Page 50 of Storm Echo

Child’s DNA scan attached for familial DNA matching purposes.

—Bureau of Death and Family Notification Services (9 May 2059)

IVAN UNDERSTOOD FAMILY. Every Mercant understood family.

Cor meum familia est.

My heart is family.

It was the founding tenet of their clan.

So he understood that Soleil had found hers. The way the children had jumped on her with such unfettered and innocent joy had been confirmation enough—and he’d known he should get out of there.

But should he do that, Soleil would feel the need to hide his identity. She might not remember the Ivan he’d been once, the one with whom she’d played in the forest, but she was a woman of courage and honor. He’d helped her. She wouldn’t give him up—and in so doing would strike a blow against her own deepest need: to be accepted into this pack that held the last remnants of her family.

Family was precious. Especially when you didn’t have any.

So he didn’t run, didn’t slide away into the dark. Even a leopard of Nathan Ryder’s caliber would’ve never found Ivan if he’d used the minute’s head start he could’ve had. He was very good at being a ghost, had been born a ghost.

And though his family would remember him, he would also die a ghost, the man he’d become in the more than two decades since Grandmother first took his hand erased by the spider’s voracious hunger. No hint of the Ivan who talked high fashion with Arwen, or the one who’d gone to a bear party because that mattered to Silver, and not even a glimmer of the Ivan who sometimes walked on the cliffs of the Sea House with Grandmother.

Today, however, he was still himself, could still make choices that were all his own. So, positioning himself in a beam of moonlight, he put up his hands to show that he held no weapons.

Nathan found him unerringly in the dark, his eyes aglow with the leopard’s night vision. A rumble from his chest, the warning of a predator who’d located an intruder close to home—close to his mate and cubs.

Ivan knew that he was in a perilous situation. Nathan was considered one of the calmest heads in DarkRiver, but Ivan was in a place that he should not be; he’d aroused Nathan’s most primal protective instincts. Right now, the leopard was closer to the sentinel’s skin than the human side.

What Ivan said now could be the difference between a bloody fight to the death and the resulting ripple effect it would have on Soleil—or peace. Parting his lips, he said, “I had to help her find her family. Family is everything.”

A frown on the leopard sentinel’s face, the easing of the rumble in his chest.

“Ivan Mercant.” Nathan’s voice wasn’t quite human. “How do you know the ocelot?”

“Soleil,” he said. “Her name is Soleil Bijoux Garcia. I was the one who found her badly injured body after the SkyElm massacre.”

“There were meant to be no other survivors.”

“She was misidentified as human—and by the time she was aware enough to seek out her pack, they were all gone.” He said nothing about her alpha’s rejection, would not make her vulnerable in that way. “She believed them to have been murdered by your alpha.”

Exhaling, Nathan thrust his fingers through his hair, glanced back toward where an older ocelot had joined the other three. “Shit,” he said. “No wonder she refused to tell Tammy and Luc anything.” He nudged his head. “Come on, you’re in this now.”

They walked out of the trees just as Tamsyn Ryder was ushering her boys inside, but Ivan saw her head lift, her gaze meeting Nathan’s. Her eyes then skated over to Ivan, lingered as she frowned. A second later, she walked inside—leaving the door open for him and Nathan.

When Nathan gave the group of ocelots a wide berth, Ivan followed suit to ensure he didn’t inadvertently trigger the sentinel’s barely leashed protective instincts. But he couldn’t help looking back. Soleil lifted her head, her eyes wet. When she began to get up, he shook his head, trying to show her that everything was under control.

She finally settled back down, but he felt those big wild eyes on him all the way to the door. Could all but hear her grumbling at him. Strange, that she’d worry about him when his use to her was over. She was with her family and he was just a stranger she couldn’t remember.

Honor, he reminded himself. She was a woman of honor.

Nathan and Tamsyn’s kitchen was large and warm, a place built for gatherings. He was surprised they were permitting him to see it—he could take a photo, give it to a teleporter, opening their home to a silent invasion. Then again, this was a pack used to Psy—no doubt, they were expert at methods to quickly alter a physical location so it couldn’t be used for a teleport lock.

Two identical little boys of around six or seven years of age sat swinging their feet on high stools at the breakfast counter, one in blue pajamas with the stars and the moon on them, the other in pajamas featuring a fantastical creature. A dragon, Ivan thought, that’s what it was.

They gave him suspicious looks out of dark blue eyes identical to their father’s. Then the one wearing dragon pajamas smiled, the sun coming out from behind a cloud. “Hi, we’re going to have cookies even though it’s bedtime! Want one?”

His twin scowled. “You’re not supposed to talk to strangers, Rome.”

“He’s with Dad. He’s not a stranger.”

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