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 pregnancy. Despite Mercy’s robust health, both packs were worried about complications.