TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AFTER Dorian told Lucas about SkyElm, Lucas’s sentinels and mate worked together to cover his absence while he moved alone out of the territory. It was the fact that he was on his own that had most worried his people, but a single panther moving alone in the night was a shadow. If he could’ve made the trip overland, there would’ve been zero risk of detection, even from other predatory changelings, but that would’ve taken too long, so Lucas had called on a party he’d never expected to need: Nikita Duncan.
Sascha’s mother owned more than one airline as well as a fleet of private craft. She’d got him on an unlogged flight on a small plane piloted by a man she assured Lucas wouldn’t betray him, even under threat of torture. Sounded good, but Lucas wasn’t about to trust anyone in her employ. Had Dorian not been out of commission, the sentinel would’ve been his pilot of choice. Still, since Nikita considered Lucas integral to Sascha’s continued security, he was probably safe.
Getting into the already-warmed-up and ready-to-go plane on an isolated runway outside the city, he chucked his small pack inside, hauled himself in . . . and recognized the scent of the pilot. “When the fuck did you get a pilot’s license?”
Max Shannon put his arm on the back of his chair and grinned over his white-shirted shoulder, his features a handsome mix of Caucasian and Asian and his black hair neatly cut. The dimple in his left cheek had fascinated Naya the last time Max and Sophie visited DarkRiver territory. Lucas’s cub had kept touching it, as if trying to figure out how it was made.
“Seemed a good skill for a security chief to have,” Max said in answer to Lucas’s question. “Especially when the woman I’m meant to protect is constantly on planes.” He lightly tapped the control panel in front of him. “Preflight check’s done.” The other man began to get up. “I just need to close and lock the door.”
“I’ll do it.” Thanks to Dorian, Lucas was experienced at the process, but he made sure Max had a clear line of sight to his actions. “Pass the pilot test?”
Giving him a thumbs-up, Max angled his head forward. “You want to sit in the copilot chair?”
“Nowhere else,” Lucas said before sliding into the seat. He’d forgotten there were two people in Nikita’s organization he did trust: Max Shannon and his wife Sophia Russo.
Max had helped DarkRiver more than once, plus, since Sascha and Sophia were friends, Max was often in Sascha’s orbit. And Lucas’s empathic and intuitive mate had never once caught anything bad about the ex-cop. Neither had Lucas. Most importantly, the cubs adored Max.
He was one of the good guys.
“You do realize your current taste in employers is inexplicable, right?” Lucas commented after picking up the headset Max pointed out to him.
The other man shrugged and put on his own headset. “Sophie and I live in hope that we’ll drag Nikita over to the side of light.” A sudden grin that once again revealed that dimple in his left cheek.
Linked as the sight was to memories of his cub, it had Lucas’s panther prowling to the surface of his skin.
“It might even happen this century, now that Anthony’s in the picture,” Max said.
Snorting, Lucas nodded at the lights of the control panel. “How long you been flying?”
“Don’t worry. This is my first real flight, but my instructor said it’ll be just like in the simulator.”
“Funny, Shannon. You tell Nikita that one, too?”
“I only tell your mother-in-law knock-knock jokes,” Max responded with a straight face before he began to taxi down the private runway marked by small glowing beacons. “For some reason, she never says ‘who’s there,’ so the whole process comes to a premature end at ‘knock, knock.’ I’m constantly dejected.”
Chuckling, Lucas didn’t speak again until they were in the air after a smooth takeoff, San Francisco a glittering sprawl to their left. “You have the brief?”
Max nodded. “Plan was I stay with the plane, while you prowl off into the dark.”
“Plan was?”
“I’m offering to go with you if you need backup.”
Lucas considered it. Max was as well trained as his own sentinels, and taking him along would have no impact on the security in pack territory. However, his original reasoning for going alone still applied—if this was about stealth, a panther alone stood the best chance of skating under the radar.
There was also another consideration.
“No,” he said to the other man. “I need to know the plane is ready to go the instant I hit the runway. Can’t take the risk of someone sabotaging it.” Lucas couldn’t afford to be away from DarkRiver for long, not given how visible he’d been lately, courtesy of his role with Trinity. Someone would notice his absence. “The man I’m going to see, he’s physically far weaker than I am, so the security issue is minimal.”
“Could be an ambush,” Max said with the grim clarity of a security chief for a woman a lot of people wanted to kill. “You prepared for that? And don’t predatory packs have rules about entry into another’s territory?”
“I’m going over land unclaimed by changelings until I hit SkyElm’s borders.” Warning them of his arrival wasn’t on the agenda. “As for a possible ambush, I’ll see them before they ever spot me.” Being jet-black had significant advantages—advantages Lucas intended to teach his daughter as soon as she got a little older.
