Page 88 of Storm Echo

“My father sometimes slept in ocelot form, other times in human. I could find either when I woke early and went to jump on them to wake them up.” She smiled at the memory of her mischievous childhood antics. “One thing I remember is that they were always touching when I found them asleep, her hand fisted on his fur or his arms wrapped around her.”

She told him of their road trips and she told him of their final ride together. The car skidding off the road, killing her father on impact, leaving her mother badly injured and bleeding while the pungent smell of fuel filled the air and the storm winds howled outside.

How her mother had told her to get out in case of an explosion, and how she’d tried to help her mother only to feel the loving quicksilver and shining talent of Hinemoa Bijoux’s life slip away. How a passing motorist had found her sitting mute and bloodied and rain-drenched beside the car a long time later.

Ivan stroked her back and held her and she could bear to speak the words.

Another question, another answer. Another glimpse into one another.

So many things she and Ivan talked about as they lay together, DarkRiver and Mercant, Psy and changeling, Lei and her Ivan, and the whole world was perfect for a single fragment of time.

Chapter 42

They told me I was broken. They told me I was flawed.

—Sascha Duncan, cardinal E & defector (2079)

SOLEIL COULD FEEL the tension in Ivan as he walked her back to DarkRiver HQ after she finally ran her errands—which had included some clothes shopping, underwear included. Which of course, she didn’t have on now, since she wasn’t about to slip on intimate clothing without washing it first.

Which meant lots of airflow right up through her dress, to the tender place between her thighs. So tender. She wasn’t the least bit sorry. She’d adored every single instant of what had led to that tenderness. But now their time was over—Ivan wasn’t back to full psychic strength, but she needed to get back to the cubs; it was too soon after her return for her to disappear for an entire day.

Her cat missed them desperately.

She’d made Ivan promise that he wouldn’t set foot on the island without giving her enough time to get back to him, so she could haul him out well before it became dangerous. Never again did she want to see him so motionless and cold, his mind and body in danger of a permanent separation.

It terrified her that he was even going to try again, but as a healer, she understood the drive to help. And she understood that Ivan Mercant was a hero, even though he’d never put it that way; this man wouldn’t ever choose to protect himself at the cost of the lives of others.

She glanced at him on a crashing wave of protective possessiveness. He looked frostily urbane and aloof, her Psy, when she knew he was anything but that with the people he let in. He’d paired the blazer she liked with another black shirt from his wardrobe since she’d shredded his previous one, wore jeans and boots, his hair neatly combed and mirrored sunglasses over his eyes.

He’d hitched her daypack over one shoulder.

Half of her wanted to jump his bones again, while the other half was as tense as a piece of guitar wire. It wasn’t that Ivan had issue with her need to go see the cubs, or even the promise she’d extracted from him. No, what he had an issue with was the fact that he couldn’t drive her back to her territory, his welcome there in serious doubt since their mating bond remained a strange halfway thing. He’d have risked it, but Soleil wasn’t about to—he meant far too much to her.

But when, after another ravenous kiss, she made a move to step inside the HQ, her cat fought her.Hard.Hard enough that she snarled, rebellion and need sparking in every vein and artery.

Cool male fingers closed over her wrist at the same time, and when she whipped back her head to look at him, she saw that Ivan had pulled off his sunglasses to reveal eyes gone a flat black. His fingers tightened, his jaw working, the fabric of his blazer taut across his shoulders. “I’m fighting to release you.” It came out as sharp as a blade.

Her claws already out, she could’ve struck at him, but there would be no point. This wasn’t a one-sided thing. Her cat wasn’t ready to release him, either, the need to hold him a violent compulsion.

A shimmering silver web in her mind, the threads hard and cutting today, ready to form into a cell. The future that Ivan foresaw for himself, his mind encased behind shields so brutal they would savage this man who put his life on the line to save strangers, whose loyalty to his family was absolute … and who would do anything for Soleil.

Ivan Mercant, she understood deep within, had no limits when he loved.

Her cat swiped at the horrific image of the proto-cage, ripping it to shreds as she tugged him closer, until he was close enough that he was able to release her hand. “It’s time to talk to Lucas.”

Eyes yet inky black, Ivan said, “This isn’t normal.” His jaw worked. “My ability … I think it’s wrapped you up in its threads.”

“The holding on is mutual,” she said. “Let’s figure out how to deal with it. Because I refuse to be separated from the cubsorfrom you.”

They entered the HQ.

The receptionist was a slender young Asian man with a huge smile that faded after he spotted Ivan. “I’ll need to call up.” He’d risen to his feet at their entry, now reached for the comm.

Before he could activate it, however, a familiar figure came down the hallway. The redheaded dominant Soleil had seen on the street—this time with a child in her arms, an auburn-haired toddler in tan shorts and a navy polo-neck tee who was fast asleep on her shoulder, his head turned into her neck and one tiny hand curled up against her chest.

She wore fitted jeans of well-washed blue, with a white tee belted in at the waist, her ankle boots a pop of red, and her hair pulled back into a smooth ponytail. The lithe muscle on her flowed over curves and valleys, her status as a predator obvious to anyone with eyes.

Equally obvious was that she was stunning—the kind of stunning that was a knock to the head that left a man seeing stars. “I’ll handle it, Aaron,” she said with the firm warmth of a dominant who was confident in her power, didn’t need to posture and flex.

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