, deciding not to confess that she’d had him move a few pieces of furniture multiple times simply to watch the muscles flex in his arms and naked upper body. A woman, she thought with an inward smile, was permitted a sinful secret or two when it came to a man as rawly sexy as Vaughn. “Do you want a sandwich?”
“No.” A second later and she found herself trapped underneath a grinning jaguar who ripped off her towel and said, “I think I’ll just snack on you instead.” A growling bite at the curve of her neck, his teeth very, very careful not to hurt.
Instead of shying, Faith wrapped her arms around him. She was no longer the woman she’d been when they first met, a woman who believed herself weak and easily breakable. Now, she was the woman who loved and was loved by a jaguar…and who knew how to take bites of her own.
Vaughn jerked up his head when her teeth sank into his shoulder. Then he grinned, and tumbled her on top of him and she knew they were going to be very, very, very late for dinner.
© Copyright 2013 by Nalini Singh
Timeline: A shorter version of this story was originally a scene in “Texture of Intimacy” and features SnowDancer healer Lara and her Psy mate Walker.
Lara rose to an empty space in the bed beside her and the smell of something delicious wafting in the air. “Mmm.” Pulling on a pair of loose yoga pants and a T-shirt, she sighed at her crazy morning curls and decided since Walker had already seen the wild mess more than once, she might as well just run with it.
Walking out, she found she was the last one up, the children digging into pancakes. Her mate was at the stove, wearing only those sexy pajama bottoms she liked to tease him about, tied with a string tie low on his hips. The lean muscles of his body made her mouth water—especially when her own body twinged in happy memory of the way he’d played with her this morning.
She tousled Toby’s hair and smiled at Marlee, then wrapped her arms around Walker from behind. “You should be wearing an apron—what if you get a burn on your chest, hmm?”
Twisting to look over his shoulder, her mate smiled slow and gorgeous. “Then I’ll get my personal healer to kiss and make it better. ”
Lara rose on tiptoe, stole a kiss before letting him concentrate on the pancakes. Pouring coffee from the fresh pot, she sat down at the table, talking about nothing in particular with the children, her wolf utterly content.
Chocolate sauce around her mouth, Marlee ate the last bite on her plate. “Can I have another pancake please?”
“On its way,” Walker said with a gentleness she’d only heard him use with the youngest in the pack.
“Toby, you, too?”
“Can I have five more?”
Lara’s lips twitched. Poor Toby. He’d hit the “hollow leg” phase of growth, was showing distinct signs of having inherited his height from the maternal side of his family—meaning he’d hit six feet plus like Walker and Judd. Right now though, he was all bones and tangled limbs. And stomach.
“Marlee.”
Marlee scrambled off her chair at her father’s call, taking her plate to the counter to receive the fresh pancake. “Thanks, Daddy.”
It was crystal clear to Lara that whatever hurts Marlee had survived in the Net, whatever scars she bore, about one thing she was dead certain—her father’s love for her. Toby was the same. Regardless of the fact that Lara had never heard Walker use so much as a pet name, much less an endearment for either child.
Lara understood exactly how they felt—Walker’s love was a steady, enduring flame, surrounding them all. No matter the storm, that flame would never flicker. “Want me to help syrup it up for you?” she asked Marlee, after the girl had made her selection from the toppings available.
“Yes, please.” A cheeky smile that told Lara the boys would have their hands full when Marlee grew up.
She squeezed maple syrup over the pancakes while Marlee helped herself to some of the strawberries Lara had cut up, and Toby’s stomach growled. Laughing, Lara reached over and tapped his nose. “Did you eat the fruit I left out for you last night?”
“Yes. And the box of crackers.” He jumped up the instant Walker moved to lift out the first large pancake, had half of it in his mouth before the chocolate sauce hit it.
Licking up a bit of maple syrup that had gotten onto her finger, Lara glanced at Marlee. “We should invite Ben if he’s up.”
Marlee’s face turned mutinous. “No.”
Blinking, Lara glanced at Walker, raised an eyebrow. He shook his head, his gaze intent. Next, she looked at Toby—who stopped inhaling his food long enough to say, “They had a fight.”
“Toby!”
Toby shrugged. “Sorry Marlee-Barley, it’s not like it’s a secret you and Ben aren’t speaking to each other.”
Still glaring at her cousin, Marlee took a bite of her pancake. And refused to say another word on the topic to anyone, no matter how gently Lara asked. Deciding to let it go for now, since Marlee clearly felt antagonized, she glanced at Walker as he put more pancakes on Toby’s plate, sent him a message with her eyes, received a slight nod in return. They’d wait until Marlee was ready to talk.
A few minutes later, her mate put two pancakes on her plate. “Banana and walnut, as ordered.”
Blowing him a kiss, she doused the pancakes in syrup, added some strawberries, and stood to top up everyone’s drinks as Walker sat down with his toast. She tempted him into trying a bite of her pancake, but he wasn’t impressed.
“It tastes like chocolate syrup.”
“Your palate is obviously unrefined.”
Marlee giggled, Toby grinned, and it was a wonderful weekend morning with her family.
© Copyright 2013 by Nalini Singh
This is set around the same time as the start of Heart of Obsidian but contains no spoilers for that book.It features Sophia and Max from Bonds of Justice.
Sunday—you and me. No cell phones, no messages, no world-altering events. If anyone needs either one of us, they can damn well come to the apartment. At which point, we’ll have trouble hearing them. Better yet, I’ll cut the power to the doorbell. —Note from Max to Sophie
Dear husband: A cunning plan, but alas I am a telepath. —Note from Sophie to Max
No alas about it. You’re perfect. And you’re all mine this Sunday. —Note from Max to Sophie
Sophia sat in the living room window seat of her and Max’s apartment on the Embarcadero, her fingers in Morpheus’s fur where the big black cat curled up in her lap, and her eyes on the street below. “There he is, Morpheus.” Her heart ached in a joy pure and wild as she glimpsed her lover and husband jogging across the street.
As if sensing her scrutiny, he looked up and grinned, before disappearing from sight.
Dropping a loudly complaining Morpheus to the floor, she laughed and knelt down to scratch the temperamental cat under his chin, the tails of the large white shirt she wore brushing the backs of her thighs. “I’ll pet you some more later.” When she rose, Morpheus padded after her, standing sentinel with her in the doorway until Max appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Hello, beautiful,” he said, the slanted near-black of his eyes warm with a look she’d learned was for her alone.
Even though she’d only seen him fifteen minutes earlier, when he’d run downstairs and across to the pier to pick up the baked goods she’d mentioned yesterday, she felt her heart kick. Max’s smile…there was nothing in the world like it. “Hello, handsome.”
The lean dimple in his left cheek a playful temptation, he stroked his hand to close over her nape, touched his mouth to her own. Teasing, coaxing, loving. They could be free here, the corridor stripped of surveillance, the two other couples who shared their floor both human. Neither would see anything wrong in a husband kissing his wife on the doorstep while their cat wove between their legs.
Releasing her after a soft suckle of her lower lip, Max nudged her back into the apartment, Morpheus bounding off to jump onto the window seat and curl up in the sun, his head turned pointedly away. “I think he was expecting tuna,” Sophia said in a soft tone, familiar with their pet’s moods.
“Now he’ll sulk all day.” Kicking the door shut, Max took the bakery box to the table. “Come sit in my lap, Miss Sophie.” He sprawled in a chair, patted one muscled thigh.
Never in her life before Max had Sophia imagined she’d one day sit in a man’s lap dressed in nothing but one of his shirts, her hair wild around her shoulders from the way he’d loved her this morning, and her skin intimately abraded from his unshaven jaw. “What did you get?” she asked, pressing her lips to that jaw.
There was nothing in the world she loved so much as touching Max.
Leaning back, one arm wrapped around her, he groaned when she found the spot on his throat that always made him shudder. “There you go, rushing me again.” It was a husky complaint, his hand fisting in her hair to tug up her head. “Even after I made the supreme sacrifice of getting out of bed on a Sunday morning”—his free hand stroking her thigh—“to get breakfast for my wife.”
Sophie loved how possessive he was, the directness with which he made it clear what he felt for her. Never had Max played those games with her, the ones that confused and made her feel lost. No, the only games Max and Sophia played were ones that delighted them both. “I’ll behave,” she said, then immediately stole another kiss.
“You’re a terrible influence,” Max murmured some time later, having undone half the buttons on the shirt, his hand splayed on her ribs, his shoulders living silk under her touch because she’d managed to tug off his tee. “But I can hear your stomach growling, and I don’t like my Sophie going hungry.”
Buttoning the shirt with that firm statement, he opened the box to expose a delightful array of pastries. “I went to a new place; got you the croissants you wanted, plus a couple of other things.” One big, warm hand dropping back to her thigh. “I figure you should try a bite of each. Best way to work out your favorites for next time.”
“I know my favorite,” Sophia said, feeling mischievous as she only ever did with Max, her beautiful cop.
He looked up. “What?”
“This.” Sliding her fingers into the silky black of his hair, she surprised him by claiming his mouth again. Once, touch had meant pain, meant violation. With Max, it equaled only pleasure, that pleasure far beyond the physical. The way he shared his soul with her, no secrets between them, the way he treated her as his partner, the way he saw beauty and strength in the fine tracery of scars that marked her face…it made her his. Utterly and absolutely.
“God, you are so in trouble.” His breath uneven, Max slid the hand on her leg to between her thighs, callused fingers spreading against skin so sensitive, the mere brush of his jaw over it earlier that morning had made her tremble.
She shivered now, angled her neck to give him better access as he kissed her, but she should’ve known her husband wouldn’t be so easily dissuaded from his goal. A quick bite, a sensual stroke of his tongue, and he was drawing back, though his chest rose and fell in a rhythm that told her he was violently aroused, his body rock hard. “Eat first.” Narrowed eyes, tone resolute. “I don’t like you skipping meals.”
Max was the only person in the whole world who had ever looked after her, and Sophia had no shields against him when he got like this. Melting in his arms, she reached for a pastry. It was a fruit tart of some kind, with what looked like a sugared coating. Tasting it as he took a sip of the coffee she’d put out on the table in anticipation of his return, she made a face. “Too sweet.”
Max shook his head when she offered it to him, biting into a bagel instead. “I tried that one when River showed me the place.”
A wave of affection in her blood as she took a nibble of his bagel. “How is it your brother knows so much about the city after only being in it a short time?” River Shannon was the third member of their tiny but strong family unit, Max and his younger sibling unflinchingly loyal to one another even after years of separation. As for Sophia, she and River had liked each other from the start, united in their love for Max.
It wasn’t always easy—the scars of River’s past meant there were setbacks, moments of grief and anger, pain and fury, but this time, River was with them, not out alone in the world. No matter how rough the road, the three of them were navigating it together, and each time they cleared another bit of jagged rubble, River’s smile became deeper, brighter.
“He’s made friends with the Rats,” Max told her now, choosing another pastry from the box after she took a sip of his coffee. “Teijan and his people know everything that goes on in San Francisco.”
