Allegiance of Honor Page 5

  Unsaid were the words that no water changeling did well after too long a separation. Leila might already be dead because of that need, her captors ignorant that a water changeling needed to swim as much as he or she needed to breathe. A strong adult could survive years deprived of enough water to allow a shift, but they’d probably end up mad. Leila had always been small and a little fragile physically, her mind her most important asset.

  In her changeling form, Leila was as delicate and colorful as the fish she studied. A pretty tropical dancer who knew nothing of war or of enemies who would steal BlackSea’s members and attempt to turn them into assassins.

  Terrestrials often forgot to look at water as a threat, ignoring rivers and streams as roadways when they blocked other routes into an area. It was a detail BlackSea had long used to its advantage. The fact that the Consortium had also figured it out pointed once again to a traitor. Humans, Psy, even land-based changelings, they simply didn’t think that way. You had to be a creature of water to understand its full potential.

  Leila had loved the sea so much she rarely set foot on land.

  Now she was caged in a barren place far from the ocean.

  Miane reminded herself of Leila’s stubbornness, of how the other woman had become the youngest marine biologist on record through endless dedication and sheer hard work. A woman with a will that strong would fight to survive. “I don’t like to be far from Lantia,” she finally said to Malachai.

  The world didn’t know this floating city deep in the Atlantic was their central base, didn’t know that the city beneath the waves was far bigger than the city above. This entire region was heavily patrolled by BlackSea and covered by the aquatic equivalent of a no-fly zone. Air traffic was permitted, but only at so high an altitude that it made spying impossible; to make certain of that, the wavelike curves of Lantia were covered with tiny antennas designed to emit a signal that scrambled any radar or sonar equipment pointed at it.

  Below the water, the ocean was BlackSea’s.

  Anyone breaching the city’s clearly advertised and legally defined borders did so knowing the penalty was death—and BlackSea would enforce it. The world had hurt them too much for BlackSea to believe in mercy. Especially when no one got this far out into the ocean by accident. No, anyone trying to sneak up to or under Lantia did so with full knowledge of what they risked.

  “We have so many of our young here,” she added.

  “Protected by over a thousand of our strongest,” Malachai reminded her. “You’re making bad decisions because of anger and tiredness. Go.”

  Miane was the First here—alpha in terrestrial changeling terms—but she knew full well Malachai wouldn’t hesitate to throw her bodily into the ocean. Not that he’d succeed. Or survive. Still, the fact that one of her blood-loyal seconds had threatened that, even if by implication, was reason enough to pay attention. “Keep them safe,” she ordered, and, swiveling on her heel, headed to the far edge of the city.

  She could’ve gone into the water at various other points on Lantia—the entire city was built to ensure easy access to the ocean—but it was important her people see her, see that she was present and strong and in control.

  Especially now.

  When she stripped and dived beneath the waves, the salt a familiar taste and the cold slide of the sea over her skin a welcoming kiss, several more bodies slipped in with her. They shifted in the water, sleek and fast and built for the ocean.

  This was their home. They would defend it to the death.

  And they would find their missing. Every. Single. One.

  Chapter 4

  “I WANT TO kill the Consortium,” Mercy muttered after reading the e-mail Lucas had sent out to all the sentinels about the kidnapped BlackSea changeling. “Chop them into little bits and throw them into that canyon we visited in Arizona.”

  “The falcons might object to all that rancid meat in their territory,” her mate said mildly from where he stood beside her, reading a message from his own alpha.

  “Hmm.” Mercy placed her phone on the nearest flat surface, then leaned back against the porch railing of her old cabin.

  Given her need to be closer to the DarkRiver healer with the pregnancy this far advanced, she and Riley had made the decision to move down from their usual home a week earlier. They’d requested any open cabin on DarkRiver lands, but the packmate currently living in Mercy’s old cabin had cheerfully offered it to them for the duration.

