Psy & Changelings 06 - Branded by Fire

“She won’t accept restrictions.”
    “Brenna did.”
    “Brenna humored you for a while because you’re her big brother and she adores you. Mercy’s probably not in the adoring stage, and even if she was, I can’t exactly see her being happy to give up her duties as a sentinel to darn your socks.”
    “Darn my socks?” Riley shook his head. “Where do you get this stuff?” In spite of the light words, he couldn’t stop thinking about the painful intensity of his emotions for Mercy. At first, it had been lust. Bright, sharp, changeling in its wildness. There was nothing wrong with lust—especially when she’d been in lust, too.
    But now, other things had invaded, taking a clawhold on his soul—including this gut-wrenching need to protect. Then there was the simple but visceral need to see her, hold her, have her accept him into her world. “I don’t want to cage her,” he said. “I just can’t stand the thought of anything happening to her.” It was a deep-rooted fear, one that twisted around his gut like razor wire.
    “Then walk away.” Quiet words. “Walk away while you can still do it as friends.”
    “Too late,” he muttered. “She’s barely talking to me.” He told Hawke what he’d done.
    Hawke stared at him. “I thought you were smart, Riley.”
    “Obviously not.”
    “She’s right,” Hawke said. “You two don’t have the luxury of acting as if your actions matter only to you. You’re critical parts of your packs—what you did today came very close to breaching our agreement to share intel.”
    “Lucas isn’t going to get into a pissing contest with you over that.”
    “No, he’ll leave it to Mercy to sort out. Like I’ll leave it to you.”
    “I can’t just treat her as a sentinel now.” It was impossible. He saw her as a woman first—an intelligent, beautiful, strong woman.
    Hawke thrust a hand through his hair. “Then I need to assign someone else as liaison.”
    “Do it and I’ll rip your throat out.”
    “Think for a second,” Hawke said, tone granite-hard. “I chose you as liaison because I knew you weren’t hotheaded. I need someone who isn’t going to jeopardize this alliance.”
    If there was one thing Riley had never been accused of being, it was hotheaded. “I’ll work it out with Mercy.”
    “She really gets to you.” Hawke’s voice was contemplative. “As the SnowDancer alpha, I want to tell you to back off before things get even more messed up.”
    Riley waited.
    “But as your friend, I say go for it . . . Women who get to you that deep don’t come along more than once in a lifetime.”
    Riley caught something in that statement, was ready to follow it, but the truth when it came to him wasn’t soft, wasn’t gradual. It was a head-ringing mental slap that left him stunned. “I’m so blind.”
    “Talking to yourself?” Hawke rubbed at his jaw. “Want me to leave you alone?”
    Riley barely heard him, and when, ten minutes later, Hawke followed through on his offer, he hardly noticed. Because—“I never figured it’d be her.” And he’d known her for a long time. Had respected her strength even as she drove him insane. Hell, he’d admired the lithe sexiness of her body more than once—he was male, after all. But why had he never known it was her?
    It didn’t matter. Because now he did . . . and there was no way he was ever letting her go.

CHAPTER 35
    Councilor Nikita Duncan stared at the book sitting in the center of her desk, bound in leather that was stained and marked with coffee rings, the edges curling, and asked herself why she’d tracked down a copy of this very rare, very out-of-print volume. It had cost her a considerable amount of cash to acquire.
    She could, of course, have infected the bookseller’s mind with a mental virus and simply taken it, but she’d wanted to do this without attracting any attention whatsoever. So she’d created a false identity, that of an eccentric human collector. Because the bookseller would never ever have knowingly let this volume fall into Psy hands.
    She’d patiently ensured his security checks came back to the same rich human identity. And then she’d paid the exorbitant price for this stained, browned book. The pages were moth-eaten at the edges, but the words . . . the words were visible. That was why it had been so expensive. Nothing was missing, nothing had been torn out.
    Nikita knew she should destroy it and reclaim the cost from the Council coffers. None of her