A perfect fit for smart, resourceful River. “Didn’t I hear him say he was going to come by today?” she teased Max, recalling how River had yelled out the grinning threat as he left the apartment on Saturday morning, having spent Friday night in the spare bedroom Max and Sophia had set aside specifically for him—and where he ended up several nights a week, regardless of the fact he had his own place.
Max lifted a small pie to her lips, his tone dark as he spoke. “I love my brother, but I’ve warned him that if he dares interrupt us today, I’ll wait until he’s asleep one night then shave off all that blond hair the girls love.”
Laughing, she took a bite of the pie, felt her eyes widen. “Apples. And…cinnamon…other spices.”
Enjoying the burst of flavor against her tongue, rich without being too sharp, she fed him a bite. “Let’s get this again.”
Morpheus, tail in the air, deigned to come over and hop onto the opposite chair. Where he then proceeded to ignore them, intent on licking his paw. Sophia turned to Max. “Can I give him—”
“No.” A scowl. “That cat scams you at least three times a week. He’s not the least bit hungry, just greedy.”
“But we’re getting treats,” Sophia argued. “He should get a treat too.”
“He had fresh fish yesterday, remember?” Max fed her a bite of deliciously buttery croissant when she parted her lips to speak. “He won’t thank you if he becomes too tubby to sneak around doing whatever it is ex-alley cats do while the rest of us sleep.”
Chewing and swallowing the bite, Sophia had to concede that point. “You’re right, he does love sneaking about—and I still don’t understand how he gets to the ground floor from here.” They’d moved into the fourth floor water-view apartment just before their small, private wedding in this very room; Morpheus had figured out an escape route the first night.
“If he told us, Morpheus would have to kill us. Code of cats.” Feeding her the rest of the croissant piece by piece, Max buried his nose in the curve of her neck, chest rising as he drew in her scent.
“More coffee?”
Heart a beautiful tightness, and his own scent—soap, warmth, Max—in her lungs, she went to get the carafe on the counter, but her husband continued to hold her close.
Meeting the bitter chocolate of his gaze, she wasn’t expecting the intensity of his expression, his fingers clenching on her thigh. “What is it?” She touched his cheekbone, unable to keep her distance when her Max was near.
“I’m looking at my wife—and trying to convince myself I’m not dreaming. My sweet, sexy Sophie.”
Painful as her past had been, Sophia wouldn’t change a single second of it. Because the journey had led to this instant, to this man. “I love being yours…and having you be mine.”
His lips curved, his hand sliding to her throat to draw her down to his mouth…just as a telepathic message pinged in her mind. “Someone’s trying to contact me,” she whispered, as if the other party was in the room.
Max brushed her ear with his lips, his thumb stroking over the skin of her inner thigh. “I hear there’s been an inexplicable epidemic of telepathic interference in this area recently.”
Shoulders shaking and eyes tearing up, she spoke through her bubbling laughter. “Must have something to do with the changes in the PsyNet.” Deliberately fading out the telepathic connection before it could take hold, she did the same thing two more times before the person on the other end gave up. “Is this what’s called playing hooky?”
“It’s called having a damn day off,” her husband muttered. “It’s also called having a lazy Sunday in bed. The last part is important.” Rising, Sophia going with him, he swept her up in his arms. “Very important.”
Morpheus took the opportunity to hop onto the table and poke his nose into the box that held the remnants of the pastries. Where he sneezed and jerked back, his bi-colored eyes hot with insult.
Sophia bit back her grin, certain Morpheus would not be amused. “I guess he doesn’t like the tart, either.”
The deep, warm sound of Max’s laughter wrapped around her as he tumbled her into bed, where they lost themselves in one another, touching and talking and playing and being lazy.
Together.
No matter what happened in the days to come, she thought as she watched Max sleep that night, so long as he was by her side, she’d stand strong against any challenge, any change. The Net might be on a dangerous precipice, the world holding its breath, but Sophia remained firmly anchored by a connection that she could feel in every pulse of her heart, a connection that tasted of Max and of a love fierce and beautiful.
Settling her head against his shoulder, his arm a protective weight around her, she closed her eyes…and smiled as she felt Morpheus prowl into the room to jump onto the bed and curl up against her back.
Timeline: This short story story takes place a couple of weeks after the end of Heart of Obsidian.
Kaleb telepathed Sahara when she wasn’t by the old tree stump in her father’s backyard where he’d said he’d pick her up. Sahara.
I’m here. Come find me.
It had been a long time since he’d played this game with her, but he knew it well. The most important rule was that he couldn’t cheat by using her face as a lock to teleport directly to her location—as he’d done the first time she’d invited him to play hide and seek, back when they’d both been children.
He could still remember her exasperated face as she told him that wasn’t the point. Hands on her hips and leaves in her hair from where she’d been hiding under a bush, she’d said, “You have to hunt, Kaleb. That’s why it’s fun!”
Today, more than fifteen years later, he first entered her father’s home to check she wasn’t inside. Thankfully, it appeared Leon Kyriakus had gone off to his medical practice already so Kaleb didn’t have to interact with him. It wasn’t as if Leon had anything against Kaleb. It was more that Kaleb didn’t understand how to act with a man who was quickly developing a tendency to call him, “son”.
Paternal-type contact was a complete mystery to Kaleb. At times, when Kaleb accompanied Sahara here at her insistence, it appeared that Leon forgot who it was he was talking to. Those times, the older man treated Kaleb as Sahara’s and therefore a member of the family—since Kaleb was Sahara’s in every way, he had no issue with Leon’s behavior. He just didn’t understand it.
Why doesn’t your father view me as a threat? he asked after checking the house. I assumed he’d tolerate me because of you, but he is actively welcoming. Very few people in the world trusted Kaleb enough to turn their backs on him, but Leon treated him with a kind of absentminded affection.
It was…strange.
Sahara’s telepathic voice entered his mind. You brought me home. He knows you’d die before causing me harm, and so of course you’d never hurt him. You know that.
Kaleb did…and yet he still didn’t understand Leon Kyriakus, perhaps never would. The single adult male he’d truly known as a child had been a monster, pain and fear the only things Kaleb had experienced at his hands. Kaleb wasn’t sure he could ever overcome that scarring, the part of him that lived in the void—a void forged in blood and torture—capable of trusting only one being on the planet on that level.
However, he would continue to be cordial to Leon Kyriakus, because unlike the male who had given Kaleb half his genetic material, the other man was a true father. One who had never given up on his child…and who had never tried to separate Sahara from Kaleb. That, Kaleb would’ve never forgiven.
Leaving the house after checking all the rooms aside from Leon’s because he knew Sahara wouldn’t use that as a hiding place, he went directly to the biggest tree in the NightStar compound. It was much larger than when they’d clambered over it as children, its branches even thicker, but one thing remained the same. Sahara had managed to climb up to perch on the highest possible branch that would bear her weight. Hands on the branch and jeans-clad legs kicking out, she waved. “I’ve been waiting for you!” She patted the branch. “It’ll hold you!”
Kaleb looked at the solid trunk, the wide branches, thought about the fact he hadn’t climbed a tree for well over a decade, and took the first grip. The roughness of the bark was familiar, as was the lingering warmth the tree seemed to retain on sunny days. Even the chill of winter hadn’t stolen that. As a Tk, Kaleb was more physically adept than most people, but he tried not to use his ability here. Some of it was impossible to block—telekinesis was part of his blood, as reflexive by now as breathing. However, he made the climb as relentlessly physical as he could.
Hauling himself up onto the branch beside the woman who had first taught him to play, then taught him to enjoy it, he said, “Do I receive an award this time?”
“Here.” Sahara gave him a cookie from the small bag she held in her hands.
He took a small bite of the colored cookie spotted with nuts, then fed the rest to her. “I decline this award.”
“More cookies for me,” she said, leaning forward to kiss him.
It was instinctive to steady her with his arm around her waist, to throw a telekinetic shield around her body. He would allow nothing and no one to ever again harm Sahara.
“Kaleb.” A husky whisper before she kissed him again, sweet and hot and his. Always she had been his. Always she had chosen to be his. It was a gift beyond price.
“Did you have a good visit with your father?” he asked afterward, every part of him humming in quiet, intense awareness.
“Yes.” Sahara’s smile sparked in the dark blue of her eyes. “He’s terrible—works himself to the bone. But I took him for a stroll, made him sit in the sun while I read to him from an old printed book I found in our library. It was all about medical science in the time of the Territorial Wars. He was fascinated, but I told him he can’t have the book because he’ll inhale it in one go and forget about relaxing. I’ll read more to him the next time I visit.”
“Are you ready to go home?”
“No.” She put one hand on his thigh. “I just want to sit here with you. Ever since the fall of Silence, life’s been so busy. I miss you.”
“You never have to miss me,” he said, holding her eyes. “If you need me, just call.” He’d abandon the world for her.
She stroked his jaw, her skin glowing from within. “I know—and that’s why I can’t give in to the urge. I’m wildly possessive where you’re concerned, but you carry the fate of an entire race on your shoulders.”
“Sahara, that race is only alive because you told me I couldn’t destroy them.” Kaleb knew himself, knew he wasn’t good, knew he did good things only so as not to lose the way she looked at him. He would never forgive or forget that it was the leaders of the Psy race who had once taken her from him. “Were it up to me,” he said, “I’d abandon them all to swim or drown and teleport us to an isolated island where no one would bother us for eternity.”
“No you wouldn’t.” Sahara laughed, turning to brace her bent arm on his shoulder. “You like being hooked into the world too much. I bet you know exactly what the temperature is in outer Mongolia right now.”
“No, but I can find out for you in a second.”
That only caused her laughter to deepen, her delight making the creature in the void sit up in unreserved attention. Even now, with the two of them bonded on the most intimate psychic level, that part of him found astonished joy in belonging to her, in having the right to her laughter, her touch. “I love you,” she said, running one hand through his hair. “I’ve never been to a tropical island. I don’t suppose you have one in your mental database?”
A thought and they were on the white sand beach of an isolated atoll in the Indian Ocean, the heavy moon shining down from a midnight sky. Rising to her feet a heartbeat after they arrived, Sahara kicked off her shoes, pulled off her socks, and began to shrug off her coat. “It’s hot! No snow!” Having shucked her sweater while he watched in fascination, she said, “Will anyone see me? Can I strip?”
“No one will see you.” Not only was this island uninhibited, it was in a satellite shadow and invisible to spies in the sky. Kaleb knew that because he made it a point to know such things.
Dressed in khaki cargo pants and a black T-shirt himself, he took off his boots and socks, then just watched Sahara. When she’d said “strip” she’d meant to the skin, and since she wore the dark fall of her hair in a braid today, nothing hid his view.
He watched her run into the water, emerge wet and sleek as a seal. “Kaleb! Come in! It’s so warm!”
For the second time that day, he played with Sahara. Leaving his clothes beside hers, he dove in and stroked out to her. Telepathically touching base with his aide at the same time, he cancelled the meeting he was meant to be attending in thirty minutes and told her to reorganize it for tomorrow.