  All Rina had asked was that they spill the beans on the number and sex—or sexes—of the pupcubs so she could win the betting pool. When Mercy had threatened to shoot the young soldier instead, Rina had laughed and taken off—but not without hugging Mercy first with the wild affection of a packmate who knew her touch would never be rejected.

  The memory had her smiling as she said, “Rancid meat is pretty bad. And the falcons are our allies.” Though unlike with the wolves, the DarkRiver-WindHaven alliance was still a work in progress, not in the first stages, but not far past, either.

  “I know.” She snapped her fingers. “I can dump the pieces on SnowDancer land. Wolves have no sense of taste so no one will notice.”

  Her gorgeous wolf mate growled at her.

  Laughing, she ran her fingers through the thick chestnut silk of his hair. He was leaning forward over the railing, eyes on his phone, while she leaned back against it. “Hawke?”

  Riley nodded, shifting slightly so that she could pet him more easily, those incongruously pretty lashes of his beautifully visible in this position. “He’s called a lieutenant meeting at five today. We’ll probably be discussing the BlackSea situation.” Sliding away his phone, he rose to his full height, a broad-shouldered man with chocolate-dark eyes that looked at her as if she was his everything.

  Woman and leopard, every part of Mercy adored him.

  Nuzzling at her, making her smile, Riley placed his hand over her belly. “How are you feeling?”

  Heart mush because her mate was petting her, she said, “Like I’ve been pregnant forever.” According to her three hooligan brothers, it was closer to twenty-seven months. According to the SnowDancer and DarkRiver healers, it was just past eight months.

  Looking down at her belly, Riley’s right hand strong and warm on the curve of it, while he used his left hand to massage her nape, she spoke to their pupcubs in her best “behave” tone. A tone she and the hooligans had heard often from their own mother during childhood. “You’re meant to come out early,” she said to the babies she already loved beyond life. “Multiple births always come early.” Likely so the mother wouldn’t burst or tumble headfirst right onto her belly.

  Riley nibbled at her ear.

  Purring, she snuck her hand under his shirt to play her fingers over the ridged lines of his abdomen. God, her mate revved her motor. “Sex could make the babies come out,” she said, kissing his throat.

  Shuddering, he began to slide his hand up to cup her breast, then suddenly blinked and shook his head. “You just made that up.” It was a narrow-eyed accusation.

  Baring her teeth at him, she began to undo the buttons of his shirt while he was distracted. “Your children are driving me crazy.” Changeling multiple pregnancies never went full-term. Never.

  Apparently, the pupcubs hadn’t got that memo.

  “Is that how it’s going to be? They’ll be my children each time they’re naughty?”

  “Of course.” Pushing off Riley’s shirt, she kneaded at his muscular shoulders in bone-deep pleasure, a purr building inside her. “My children will be angels,” she said when they both knew she was the one who’d brought in the hellion genes. Then again, the Kincaid family did boast Drew. “Though, the kidlets have given me spectacular breasts.”

  Riley’s gaze fell, his breath catching. “Your breasts were always spectacular.”

  Sinking her teeth into her lower lip, she crooked a finger. �
�Come kiss me.”

  Her mate didn’t try to resist. He shifted to cup the side of her face with one big, rough-skinned hand and then his lips were on hers and her entire body was aching for him. When he slid that hand down to touch her heavy breasts, her purr turned into a moan.

  Those breasts were a pain in the ass when she wanted to run patrol—not that she’d been able to do that after her balance became that of a drunken goat—but she had to admit they were kind of fun. Especially when Riley did that. Shuddering as he just pushed down one shoulder of her loose top and the bra cup on that side to replace his hand with his mouth, she wove her fingers into his hair and held on for the ride.

  Thank the heavens the cabin was deep in DarkRiver territory and surrounded by the forest, giving them endless privacy—because Mercy did not want to move right now.

  “God,” she whispered huskily at some point after Riley had stripped off her top and bra to leave her clad only in a pair of shorts. “Wolves have all the moves.”

  He chuckled, his pupils surrounded by a ring of wolfish amber when he looked up to meet her gaze before he claimed her lips in a possessive kiss that made her squirm. “I want you inside me,” she said, her hands fisted in his hair.

