Branded by Fire

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 f**k 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 f**king 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."