An hour later, he teleported in food for her and energy drinks for himself. She pulled on his T-shirt over damp skin, while he tugged on his cargo pants.
When she aligned herself against him while they lay on the sand and watched the moon, he held her as she stroked his chest, and he thought of how as a child, she’d patted helplessly at him with those same hands, her eyes wet and distress in her voice at his wounds.
In all his life, Sahara alone had touched him with gentleness, was the only one from whom he’d accept it. He didn’t know how to ask her to never stop doing that…and he didn’t need to. The bond between them pulsed bright as she pressed a kiss to his pectoral, his shoulder, his jaw.
Sahara knew his need.
She always knew.
“Kaleb?”
He turned to her to see a wicked smile on her face.
“Want to make an earthquake?” she said, running one foot up his shin.
“Yes,” Kaleb responded, his body already rock hard for her. “But not in this region. The atolls are too low and may flood.”
Sahara stared at him, and then she started laughing, falling over onto her back with her arms wrapped around her stomach. Leaning down on his elbow, he watched her, and he thought he might learn to laugh with her, too.
She snorted, slapped a hand over her mouth and mouth. Tears rolled down her face. “W-w-we’re almost naked,” she pointed out, “a-and you c-c-c—“
Seduced, he gripped her jaw and kissed that laughing mouth. Her laughter poured into him, her arms locking around his shoulders and her legs around his hips. Before her, he’d understood the mechanics of sex, but he hadn’t understood other things. Like the fact people laughed and smiled during the act—and that it was about far more than the physical. “I wouldn’t want you to drown,” he said, releasing her lips so she could suck in a breath. “I also don’t want to stop midway.”
She giggled again, her fingers caressing his nape. “Excellent point.” Nipping at his lower lip, she kissed her way along his jaw. “You’re all salty.” A lick, a nibble, before she suddenly went still. “Kaleb,” she whispered. “Remember that thing we always wanted to do?”
He knew exactly what she was talking about. “Come with me,” he said, rising to his feet.
When she went to grab her pants, he said, “You won’t need them.”
Not arguing, she slipped her hand into his and he led her up the sugar-fine sand of the beach and to a narrow pier about five minutes away. Dropping his hand the instant she saw the rowboat anchored by it, she ran over to it and hopped inside the small vessel—where she knelt on the boards and looked over the side. “You even named her the Gypsy Queen!”
“It’s what you wanted.” To row away to parts unknown under the moonlight, the dream one of the final ones she’d shared with him before the monsters had stolen her away and hurt her.
Cold rage threatened to bloom in him, until he wanted to go to the hole in the earth where he’d imprisoned one of those responsible, mete out the same kind of torture. But he didn’t, because to do so would be to give too much of himself to the darkness, going against Sahara’s express wishes.
Kaleb had never broken a promise he’d made to her and he wasn’t about to start now.
Stepping into the boat, he released the rope that anchored it, then taking a seat, picked up the paddles and began to row them out. Sahara lay back on the cushions and watched him with eyes that had always seen everything. “You own this atoll, don’t you?”
“I usually keep the boat stored elsewhere. Out of the elements.”
She touched his knee with her toes. “What else have you kept safe for me, Kaleb?” A quiet murmur. “What other dream?”
“It was my sanity.”
This boat, the house, all the other small pieces of her he’d held safe, they had kept him from annihilating the world in his search for her. “Why did you want to do this?” It was something he hadn’t asked when she’d told him her dream the month before she turned sixteen…and then, there’d been no chance to ask.
Rising to a sitting position, Sahara shifted to put her hands on his, stilling his strokes through the water. “I was trying to drop hints that you should take me away and kiss me.” It had been the most intimate thing Sahara had been able to think to do at that age, the cage of Silence a powerful one. “Since you were always half-naked in my fantasies, this is perfect.”
Kaleb closed his eyes as she leaned forward to caress his shoulders, the boy she’d adored having grown up into a powerful man who held her heart in lethal, protective hands. Changing her center of gravity, she took him down to the cushions of this boat he’d kept for her, this silly girlish wish that he’d protected for her.
The boat rocked.
And her lips curved. “I never figured that into my fantasies.”
“What?”
“Your Tk.” It kept slipping the leash during intimacy, though he usually managed to direct it deep underground, where it couldn’t do much damage. “Kaleb?”
“Yes?”
She raised her head to look into his eyes, saw the cardinal starlight had been erased by the obsidian of emotion and passion. “We made it,” she said, the quiet words a fury. “We’re here under the moonlight and the monsters aren’t. They didn’t beat us.” All the pain, all the horror, she and Kaleb hadn’t only survived it, they’d fought their way to the light. “They didn’t steal our love.”
The boat rocked even more but she wasn’t afraid. Kaleb would never allow her to fall.
“Nothing and no one,” he said quietly, “will ever steal who you are to me.”
One hand on the side of his face, she kissed him, and for that instant, the world didn’t matter. The fall of Silence didn’t matter. The fact that Kaleb was holding the PsyNet together through sheer strength of will and violent power didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they were here, in the middle of a dream that belonged to the girl she’d once been—a dream held safe by the boy become a man who was her heartbeat and her forever.
This was their time.
Timeline and Note: This short story features the younger adults (novice soldiers, university students, apprentices etc) in both the DarkRiver leopard pack and the SnowDancer wolf pack. It stands on its own so feel free to read it even if you haven’t tried the Psy-Changeling series. For those of you who like to read in series order, this short fits in prior to the start of Shield of Winter. Enjoy!
Riordan took Noelle’s hand in his. Slender fingers curving around his, she turned to smile at him. The swing on which they were both sitting moved a little as she shifted position to face him. God, she was beautiful. Her eyes were the same vivid aqua as her twin sister, as well as her oldest brother, her hair a sleek waterfall of black, her skin a coppery gold that was warm no matter that they sat in the winter chill.
All that though, he might’ve resisted. But then she’d smiled at him and boom, it had been a punch right to the heart. He hadn’t cared that they’d been in a bar filled with angry leopards and wolves; he’d just wanted to talk to the girl with the smile that made him feel like he was basking in the sun.
“Careful,” she whispered, her dimples appearing with her smile. “When you look at me that way, you make me believe I’m the most beautiful girl in the world.”
Lifting their clasped hands to his mouth, he kissed her knuckles. “You are.”
She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Lissa might disagree with you there.” A laugh that made the wolf inside Riordan stretch out, as if it was being stroked. Noelle did that, petted his wolf with unhidden pleasure. And the leopard inside her had allowed his touch, all gold and black and gorgeous under his palm.
“You might be identical twins, but you’re not the same.” The words made absolute sense to him—he’d never, not once, mixed up Noelle and Lissa; he couldn’t understand how anyone could. They both glowed with life, but each was utterly unique. “Where is your shadow anyway?”
“She should be here soon.” Eyes lingering on his face as her smile faded into another raw emotion, she lifted her hand to brush his jaw. “Thank you for never trying to exclude her.”
“That would hurt you.” Riordan was a dominant predatory changeling, possessive as all hell, but he’d accepted that Noelle and Lissa were a pair, their hearts entwined since childhood. “I’m glad she’s not trying to take a back seat anymore.” At first, when Riordan and Noelle started going out, Lissa had been very careful not to intrude, to the point that she’d turned down invitations to join them.
Instinct had driven Riordan to make personal contact with Lissa, to tell her he truly meant the invitations. “How can I know Noelle without knowing you?” he’d said to her, his wolf deeply conscious that he was missing out on seeing a large part of what made Noelle who she was.
Lissa had looked at him suspiciously for a long time before giving him a dimpled smile. “You might be okay, wolf.”
The three of them had gone to a theme park that night and he’d never seen Noelle happier. Her joy that Lissa and Riordan liked one another was more than enough reward for his effort in reaching out to her twin.
Now, the girl who held his heart laid her head on his shoulder. “We had some bad experiences when we first started dating. Some guys got so jealous, even when we told them that a sister relationship is a totally different thing from a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship.” She kissed his jaw, his affectionate cat with the sunbright sea in her eyes. “As an example, Lis doesn’t make me want to pounce on her and strip her naked”—another kiss—“and your gorgeous brown eyes glaze overwhen I start talking nail varnish and pedicures.”
He grinned. “Smart ass.”
Her phone beeped before she could respond.
Checking it, she blew out a breath. “Lis is almost here. Kit’s driving the car she’s in and Nico’s got the wheel of the other one.”
Riordan’s own phone beeped right on cue, the message from Sienna. “The others are coming too. They decided to run down—everyone I invited is on the way.”
Sliding away their phones after acknowledging the messages, they stood up and walked partway down the stairs to wait. There was still snow at this elevation, the landscape a soft and lush white, the dark green of the firs beyond the clearing glittering with icicles and dusted with white. Lissa and Noelle and Riordan had together added some solar powered paper lanterns to the verandah railing and the colorful lanterns whispered in the pre-sunset breeze.
Noelle squeezed his hand. “I’m so nervous.”
“Yeah.” His own heart was thumping. Turning to Noelle, he cupped her cheek with one hand and lowered his head to hers because she was it for him. His port in any storm, his playmate, his laughter.
The kiss was slow and hot and when she purred in the back of her throat and kneaded at his chest with the claws that had sliced out of the fingers of her free hand, he felt like a conqueror.
Smiling against her mouth, he rubbed his nose against hers. “At least there’s no bar to wreck.”
Retracting her claws, Noelle poked him in the chest. “Only Mercy and Riley’s house.” She shuddered. “We should’ve organized this in a barren clearing where no one could break anything.”
But a heartbeat later there was no more time for second thoughts. The SnowDancer group, laughing and flushed, ran into the yard from one side just as the DarkRiver group walked in from the other, having parked their vehicles a short distance away.
It was almost funny how everyone just stopped and stared at each other, eyes narrowed. Everyone that is, except for Lissa, Kit, and Sienna, who grinned and waved at one another. All three had been in on the secret from the word “go.” Arm wrapped around Lissa, Kit then looked at Riordan and Noelle and gave them a slight nod.
There was something about Kit that Riordan had never quite been able to put a finger on—it wasn’t just the leopard’s potent dominance. It was a sense of absolute confidence that seemed built in and that affected everyone around him. And though Riordan wasn’t leopard but a wolf, Kit’s backing had an impact on him, too.
“Welcome to our New Year’s party,” he said to the group, immediately getting their attention. “Noelle and I decided it was time our friends became friends.” Wolf and leopard had worked together more than once, but friendship was a rockier thing.
Scowls appeared on several faces at his words, a growl lifting on the air. A second growl followed.
“Stop it,” Noelle said, her voice so hard that everyone stared.
Sweet, loving Noelle never sounded like that. Ever.
Astonished and delighted, Riordan just stood beside her as she laid down the law.
