Page 18 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
Aloud, he said mildly, “Yup,” and gave the shortest, stiffest bow that protocol allowed. This amounted to not much more than a jerk of his head.
Eyes narrowed, lips thinned, his expression as sour as if he held a fresh pile of tapir dung in his mouth, Alejandro stared at Hawk from his opulent chair on a raised dais. Tall, lean, and acutely self-conscious, he was the only unmated Alpha in the colonies and also unfortunately happened to be Hawk’s younger brother.
Half brother. Same father, different mothers, entirely different life.
On the large wooden platform constructed between the confluence of four massive trees, Hawk stood before the Alpha’s throne, his hands loose at his sides, chest back, chin held high. Though in many ways rustic, the Assembly room was also suffused with understated luxury. A hand-carved sideboard of burlwood held crystal decanters of spirits, colorful silk pillows were strewn in artful disarray on white linen divans. Hammered brass vases overflowed with masses of fuchsia orchids and yellow bromeliads, sticks of burning incense scented the air with coriander and orange blossom. In the branches high above hung ironwork lanterns at varying heights that threw fractured prisms of light, and thick swaths of purple fabric, the color of royalty, were draped and gathered to create a ceiling and four permeable walls. The fabric drifted down in gossamer waves that lifted and fluttered in the late afternoon breeze, teasing the floor, casting the platform into restless amethyst shadows.
It was a space fit for a jungle king to meet his council.
Hawk waited with the usual burning, gut-deep anger at being forced to wait for a command, like a puppy awaiting a treat, before he could speak.
Fucking hierarchy. Fucking etiquette. Bloody fucking hell.
Though he never cursed aloud, some days his mind rebelled.
Some days it was all he could do not to tear his hair out and scream.
After passing the security detail that patrolled the perimeter of the colony in a slinking, silent line, Hawk had Shifted back to human form and ascended the rope that hung from the underside of his home, a bi-level wood bungalow with a thatched roof and a shaded patio that encircled the second floor. Set high into the spreading branches of a seven-hundred-year-old kapok tree, it was accessible only by the one rope. Most of the other bungalows in the colony were linked by suspended bridges or zip lines through the dense network of trees, but Hawk liked to be a little more separate than that.
In fact, if he had his own way, he’d live by himself in the caves hidden behind the waterfall.
The only reason he didn’t just Shift to Vapor, rise in a shimmering plume from the forest floor, and slip in over the wooden porch railing was because he still had the memory card in his mouth, and he could carry nothing as Vapor. A fact that had proven inconvenient on many occasions.
No sooner had he dressed than a runner was whistling from the ground below, with a summons from the Alpha, who’d obviously been notified the moment Hawk had returned, and was wasting no time in getting an update on the mission. A mission the Alpha himself had devised.
In a characteristic show of defiance, Hawk didn’t bring the memory card with him when he went to the Assembly room. He hid it in a place even the most dedicated of the Alpha’s minions wouldn’t look: under the rim of the toilet bowl.
“Well, go on then,” Alejandro drawled. “Tell me what happened.”
This line was delivered with cool derision, as if Hawk were the village idiot coming in front of the king to bleat about his lost goat. Fury advanced up his spinal column like an army of hungry fire ants.
“It went according to plan.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounded strained. He willed himself to relax as his hands itched to curl into fighting fists.
“Of course it did,” said Xander in a conciliatory tone.
Along with the twenty other members of the Assembly, Hawk’s other half brother sat beside his wife at the curved tables that flanked both sides of the Alpha’s dais. Xander and Morgan shared a look, and Morgan—even in human form, the sleekest, most feral woman of the entire tribe—leaned forward to speak.
“Well done.” She held his gaze with a look that said, Don’t let him get under your skin. Don’t let him win.
Of all the colony members, Hawk and Morgan were the ones who chafed most tightly against the cloistered restrictions of their existence. In spite of the fact that she’d turned the colony’s most efficient and feared killer to putty in h
er lovely hands, Hawk had a grudging respect for Morgan’s spirit. She was a rebel. She was a fighter. Like him.
Like Jacqueline Dolan.
That thought startled him so much he didn’t bother to take offense when Alejandro snapped, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves with the praise, Morgan. I’d like to hear the details before I’m satisfied.”
“The details?” Hawk repeated, still musing about his unexpected revelation. He pictured Jacqueline Dolan in his mind’s eye, stretched out beneath him on the hotel bed, wearing nothing but a Cheshire Cat smile. He’d had dozens—hundreds?—of other women, and felt nothing for any of them.
So why did that image send such a rush of warmth through his veins?
“Well, let’s see. About five eight, a hundred and thirty pounds, hair the color of a sunset, skin like fresh churned cream—”
“How poetic,” Alejandro interrupted acidly. He leaned forward, wineglass in hand, eyes burning. “But I’m not interested in hearing about her looks—”
“Oh, you’d like the sordid details, then. Well, she’s a screamer, I can tell you that—”
“Enough!” Alejandro slammed the wineglass down on the arm of his opulent chair with such force the stem shattered and fell tinkling to the polished wood floor. His face had turned the same color as the wine that was now splashed across his white linen trousers.
