THAT AFTERNOON, SNOWDANCER Lieutenant Cooper was on his way out of the den he commanded on the northern edge of the San Gabriel mountains when he got a call from his alpha. Hawke told him that Pax Marshall, head of the Marshall Group, had proposed a joint business venture in a location in Arizona that was almost right up against the border for which Cooper was responsible.
“I don’t trust him,” Hawke said flatly. “Word in the PsyNet is that Pax would cut his own mother’s throat to get ahead.” That insight had no doubt come from Judd.
Cooper shrugged. “Judd’s buddy Krychek isn’t exactly cuddly.” Yet, quite aside from his friendship with a SnowDancer lieutenant or the times Krychek had offered assistance to San Francisco, the male rumored to have murdered his way up the ladder had a mate who worked daily with empaths.
“Exactly.” Hawke’s eyes gleamed wolf-blue. “Talk to Marshall, see if we can work with him. If this is a real opportunity, dig into the ethics of the entire deal.”
“Always.” Cooper folded his arms, the deep bronze of his skin soaking in the sunlight that poured through the window of his office, that office hidden high in a natural curve of the mountain that held the den. “Lucas’s cub all right?” His wolf growled, still enraged at the idea of anyone harming a child.
Hawke thrust a hand through his hair. “Yeah, bastards didn’t touch Naya. Lucas’s people are still turning over rocks, but an ocelot pack named SkyElm has come up in the investigation. Keep an ear to the ground for any intel about them.”
“Consider it done.” Unfortunately, Cooper had nothing new to report to Hawke on the Consortium situation. His alpha had asked him to investigate the shadowy group using his financial contacts, see if he could pick up any kind of a trail. “These particular cockroaches are very good at hiding,” he told Hawke. “Someone thought this through, locked down all the information.”
“Keep working on it. I’ll update you on anything that comes up on this end.”
Meeting ended, Cooper went looking for Judd—the other lieutenant had arrived in Cooper’s den midmorning, together with his mate, who happened to be close friends with a technician based in this den. The visit was so the women could catch up, but it also gave Judd and Cooper an opportunity to spend time together. They knew each other as all the lieutenants knew one another, but it was inevitable that they’d be closer to the lieutenants they worked with on a daily basis.
For Cooper, that was Jem, Kenji, and Tomás.
Still, his wolf liked Judd. So did the human side of Cooper. The other lieutenant had proven his loyalty to the pack—and his strong, intelligent mate looked at him with her heart in her eyes. A man who’d earned a SnowDancer woman’s admiration and respect? He was all right in Cooper’s book.
“Judd,” he said, spotting the other man on his way out of the den.
The former Arrow was dressed in what looked like workout gear. Of course, it was all black. Arrows never got over that, apparently.
“Got a minute?” Cooper asked.
“Several if you need them.” Brown eyes flecked with gold met Cooper’s. “I was just planning to try the new obstacle course your trainers put in. I hear it’s good.”
“Fiendish is a better description.” Cooper scowled. “Diabolical is another.”
“Excellent.”
Walking outside with his fellow lieutenant, Cooper led him in the direction of the course. “Pax Marshall, can you give me the full lowdown? He wants to talk business with us.”
“A previously little-known individual who suddenly rose to prominence in his family group,” Judd said. “Instinct tells me he was the power behind the throne before he took it over, at least for the final twelve months of his predecessor’s reign.”
Judd paused as Cooper caught an errant ball and threw it back to the kids playing nearby. “It’s rumored he engineered his father’s death in a car crash, but no proof. Could be propaganda he himself started—Psy both fear and admire callous expediency when it’s used in a smart fashion.”
Cooper rubbed at his jaw, his thumb brushing over the scar that marked his left cheek. “He’s young. Twenty-four, right?”
“Yes. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating him though.” Judd’s tone was a cool warning. “Aside from being extremely intelligent, he’s a Gradient 9 telepath.”
Cooper whistled, aware that the Psy Gradient went up to ten. Cardinals were all off the scale, but he’d heard it said that some of the most dangerous people in the Net were just below cardinal status. Judd was the perfect example.
“Pax hasn’t been directly linked to any violence,” the other man continued, “but that just means he’s very good at hiding his tracks.” A pause. “One thing I will say—even the squad can’t find any evidence that he’s ever been involved in the death of anyone I’d term an innocent.”
“A ruthless but fair man,” Cooper said. “Or a monster clever enough to conceal crimes that don’t add positively to his image.”
“Exactly.”
