Psy & Changelings 06 - Branded by Fire

he’d probably have made mincemeat of the other two.
    She had to . . . Sleep finally crept over her in a stealthy wave, her dreams hot and dark.
     
     
    Riley ran himself to exhaustion, but he dreamed, too. They weren’t good dreams.
    He was late. Always too late. Willow’s broken body lay in a shallow grave, and he couldn’t even pick her up, couldn’t even hold her close.
    Her eyes snapped open but they weren’t her eyes. Only one person had such unique eyes—and that’s when he saw it was Brenna in that grave, being buried alive. Her hands reached for him, but he was locked in place, unable to move as his sister screamed.
    Until the dirt covered her face, filled in her mouth, stilled her hands.
    Riley jerked upright with a scream of anguish stuck in his throat. His first instinct was to check that Brenna was okay, but it was two thirty in the morning. And there was no way he wanted her aware of the demons that continued to haunt him, night after endless night.
    Shoving back the sweat-damp hair on his forehead, he got up, knowing he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. Instead, he took a shower and dressed.
    It didn’t take long.
    There were so many night hours left to go.
    When he began to head down to the garage, he told himself to stop, but his feet kept moving forward. Grabbing the four-wheel drive closest to the exit, he drove through the pitch black of night in the Sierra and onto DarkRiver land. Normally he loved the night, the beauty and the peace of it. But tonight, the darkness haunted him, reverberating with a thousand echoes of nightmare.
    Fighting those insidious whispers, he kept his focus strictly on his destination. And then he’d arrived. Mercy’s vehicle was there in its spot. Something in him relaxed. Parking next to it, he exited into a world cloaked in the opaque hush of a moonless night. It was instinct to go to her cabin and sit on the steps. His wolf was still agitated, but here, he could think. Blowing out a breath, he decided to simply wait for dawn. For Mercy.
    That was when the door opened. “Riley?”
    Of course she’d known he was there—she was a sentinel. And in some part of his soul, he’d counted on that. “Don’t ask me any questions tonight, Mercy.” He didn’t look at her, feeling vulnerable in a way that panicked his wolf.
    “All right.” Soft footsteps. “But would you like to come inside?”
    Wary of her agreement, but needing . . . something, he walked in. She took his hand, her golden eyes luminous in the dark. “Come on, wolf.”
    He let her lead him to the bedroom.
    “Boots off,” she said, and crawled beneath the blanket.
    Sitting on a chair near the vanity, he took off his footwear and just watched her, not sure he could do this. She’d given her word so she’d ask no questions, but she’d know, she’d see too deep, to things he kept hidden because they shamed him so utterly.
    “No questions,” she said again after an endless moment, and lifted up the edge of the blanket.
    Man and wolf both hungered for the simple beauty of her touch. He had no power, no will, to resist. Standing, he crossed the carpet to slide into bed beside her, fully dressed. And when her arms came around him, when her fingers stroked into his hair, he buried his face in the curve of her neck and let the unexpected tenderness heal the wounds of the night.
    Sometime before dawn, he slept.
     
     
    Mercy woke to the knowledge that she was wrapped around Riley like ivy, her face against his chest, her legs tangled with his, her hands under the T-shirt he was wearing beneath a khaki shirt. The blanket had been kicked off but she was toasty warm, he generated such luscious heat. Her cat purred, wanting to stay like this all day.
    So when the phone rang, she had a hard time extricating herself so she could grab it before he did. She succeeded only because the wolf was half-asleep.
    “We had contact from the kidnapper,” Lucas said. “He wants a meet.”
    She snapped upright. “It’s mine.”
    “It’s yours,” Lucas agreed and gave her the details. “I’ll call Hawke, have some wolves meet you there.”
    She decided not to mention she had one wolf right in front of her. Closing the phone, she ran her fingers over his stubbled jaw. “Time to move, Kincaid.”
    No words, but his muscles grew painfully rigid under her hands.
    He only relaxed half an hour later, when she continued to keep her promise to ask no questions. She didn’t have to. She knew what haunted