Page 16 of Storm Echo

“You have her ID?” his partner asked him, datapad in hand and chest heaving from his frantic run to reach Ivan. “I need to record it.”

Ivan stared after the retreating vehicle, Lei’s blood a metallic scent stuck to his gloved hands and jacket. “She’s not dead.”

“I’ll add her to the rolls of the survivors. Families are searching for their lost members.”

“No ID,” Ivan said, thinking of her cold, cold skin, so unlike the firelight of the woman who’d kissed him. “I know her.” Little pieces of her that he’d never forget. “First name: Lei. She’s changeling.”

“Ocelot?”

“I don’t know, but that’s the strongest possibility.” Inside his mind, a bruise throbbed. The clawing echo of the blow he’d struck, deep psychic grooves in his mind. That recoil hadn’t been normal. Had been psychic … but not quite.

“Ocelots will ID her if she’s one of them,” his partner stated, then—shoulders slumping—turned back to the field of the dead. “Finding her, it will help maintain morale … but there are so many more bodies to load.”

Ivan had been preparing to head to his vehicle, follow the ambulance—follow Lei—to the hospital, but he knew then that that wasn’t the choice Lei would want him to make. She’d helped an injured stranger for no reason except that it was the right thing to do. And the right thing to do at this moment was to give what respect he could to the dead, to make sure they didn’t spend another night out in the cold.

Lei was in good hands and, given the gravity of her wounds, would be taken directly into surgery. He’d go to her after he completed this dark task; he’d stay by her side so no one could hurt her while she was vulnerable and unconscious. He’d watch over her until she opened her eyes and told him to leave.

Because she would.

This massacre had taken place roughly two days ago, but Lei had chosen not to meet him an entire day earlier. She’d made her decision—and that decision was a future without Ivan Mercant.

Chapter 8

“Soleil Bijoux Garcia. Ah, Arturo, such a long name you’ve given your niñita!”

“That’s for later, when she’s all grown up. Right now, she’s my sweet Leilei; aren’t you, mi princesa? Papa loves you.”

—Conversation between Arturo Garcia and Yariela Castaneda (7 August 2056)

SOLEIL WAS ON the edge of a dark gray horizon, the light fading glimmer by final glimmer when it hit her. A demanding bolt of energy that jolted her entire body and turned the horizon to white fire.

A sharp gasp that almost hurt, cold air shards in lungs that had already been shutting down … and then her cat leaped. She didn’t know to where until she found herself with her claws hooked into a cool black space electric with silvery currents of energy that curved around her in a protective wall.

I know the scent of this place. Oh, it’s him. Of course it’s him.

Such an odd thought, one her wounded mind couldn’t hold.

Her cat wanted to bat its paws at the wild currents of silver, but it had to cling on, knew that to let go would be the end of everything. It would fall into the gray horizon. It would … die. The knowledge came not from the primal half of her nature but from the half that was human. It understood death, had seen far too much of it before her body fell under an unseen and vicious blow.

No.

A repudiation of death.

She had promises to uphold, that she knew, though she could no longer see the full shape of those promises, her mind dull and heavy as her body directed all its energy into keeping her alive.

I’m hurt bad.

A sluggish realization.

Fighting not to fall into the nothingness, she clung on to the electric space, allowed it to protect her, and as she did so, she saw flashes of a dingy room with dull-colored carpet, the deep blue waters of an ocean crashing against rocks, the elegant face of an older woman who had the eyes of an alpha, a pair of powerful hands with squared-off nails and cool white skin.

She stared at those hands, saw them flex inward, squeeze.

The image flashed out of existence, to be replaced by a glimpse of bodies in the snow. She jerked away from that, and to another face. This one of a young man with eyes the haunting shade of silvery morning light—the tilt at the corners gave him an almost feline appearance. Her cat liked that.

He was pretty. But kind. So kind that she felt it in her heart.

His black hair was straight and cut with neat precision. It suited his square jawline and high cheekbones. His expression was gentle and familiar, though she didn’t know him. She was certain of that.

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