Psy & Changelings 05 - Hostage to Pleasure

mother ever tell you—you don’t always get what you want?” He sensed Mercy moving around to flank the soldiers on one side, while Clay took the other. Desiree had proved available at the last minute and was holding a watch position high in the trees to Lucas’s back. She was a good shot—not sniper good like Dorian, but good enough to blow out Psy brains all over the forest floor.
    “Cooperation will be noted by the Council,” the Psy male said.
    Lucas felt a chill spread out from his heart. He let it feed into his eyes, into his voice. “Tell your Council that we never forget our dead. And we never forgive. Enrique might be gone, but the rest of them are still fair game.”
    A silence and he knew the Psy man was telepathing. “Is that a threat?”
    Lucas knew without a doubt that someone else was now looking out from behind those dark eyes. “No, simple fact. If your men aren’t out of here within the next ten minutes, blood will spill.”
    “Your people will die, too.”
    Lucas lifted an eyebrow. “It’s going to be night-dark for another hour at least, the forest is thick with trees, and we’re leopards in familiar territory. You want to take us on, go ahead.”
    “This fugitive is extremely dangerous. If we leave, the responsibility for any deaths or injuries resulting from her being at large is yours.”
    “Noted.” He paused. “But if you want her alive, give us an indication of how long since you lost her. Betters our chance of running her down—we’ve got no problem handing your mess back to you.”
    A pause that spoke of decisions being made. “We believe she’s been in the forest for an hour maximum. She’s armed.” With that, the Psy soldiers left in military lines. Lucas scented Clay and Mercy escorting them out. “Dezi,” he said, after the echoes of their departure had faded from the earth beneath his feet.
    Soft whispers of sound only an alpha would hear and then the vibration of Desiree’s feet hitting the earth. She walked around to stand beside him, long and lean, with bronze skin brushed with gold and waist-length hair braided into what looked like a thousand sleek plaits. Her rifle, she’d slung across her back. “I saw nothing suspicious.” She wrinkled her nose, green eyes so dark, they looked black in this light. “They smell like shit but that’s no news flash.”
    Lucas nodded. These Psy had given off the cold metallic smell that made changeling stomachs turn. Vaughn’s theory was that it denoted Psy who were so deeply enmeshed in Silence, they’d never find a way out. “They weren’t lying about the fugitive. Think you might be able to pick up a trail?”
    “Possible, but this group of lunkheads messed up the scent markers. If I go deeper, past their blanket of crap . . . maybe.”
    Lucas pulled out his own cell. “I’m going to call Jamie and get more people out here,” he said, referring to Dezi’s training partner. “You start on the trail.” His grim mood turned to amusement as she shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “I’ll call your mom, too, let her know you extended your shift.”
    “Damn it.” She kicked at the blanket of pine needles on the forest floor. “I forgot my cell and she gets worried if I don’t check in after a night shift. I keep telling her it’s bad for my tough-ass image, but . . .”
    “Meenakshi hasn’t quite gotten used to her delicate angel turning into a soldier.” In human form, Dezi’s mother was a petite powerhouse with Dezi’s skin and those startling green eyes she’d brought with her from a region in Kashmir. A star in the world of classical Indian dance, she loved both her mate and her daughter to pieces, but was still stunned her baby had grown up into such a lethal young woman. Not that Dezi couldn’t dance. “You were cute in a tutu.”
    Desiree scowled. “Why don’t you ever forget shit?” She turned on her heel without waiting for an answer. “Should’ve been an elephant instead of a leopard.”
    Smile widening, Lucas watched her disappear into the trees as he coded in a call to Dorian, very aware of the other woman who’d just moved into his line of sight. Sascha leaned patiently against a slender pine, so gut-wrenchingly beautiful that he was tempted to haul her to him for a long, hungry kiss. But he was an alpha and Dorian was a sentinel who’d bled for him more than once—that loyalty went both ways. “No confirmation that it’s Amara,” he said when the other man