Branded by Fire

"Sure." Anything to delay the return to her "gift."

"Actually," Nicki corrected herself, "it wasn't a book but a manuscript. It seems Eldridge had begun to research another group of Psy after she finished her thesis."

Sascha frowned. "If it was a manuscript, how did you find out about it?"

"Well, it's sort of the Holy Grail to Eldridge scholars," the girl said. "The woman I spoke to - after the rare books dealer introduced us - told me that Eldridge was openly working on a new project before she died. Helene - my source - said there's a reference to it in the book on E-Psy."

Sascha made a mental note to keep an eye out. "Go on."

"The thing is, after her death, no one could find any hint of that work in her office or home. It was like she'd been doing nothing for several years." Nicki hummed a spooky tune. "Weird, huh?"

"Very," Sascha said, but she saw another angle. "The conspiracy theorists think someone got rid of her work."

"Bingo. Even though they don't know what that work was." A pause. "I mean, they think they do - according to Helene, the information was passed down through the family of a colleague of Eldridge's - but they have no clue what it means."

"Did they give you any hint of what they think she was working on?"

"Yes. Helene said Eldridge was doing a long-term project on X-Psy." Nicki paused again. "Do you know what the X stands for?"

Sascha swallowed and sidestepped the question. "You did a fantastic job, Nicki. I'll be sure to tell Keely."

Nicki made a little noise of delight. Laughing, Sascha was about to say good-bye when Nicki said, "Oh, wait, Sascha, I almost forgot - a copy of Eldridge's book goes for over five hundred thousand dollars, it's so rare. Any that are left are mostly in very private collections."

"Thanks, Nicki." Breath lost, she hung up and just sat there for several minutes. Five hundred thousand dollars? Dear God. Not that Nikita couldn't afford it - that amount was nothing to her - but still . . .

She stared at the book once again, knowing it might provide the very answers she'd been seeking. Freed from the bondage of Silence, her empathic powers were changing, developing, growing. What she didn't know was what they were growing into.

Her hand reached out. Withdrew. "Am I being a coward?" she asked out loud, then shook her head. "No, I'm being cautious." Picking it up, she took it back inside the house - storing it in the safe hidden under the eco-cooker.

Despite her questions, her curiosity, she wasn't yet ready to face her mother's gift. Nikita had cut her off without a blink. It would take time to see anything but rejection when she looked at Eldridge's book.

Riley headed out from Mercy's office with a deep sense of rightness in his gut. She'd accepted the mating dance. He had no intention of letting her escape the mating itself, no matter what he had to do.

Walking into the underground garage, he raised an eyebrow when he saw the tall, red-headed male leaning against his four-wheel drive. "Bastien."

"Riley."

"Where are your brothers?"

Bastien smiled and it was nothing friendly. "They'll be along soon. So, what makes you think you have any right to lay a hand on my sister?"

"She gave me that right." He met those bright green eyes without flinching. In a physical fight, he knew he'd win. But this wasn't about the physical. It was about something far more important - Mercy loved her family. He was not going to fuck up their relationship by beating on her brother. "Seems to me she's a woman who knows what she wants."

"She's also my sister." Bastien straightened. "And you're a wolf."

The hairs on Riley's nape rose as another man entered the garage. He was older, his hair lightly threaded with gray. "I didn't expect your father."

"When you're touching his baby girl?" Bastien snorted. "Hi, Dad. Shall we kill him here or take him out to the forest?"

Michael Smith folded his arms and fixed Riley with a gimlet eye. "You going to hurt my girl?"

"No, sir."

"According to her grandmother, you already broke my Mercy's heart."

Riley's stomach pitched, not at the words, but at the memory of how he'd hurt her. "She's not that fragile." He felt a sudden kinship with Judd. Riley and Drew had made his life hell after he first started seeing Brenna.

"No, she's fucking not." Bastien grinned as Sage and Grey entered the suspiciously otherwise-empty garage. Riley was now surrounded by Smith men. He didn't make any aggressive moves toward the two youngest, though they were pushing into his space. Pups, they were just pups. Bastien could be dangerous, but in this, Michael Smith was the one who truly mattered.

Now the older man stepped closer. "She ever beaten you in a fight?"

"Almost." And he knew full well that if she ever came after him with lethal intent, he might not end up the victor - predatory changeling females were inexorable hunters once they decided on blood.

