Page 32 of Storm Echo

“Shit.” Lucas crouched down in front of her as Ivan straightened her up again, holding her protectively to his side. “I knew she’d burned herself out but I was hoping she had more reserves.”

Green eyes landed on Ivan, the alpha’s power a thing of claws and teeth, primal in its intensity. “This isn’t your fight, Mercant.”

Ivan didn’t bristle. That wasn’t how he functioned. Rather, he did a mental analysis of his psychic reserves, a count of the weapons on his body, and decided he could reach a single small shock device before Hunter decapitated him.

Not good enough.

Yet he didn’t release Soleil, driven by a protective urge that had nothing of reason to it. He didn’t care. Not when he felt whole for the first time since she’d walked out of his life. “She can’t fight for herself right now, so it’ll have to be me.”

Lucas stared at him for a long moment. “I should gut you, but turns out I can’t gut a man who’s putting his life on the line to shield a healer.” Hidden, unspoken things in that statement, a reference to information Ivan didn’t possess.

“I give you my word nothing will happen to her while she’s under DarkRiver’s care,” Lucas continued. “She needs that care. She’s showing all the signs of a healer who’s gone beyond her limits. What you’d call a flameout.”

Of course Hunter knew how to refer to a psychic burn that threatened to collapse a Psy mind for a day or more; the alpha was, after all, mated to a cardinal Psy.

Ivan was yet weighing up whether to trust Lucas’s words when the alpha said, “My mother was a healer.” His expression grew shadowed. “No one in my pack will ever harm a healer.”

Family, Ivan knew, was the core of a changeling pack. And Soleil was not only a changeling but a changeling healer. She had needs about which he knew nothing. In holding on to her, he could cause her irreparable harm.

So, even though allowing her out of his sight made a cold black rage boil within, the spider stretching its limbs in a nightmare fury, he permitted Lucas to gather her up in his arms.

The alpha stood with Soleil held to his chest. “Are you about to flame out?” he asked. “Do you need psychic protection?”

“Why would you help me?” Ivan was, after all, a spy in Lucas’s city.

“Because you saved lives today.” Grim words, an even grimmer expression. “The information coming out of the PsyNet is fragmented, but one thing is certain—a lot of people died during the incident. According to what we’re hearing, most of the Psy in this location should be dead—that they aren’t is because of you.”

Ivan knew he should look on the Net, check on the situation, but he had little to no reserves. “I’m not going to flame out.” He was, however, teetering on the edge and needed rest. Else he’d fall, his mind exposed and without shields.

“Then we’ll talk later—we know the location of your apartment.” Lucas walked away, taking with him a cat who’d prowled so deep behind Ivan’s defenses that she’d become embedded inside him.

As he rose to his feet, he looked for the small daypack Soleil had abandoned when she went to assist one of the injured. It lay ignored in the shadow of a closed doorway.

Once upright, he began a lazy and unremarkable walk toward the daypack, while never looking directly at it. The redheaded DarkRiver sentinel—Mercy Smith—spotted him, said, “You planning to collapse in the street? Be easier to give you a ride to your apartment than have to scoop you up later.”

“No. I’ll make it.”

Eyebrows drawing together, she went to say something else when another member of DarkRiver came up to her. Ivan took that opportunity to grab the daypack and slide away. He knew the changeling facility for scents—Mercy would’ve tagged the bag as Soleil’s if she’d gotten close enough.

Ivan didn’t think anyone from the pack would steal her belongings. But they would go through the bag. That was simple security protocol. His hand tightened on the strap hung over his shoulder; no one had the right to take what Soleil wasn’t ready to give.

Not even Ivan.

She’d made her choice about him, and he wouldn’t manipulate her into another decision now that she no longer had all the facts … but he couldn’t deny himself the pleasure of being around her in any capacity. The truth was, he hadn’t even understood pleasure before her.

To Ivan Mercant, pleasure was Soleil Bijoux Garcia.

Despite his assurance to Mercy, he barely made it through the door of his apartment. After locking it, he stood and looked at the stairs that led up to his bedroom until he’d gathered a few more fragments of energy.

At which point, he literally pulled himself up using the banister.

Dropping Soleil’s bag in the corner where it would be safe from prying eyes, he shut and bolted the door, set his security perimeter, then collapsed onto the bed, shoes and all. An image flashed against his closed eyelids in the moment between wakefulness and sleep—of a black spider, its carapace gleaming, that sat at the center of a web of shining jet, hundreds of cobwebbed black lines trailing out from its sleek body.

His vision telescoped into a pinprick of light … then was gone.

Chapter 17

Drug 7AX has passed all levels of testing and is now approved for usage. Dosage calibration needs to be exact to achieve intended “super soldier” effect.

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