Page 91 of Storm Echo

“I’ll give you the location now,” he said after they drew apart. “You two can drive there yourself. No restrictions on seeing anyone in the pack, but only you, Soleil, can go deeper into the territory until Ivan’s certain of his control. Otherwise, they have to come to you.”

“Of course.” Soleil didn’t believe Ivan was in any way a threat, but she wasn’t about to break Lucas’s faith in her—especially when Ivan was determined to think the worst of himself. Even now, she felt the grim shadows threatening to swamp the shimmering flame-kissed silver of him. “Thank you for your trust.”

A slow smile. “I feel you inside me, healer of DarkRiver,” he murmured. “I know who you are down to your core.”

Lucas directed his next words to Ivan. “I’ve spoken to your grandmother. She’s an alpha, too, and she’s raised a powerful pride of children and grandchildren. Ena has given me her word that your family wishes to be an ally and not an enemy.”

“My grandmother doesn’t lie, not when she says things so bluntly,” Ivan said, and Soleil found herself startled by his phrasing.

To Soleil’s surprise, Lucas chuckled. “I’m a cat, Ivan. I understand all about sliding through small openings and taking out prey without warning. But face-to-face, predator to predator, there is no sophistry. We wear only our true skins.” He straightened. “I see why your grandmother has such a fan in Valentin.”

His gaze went once more to Soleil, those green eyes taking her in. And she had the thought that he was judging her status, her wellness. When he said nothing, just went to get them the location of the aerie, she knew he’d decided she could handle the situation.

Her alpha’s confidence in her meant so much it threatened to close up her throat, her cat overwhelmed in the best way.

The Psy who’d just infuriated her squeezed her hand in silent comfort.

Chapter 43

While the latest scans show no changes in your brain, I am concerned about the increased levels of neural activity centered in the affected region.

—Dr. Jamal Raul to Ivan Mercant (18 June 2083)

SOLEIL WHIRLED ON Ivan the instant they were alone in the car he’d driven over from the parking garage while she made a quick visit to the nursery. “Your brain is not defective!” she said. “A difference doesn’t equal a defect.”

He pulled away from the HQ in a smooth move. “A part of my brain is literally misshapen.” An ice-coated tone that wasn’t the same as that he used with strangers—this one, she was sure, was a shield against red-hot anger. “There’s no way to sugarcoat that, or erase it, or change it. It’s an indelible part of who and what I am.”

“So are my scars,” Soleil said, touching the one on her face. “Does this make me defective?”

He shifted the car into manual drive mode, and wrenched one of the controls back hard. “It’s nothing the same.” No snapping, his voice even … and his jaw as hard as titanium, while inside her mind shimmered a web of silver flame gone rigid.

The man was in no mood to listen.

Well, she wasn’t a cat for nothing, she thought as he parked at a loading zone near his apartment and jumped out to quickly grab a few of his things. As Lucas had said, cats knew all about sneaking through small gaps, and finding new ways to get into locked places. She’d find her way through this locked gate, too.

God, he was gorgeous and infuriating, she thought as he emerged from the apartment with a duffel bag in hand. She wasn’t the least surprised when a woman across the street literally stopped walking to justlookat him. He, of course, was oblivious to the carnage he left in his frosty wake.

Dropping his bag in the back with her stuff, he then returned to his position in the driver’s seat. He pulled away from the curb in silence. Oh, this definitely wasn’t his usual control. This was tightly contained fury.

A growl rumbling in her chest, she settled back in her seat. Then she poked at the bond between them. Ivan hissed out a breath, his hands tightening on the steering wheel as he pulled out onto the main highway.

As they shot down it at high speed, he gritted out, “What are you doing?”

“Testing our bond. Need to see where the issue is.” She knewexactlywhere the issue was; the problem was in getting him to not only accept it, but accept that this bond was going nowhere and he might as well surrender to it.

Until then, she was happy to aggravate him so he couldn’t ignore it.

Yes, she was a cat.

A quick glance from Ivan before he put his eyes back on the road. “No, you need to find a way to cut it.” A stony order. “My mind is built to suck the minds of others dry. Do you have any idea what that means? I could take everything you are, everything you have the potential to be.”

His breathing was just slightly uneven. “That little boy you saw today? Mercy’s pupcub? One of the younger cohort of my cousins, someone I was meant to protect, was that small when I took control of his mind without warning. He wouldn’t wake up one day, no matter what anyone tried. He couldn’t. Because the spider had him in its grip and it knows only to feed!”

She snarled at him, really snarled, in a way she’d never before done at anyone in her whole life. “You were a child at the time, too! One who had no idea what was going on!” A pointed finger. “And as far as I can tell, you’re not the one sucking anyone dry in this relationship.I’mthe one who took your energy to keep me alive.”

He didn’t answer for long minutes. When he did, it was with a grudging acceptance in his tone that was the first crack in the wall of frost. “Our bond does seem to function in an unexpected way.” Stiff words. “That doesn’t mean the spider can’t grab hold of you—it did that outside the HQ. Threads of power, of control. Never forget that.”

“You’re fooling yourself if you think you had me under any sort of control,” she said with a laugh that held only anger. “And, sweetheart, if you were in control of yourself, I’ll eat my shoe!” Soleil was in no mood to be gentle with him when he kept on treating himself in a way that aggravated every ounce of her nature.

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