“SnowDancer and DarkRiver are now allies,” she said. “No more of this territorial wolf-leopard rubbish. Especially since in not so many months, we’re going to have to share some packmates.” Putting her free hand on her hip, she narrowed her own eyes. “Riley and Mercy let us borrow their house for this party because their pupcubs are going to grow up in both packs and they do not want their kids feeling unwelcome in either.”
“Aw, Noelle,” Cory said sheepishly, sandy brown hair falling across his forehead. “We’d never mess with the pupcubs.”
“Neither would we,” Cadence said pointedly from the wolf side of the line.
“That’s not enough,” Noelle replied. “Kids are smart, they pick up on tensions. It’s time to bury the hatchet once and for all.”
A few grumbles, some folded arms. Rolling her eyes, the cardinal starlight no longer startling, Sienna strode over the line and linked her left arm with Lissa’s right. Kit shifted his hold to Lissa’s hand and the three of them walked up to Noelle and Riordan.
“So,” Sienna said, “is there a bar for me to climb?”
Someone snort-laughed on the wolf side, quickly stifled it, but it was too late. One of the leopards whispered, “Last warning, baby,” and suddenly, the entire group was in hysterics.
Sienna winked, being a good sport about the incident that had led to her being thrown over Hawke’s shoulder in a changeling bar. Lissa grinned and eyes glinting, Kit shook his head before turning to the group.
“Since none of us have any desire to be assigned to the back of beyond night shifts forever,” he said to everyone, “I suggest we take damn good care of Mercy and Riley’s place. Otherwise, let’s get this party started.”
People started pulling out food and drink from backpacks, and all too soon, the tables Riordan and Noelle had set up on the verandah with cake and nibbles and a few bottles of champagne, started overflowing with all kinds of other party supplies. Mercy and Riley had given them permission to use the inside of the house, too, but except for moments now and then when those who wanted a little quiet went in to sit on the couches and talk, the group stayed outside.
Nico and Tai worked together to hook up the speaker system and music filled the clearing now colored orange-gold by sunset. Minutes later, people decided spontaneously to dance in the snow rather than stay up on the verandah. Riordan liked the atmosphere but he was disappointed to see that the two groups stayed relatively separate…but then Cory crossed the invisible dividing line and held out his hand to Cadence.
Gray eyes assessing, the dominant wolf soldier said, “Don’t try anything, cat,” and accepted the offer.
Grin feline, Cory drew her close to his taller frame. “Cats always try something, wolf.”
Riordan saw Cadence trying not to smile and dared believe this might just work out. “Dance with me,” he said to his own cat.
Running onto the snowy dance floor, his hand in hers, Noelle came into his arms. Snuggling close, she swayed to the music with him, as around them, more and more of their friends crossed pack lines. Food was eaten, champagne was sprayed, slow dances turned to rock and back again, and when midnight came, Riordan wasn’t the only wolf who kissed a cat and vice versa.
***
Mercy braced herself to return home the next morning. “Do you think the house is still in one piece?” she asked her mate. “No one’s heard from any of the group that went to the party.”
Riley had a dubious look on his face. “Either they got into a big fight, or they had one hell of a good time.”
Neither, Mercy thought, augured good things for their home. “It’ll all be worth it,” she said, patting her belly. “I want our pupcubs to feel as welcome in SnowDancer as in DarkRiver.”
Riley reached out to rub his knuckles over her chin in silent agreement just before he brought their four wheel drive vehicle to a stop next to two other vehicles covered by snow. “They’re still here,” he said, surprise in his tone.
“God.” Mercy stepped out. “I hope they didn’t murder one another.” It was ten in the morning on the first day of the new year. The two of them had spent the night with family down in DarkRiver land—Riley’s siblings and mates, their families as well, had all come down to join them. The two of them were getting really good at alternating packs for events and it was wonderful to see the bonds being built between their two families.
“If they did murder each other,” Riley said quietly, “we’ll bury the bodies and feign ignorance.”
Mercy laughed and rose to haul her mate down to her mouth for a possessive kiss. “Sometimes, you think like a cat.” She approved.
He squeezed her ass, his slow smile making her heart melt into goo all over again. “Come on, kitty cat, let’s go see the damage.”
Walking into the clearing below their home hand in hand, the first thing they saw was the churned up snow out front.
“No blood,” Mercy said, taking a sniff of the air. “Beer and champagne and cake but no blood.”
The two of them continued forward, up the steps…to find a big brown wolf fast asleep on the left of the verandah, his body protectively curved around those of two sleek and identically spotted leopards who’d fallen asleep on their paws.
Lifting a finger to her lips, Mercy tiptoed around the verandah to find more changelings in animal form. A couple of wolves there, a couple of leopards here, another wolf next to a leopard. Mercy recognized that leopard as her youngest brother, Grey, a surge of affection making her bend down to stroke his sleeping head before she rose back to her feet.
“They’re asleep all over the verandah,” Riley told her when they met again at the front door. “No injuries that I can see.”
“I didn’t spot any either.” Mercy steppped into the house.
Sienna was inside, her ruby red hair flowing over the arm of an armchair in which she’d curled up to sleep, a thick blanket pulled over her.
“I can’t believe Hawke didn’t come looking for her,” Mercy murmured in Riley’s ear.
“Oh, I guarantee you he did,” Riley murmured back. “He probably came down and got his midnight kiss without any of the others being the wiser.”
Mercy could well believe that. The SnowDancer alpha would never have allowed the new year to come in without having his mate in his arms, but like Mercy’s own alpha, Lucas, Hawke was an alpha who understood the importance of this night and of Sienna building tight bonds with her peer group. Luc and Hawke also both knew that group needed to figure out things for themselves without interference from senior pack members.
Sienna wasn’t the only one who was in non-animal form. Amos was sprawled out on one couch, Jason on the other with Nicki snuggled up to him. No one however, had ventured past the living area, and aside from a few discarded clothes where no-doubt-tipsy partygoers had shifted, along with the odd plate or glass, the house was in one piece.
There was even a covered plate on the dining table with two large slices of cake on it. The note beside it said: Thank you for the loan of your house. Can we have it again next year?
Laughing softly, Mercy licked up some frosting with a fingertip, fed another fingerfull to her mate.
“They’re good kids,” Riley said afterward, pride in his tone. “Drunk and likely to have hangovers from hell when they wake up, but good.”
Mercy felt the same pride flow through her veins. “Yeah, they are.” Joy bubbled in her that her and Riley’s babies would be born into this sprawling, loving, dangerous, wild, and perfect family.
Looking up at the SnowDancer wolf who belonged to her, she drew him down into a kiss, his stubble rasping against her skin. “Happy New Year, wolfie.”
His arms came around her, strong and warm and of the man she adored beyond life. “Ditto, kitty cat.”
© Copyright 2014 by Nalini Singh
This story takes place soon after the end of Shield of Winter and before Shards of Hope.
Ivy placed the centerpiece in the middle of the large wooden table that occupied her and Vasic’s new dining area. Her small cabin had been enlarged to a sprawling five bedroom house in record time, thanks to the combined efforts of her community and a squad of Arrows. The Arrows had done the majority of the physical work, the more experienced builders who lived nearby drawing up the plans and sharing their knowledge and experience.
Ivy had made sure the extension included large communal spaces. This dining area flowed off from a spacious kitchen filled with light courtesy of all the windows that looked out over Ivy’s kitchen garden, the vegetable plots bordered by flowers. Between the dining area and the kitchen was a comfortable arrangement of sofas and chairs set around a low table.
Nothing but a counter separated the kitchen from that informal seating area.
She’d had to convince Vasic on the usefulness of such an area. He hadn’t been certain his fellow Arrows would be comfortable in such a casual environment, not when they were used to rules and straight lines. Relaxation was a foreign concept.
Ivy had prevailed when she pointed out that even if adult Arrows didn’t like that space, the children might. So far, the squad hadn’t permitted any children here, concerned with being able to ensure their security, which Ivy understood. But with her own security now ramped up, she knew the situation was changing at a rapid pace.
One day soon, children would run across these smooth wooden floors, tumble to play on the soft but hardwearing rug she’d placed in the center, only part of which was covered by the coffee table. They’d laugh and ask what she was cooking, and she’d sneak them a treat now and then. And one day, those children would have eyes of a wintry grey that to her held the universe.
The idea made her heart grow big inside her chest, almost too big to contain.
Swallowing the lump of emotion, she smoothed her hands over the wooden table built by her Arrow and his best friend. They’d buffed and polished it to a smooth finish but they’d made no attempt to hide or erase the flaws in the raw material: the dips and valleys, the crack that exposed the dark heart of the honey-colored wood, the slight warping on one edge.
It was Ivy’s favorite piece of furniture.
Her centerpiece was nothing overdone, just a cluster of wildflowers she’d picked and placed in a small glass jar that had once held preserves. It served no purpose but to be a joyful splash of color. Ivy could do such things openly now. She no longer had to hide her instincts and inclinations, no longer had to live in fear, her mind painfully chained. She was an E, an empath, and she found joy in taking care of those around her, in ensuring they were happy and content, in creating a home that held unconditional welcome.
“Ivy.”
Turning, she smiled at the man she’d sensed the instant he walked in the door. “How was your walk with Rabbit?” Their small white dog still had a tendency to follow Vasic around every time Vasic stepped outside, as if their pet well knew how close they’d come to losing this man who was Ivy’s heart. The first few times Vasic had teleported out without warning, Rabbit had barked for several minutes in aggrieved irritation, then ignored Vasic for at least an hour after he returned—though even then, Rabbit never went far.
Later, he’d started walking even closer to Vasic, as if trying to sneak into the teleport. These days, Vasic just took him along except when the situation might be a dangerous one. Their pet was probably the most well-traveled pup in the entire world.
“He’s resting under the apple tree with the scarred trunk,” Vasic said. “I threw sticks for him to chase and he tired himself out.” He curled his arm around her when she walked to wrap her own around him.
His scent surrounded her, familiar and beloved.
“Nothing feels as good as being in your embrace,” she said, rubbing her cheek against his chest before tilting her head back to look into the eyes in which she’d once seen winter and now saw a love that defined her.
Phantom fingers brushing back her unbound hair, her telekinetic lover caressing her in a way only he could. “Don’t be sad if they don’t come.”
He was no empath but Vasic could read her like an open book. Part of it was the psychic bond that linked them heart to heart, but the rest of it was just Vasic. He watched, he listened, and he surprised her by doing things like building the dining table with Aden when, having decided the men had worked hard enough on the house, she hadn’t so much as hinted at her desire for one.
“I will be sad,” she admitted with a scowl. “I sent out specific invitations to ten of the squad.” Not a general invitation, but rather a directed one, on the theory that Arrows were used to making specific plans and would be more likely to turn up to her first attempt at a group event.
So many had come to her and Vasic’s wedding but that had been for a specific and very important reason. This was for no reason but to have a social gathering. She hoped the success of this small dinner would lead to a deeper sense of comfort among the attendees, which would then spill over onto the rest of the squad.
“This house,” she said to her personal Arrow, “it’s so new that I still find the occasional curl of wood we missed somewhere. It smells new, smells like possibility and hope.”