Of course, it would make it a devil of a thing to find her when she was being cheeky, but Lucas would rather have that than not teach her skills she could use to protect herself should she ever be trapped alone and far from help. She was fierce, his cub, but while she was small, he would teach her to hide and wait. Hide and wait.
A child panther couldn’t win against adult combatants.
Lucas knew that firsthand.
“Panther in the dark.” Max whistled. “Yeah, okay, good plan. What’re you going to do about clothes when you arrive?”
Lips tugging up, Lucas said, “Humans are so hung up on clothing.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit.” The ex-cop pointed a finger at him. “You’re not going to confront some other man while he’s clothed and you’re not.”
In truth, Lucas would have no problem doing that, especially since he knew his dominance far exceeded that of the ocelot alpha. But, in this case, he likely wouldn’t have to. “Someone always forgets their washing outside. I’ll grab what I need.” If not, he’d do the confrontation in his skin—which, unbeknownst to Max, would probably unnerve the other alpha even more.
Civilized manners, including wearing clothing, came from the human part of a changeling’s nature. Comfort with their bodies, whether furred or the human skin, came from the primal core of their animal. An enemy might be able to negotiate with the civilized half, but the animal reacted on pure, undiluted instinct. And an alpha panther driven by violent protective urges was not a predator anyone wanted to face.
“There’s a duffel back there with some weapons.” Max jerked his thumb to the back of the plane. “I packed them just in case, but I guess you can’t carry anything?”
“No, not without losing my speed and camouflage.” He’d run with a small pack as a panther before, but it changed the sleek lines of his body, made him stand out. “I don’t think this will be that kind of a confrontation.” Because if the ocelots had actually had anything to do with the attack on Naya and weren’t just being set up, they could have no reason to believe they’d been discovered.
Dorian had undertaken his data mining with extreme care, while the people he’d spoken to in the region were all allied with DarkRiver. Two had been born as part of Lucas’s pack, moved out when they mated, still had plenty of family in DarkRiver. The other was a SnowDancer wolf temporarily based in the region while he completed advanced technical training in an unusual specialty.
No, the ocelots had no reason to watch for a panther coming for them.
• • •
IT took Lucas two hours to run to SkyElm’s home base after Max landed the plane at a private airstrip that belonged to Nikita. It was hidden in the center of a sprawling spread, the landing strip concealed from casual view by the lay of the land, and even had anyone been curious, the strip was officially used for ranching operations and for the transport needs of the people who ran it.
There were no buildings anywhere within a visual line of sight.
Max had initiated the landing-strip lights by remote control, once he got close enough. The instant he had the plane on the ground and parked, he switched those lights off, plunging the area back into pitch darkness, the moon hidden behind clouds.
The quietness of that strip, however, was nothing compared to the screaming silence that surrounded the ocelot aeries. Though he’d shifted by that point, grabbing a pair of jeans off a line a mile back, Lucas’s steps remained panther quiet, causing not so much as a whisper to fracture the disturbing quiet.
Perhaps the crushing power of it was because he knew that a community meant to house near to a hundred people now held only seven. While, like leopards, ocelots were solitary by nature, this pack had a long history of living in close proximity to one another, probably because of the small size of their pack.
The survivors had to be shell-shocked.
Pushing aside the surge of pity that came from both parts of his nature, he reminded himself that SkyElm could have Consortium help. Even if not, wild ocelots were nocturnal for the most part and that tendency showed up in changelings as well, though to a lesser extent. He couldn’t count on the pack being asleep, even this deep into the night.
Guard up, he took to the trees and stayed high while he made his way toward the only two aeries where he could detect fresh scents rather than the dusty loneliness of homes left uninhabited for months. The first one he reached proved to house the children. He could just see their small bodies through the locked window: both were in ocelot form and curled up tightly together, while an adult male lay on a bed right in front of the aerie door.
Blocking it. Keeping the children safe.
The submissive.
Lucas would readily accept such courage into his own pack.
Aware he was missing the healer, the alpha, and the two soldiers, he took extreme care as he moved on. He had no doubts that he could take on all three of the dominants, but he didn’t want to turn this into a bloodbath when this devastated pack might’ve had nothing to do with the attack on Naya.
Instead of moving on to the other aerie, within which he could now see a soft glow of light, he went dead still and listened. His patience was rewarded ten minutes later. The soldiers were below, running a tight perimeter as they sought to protect the remnants of their broken pack. Those two had to be hurting bad—dominants weren’t supposed to outlive their vulnerable. They were built to fight to the death.
If the ocelot alpha wasn’t careful, he could lose both to their own demons.
Having gained a fix on them, Lucas padded silently along the tree road until he came to a halt directly outside the large open window of the aerie where two people were talking. The window itself offered a view into an empty kitchen, the speakers most likely in the room beyond.