  He grazed the side of her breast with his claws. “Be good, kitty cat.” A nip of her lip. “You’re—”

  “Pregnant and in full pounce-on-my-mate mode.” Changelings were known to be sexually active all the way through a pregnancy, but her overprotective mate had been obdurate this past week, worried about causing inadvertent harm to her or the pupcubs. “I hurt from missing you.”

  Yes, she was shameless.

  A growl rumbled in his chest. “You can’t play me that easily anymore.”

  Nipples aching from the vibration, she petted his nape exactly how he liked . . . then smiled her most sinful smile. “If I could reach over my belly, I’d take care of it myself.”

  His eyes heated. “Witch.”

  “Your witch. Now be with me before I die from want.” She petted his amazing shoulders, his incredible chest. His body made her want to bite and claw and climb all over him.

  “Mercy, what if—”

  Hearing the worry in his tone, she ran her fingers through his hair and stopped playing to hold his gaze. “Nothing will go wrong.” They were no longer talking about sex. “I’m as healthy as an ox and so are the pupcubs.”

  Her mate had lost his parents, all but raised his siblings, then had his sister kidnapped and tortured by a monster. As for Drew, the damn blue-eyed wolf kept getting shot! The fact that Brenna was healed and happy and Drew had promised not to get shot again didn’t erase the scars her mate carried on that huge heart of his.

  Stroking her hands down to cradle his face, she spoke to wolf and man both. “Any sign of a problem and I’ll be at the healer’s.” She let him see her sincerity, feel it through their mating bond. “I’m awful at being pregnant, but I want to be a mom so bad, Riley, and I want to see you being a dad. I’m not going to put that at risk, no matter what.”

  He took a shaky breath, bending to press his forehead against hers. “I know. I just . . .”

  “I know, baby.” Kissing and nuzzling at him until he was no longer trembling, she surrendered when he took control of the kiss. That kind of surrender didn’t come instinctively to either part of her, but if SnowDancer Senior Lieutenant Riley Kincaid could let her see his fear, let her hold him, then DarkRiver Sentinel Mercy Smith had zero problems giving him the control he needed to love her right now.

  He was far more gentle than they usually ever were, but that was fine, because gentle or rough, her mate always had her moaning in a matter of minutes. That record wasn’t in any danger of being broken today.

  They finally made it inside and to the bed, where a certain wolf drove her to distraction, then bit down on her shoulder in a possessive hold as he thrust into her slow and deep and oh-so-hard.

  Despite their delicious exertion, the pupcubs stayed smug and stubborn and happy inside her body, exactly like the hellions they were.

  Chapter 5

  JUDD HAD RETURNED to the SnowDancer den an hour earlier, his excited niece in the passenger seat of the all-wheel drive. She’d found a rapport with her Arrow playmates that Judd hadn’t expected, at least not this quickly. Arrow children of Marlee’s age were already strictly conditioned, and the changes in the squad hadn’t been in effect long enough for them to have broken fully free.

  But he’d forgotten to add Marlee into that equation.

  His brother’s daughter had a way of making friends wherever she went, her personality like a cheerful ray of sunshine. The Arrow children had found themselves caught up in the happy storm that was Marlee Lauren, had come out of it a little dazed but eager to see more of her.

  Had he ever doubted his rebel leanings, all Judd would’ve had to do was think of what would’ve happened to Marlee in the Net, how her personality would’ve been crushed into a defined box, her sunshine shut up until her world was gray. It was a hellish image, one that affirmed every decision he’d ever made to help bring down Silence and the rotten structure that supported it.

  Now the girl who’d greeted him earlier that day with a huge hug and the words, “I love you, Uncle Judd!” was off learning forest skills with her year group, while Judd stood with several packmates on the lush green grass outside the den and looked at the data sent in by DarkRiver. As he read about Leila Savea’s captivity and possible location, he considered whether he had any contacts in Canada.