“I wasn’t aware emotions had a scent.”
Scrunching up her nose at the man she adored beyond life, Ivy rose on tiptoe to kiss him. Just because he was hers and he was teasing her and she loved touching him. He returned the kiss in full measure… and halfway through, she realized he’d used his telekinetic abilities to lift her several inches off the floor.
Laughing into the kiss, she telepathed, Tired of bending down to kiss me?
For your kiss, Ivy, I’d go anywhere… but this is more efficient.
Her shoulders shook and she couldn’t hold the kiss. Some of her friends thought Vasic was too serious, too quiet; they’d learn better when they got to know him more. He knew how to smile, her lover, though his lips rarely curved. “I can’t argue with that.” Hooking her legs around his hips, she leaned into the kiss, her fingers deep in the cool silk of his hair.
She made no attempt to hold herself up, trusting Vasic to keep her safe.
He always did.
His taste sank into her bones, his warmth and strength as familiar a caress as the kiss that melted her. Nuzzling at him when they finally broke the kiss, she said, “I’ll be sad, but I’ll keep trying. I want them to understand that we’re family now, that they’re welcome always.”
Vasic slid his hand over her curves as she hopped down to the ground. “No one I know is as stubborn as a certain empath.”
“Don’t you forget it.” She stroked his jaw before turning to walk over to the kitchen counter on which she’d placed a tray full of whole fruits she planned to cut once their guests started arriving. With Vasic as her expert consultant, she’d chosen fruit that had a milder flavor, less sweetness or tartness.
Arrows were used to tasteless nutrition bars like most of the Psy race; she’d have to ease them into other foodstuffs. She’d also made a light stew and a soft flatbread her friend Jaya had shown her how to prepare. Neither had an intense taste.
Checking to ensure the stew was bubbling on the cooker, she turned to Vasic. “I’ll share this with my parents and the others who live here if the squad members fail to show.”
“Aden will come.” Vasic leaned down to pet Rabbit when their pet ran into the room, Rabbit’s nails making familiar scratching sounds on the floor.
Ivy had clipped those nails recently, after sitting Rabbit on her lap. From the first, he’d always sat quietly while she did that, as if he knew she was only trying to make him more comfortable. “Hello, you,” she said as he came over to her, his tail wagging wildly. “All rested up?” Kneeling down, she scratched him behind the ears as she knew he liked.
Steps sounded on the wooden floor while she was laughing at Rabbit’s tongue lolling ecstasy. She knew that tread. “Hello, Aden.”
“Ivy.”
Rubbing Rabbit’s belly when he flopped onto his back with his legs up in the air, she listened to Vasic and Aden talk about a current operation with the ease of men who’d known each other since childhood.
They were connected by inseparable bonds, her Arrow and his best friend. It was Aden who’d kept Vasic alive and sane long enough that Ivy had been able to find him. And it was Aden who’d turned up day after day to help Vasic figure out his physical balance after Samuel Rain had to take Vasic’s arm in order to save his life.
She’d sat with Rabbit on the stoop of her old cabin, which was now incorporated into this house as her and Vasic’s bedroom, and watched the two men as they moved with lethal grace. Even with his balance off directly after the operation, Vasic had lost none of that grace.
Highly trained as he was, however, it hadn’t taken him long to find a new balance. Of course, Samuel was determined to build him an integrated prosthetic. The scientist was brilliant enough that he might just find a way to bypass the systems in Vasic’s body that had been permanently damaged by the experimental gauntlet that had almost stolen him from Ivy.
The gauntlet damage was localized, had no impact on Vasic’s overall health; that was all that mattered to Ivy. She’d be forever grateful to Samuel and his surgical team for ensuring Vasic came out of the surgery suite alive.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she swallowed hard.
Ivy.
I’m okay, she said to her Arrow. Just happy.
Vasic gave her a measuring look when she stood up, his eyes intent. Then he held out his arm. Walking over to tuck herself against him, she reached out a hand to Aden. He’d sat with her during the agonizing hours of the surgery, told her about his and Vasic’s childhood, kept her from breaking apart. She would never forget that.
Today he allowed her to curl her fingers around his palm in welcome before they separated. “Thank you for coming, Aden.”
Sensing another presence right then, Ivy made an inarticulate sound and broke away from Vasic. Her friend Jaya laughed at the impact of Ivy’s hug, the other E having teleported in with blue-eyed Abbot.
“I didn’t know you were coming!” Ivy hadn’t invited Abbot and Jaya, not because she didn’t want them to attend, but because she knew they were busy setting up an empathic training school in Jaya’s region.
Jaya hugged her back just as enthusiastically before they separated. The taller woman’s elegantly lovely face was lit with sparkling warmth. “I heard you were having a party and I didn’t want to feel left out.” She added a telepathic postscript. I also thought you could do with a little backup.
Thank you. Ivy glanced over her shoulder to see that Abbot had joined Vasic and Aden. Turning back to her friend, she continued to speak on the telepathic level. How are you and your Arrow doing?
Jaya eyes shone wet. I have no words, Ivy. He loves me with a depth that steals my breath. She pressed a fisted hand against her heart, rubbed. When I’m with him, I feel more. Bigger. Better. Stronger.
Love does that. Ivy was about to ask after a young empath in Jaya’s family when another female form appeared in the doorway. “Zaira!” Of all the people she’d invited, the Venetian commander was the one she’d least expected to show. “Come in!”
Walking inside, the hard-eyed commander held up a small box wrapped in silver paper and tied with a ribbon of the same color. It had a professional touch, as if done in a store. “My research tells me that as a guest to a housewarming, I am expected to bring a gift.”
Ivy’s eyes widened. Never would she have thought Zaira would do this. Then again, the commander had been living in Venice for years…and though she pretended not to understand the concept of “domestic companion animals”, Ivy had seen Zaira petting Rabbit during the rebuild, though only when the Arrow thought no one was watching.
“Thank you.” She accepted the gift with a smile. “I’m so glad you came.”
Zaira gave a curt nod just as Rabbit got up from his seated position and made a beeline for the Venetian commander. Tail wagging, he woofed excitedly at her.
Zaira’s response was a cool, “I don’t speak canine.”
Ivy bit the inside of her cheek.
Jaya telepathed her at the same time. Is she making a joke? I’m sure she is.
It’s highly possible. Arrows weren’t always predictable. “Would you like a drink?” Ivy placed Zaira’s gift carefully on the counter. “I made fruit water—basically water with a little fresh fruit juice.” Pure fruit juice was far too rich a taste for Psy raised on nutrient drinks.
Zaira paused.
Aden walked over while his fellow Arrow was still thinking over Ivy’s offer. “How is Venice?”
“Stable.” The commander glanced at Aden. “Ivy is offering fruit flavored water.”
“We should try it.”
Ivy had the feeling Aden was telepathing Zaira at the same time as he spoke the words aloud. Whatever their silent discussion, they turned as one to her and nodded in acceptance of her offer.
Behind her, Jaya was already ladling out the water into the glasses Ivy had set out. Taking them from her friend, Ivy handed the drinks out not just to Aden and Zaira, but also to Abbot.
Vasic shook his head at her silent question when she raised a glass toward him. He’d been her guinea pig, had already drunk two glasses while she tested out different combinations. Now, her Arrow touched his hand to her lower back. Enough guests for a satisfactory housewarming?
Oh yes. Ivy was thrilled to have so many people here when she’d truly expected only Aden. Shall we—
She paused mid-sentence after becoming aware of another new presence…more than one. Vasic glanced at the door at the same time.
Axl and Amin appeared with Nerida.
Ivy had barely welcomed in the senior Arrows when four other members of the squad arrived.
Then five more.
I didn’t invite this many people! Ivy telepathed Vasic, delight bubbling in her bloodstream. Did you?
No. But I did ask Aden to let it be known that we were having a housewarming event and all Arrows were welcome. No one was ordered to come—Aden was very careful to couch it as an open invitation our squadmates were free to accept or decline.
Ivy looked up at him. You didn’t tell me that.
His expression didn’t change but she felt a ripple along their bond and that ripple, it tasted of Vasic, of winter, of home. I didn’t want you to be disappointed if no one took up the invitation.
Her heart swelled again. Rising on tiptoe, she cupped his clean-shaven jaw in her hands, kissed him. I love you.
Vasic’s response was to touch his fingers to her own cheek.
As Ivy soaked in the caress, she was aware of the other Arrows watching. That was all right. They needed to see love, needed to see affection, needed to know this future could be theirs, too.
We have more guests.
Turning, she found a group of ten young Arrows who told her they’d come in via a light plane they’d landed at a strip on the other side of the closest township. After that, they’d jumped into the back of a truck driven by one of the locals who’d been happy to bring them to the orchard. He’d asked them to “chip in” just enough to cover the charge his old vehicle would need for the return trip.
“The negotiation was simple once we made it clear we had no Arrow business in their town,” one of the Arrows told Abbot. “I offered a larger fee but the farmer refused it on the justification that it was a ‘neighborly’ thing to do. He requested that if we had the opportunity, he’d appreciate it if we could pick up a difficult-to-find part for a farm vehicle, bring it along the next time we were in the area.”
Ivy bit back a smile. She wondered what the locals were making of this influx of black-clad soldiers. A little fear wasn’t unexpected, but the townsfolk were also rural men and women used to adapting to what life threw at them—including it seemed, Arrows needing a lift.
The influx didn’t stop.
Her table overflowed. Arrows sat on the couches, gathered in small groups in the open spaces. Someone had brought in Tamar, a civilian specialist who worked with the squad, and she hit it off with Jaya, Tamar’s Silence having always been questionable at best.
The Arrows were watchful and quiet for the most part, but they tasted her drink, her food. It was too much sensation for many of them and they reverted to nutrition drinks and bars, but they didn’t leave. The conversation, when she caught pockets of it, was mostly about missions and tactics. However now and then, she’d discover something different.
Jaya was talking about her family, about a child empath she was helping to train. “It turns out the reason so many of my cousins were depressed and not particularly successful at holding down jobs,” she said, “was because they’d been stifling their empathic skills.” Her tone turned dry. “Or that’s what they’re telling their parents.”
The other empath leaned companionably into Ivy as Ivy came up beside her. “I have to admit all of them are excelling in their E studies—I’ve never seen them so excited.”
“I can understand.” Ivy would never forget the agony that had been her shields coming apart as her brain fought the conditioning that told it to strangle an integral aspect of her nature.
A small, furry body wiggled between her and Jaya at that instant, Rabbit looking up with his eyes shining. Tamar immediately went down to her knees. “Hello, Rabbit.”
Bouncing over to her, Rabbit wallowed in her enthusiastic petting. “He keeps me company when Vasic brings him to the compound,” Tamar shared. “I had Vasic buy special treats that I keep for him.”
“He’s got you right where he wants you.” Ivy shook her head at her shameless pet, her lips tugging up at the corners.