He grinned as Judd used his telekinesis to catch a pup in the midst of an uncontrolled fall and floated the wide-eyed youngster to the ground.
“Overall, Pax Marshall is a calculating operator,” Judd said, as if he’d done the rescue automatically, his mind on other matters. “My take? This is apt to be a legitimate business opportunity. He’s reaching out to SnowDancer because SnowDancer has a certain level of power in the post-Silence and post-Trinity world.”
“Yeah, figures.” It wasn’t only the pack’s own financial might that Pax Marshall would’ve considered, but also the influence they had on other groups. “You think he’s left Silence behind?”
Judd shook his head in a hard negative. “Aden’s had contact with him and he’s sure Pax is ice-cold beneath the surface. He is linked into the Honeycomb, but that empathic link can be achieved with a very minor shift in thinking—my feeling is that he sees Silence as a weapon in a world where most people are held hostage to their emotions.”
Cooper paused at the start of the obstacle course. “That gives me a good bead on the guy. Thanks.” He gestured toward the course. “Go on, try the beast. I’ll stand over there and laugh at you.”
“Challenge accepted.”
It wasn’t until Judd started that Cooper remembered the other man was a fucking telekinetic. Oh, Judd didn’t cheat. No, like all Tks, he simply moved better. It was hard to explain to anyone who hadn’t seen a Tk in motion, but while they weren’t as fluid as changelings, they were damn close. And Judd Lauren was a former Arrow, trained to be a ghost.
He moved like liquid smoke.
He still fell flat on his ass on the same obstacle that had dumped Cooper the first time around. Clapping as Judd got up—with a dark look at the obstacle—Cooper called out, “Don’t feel too bad. The pups fail that one, too.”
“Funny, Coop.” Then the stubborn man went back to the start of the course and began again.
This time, he cleared the obstacle with grace, kept going.
By the end of the day, Judd had started the course seven times and finished it zero times. He had several bumps and bruises as well as a cut on his cheekbone and, after a shower, was sharing a drink with Cooper while they sat at an outdoor table they’d set up. “How many times before you completed it?” he asked Cooper.
“One.”
“Do I look drunk?” He held up his orange juice—Psy abilities didn’t mix well with alcohol, and the Psy Cooper knew tended to stay away from it.
Cooper’s wolf bared its teeth inside him in lupine laughter. “Ten. So you have three more to go before I’ve officially beaten your Arrow ass.”
“I’ve got tomorrow.” Judd put down his drink and got up to examine the grilling machine Cooper had brought out.
Cooper was about to explain the functions when his attention was caught by the sound of female voices.
Three women walked out of the den. One belonged to Judd, one was Brenna’s friend, and one was very much Cooper’s. Grace came straight into his arms, all shiny and fresh from a shower. “Aw,” he murmured for her ears only. “I was hoping to get a chance to clean you up.” She’d told him she’d be crawling through internal ducts today as part of a routine inspection of the artificial sunlight system that illuminated the den.
Turning a little pink under the cream of her skin, his mate rose on tiptoe and nuzzled at his throat. “You could make me dirty first.”
He almost groaned, his cock reacting to her words like she’d stroked him with her pretty hands—or sucked him with her pretty mouth. “When did you get to be so bad, Grace?” He liked it, liked it a hell of a lot.
“When I had to deal with a certain lieutenant.” His sassy mate turned to examine the table. “You guys are all prepared.”
Cooper wrapped an arm around her as other packmates came out to join them, all bringing a plate to share. It was a small gathering under a clear night sky, the air redolent with the smell of food and flavored with conversation. People came and went as shifts changed, the atmosphere low-key and relaxed. Cooper ended up sitting on the ground, as did pretty much everyone but for a couple of older packmates who joined them for an hour. He’d tugged Grace down to sit between his thighs and she stayed warm and snug against him.
At one point, he realized her eyes were closing, and as he watched her slip into sleep, he thought back to a time when his deeply submissive mate had worried about having a relationship with a dominant. Back then, she’d have looked at him in total astonishment had he told her that one day, she’d fall asleep in his arms without a care in the world, even though he had his hand gently, possessively, curled around her throat.
His wolf stretched out inside him, pleased and proud. His mate had enough courage for a thousand dominants.
• • •
EARLY the next morning, he kissed Grace good-bye, then got into a truck with two other packmates for the drive across the border to meet Pax Marshall. All three of them had rock-solid natural shields, the effectiveness of which had been confirmed by Psy members of the pack. Judd had volunteered to accompany them, but Cooper had shaken his head. “We don’t want Psy like Pax thinking we’re vulnerable targets without you.”