  The answer was no, but he knew a large number of the world’s teleport-capable telekinetics, was one himself. They could zero in on this symbol, eliminate locations far quicker than searchers on foot or even in the air.

  Then he turned the page on his phone and realized the symbol hadn’t only been used on substation walls, but on old-fashioned power poles, on warehouses, on electrical boxes placed in houses and at the ends of streets.

  Slipping away his phone, he shook his head at his alpha. The silver-gold of the other man’s hair was bright in the mountain sunshine, his eyes the pale, dangerous blue of his wolf. Those eyes could be icy and intimidating, as could Hawke, but today the alpha’s expression was hard with anger directed at those who would cage the weak and defenseless.

  The alpha of the SnowDancer Wolves had no time for cowards.

  Neither did Judd. “Even Vasic couldn’t narrow this down,” he told Hawke, his own anger a cold kiss in his veins. “Too many options.” Even if as much as half had been destroyed over the years, that still left thousands of possible hits. “When I try to focus on the symbol, it scatters into nothing.” He tried to find words to explain an ability that was an integral part of him. “My brain can’t hold on to a single point, because there are too many identical ones.”

  Hawke nodded. “I figured, but we had to give it a shot.” His black shirt stretching at the shoulders as he put his hands on his hips, the alpha glanced at the others who stood with them in the White Zone just outside the den. “Any other ideas?”

  As his packmates frowned in thought, Judd became aware of the silence around them. That would’ve pleased him once, when he’d first defected from the Net. Now it just felt wrong. There should be pups laughing and chasing one another here at this time of day, while soft hands tugged on his leg and asked him to play ball or to make them “fly.”

  Instead, only Hawke, Judd, Indigo, Riaz, Drew, and Sienna stood under the mountain sunshine, with lieutenants Cooper, Tomás, Jem, Kenji, Matthias, and Alexei listening in via the mobile comm Riaz was holding.

  Also present via the comm was Riley, SnowDancer’s most senior lieutenant and Judd’s brother-in-law. The other man was currently based in DarkRiver’s lower elevation territory. His mate had wanted to be closer to the DarkRiver healer now that she was so close to giving birth and no one had disagreed with her. This was the first known wolf-leopard changeling pregna
ncy. Despite Mercy’s robust health, both packs were worried about complications.

  Riley had it the worst, though he was holding it together in that calm Riley way that made it seem as if he were perfectly fine. The only reason Judd knew any different was because of his mate. Brenna had taken one look at her eldest brother three weeks earlier and given him a hug that Riley accepted with bone-crushing force.

  It was in the instant afterward that Judd had caught a glint of sheer panic in Riley’s dark brown eyes. Unlike Brenna, Judd couldn’t help the other man with affection, but what he could do was take on more of Riley’s duties. Every lieutenant in the pack had done the same, and those who weren’t lieutenants had picked up the slack in other areas, giving Riley the freedom to focus on his mate and their soon-to-be-born pupcubs.

  He had more than earned that right.

  However, Riley continued to attend their meetings remotely. He was too much the protective dominant to forget his responsibilities. Hawke had also made it a point to still have Riley take care of certain pack tasks, to keep the other man from obsessing over the upcoming births—especially the possible risk to Mercy.

  Voices broke the unwelcome quiet, Tomás and Alexei asking a couple more questions about the entire situation with BlackSea’s vanished members. Kenji and Riaz, as the two lieutenants who worked most closely with the water changelings, filled them in. Not at issue was the fact that the Consortium was behind the abductions—the events in Venice earlier that year, on which BlackSea had given SnowDancer a detailed briefing, had proven that beyond any reasonable doubt.

  Cooper, however, had a question they’d never previously considered. “How the fuck does the Consortium know where to snatch BlackSea people, or how to handle them afterward?” the lieutenant asked. “I can barely get my head around how BlackSea functions, and they’re our allies.”

  “Well, hell.” Jem’s voice. “BlackSea must have a traitor, maybe more than one.”

  Hawke blew out a breath. “No wonder Miane didn’t mention it.”