Leaving Tamar and Jaya to talk, she walked around, ensuring all her guests were happy—or at least comfortable. But for Vasic, the Arrows hadn’t truly embraced emotion yet.
However they were here and they were staying despite the fact the house was full and arms were brushing, shoulders bumping. At some point, she realized they were swapping in and out, some going on shift or on assignment while others came off.
Vasic disappeared every so often as he was asked for a teleport, the majority of those who needed a ’port in or out going to him because they knew the ’porting didn’t sap his strength.
It was one a.m. before the last of the Arrows who were leaving, departed. Three had come in at midnight, after completing missions. Those three had decided to accept Ivy and Vasic’s offer of a late meal and a bed, would be leaving after breakfast.
They helped Ivy and Vasic clean up—not that there was much to do. Arrows were compulsively neat and sometime during the party, any used dishes had been put into the washer, the cycle run. There was no debris. All the five of them really had to do was tidy up any chairs or sofas that were out of position.
Afterward, Ivy told the others to take a seat at the dining table while she mixed up hot nutrient drinks. Instead, they chose the relaxed seating arrangement next to the kitchen area. She kept an ear open to their conversation while she made the drinks, heard Vasic’s deep tones asking about the completed missions, listened to the responses.
By the time she sat down next to Vasic, curling up her legs on the sofa and fitting herself against his side, the discussion had moved on to the training of child Arrows when it came to their dangerous abilities. Vasic, Ivy knew, would make sure to give Aden a breakdown of all the different suggestions. The Arrow leader was currently weighing up options for the long-term. Short-term plans were already in place, with pain and torture no longer on the discipline and training menu.
No more Arrow children would grow up as Vasic had, as Aden had, as these three sitting here had. They’d be given choices, would grow up in a world where they were connected to empaths through the Honeycomb, a world were love and friendship weren’t outlawed. A world where gatherings such as this one would be an ordinary part of their life.
Content and hopeful, Ivy sat in happy silence against Vasic’s muscled warmth, a sleepy Rabbit having jumped up to doze on her other side. This new part of the house no longer felt too new, too full of space. It carried the echo of many voices now, the imprint of many lives. It had become a home.
Author’s Note: This short story fits in after Shards of Hope in the Psy-Changeling series and can be read on its own even if you’ve never read the series.
For those of you who prefer to avoid all spoilers, save this to read until after you’ve read Kiss of Snow.
Hawke was in a surly mood.
He prowled under the starlight-kissed forest, the pads of his feet crushing the dried leaves and pine needles below, the wild landscape silent around him. His wolf was the apex predator in this entire region and all other creatures knew not to attract his attention—especially given the current grim state of his mood.
He could’ve sulked just as easily in human form, but the wolf had needed release, too, and so man and wolf sulked together in his lupine form.
The night was beautiful above the Sierra Nevada mountains, the stars like diamonds against the inky blackness, but Hawke saw none of it; he was too damn aggravated. It was as if all the juveniles in the den had suddenly lost their minds.
Every alpha worth his salt expected the kids to pull some tricks—that was part of what made them wolf juveniles. Hawke wasn’t the kind of alpha to stifle his young by expecting perfect behavior. What he did expect was for the young idiots to be intelligent enough to space out their mischief, so that their alpha wouldn’t totally lose his shit with them, but no, this particular group had decided to go crazy on him all at once. Which was why they were now assigned to cleaning the den toilets for an open-ended period.
The wolf was momentarily amused by the memory of the looks on their faces when Hawke had made the decree; it had belatedly sunk into those teenaged heads that now was not the time to be antagonizing their alpha. Anyone with even a single functioning brain cell could see that Hawke was in a bad, bad mood. Could you blame him? His mate had been away from the den for two damn weeks already. And she was scheduled to be away for another two weeks at least.
Yes, he’d spoken to her over the comm, but it wasn’t the same as having her here, where he could touch her, where he could scent her, could hold her.
He growled at some small creature that dared rustle about in the bushes and the creature went quickly silent. The immediate obedience satisfied the wolf’s ragged temper.
Man and wolf, both, they were in a helluva mood.
The only good thing about the entire scenario was that he’d managed to hold himself together when it mattered. He was an alpha—his pack relied on him to think with a clear head. And he was capable of doing that despite Sienna being so far from him, as long as no one provoked him. Even Drew, who had very little care for his skin, had stopped teasing Hawke about missing Sienna a week into Sienna’s trip. The other man knew what it was like to miss his mate, and he knew exactly when the teasing was no longer something Hawke could take in good humor.
The wolf looked around, checking the perimeter remained safe. Just because he was in an ill-tempered frame of mind didn’t mean he’d lower his guard and allow danger to enter his territory and harm his pack.
Continuing on after confirming that everything was as it should be, he lifted his nose into the cold night air and drew in a long breath. Wolf and man, they both knew that they had to get this tension under control; Sienna might be his mate, but she was also a young soldier in the pack and she deserved every opportunity to further her skills.
She didn’t need those skills to garner respect from the pack; she already had that from every single SnowDancer. After the furious way she’d defended the pack, prepared to do so to thedeath, there wasn’t a SnowDancer alive who looked at her as anything but a worthy mate for their alpha. However, there were skills she didn’t have simply because she’d never had the chance to learn them.
And Sienna hated not knowing things.
Which was why she was currently in Kenji’s den. After that, she’d be moving into Jem’s den. Each of the two lieutenants would teach her something new, something in which they had a specialization. It was the same opportunity SnowDancer offered all its young soldiers, though not every one of those soldiers took the pack up on it. Not every wolf wanted to go from den to den; some were far more suited to the stability of a single den, and learning from a single teacher.
Sienna, however, was quicksilver fire and brilliant light; she absorbed information like a sponge. Hawke had no intention of clipping her wings or caging her just because he needed her so much.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t sulk and scowl.
And he was doing it at night in the depths of the forests around the den, wasn’t he? It wasn’t as if he was growling at everyone in the pack. By the time he got back after this patrol, he’d have his temper under some kind of control. And if anybody did rub the raw edge of his mood the wrong way, even knowing that he was an alpha wolf who’d been apart from his mate for two long weeks, well, they deserved what they got.
The only ones he’d excuse were the cubs, who ran up innocently to him and asked him when “Sinna” would be back. For them, he had endless patience, the wolf understanding that those small hearts had no intention to hurt, and could have no idea of what it did to him to talk to them about his mate when she was so distant from him.
And now, he was going so nuts that he could scent a faint hint of her on the breeze. Wolf opening its mouth in a grin that wasn’t a grin at all, he decided to follow that scent. If a packmate was messing with him by putting Sienna’s things in the forest, he’d hunt down the imbecile and teach them a lesson he or she would never forget.
The scent got increasingly strong as he ran toward what must be the origin—Hawke was unsurprised that he’d immediately angled himself in the correct direction. He could track Sienna through snow and wind and rain and hail and anything else the world threw at them.
Paws flying over the debris on the forest floor, he tried not to growl, despite his anger. He was going to sneak up on the asshole who was attempting to play a nasty trick on him and bite hard enough to leave marks that wouldn’t heal for days. Then he’d—
The wolf froze, the silver-gold of its fur rippling in the cool night breeze. Because in the clearing in front of him was a picnic blanket on which a woman lay braced on one elbow, her eyes turned toward him, as if she’d known he was coming. Those eyes were starlight, her hair appearing a silken black under the silvery light of the moon. But he knew it wasn’t black at all but a deep ruby red. Lush and brilliant and strong.
Seeing him, she smiled. “I knew you wouldn’t take long to find me,” she said. “I have to catch the morning flight back.” She sat up. “Kenji only let me off for half a day—and Drew’s going to cover your duties for that time, including this patrol.”
Hawke’s wolf was beside her before he felt himself move. When he growled at her for what she’d done to him, she laughed and ran her fingers through his fur, rubbing the side of her face against his. “Indigo called me.” Her voice was a caress. “She said you were in the worst mood she’d ever seen you in.” Another rub of her cheek against his, his strong and wild and possessive mate rubbing her scent into his skin as if he didn’t already carry it embedded so deep within that nothing could ever erase it.
“I didn’t need the call,” she whispered. “I’ve been on edge myself. I almost threw fire at Kenji’s head today when he was being perfectly reasonable. Good thing I didn’t or Jem would’ve ripped me limb from limb.”
Folding down into a sitting position as she spoke, the wolf placed its head in her lap. She stroked him, soothing the animal, soothing them both. And she told him how much she’d missed him, petting him with her words as well as her hands. “As your mate, I need to do these placements,” she said. “I need to learn and become part of every den in our territory.”
Of course she’d think of that. Sienna was too smart not to see how much the wolves not based at the Sierra Nevada den needed to spend time near and with the extraordinary woman who was the mate of their alpha.
“But it’s so hard being away from you,” she added. “It feels like I’ve left part of myself behind.”
The wolf heard the ache in her voice, but he also heard the determination. It might torment her to be apart from him, but she’d do it because it was necessary. His mate was as much an alpha as Hawke—she was just growing into her skin.
Content, the wolf closed its eyes, soaking her in and building a store of memories and sensations that would carry him through the two weeks to come.
Later, when he shifted into his human form, she stroked the man too, and he stroked her in turn. She met him kiss for voracious kiss, touch for touch, and hunger for hunger.
The moonlight glimmered over their skin afterward, their bodies lying aligned, their eyes looking into each other’s. The wolf rising to brush against the inside of his skin, Hawke threw back his head and howled, the sound one of untrammeled joy.
A hundred howls answered his, his people speaking to him in the song of the wolf, as, beside him, lay the woman who was the song of his heart.
© Copyright 2017 by Nalini Singh
Author’s Note: A little something from me to you. I hope this unabashedly joyous story brightens up your world a little.
p.s. Even if you’ve never read anything from this series, you should be able to read this story without problems.
Tamsyn had been ready to have cubs since about five seconds after she and Nathan officially became a couple—in other words, since the day her mate got his head screwed on straight and stopped trying to protect her by keeping his distance.
The cubs? It was a healer thing. She knew enough healers to understand that the need to look after a family was an itch in their blood. Of course, since healers considered the entire pack their family, it was an itch they could scratch even if they didn’t have kids of their own.
As for Tamsyn, she’d made sure she didn’t have children. Her mate wasn’t ready. It had taken a solid couple of years for Nathan to accept that she didn’t regret mating at nineteen and never would. Not only that she had no regrets, but that she was joyously happy to be with him, her soul lighting up each morning she woke to find the muscled heat of him beside her.
Adding cubs to that would’ve strained her husband’s huge and bruised heart to breaking point. But, she was happy to say that their years together—coming up to fourteen now!—had healed the bruises, had him laughing in a way that reached the midnight blue of his eyes and creased his cheeks. Her heart squeezed each time he smiled—the man was getting more handsome with age and it wasn’t fair to her poor heart.
But she’d keep on falling into his smile, and she’d keep on kissing him, and she’d keep on tumbling into love with him over and over again. As for the cubs, she babied and mothered every single one in DarkRiver. “Ry, put that down right now,” she said firmly to the gorgeous little boy who was clutching a fat worm in his small and pudgy fingers.
