Wild Invitation

That’s why I let her get away with so much.” She leaned her head against the seat. “This thing she has for the Psy, the way she almost deifies them, it has its roots in the accident, too.”
    “How?”
    “There was this boy—I don’t know where he came from, but he was small, my age or younger. Cardinal eyes.” She shivered at the memory of the chill in those extraordinary white-stars-on-black-velvet eyes. Psy lived lives devoid of emotion,but she’d never seen a child that utterly cold. “He lifted the wreckage off me.”
    “Telekinetic.” Zach whistled. “You got lucky.”
    “Yeah.” The Council didn’t release its telekinetics for mundane rescue work—especially not when an incident affected mainly humans and changelings. “The medics told me he’d saved my life. My internal organs were close to collapse—a few more minutes, and I wouldn’t have made it.”
    “Did you ever find out who he was?”
    She shook her head. “He disappeared in the chaos. I’ve always thought that he teleported in from another location, after somehow seeing me in the live coverage. I remember there was a remote media chopper flying overhead, and if he was strong enough to lift the amount of wreckage that he did, he was strong enough to teleport.” She couldn’t imagine the strength of will it took to harness that much power. “He can’t have been on the train—his clothes were spotless, and he didn’t have so much as a smudge on his face.”
    “Psy aren’t born lacking emotions,” Zach told her, “they’re conditioned to it. So it could be that he was still human enough to feel the need to help when he saw what had happened.”
    “How do you know about the conditioning?” She answered her own question a second later. “Your alpha’s mated to a cardinal Psy.” The news of that mating had sent shockwaves throughout the country.
    “Sascha,” he said, nodding. “Vaughn, one of the sentinels, is also mated to a Psy.”
    She couldn’t imagine a member of the cold Psy race embracing emotion. But changeling leopards mated for life, and the bond between mates was a dazzling beacon apparent even to a human observer. If these women had mated with DarkRiver cats, they were undoubtedly as radiant and as strong as the other women she’d seen. “Will I meet them today?”
    “I know Luc and Sascha are coming. Likely Faith and Vaughn will, too.” He turned down a quiet road lined with trees. “I’ll try to get you back by six so you can get ready for dinner, but we might cut it fine.”
    She bit the inside of her cheek. “I think I should cancel. I really don’t want my mom to…I would hate for you to feel that—”
    “Hey,” he said, shooting her a glance that spoke of the soldier within, “I’m a big boy. I can handle it. Promise.”
    Promises are for keeping.
    Deciding to trust him, she dug out her phone from the pocket of her jeans. “I’ll tell Mom I’m bringing someone and that we’ll be late.”
    “Yeah. It’ll give your date time to find another partner.” That lethal edge was back in his voice.
    Her stomach muscles tightened. “Zach?”
    “Might as well get this out in the open.” He pulled the car into a small layby and turned to brace his hand against the top edge of her seat. “I’m not real good at sharing.”
    She swallowed. “Oh.”
    Zach could’ve kicked himself. He’d gone to all this trouble to lull her into a relaxed mood, then the cat had struck out in a burst of primitive jealousy. “Scared?”
    Wary caution crept into her eyes, but she shook her head. “You said you wouldn’t bite unless I asked…very nicely.”
    Surprise had the cat freezing. He’d forgotten that beneath the blushes and big brown eyes was a woman quite capable of calling him on his behavior. “That’s true,” he drawled, letting the cat out to play. “Come closer and ask me.”
    She shook her head again.
    “Please.”
    Her cheeks colored, but he knew the heat wasn’t because of embarrassment. Her arousal was a decadent whisper in the confines of the car, a drug his cat could lap at for hours. But what he really wanted to do was lap at her. He moved a little closer.
    She held up the phone. “I need to make this call.” Her voice was breathless, her tone jagged.
    Instinct urged him to keep pushing, but he didn’t want to make her feel cornered. No, he thought, shifting back into his seat, he’d do his teasing out in the open arms of the forest. “Go on, sweetheart.” He