Nodding, Judd had said, “Remember, if it all goes sideways, even a Gradient 9 won’t be able to smash through your shields without doing significant damage—and using a ton of power. Claw out his throat at the first sign of a telepathic blow. Don’t give him a second chance.”
Cooper had considered carrying a weapon, decided against it. Again, it was about projecting a confidence that made it clear no SnowDancer wolf was easy prey. He’d also made a conscious decision to turn up to the meeting in jeans, work boots, and a simple white T-shirt. Pax Marshall was all sharp suits. Cooper had no intention of appearing to cater to him.
As it was, Pax surprised him. The handsome blond male, his features sharply patrician and his eyes blue, turned up in khaki cargo pants and a white T-shirt, his boots very similar to Cooper’s. Their meeting place—at Pax’s request—was an empty piece of land in Arizona that belonged to SnowDancer, but that they’d left undeveloped because it was too small for anything useful.
The area was open, with no way for anyone to set up an ambush.
“So,” Cooper said after they’d introduced themselves. “What’s your proposal?” He’d already increased his estimation of the other man’s political and manipulative skills—Pax had clearly dressed to put Cooper at ease.
“This piece of land is in a prime location to provide an extension to the computronics factory on the horizon.”
Cooper raised an eyebrow. “Except for the fact there’s an abandoned warehouse in between on disputed land.” That was why SnowDancer hadn’t already bought the factory and associated land—the heirs were fighting so bitterly over the disputed parcel that it was too much hassle for too little gain. For any development to be a sound economic investment, the pack needed to own all three parcels.
“It’s no longer disputed,” Pax said, his expression ice-cold.
So, he wasn’t pretending not to be Silent. That, too, Cooper thought, was calculated. Pax had quickly figured out that Cooper had a great bullshit detector, so he’d opted for the straight and narrow. Or was giving the impression of it at least. “Is that so?” Cooper folded his arms across his chest. “Last I heard, they were threatening to murder each other with rusty knives.”
Human families could be frankly scary to a wolf.
“I bought it,” Pax said. “I paid both parties.”
That meant Pax had snuck in under SnowDancer’s nose. But in doing so, he’d been forced to invest heavily upfront—and SnowDancer still held the winning hand. “Why would you pay twice for a useful but not prime piece of land?” Cooper asked, keeping the rest of his thoughts to himself for now.
Pax turned that arctic-blue gaze back onto the distant computronics factory. “As of this morning, I also own the factory and the land on which it sits.”
“You want to make us an offer for our parcel?”
“No.”
“Oh? Why?”
“I don’t think you’re stupid enough not to realize you own the critical piece on the chessboard.”
Cooper grinned. Yes, SnowDancer understood the precise value of its land. This area was known for the kind of quiet needed for the manufacturing of the most delicate computronics. No heavy vehicle traffic, no real population, the sky clear of all air traffic, thanks to an old law no one had bothered to update, and no pollution.
Clean air. Quiet environment. A waterway for transport.
The three holy grails when it came to the creation of high-end computronics.
And SnowDancer had the only access to the waterway in question. “We’ve got you over a barrel, Marshall.”
“I could hire telekinetics,” Pax pointed out, his tone chilling further.
Interesting. Had the man been a wolf, Cooper would’ve said he was pissed off. But since he was a Psy widely thought to be deathly Silent, it was doubtless a clever psychological game.
“However,” the other man continued, “it would be more efficient to bring you in as a partner.”
The resulting discussion was hard-edged and pure business. Cooper made no promises, but he hammered out a deal he could take to Hawke and the other lieutenants, should, of course, Pax pass certain other tests. Ethics and the environment included.
There was also one other thing. “You do a lot of business with Ming LeBon?” he asked off-handedly.
The Psy male paused and Cooper had the feeling it was genuine. Pax hadn’t expected that question, wasn’t prepared for it.
“A small percentage,” he said at last. “Why?”
Cooper shrugged. “Word on the street is that he’s going to start to suffer significant losses. You might want to pull out before the shit hits the fan.” He wasn’t giving anything away, not with Ming fully aware that SnowDancer had declared war on him.
“Thank you for the advice.” Pax’s tone revealed nothing, but a day later, the financial grapevine was abuzz with the news that the Marshall Group had cut all ties with LeBon Enterprises.
Pax Marshall, it seemed, had chosen a side.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t a cobra in the grass.