All white-blond hair going dark at the roots and dirt-streaked face, he looked at her with wounded eyes that nonetheless glinted with mischief.
“Bryan!”
Grin wide, he stuffed his little fist into his mouth.
Jumping across the garden bed, she took hold of the wriggling end of the worm and managed to get the poor creature safely back into the soil. “Worms are for the garden,” she said in her most severe tone. “You’re a leopard. You hunt. You do not dig up your dinner from my seedling garden.”
“I lub oo, Tammmmmmmeeeeee.”
She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from breaking out into a grin. Ry—Bryan when he was in trouble—was too damn adorable, but he had to learn that being adorable didn’t mean he could wriggle out of trouble. “Repeat after me, I do not eat worms.”
A stubborn silence, eyebrows drawing together.
“Fine. Then you have to go inside and learn your words.” The greatest possible threat for an active cub—especially when the sun was high in the sky and the air crisp with spring.
The toddler’s lower lip began to quiver.
Tamsyn shook her head. “I won’t change my mind even if you cry.” Though she would feel sorry for his precious heart. “You know the rules. No digging out things from my vegetable patch without permission. And no eating worms.”
Thereupon ensued a small standoff, but stubborn or not, Ry was a sweet, good-natured cub at the core. Beaming at her without warning, he threw out his arms. “I no eat orm. Pomise.”
“Good boy.” Gathering him close, she snuggled his giggling warmth; he still had that toddler softness to him, his cheeks and limbs rounded, and it melted her. “Do you want to help me plant?”
An enthusiastic nod.
They both had their fingers in the rich, fertile soil when Nathan returned from his meeting with the other DarkRiver sentinels. Hunkering down next to Ry, he ruffled the boy’s hair, then reached across that curious head to kiss Tamsyn on the mouth. “I see you two have been busy.”
“I no eat orms,” Ry announced proudly. “Tammy says.”
Nate grinned, all dark hair, that heartbreaker gaze of darkest blue, and laugh creases edging out from his eyes. “That’s right. Us big, tough leopards don’t hunt worms.” He growled, the sound coming from deep within his chest as his leopard rose to the surface of his skin. “We hunt big prey.”
“Grr.” Ry’s tiny growl—complete with soil-covered hands shaped into claws beside his face—had Tammy’s ovaries going into complete meltdown. She had no idea how his mama disciplined him.
***
“He’s a fun little guy,” Nate said to her after Ry’s uncle Zach picked him up ten minutes later. “Maybe we should have one of our own?”
Blinking, Tamsyn sat down in the garden bed and just stared at her gorgeous, strong, loving mate. “What did you say?”
A hint of unfamiliar shyness to him, he shrugged those big shoulders. “A cub? What do you think?”
Tamsyn stared at him for another long minute before making a high-pitched squeal of joy and pouncing on him, taking him to the ground.
“Your seedlings!” he yelled, and that was when she knew that even if she hadn’t been madly in love with him already, she’d have fallen for him then and there.
***
She and Nathan didn’t succeed on the first attempt, but they had a whole lot of fun trying. Including racing each other in leopard form across the forest, then shifting and tangling naked on a carpet of fallen leaves. Then there was that seriously naughty quickie in her office at the pack’s HQ when they nearly got busted by another sentinel.
Nathan had laughed so hard, his face buried against her shoulder, and his arms locked around her that she’d felt the vibrations all through her body. They’d loved each other so long now; he knew her body from tip to toe, as she knew his, intimate skin privileges between them a scalding heat that burned hotter with every passing year and a warm affection that was an embrace.
And love. Infinite love.
Then one day, Nathan turned to her with an expression of startled delight on his face. Because among changelings, mates were almost always the first ones to pick up the subtle scent change—or perhaps it was something deeper, more inexplicable. But Tamsyn got a feeling in the part of her that made her a healer not long afterward. They did the test together, Tamsyn letting her mate see the result first. “So?”
Growl loud, he lifted her up by the waist to spin her around…only to stop mid-spin. “I shouldn’t do that. You’re preg—”
“You stop that right now!” Clapping her hands on his cheeks, she looked those leopard eyes full-on, her own eyes no longer human either. “Do your senior soldiers go hide in a padded room while they’re pregnant?”
A scowl. “No.”
“Did Shayla stop working while she was carrying Lucas?”
Scowl turning darker, he grumbled, “No.”
“And what about—”
Her mate kissed her, luscious and deep. “I admit defeat,” he said when they were both breathless. “Have mercy.”
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pressed her nose to his. “You sure?” Nathan’s intense protectiveness had always been the biggest problem in their relationship—it hadn’t reared its head for some time and she intended for that to continue. “Because we’re going to have a child and that child will be a leopard changeling and leopards need freedom to thrive.”
No humor in his expression, his throat moving. “I’m sure,” he promised, voice lined with grit. “If I slip up, I know you’ll help me find my way.”
Eyes hot, she spoke with her lips against his. “You’ll be a wonderful father, Nathan.” She saw how he was with the young ones in the pack, how they trusted and turned to him.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Our baby is so lucky you’re their dad.”
A slow smile. “A cub?”
“A cub,” she whispered.
***
Turned out they were both wrong. Their babies were born one after the other seven and a half months after that test. Julian and Roman. Jules and Rome. Their gorgeous cubs with their scrunched up old-man faces and good strong yells and eyes that promised to turn the same midnight blue as their daddy’s.
A shirtless Nathan, cubs held skin-to-skin against him as he sat by the window, looked at Tamsyn with a scared-astounded-proud look on his face. “Our cubs.”
“Yes.” Tears threatened at the sight of his body backlit by the sun as he cradled their boys against him; her smile was wobbly when she said, “I love you, Nathan Ryder.”
Rising with happiness written on every line of his body, he placed their cubs back against her bare skin, before getting into bed next to her, a big wall of protective warmth. She snuggled into him—her mate’s protectiveness was a large part of him and Tamsyn loved that part as she did the rest of him; she just knew that at times, he needed her to help him see clearly through the shadows of the past. When she tipped up her head, he dropped a kiss on her lips while the sun rose beyond the windows.
Because of course their twins had decided to start their journey outside her womb at four in the morning. Julian had been born at 5.59 a.m. Roman at 5.59 and 30 seconds. “Do you think they’ll be friends?” There was no guarantee, even with twins.
Chuckling, Nathan nudged his head downward.
She followed his gaze to see that Julian had his hand fisted tightly over his brother’s. “Good thing we built the double crib.”
“Yeah.” A roughness to the single word, Nathan pressed his lips to her hair. “Thank you for not giving up on me even when I messed up big.”
Leaning into his chest, against the strong beat of his incredible heart, her own huge with love, she said, “Never.”
© Copyright 2020 by Nalini Singh
Timeline: This story slots in after the end of Silver Silence and before Ocean Light begins.
Silver walked into the heart of Denhome to find herself confronted by a naked little boy covered in glitter and yellow paint. “Hello, Dima,” she said, used to such welcomes by now. “Why are you wearing glitter?”
“For the party!” He raised his arms toward her.
Putting her satchel on the floor, her heels kicked off before she exited her vehicle, she leaned down to pick him up. He snuggled himself onto her hip, then pressed an enthusiastic wet kiss on her cheek. “Love you, Siva.”
It was still a surprise, to hear such things said so openly—and to her. Stroking her hand over the soft silk of his tight, dark curls, she forced out the words locked in her own throat because it was important to children to hear them. “I love you too, Dima.” Even now, the verbal admission of emotion didn’t come easy, though she’d lay down her life for this cub and any other in their clan.
One arm around her neck, Dima pressed the side of his face against her gray jacket. “I made you sparky,” he said in delight.
Silver glanced down and saw that “sparky” meant a glitter infestation. Such was the inevitable result of living in a clan of bears. “Excellent. I would not want to be underdressed for the party.” She took in the activity around the huge open space of the Cavern, frenetic and wild even for StoneWater bears, and said, “Dima, what’s the party for?”
The little changeling polar bear on her hip lifted both hands in a “I dunno” shrug. “Party is party.”
No more bear thing had ever been said.
Walking over with Dima to where several adults were rushing around opening boxes full of decorations, she cornered the bear who’d made a hobby out of tormenting her brother. She’d have smacked Pavel for it, but Arwen was fully capable of tormenting said bear back. “Why are we having a party?” Valentin was usually good about warning her of parties—her mate understood that much as she loved their clan, she occasionally needed warning of especially exuberant events.
On the whole, however, Silver had become surprisingly adept at handling chaos.
Pavel pushed up his spectacles and scowled. “Your brother should be kept away from nice bear boys.”
Shaking her head, Silver patted his cheek. “You’re a big, tough bear. Why are you afraid of an empath?”
Grumbling under his breath about “Sneaky-cat Mercants,” he nonetheless leaned over and rubbed his cheek against hers in an affectionate welcome that would’ve shocked her not so long ago. “Party’s for your mating,” he said with a grin afterward. “Did you think we were just going to allow that to slide?”
“No, though I had hope.”
Pavel’s aqua-green eyes were bright behind the lenses of his spectacles. “Sneaky sense of humor, too.” A wink at Dima. “Want a piggy back ride while I go hunt down your mom about the cake?”
“Cake!” Dima switched allegiances at once.
He landed safely on Pavel’s back…just as a much bigger bear wrapped his arms around her from behind, his skin honey-dark and his muscles defined. “Hello, Starlight,” Valentin rumbled, his warmth seeping through her clothes to brand her skin.
Things stretched and woke inside of her, her soul sighing. Her often stubborn and always loving mate reached parts of Silver no one else ever had or ever would. “Hello, Valyusha,” she murmured as Pavel walked off with Dima riding his back. “I heard that three of our bears are in Enforcement lockup.”
Valentin groaned. “I just sprung the idiots. They got drunk last night and decided to steal a parrot.”
“A parrot?”
“A trash-talking parrot owned by a damn feral human who clearly taught her parrot everything it knows.”
Silver felt an effervescent warmth inside her that she now knew was amusement. “Was she mean to you?” Turning in his arms, she patted his cheek as she’d done Pavel’s; his jaw was hard and square under her touch, his skin rough with stubble. “I’ll go take care of her.”
A scowl, black brows drawing into a vee above the gorgeous dark of his eyes. “Stop making fun of me,” he grumbled before kissing her.
The contact was a familiar shock, a physical pleasure and an emotional joy so visceral that Silver might never find the words to describe who and what Valentin was to her…but he knew. Her mate felt her heart and he understood all the things she couldn’t say.
Nuzzling at her afterward, Valentin didn’t even seem to notice when one of their clanmates ran into him while ferrying over what looked like paper hats in the shape of cat ears. He was built to handle the rough and tumble that came with being alpha of a clan of bears but Silver knew those big hands could also be sweetly tender.
“I mentioned our mating party while I was in the city,” he said, “and all these people made sad faces at me because they weren’t invited.”
