Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
A nod from the cat who walked in his dreams.
“I’ll find us a space where we won’t be noticed straight off the bat,” he said, “but we won’t be able to hang around there for long. Cats see everything.” The leopards might as well be part of his own family, they were so conscious of intruders and those who might present a risk to their pack.
The bears back in Moscow were security conscious, too, but they were more in-your-face about it. The cats had stealth down to an art. Or as Valentin would put it, they knew how to be sneaky.
Exactly like Mercants.
The ocelot who was Soleil slipped in between the seats to the back—flicking its tail across Ivan’s chest as it did so, the pressure light but conscious. Ivan saw a shimmer of light in his peripheral vision, kept that vision directed resolutely forward as things rustled in back. He hadn’t looked inside her bag—every part of his training said he should have—yet he hadn’t.
Because that was Soleil’s bag.
However, there’d clearly been a change of clothing in there, because when Soleil slipped back through the gap between the seats in her human form, she was wearing a large gray sweatshirt over thick black tights. She even had shoes—thin trainers, but better than bare feet if she had to get out on the city streets.
Ivan liked clothes—they allowed him to present himself to the world exactly as he wished. He also knew how Soleil had liked to present herself. Full of color and shine, sparkle and joy. But that had been before the massacre, before an ax in the back and a living burial in the snow.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“I need to follow the healer.” Her voice was husky, her body straining forward.
“Tamsyn Ryder.” All part of his research into the pack. “Why?”
When she didn’t answer, he glanced at her, at this woman who’d hooked herself inside his soul. “You need me and I don’t work without full information. That’s how people get dead.” And he’d do nothing to bring her to harm.
A narrow-eyed glance. “Why are you even here?”
He thought of the sensation he’d felt against his face in the apartment, of fur and the slightest touch of claws. Softness and hardness. Strange and inexplicable. “Because you called me.”
Feline eyes in a human face. “I’m not Psy—I don’t have that power,” she said, but there was something in her voice that said she wasn’t quite certain. And the way she looked at him, as if seeing straight through him … no, it wasn’t comfortable.
He didn’t want her to see, didn’t want her to know. Because then, she’d walk away again, and he’d lose even this fragile moment of time where she didn’t see him as a monster.
Thief.
A low whisper from his conscience, a quiet reminder that he was using her lack of memory against her, that he was stealing this time.
It’s only for a drop in the timeline of her life, he argued back. I’ll be removing myself from the situation soon enough. The truth would only make her wary when she has no reason to be wary. My sole purpose is to keep her safe.
Gut tight because he knew that lying by omission was still lying, he said, “I’m very good at what I do,” his voice ice tipped in frost as he fought the warring forces within. “I can help you, but only if I have all the data.”
“She has a scent on her.” Soleil’s voice was rough. “I need to know the origin.”
Ivan was a Mercant; it took him a split second to make the connection. “You’re looking for someone.” Someone important enough to her that she’d risked execution by coming uninvited into the territory of another predator.
The fact that Soleil Bijoux Garcia was a woman who’d fight for the people who mattered to her, it fit absolutely with all he knew of her. And if the spider’s mind flared a touch red at the edges in a biting jealousy, Ivan was in control enough to shut that down right then and there.
It was far better for her that she’d decided Ivan wasn’t one of her people. Because the woman beside him? She wouldn’t let go once she committed. And in so doing, she’d have gone down with him.
Not acceptable.
An answer from every part of his psyche.
Soleil didn’t respond to his supposition, her attention on the black SUV that had pulled to a stop in front of DarkRiver HQ. A tall dark-haired man with wide shoulders and the build of a changeling soldier got out of the driver’s seat, just as Tamsyn Ryder exited the front door of the HQ in the fiery light of sunset.
“Nathan Ryder,” Ivan murmured to Soleil. “Tamsyn’s mate.”
Nathan kissed Tamsyn, was kissed in turn, Tamsyn’s palm gentle against his cheek. The slightest movement, Nathan leaning into her touch as he closed his fingers over her wrist, two people in such perfect harmony that even Ivan, with his stunted emotional growth, couldn’t miss it.