Page 43 of Storm Echo

“That’s what healers are built for.” Soleil’s voice was an ache of desolation. “For family. For pack.” She spoke again before he could respond. “Can you follow them? I need to know.” Anguish in every word.

“Yes.” Ivan waited until the SUV was almost out of sight before pulling into the flow of traffic.

Soleil’s body all but vibrated with emotion. “You’re falling too far behind,” she said at one point, her hands braced on the dash in the quickly falling darkness. “You’re going to lose him.”

Ivan maintained his pace. “The easiest way to get caught tracking is to be obvious about it. Nathan also currently has his mate and children in the vehicle.” Predatory changelings were never more a threat than when they were in protective mode. “Any closer and he’ll tag us.”

Soleil’s claws—small, perfectly formed blades—sliced into the leather-synth of the passenger seat. Jerking, she looked down, retracted her claws at once. “I’m so sorry.” Hot blooms of color on her cheeks.

“It’s nothing, a simple repair.”

“I still shouldn’t have done it.” Soleil folded her arms across her chest, to make sure it didn’t happen again. “I just—” A harsh exhale, then in a quiet, quiet voice she admitted the fear that haunted her. “I’m so scared I’m imagining it, imagining what I want to be true.”

The man in the driver’s seat, so icy and controlled, said, “We’ll find you some answers today.” And though his voice betrayed nothing, her cat snarled and swiped a claw through the air.

Glad to have something else on which to focus, she looked at him,reallylooked at him … and saw the tension in the line of his jaw, the vein that throbbed down the side of his neck. His shoulder muscles were tight, the hands he had on the steering wheel locked around the hard plas.

Her fingers flexed against her as she fought the urge to reach out, stroke back his hair, rub the tension from his nape. Strange, but she didn’t think this lethal man would reject the touch.

Her cat rubbed against her skin, aching to reach out. Hating that he was hurting.

Things inside her clenched in pain that felt too intimate between two near strangers.

“Can I touch you?” It felt as if she didn’t need to ask, her cat sure he’d given her permission already, would welcome the contact, but skin privileges weren’t a thing to be taken. She had to be certain.

His spine went even stiffer, but he gave a curt nod.

She put her fingers on his nape without further discussion, her need to soothe him a raw compulsion. The contact burned. She jerked away her hand, stared at her fingertips.

Nothing.

Wary, she tried again. His skin was cooler than her own, and the burn, she understood at last, had been pure primal sensation. Her heart thudded, her skin hot and her breasts suddenly feeling fuller.

Oh yeah, her bodylikedhim, wanted to melt him—and meltforhim.

But this wasn’t about her. Focusing on him, she used gentle and careful strokes on his nape and the sides of his neck to ease the tension that had turned him to all but rock. As a healer, she was used to having patience, but this … it wasn’t about patience. She liked doing this. Liked touching him. Liked knowing it was helping.

Increment by increment perhaps, but itwasworking.

Her toes curling, she leaned a little more toward him, distracted by the spice that underlay the cool breeze of his scent. A warning that this man would bite. That was fine. She was a cat. She had claws.

The truck in front of them turned off—and Ivan turned off with it.

Soleil hissed, breaking contact with his skin, all thoughts of hazy pleasure overridden by panic. “What are you doing? They’re going straight.”

“They’re headed home.” A cool response.

“You can’t know that!” She twisted in her seat in a vain attempt to keep the main highway in sight. “They could be going—”

“Nathan Ryder has his family with him and he’s on the road directly to DarkRiver territory. I know where they live.”

Perspiration breaking out over her skin, Soleil rubbed her hands on the thighs of her tights. “What? How?” DarkRiver was notoriously protective of its people.

“Because she’s a healer.” Just like the stressed and panicked cat in the seat next to Ivan—the same cat who’d just touched him with an infinite tenderness that threatened to drive him mad with thoughts of what could’ve been.

He might live for decades yet in the cage for which he was destined, and he knew he’d rerun her touch over and over again in his mind each and every day. Just as he’d rerun their time in the forest.

Fragments of another life to last him through an eternity of lonely madness.

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