"How'd that go down?"

Riley understood that was the most crucial question of all. He could've lied. He didn't. "Like sandpaper."

Michael blinked, as if surprised. "Then why are you with her?"

He held the other man's gaze, let his own fill with the raw fury of the wolf. "You know why. And you know I won't walk away."

Chapter 41

Two hours after Riley left, Mercy tracked down and talked to Teijan. The Rat alpha was visibly frustrated, his normally GQ-tidy hair wind-tousled, his black shirt wrinkled. "I know something's happening, but damn if they aren't good at hiding their tracks."

Mercy thought about that. "Humans have learned to be invisible. These guys take it to the extreme." And if the Human Alliance wanted to show muscle, display what it was capable of, it would send its best. Her cat suddenly sat up, seeing an answer to a riddle.

Leaving Teijan to reorganize and disperse his troops, she found a private spot and made a call to Lucas. "Have you considered the fact that maybe we should be using Bowen and his team?" They'd know all the tricks their ex-compatriots might use.

Lucas blew out a breath. "Yeah."

"Just 'yeah'?"

"I'm your alpha, Mercy," Lucas said, voice quiet. "I picked up the mating dance this morning."

She sucked in a breath. "You telling me you're already using Bowen and his team, but don't want Riley to know?"

"He's not rational on this. Neither, for that matter, is Dorian."

"But it's Riley you're worried about with me." Turning, she fought the urge to kick at a nearby wall. "I'm a sentinel, Lucas. My loyalty is to DarkRiver." Again, an alarm flared in her head. Again she didn't listen, too angry to understand what it was attempting to tell her.

"I'm not questioning that." Lucas's tone changed, became openly alpha. "But the mating dance screws with your emotions - I didn't want to put you in a tough spot."

"I don't spill things during pillow talk," she said, frustrated and hurt that he'd think so little of her. "I can keep Pack secrets."

"I know you can." This time, the panther was in his voice. "Shit. I'm sorry, Merce. It was never meant as a comment on your loyalty to Pack."

The cat was still bewildered by the blow that had come from nowhere, but she couldn't doubt her alpha. Lucas didn't lie to his sentinels, no matter if the truth was a bitter pill to swallow. "So?" she asked, releasing her fisted hand.

"We checked out Bowen and his team - everything we found backs their story. Right now, I've got them working on tracking down the new Alliance squad, but their major strength is in information. If we manage to unearth the name of the target . . ."

Mercy nodded. "Much easier to work backward. Who's running Bowen and his people?"

"I am. I'll let you know the instant they come up with anything - that was never a question."

Feelings soothed, if not totally mended, she nodded. "Alright. I'd better get back to work."

But she didn't immediately return to her patrol area after hanging up, feeling a strong urge to speak to her mother. Comfort, she thought. She was like a cub seeking comfort. She didn't care. Coding in the number for her childhood home, she waited until Lia answered. "Hey, Mom."

"What's the matter, darling?"

Her throat closed up at the unconditional love in that single sentence. "Things are a little mixed up." She bent to pick up a marble that had seen better days and threw it lightly into the air, catching it on the way down. "I guess I just needed to hear your voice."

"Come to dinner, baby."

"I don't know if I can tonight, Mom." She'd be lousy company in her current frame of mind. "But I'll be by this week."

"Mercy, sweetheart, does some of this 'mixed up' stuff have to do with a certain wolf?"

Mercy winced. "Who told you?"

"Well, I kept expecting you to do so . . ."

"I planned to," she said, rolling the marble between thumb and forefinger and wondering why she'd ever thought anything could remain a secret from her mom.

"It doesn't matter, baby. I took matters into my own hands." A familiar hint of steel.

Mercy's leopard sat up. "Oh?"

"I called Riley a few minutes ago. He's coming to dinner tomorrow at seven. Don't be late, sweetheart."

Mercy hung up after a few more words, knowing a summons when she heard one. If she didn't turn up, well, Mount Vesuvius had nothing on her mom.

It seemed to be her day for calls because no sooner had she gone to shove the phone into a pocket than Ashaya rang through. "We did a very, very quick run-through with the samples you brought up from the body," the scientist told her, her voice excited. Too excited. Mercy went to ask what was wrong, but Ashaya was already continuing to speak. "He had traces of the same drug in him that we found on the men who tried to kidnap me." ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">