Psy & Changelings 02 - Visions of Heat

slapped down a couple of others who tried to rise in renewed rage. “Stay the hell down or I swear I’ll break all of your jaws.”
    Nobody protested. Dorian might be latent, but he was also a sentinel—he could snap these kids in two without thinking.
    Vaughn returned his attention to Kit. No matter what Cory thought, it was Kit the juveniles looked up to. “If you’re the alpha of your pack, you won’t mind me challenging you for authority.”
    Some of the arrogance seeped out of Kit’s eyes. “What?”
    “You want to lead your own pack? Fine. But if you’re the alpha of another pack, you give up your right to be part of DarkRiver.” Harsh but true. “We have no treaties with you, which means you’re in violation of Law. I have the right to kill you for trespass.”
    Kit wiped away another trickle of blood. “We don’t want to separate from DarkRiver.” He was beginning to look a little green around the gills.
    “There is only one Pack . And none of you is alpha.” Vaughn made sure he met the eyes of every juvenile in the clearing. Several heads dropped. “If and when you can challenge Lucas for the title, I’ll respect you. Until then, you’re a bunch of whiny brats who’ve fucked up the defense grid by pulling two sentinels from their duties.”
    Wounded pride showed on the face of more than one boy, but predictably, it was Kit who spoke. “We didn’t ask for interference.”
    Vaughn actually liked the kid for his spine, but not enough to cut him any slack. Not after what he’d glimpsed in his quick reconnaissance before entering the scene. He glanced at Dorian. The younger sentinel dragged an unconscious juvenile out from behind a tree and dropped him at Kit’s feet. “You did this.”
    The injured male had had his chest sliced open. If he’d been human, he’d have been dead by now. And that was before you added in the head wound. “Were you going to be able to stop without Dorian’s ‘interference’?” Vaughn made his question a whip.
    Kit swallowed. “Oh, shit. Oh, man—I didn’t realize—is Jase going to be okay?” Suddenly he was a child again, no trace of the alpha he’d one day become.
    Vaughn let go of the boy.
    Dorian was the one who answered. “Tamsyn’s on her way back from the wolf den. Can you get Jase to her without killing him in the process?”
    Kit nodded. “Yeah.”
    “I’ll help you.” Cory stood, one hand on his jaw.
    The two boys looked at each other and then at the sentinels. “We can deal with it from here.”
    “You no longer have the right to my trust,” Dorian responded, tone flat.
    Vaughn saw the effect it had on Kit—the kid worshipped the blond sentinel, looking up to him like an older brother. But to his credit, he only nodded. “We’ll get him to Tammy’s, I swear.”
    “I want every single one of you in the Pack Circle tomorrow. The women can decide your punishment,” Vaughn ordered, and it was no kindness. Leopard females were merciless about breaches of Pack law, because they knew that without Law, their children would start to die one by one at each other’s hands.
    Pack was One.
    That was the ultimate rule.
     
    Cleaning up the mess the juveniles had made, including tracking down and notifying Jase’s roaming parents as well as the maternal females in charge of discipline, swallowed up several hours. It was almost five by the time he reached Faith’s compound and he was feeling so violently possessive that he probably shouldn’t have gone to her. But no way in hell was he waiting any longer.
    He was about to scale a tree from which he intended to jump the outer fence when he smelled his prey on the perimeter of the compound. Surprised, he flattened down into a cautious stance. Her scent came nearer, until he could hear the flutter of her heartbeat, the sound of her breath. She stopped inches from him and when he appeared out of the tree shadows, she nodded. “I’m ready.”
    Her unexpected surrender calmed the beast, but only a fraction. He led her farther into the woods and toward one of his caches before moving out of her sight to shift into human form and pull on a pair of jeans—this was not a time to push Faith any more than she’d already pushed herself. Yet when he returned to her, her face went immediately wary.
    “Your eyes are more cat than man.”
    “I know.”
    She walked to him. “I’m coming home with you.”
    “For how long?” He was keeping her. That was nonnegotiable. He just wanted to know