Page 41 of Storm Echo

She had nothing to lose.

The drainpipe gave a small groan when she jumped onto it, but it held. Deciding not to push her luck, she went down as fast as she could, parts of the pipe digging into her stomach as she slid down. The cat flattened its ears but kept going, leaving deep scratch marks on the plas.

The leopards would see that, of course, but she’d be long gone by then.

All at once, she was thumping onto the ground on her butt.Ugh.Her cat looked around to make sure no one had spotted that hideously embarrassing descent. No other ocelot would ever let her live it down.

But there were no ocelots here. Not unless that scent on Tamsyn had been true.

Driven by a sense of pounding urgency, she shook off her sore butt and ran around the side—and though she should’ve gone to the very front of the building and found a hiding spot from where she could watch for Tamsyn’s exit, she went to a gate in the fence directly opposite where she’d come down.

The gate was closed but not locked.

Not worrying about who might see her, she shifted and unlatched it, then shifted back again. A naked woman would attract far more attention than a small cat that stuck to the shadows. Most people wouldn’t see her in that form—and the ones who did would probably mistake her for a freakishly large housecat. Not a mistake that would hold on a closer look, but she didn’t intend to let anyone get that close.

Sliding through the gate, she looked left then right, saw that the sidewalk was empty. Again, she should’ve gone right and made her way to the front of the building … but she went directly across the sidewalk and to a black car shaped as sleek as a bullet.

The passenger-side door slid back.

Her cat wasn’t the least surprised to look up and see a Psy with eyes of piercing blue waiting for her. Bunching on her haunches, she launched herself into the passenger seat.

Chapter 21

Ivan Mercant: Telepath, 6.2, black hair, killer blue eyes, and ice-cold sexiness. Here’s the tea, wild women. This fine specimen of manhood has long floated under our radar. How, we do not know. The man is so hot that certain bear ladies were willing to risk freezer burn to get close to him.

And it is thanks to our lovely bear readers in StoneWater that we now have knowledge of Mr. Ivan Mercant. They tell us he attended their alpha’s mating ceremony to another Mercant (covered in our special mating issue!), slayed many a heart, and left without a backward look. Oh, ouch.

We know you’re all wondering about the scary part of this description. Word is he’s a security specialist—and that the bear dominants confirm they wouldn’t pick a fight with him unless they meant it. Because the man doesn’t play if you come for him or his.

Can we sayswoooooooon?!

—From the “Scary but Sexy” column in the March 2083 issue ofWild Womanmagazine: “Skin Privileges, Style & Primal Sophistication”

UNTIL THE MOMENT that a small cat of gold and black jumped into the passenger seat of his vehicle, Ivan hadn’t known what he was doing here. Hadn’t known why he’d canceled a comm meeting with his Grandmother and left his apartment by stealth—because a Mercant always had a secret way out.

He’d just known he had to get here in time, and he had to do it without alerting the leopards. Now he stared at the stunningly gorgeous cat that sat there staring back at him with eyes so huge and wild that they held him captive. He had the most intense urge to stroke her fur but was rational enough to know she was a wild creature who hadn’t given him the permission.

Somehow finding his footing, he said, “Your daypack is in the back seat,” and pulled away from the curb.

But she hissed and clawed at his arm when he indicated that he was going to turn left. He looked down, changed the indicator to the right. “You want to be in front of the DarkRiver building?”

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.

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