“You have to sleep, Monroe,” a female voice pleaded. “You’ve been up for five days straight except for a few snatches here and there.”
“No, I have to stay awake. Have to protect.” The tone of the male voice was wrong, the words a little off.
Jagged. Broken.
“You’re our alpha.” The woman sounded on the verge of tears. “We need your guidance now more than ever, but the lack of sleep is making you erratic.”
Growls sounded from within, along with the slap of feet moving back and forth across the floor, back and forth.
“Monroe.” The woman, who must have been the healer, tried again. She’d managed to get her incipient tears under control, sounded gentle and coaxing as she said, “I’ve made you a cup of tea. It’ll relax—”
The sound of china crashing to the earth, liquid splashing on wood. “I don’t need any fucking tea!” It was a roar.
Concerned for the healer and aware the two soldiers probably couldn’t hear the commotion from their watch positions, Lucas flowed into the aerie through the window. His eyes had already adapted to the light so he padded through the kitchen straight into the living area. The alpha was looming over his healer, his brown hair streaked with gray and sticking up in tufts and the pale skin of his face blotchy red, his fists clenched.
The healer was a fragile-looking woman, maybe eighty years of age. To her credit, she wasn’t flinching, was in fact still attempting to reason with her alpha.
“Monroe Halliston.” Lucas leaned against a wall, his posture deliberately unthreatening. “We need to talk.”
Spinning around with a snarl, the ocelot alpha came at him like a hurricane. Lucas had expected the violent instinctive reaction, had the other alpha on the floor in seconds, the older man’s wrists locked behind his back. When the healer went as if to cry out for help, he shook his head. “I’ve come to talk,” he said quietly. “You call the soldiers inside and this could end in blood.”
The ebony-skinned woman swallowed, looked at his face, her brown eyes on the lines that had marked him from birth. “Lucas Hunter. DarkRiver.”
Enraged by the sound of those words, Monroe Halliston attempted to flip Lucas off him. Lucas held him in place with increased pressure. “I came to talk,” he reiterated.
“I don’t want to talk to the bastard who helped the Psy murder us!”
Lucas’s blood ran cold.
Making a snap decision, he returned his attention to the healer. “Call your soldiers,” he ordered. “Tell them I’m not here to spill blood, but I will if they don’t both come through the door in the next two minutes.” Lucas had done a full reconnaissance before he approached the aeries, knew there was no threat out there that could prove a danger while the dominants were away from their watch.
“Don’t follow his orders!” the alpha yelled, but the healer seemed to realize Lucas was dead serious.
Running to the door, she called out to the two dominants. They appeared breathless in the doorway within the allotted two minutes, during which time, Monroe raved and ranted. Lucas hauled the other alpha to his feet, but kept his eyes on the soldiers, taking in their ragged condition, the bags under their eyes. “Keep your hands in plain view,” he said in a tone that brooked no disobedience. “I’ve got no fight with you.”
“You’re holding our alpha hostage.” It was a tired statement from the male half of the pair. “We have to act.”
“I’ll incapacitate you in seconds,” Lucas said over Monroe’s screaming at them to intervene. “At which point your remaining packmates, including the cubs, will be helpless.”
The two soldiers looked at Monroe, who continued to demand they fight. Faces growing tight, they stepped back to take up watchful positions by the door, their hands clasped in front of their bodies as per Lucas’s order. Their actions told Lucas this alpha-pack relationship had been all but broken long before Lucas arrived—Monroe’s unthinking orders had simply put the final nail in the coffin.
Holding the other alpha’s wrists in an unbreakable grip, Lucas grabbed a navy blue scarf from the floor. It must’ve been the healer’s. He dragged the alpha into a chair, then used the scarf to tie the other man’s hands to the back of it, so that they could have a face-to-face conversation.
He didn’t think Monroe Halliston was thinking clearly enough to attempt to break his bonds by semi-shifting, but if he did, Lucas would do what he had to do to control the other alpha. “You blame DarkRiver for the deaths of your packmates?”
Eyes now a pale greenish brown with an elongated black pupil, the alpha bared his teeth. “It all began with you!” he yelled. “You and your Psy mate.” He spat on the floor, as if he’d tasted something foul. “Without you, the Psy would’ve remained in their world and we would’ve remained in ours. Safe.”
This wasn’t the time to tell the ocelot male about the rot in the PsyNet and how it had infected Psy minds. The outbreaks of insanity had been inevitable. It was Sascha and other empaths like her who’d stopped the massacres from being even worse. Without the domino effect of Sascha’s defection, those Es might’ve never awoken in time.
“You hired mercenaries to kidnap my child,” he said, a heavy feeling in his gut.
A sly look flitted over Monroe Halliston’s face as the healer lifted a trembling hand to her mouth, while both soldiers visibly blanched. “Prove it.” It was a challenge.