Silver raised an eyebrow.
“So I invited them.” Valentin smiled a gorgeous, open smile that would’ve shattered her defenses if they hadn’t already been in shards at her feet. “This party is going to blow the roof off Moscow!”
Word of his comment spread in a matter of seconds. A hundred or more bears pounded their feet on the ground in raucous agreement.
Despite that, Silver was not ready for the celebration that took over their city that night. Bears in bear form danced with humans wearing Mardi Gras beads that had appeared out of nowhere, while Psy stood shellshocked on the edges…but didn’t leave. Every so often, a bear in human form would chance his or her luck and take over a set of sparkling beads or a cookie to their chosen Psy. The particularly sly ones scrounged up flavored nutrient drinks.
Most of the approached Psy took a step back, then politely accepted the gift—and somehow found themselves agreeing to dance with a bear.
Silver shook her head. “Bears are a menace.” She wondered how many of her race would end up charmed into a bear’s bed exactly as Silver had been.
The menace holding her against him while he moved their bodies in a slow and sensual dance that made her blood molten, just grinned and kissed her. Since he was bare-chested, his T-shirt gone who knows where, she spread her hands on the skin of his back and indulged in him while he devoured her. Valentin Nikolaev was her favorite in every way.
“Your former boss has moves,” he said to her when they broke for a breath, his lips wet from the kiss and his hand lying possessively over the curve of her hip, his fingers brushing her lower curves.
Silver followed Valentin’s gaze to see Kaleb bring Sahara into his arms after having spun her out with fluid grace. “He’s a telekinetic.” The most powerful one in the world. “Physical grace is natural.”
Valentin wrapped her up in his arms again, the chilled bottle of beer that had appeared in his hand resting gently against the skin of her upper back. “Bears are better at dancing.”
Silver looked up at her sulking mate. And smiled. “Bears are better at everything,” she said, and got a playfully smug grin, followed by a move that had her bent over his arm, her hair flowing to the ground and the gold sequins in her short dress glittering in the lights strung all over the square.
The dress had been a gift from Valentin’s sisters, with Nova saying, “You have legs up to whoa, Seelichka. Go pop my brother’s eyes out.”
Now, that brother abandoned his beer to the ground and ran his hand up her naked thigh. “I like this dress.”
“Possibly because it has no back and ends an inch below my butt.”
Lifting her up into an upright position, he pressed a kiss to her throat. “It’s a very nice butt.”
A thunderous boom, the sky bursting with color. In the shape of a giant bear. The bears around her—including her gorgeous mate with his huge heart—roared out their approval. Surrounded by noise, by chaos, by drunk bears, and held against the primal warmth of a changeling who was the other half of her soul, Silver knew she was home.
Because…bears.
Copyright © 2018 by Nalini Singh
Valentin glared down at the four sweet, innocent faces looking up at him. It took serious effort to keep the glare from morphing into outright laughter. “What,” he said in a very serious voice, “is Dima doing with your gang?”
Sveta, Fitz, and Arkasha looked at each other before Sveta stepped forward. At seven, she was the oldest of the tiny gangsters by about six months. “He wanted to play with us.”
“Yeah,” Dima piped up on a puff of white dust, long-lashed dark eyes peering out of a dusty white face.
Valentin pointed a finger at him. “Quiet.” Then he looked back at Sveta. “He’s three.” He had a very good idea what had happened, but he needed one of them to tell him. The cubs could be very loyal to each other even when they were fighting, and that was a good thing. But as with every member of StoneWater, they also understood that lying to their alpha was verboten.
Trust in the alpha was the foundation of a strong pack.
Sveta gulped then seemed to say to hell with it and threw down her hands. “But Mishka, he wouldn’t let go!” Her tone wasn’t a whine—it was pure aggravation. “He put his hands on my leg—”
“Like this!” Fitz dove down to clamp his hands around Sveta’s ankle in a mini-explosion of white dust, his body prostrate on the floor.
Sveta attempted to move, managed an inch or two. “See!” It was her turn to glare at Dima. “We had plans!”
Of course the tiny gangsters had had plans. He could see their plans all over them. Each and every one was coated in flour from head to toe, though Dima was the worst off. Even his eyelashes were dusted with the evidence of the crime. Valentin couldn’t see even an inch of his actual skin, the intense deep brown eclipsed by what looked to be the fine baking flour he’d seen Chaos use when he made cakes.
Now, Valentin pinned the cub with his gaze. “We talked about this.”
Dima the Barnacle lowered his gaze, as bashful a bear as you’d ever seen. But Valentin hadn’t been born yesterday. “I told you what the punishment would be if you did it again to another cub.” Adults and juveniles, all far bigger than little Dima, were fair game, but he was to behave with his age group—and the tiny gangsters fell into that general category.
Eyes going wide, Dima gulped.
Beside him, Fitz got off the floor and said, “What’s Dima’s punishment?”
Sighing dramatically, Valentin went behind his desk—which was pristine because he rarely sat at it—and picked up a small ball and chain, complete with a tiny ankle manacle.
All four cubs gasped.
“It’s okay,” Sveta said quickly. “We don’t want Dima punished.”
Fitz and Arkasha as quickly voiced their agreement with Sveta.
Valentin’s heart swelled with pride. Yes, his clan grew good cubs. But it also grew very naughty cubs who had to be taught that bad habits had consequences. And three-year-old Dima was old enough to have learned never to do his barnacle impression with the younger cubs—so he knew full well he wasn’t supposed to do it with Sveta and the others too.
“No, this is Dima’s responsibility,” he said with utmost solemnity, and crouched down in front of the miscreant. “You going to take your punishment?”
Dima’s lower lip quivered for a second before he squared his shoulders and nodded.
Biting back the urge to hold him close, Valentin clamped the manacle around his small ankle—the fur would ensure it did no harm to that tiny ankle the short time it’d be on. “How does that feel?”
Dima shrugged, then grinned. “No problem, Uncle Mishka!” At which point, he tried to move…and couldn’t.
Grunting, he strained, but the heavy ball would not budge.
“How will Dima go pee?” Arkasha whispered.
“How was Sveta meant to go?” Valentin asked with a bearish rumble deep in his chest.
Dima stopped straining and blinked dusty lashes, his mouth rounding in an O. Then he looked at Sveta. “Sorry, Veta,” he said, not yet at an age where he could properly pronounce Svetlana’s nickname. But that he was sincere couldn’t be doubted.
Dima was naughty, not bad.
Sveta took Dima’s hand in hers in silent acceptance of his apology. Craning her neck around afterward, she looked at the ball. “That’s so heavy, Mishka.”
“Yes.” Rising to his feet, he folded his arms and left Dima to consider his plight, as he turned his attention to the other three. “Now, explain to me what you were doing in the kitchen at four in the morning?” A time when it was mostly empty.
Mostly being the operative word.
Stasya had gotten the fright of her life when she’d wandered in to make some coffee and come face to face with “four tiny ghosts”—who’d all screamed when they were busted. Valentin’s sister was probably still laughing into her coffee at the thought of Valentin having to handle this.
“Is Mr. Chaos birthday,” Arkasha whispered, his big blue eyes sad. “We wanna make him cake.”
“Because he makes the cakes for everyone,” Sveta put in.
“Yeah,” Dima added, while still trying to move his leg, his face scrunched up in pure determination. “Papa makes cake.”
“No one makes his cake,” Fitz said, his lips downturned.
In actual fact, Chaos’ cake was usually made by his mate—a.k.a Dima’s mother. Nova was no professional, but she knew enough to do a good job. And Chaos always got a goofy smile on his face when he saw those cakes. Aside from how he’d looked the first time he held Dima in his arms, it was the only time Chaos could be said to be goofy in any way, shape, or form.
But the fact these tiny cubs had thought of Chaos, made the plan to get up early—how they’d done it, he had no idea—and been underway with their plan until the flour disaster, it made Valentin’s heart expand and expand.
Hunkering down, he said, “That was a kind idea, but you know you should’ve asked an adult first. You’re not allowed in the kitchens alone.” There were too many ways for unsupervised cubs to get hurt in a busy clan kitchen.
Four solemn nods.
“Sorry, Mishka,” they said as one, their heads lowered.
“We go to the salt mine now?” Arkasha asked.
Lips twitching at the reference to their previous hard labor in the kitchen, these three particular tiny gangsters as thick as thieves, Valentin said, “Well, you’ll have to sweep up the flour. As for the rest… Wait here.”
He stepped outside to call Nova. His sister was awake and in the infirmary. After checking on her patients, she planned to head to the kitchen to bake the cake as was tradition. When he told her what had happened, she said, “I left Dima sleeping like an angel with Chaos asleep in the next room. I should’ve known he was up to something when he didn’t squirm into bed with us last night.” There was laughter in her voice.
It was the only way to survive being a bear mama.
“Of course the escape artist and his felonious little friends can help me bake the cake,” she added, then said, “You’re a good alpha, baby brother. The cubs have such big hearts because you have such a big heart.”
Valentin scowled to hide that mushy heart. “Don’t call me baby brother.”
She laughed at his half-hearted growl. “When are the small criminals coming to join me?”
“Soon. We might as well dust them off in the kitchen.”
He entered the office quietly…and there they were, all the three bigger kids trying to roll the ball so Dima could move. When he cleared his throat, they jumped up as if on springs.
“You three. Outside. Don’t move from there.”
They knew that tone. All three skedaddled…though they looked back at Dima with worried faces.
Dima, meanwhile, stood up straight when Valentin came to loom over him, his little head bent back to stare up at Valentin. “Dima no cook Papa cake?” The question was a little shaky, but he didn’t cry.
“Have you learned your lesson or do you need more punishment?” In truth, Valentin had never intended to leave the manacle on for long. Dima was three. A few minutes was a lifetime to him.
His nephew took a moment to think about it before nodding firmly.
Flour dust flew around his head.
“Hmm.” Valentin rubbed his jaw. “Second strike warning. Get to a third, and you have to wear the ball while sitting in the Cavern while everyone else is playing.”
Pure horror on Dima’s face. “Dima no strike three, Uncle Mishka,” he promised.
Crouching down, Valentin unhooked Dima from the furry cage. His nephew gave a dramatic sigh and fell against him. “Spasibo. Is so hard punishment.”
It had been approximately four minutes.
Shoulders shaking, Valentin fought to keep his voice solemn. “You have to understand the consequences of your behavior. What aren’t you going to do?”
“Hold other kids.” His eyes glinted. “Grownups?”
Valentin winked.
And Dima grinned in pure glee as he put his small, warm hand in Valentin’s and they walked out. Outside, Arkasha took his other hand, while Fitz took Arkasha’s, and Sveta went around to take Dima’s.
Then Valentin and his coterie of tiny gangsters—plus one tiny gangster in training—headed off to the kitchen, to bake a cake. Leaving behind a trail of small white footsteps. Adding to Denhome’s laughing memories of tiny gangsters past.
Copyright © 2020 by Nalini Singh