LUCAS WAS PLAYING outside with his cub the afternoon of the joint celebration when Sascha called down to say he had an urgent call from Bastien. Shifting back into human form, he caught the phone she dropped down—along with his jeans—then kept an eye on Naya while Sascha climbed the rope ladder to the ground.
“Come on, Naya,” she said with a loving smile, her voice drenched with the happiness she found in being with their child. “You get to teach your mama how to stalk like a cat.”
Excited, Naya began to pace deliberately, showing Sascha what Lucas had been showing her. She was gorgeous and so was his mate, but Lucas knew Bas wouldn’t have interrupted him during his rare time off unless it was important, so he moved a short distance away to take the call. “Bas, what is it?”
“I’ve found the end of the money trail,” the other man said. “To the captain who was going to take Naya to Australia. You know that. Shit. I’m punch-drunk from the success and slightly sleep-deprived.”
Lucas’s panther had gone hunting-still inside him at Bastien’s first words. “Who?” he asked quietly.
“Psy named Pax Marshall.”
The fingers of Lucas’s free hand curled into his palm. “You’re dead certain?”
“Without a shadow of a doubt. Money came from what looks like a personal slush fund used for various off-the-books activities.”
Lucas consciously stopped himself from growling, held his claws in. He had to think with crystal clarity right now, couldn’t be blinded by the primal instincts of his panther. “Could anyone else have accessed that account?”
“Sure, but they’d need to know every single one of Pax’s passwords. I couldn’t get into the account itself, that’s how secure it is, but the trail definitely dead-ends there.”
“Send your report through to me.” He knew Bastien would’ve been adding to that report as he went, setting out the complicated financial maze in a way Lucas could easily process.
“Give me one second. And . . . done.”
“Thanks, Bas. Now get some rest before the party or your mate will have my head.”
Chuckling, Mercy’s brother signed off. Lucas stood in silence for a minute, thinking through Bastien’s information. Then he thought of everything he knew about Pax Marshall and made another call, asking Aden a single question when the leader of the Arrows answered. “Has Pax Marshall ever been categorically fingered for even one of his rumored illicit activities? Any proof at all?”
“No,” Aden answered without asking why Lucas wanted to know. “That’s part of why he’s considered so brilliant. Everyone knows he’s crossed lines, but no one can prove it. Not even the squad.”
“Thank you, Aden.” Hanging up, he put away his phone and went to join his mate and child. It was only after Naya curled up for a nap in the sun that he told Sascha what Bastien had discovered and what Aden had said.
His mate’s gaze was intent. “You think it’s too easy?”
“But that’s just it—it wasn’t easy. It was brutally hard from Bastien’s perspective, and he’s a genius at this stuff.” Lucas leaned back against the aerie tree, Sascha in front of him and Naya napping a few feet away. “When I say Bastien’s a genius, I mean it. Other companies, including major Psy ones, have tried to poach him from us over and over.”
Sascha chewed on her lower lip as her eyebrows drew together in thought. “If it took Bas days to track this transaction, then it was well hidden. So well hidden that most people would’ve never found it.”
Another long pause. “On the flip side, if DarkRiver was meant to find it, then knowing Bas was on our side would’ve been a guarantee of eventual exposure.” She blew out a breath. “And why would Pax pay the ship’s captain directly when he’s rerouted all other payments through patsies?”
“Exactly—but on the other hand, if he wanted control of Naya, he might not have wanted to involve anyone beyond a not-particularly-intelligent captain who could be disappeared with no one the wiser.”
“Proof on both sides of the line.”
“Yes.” Lucas’s panther didn’t like that. It liked black and white, enemies and friends. It also wanted the threat to its cub eliminated once and for all.
He saw the same frustration on Sascha’s face.
“If DarkRiver moves against Pax and it’s not him,” she said, “we’ll have done someone’s dirty work for them, removed a power who might be standing in their way.”
“But if we don’t move and he was behind the kidnapping attempt,” Lucas said on a growl, “then he remains a deadly threat.”
Thrusting her hands through her hair, Sascha spun away to stomp to a tree on the other side of the clearing below their aerie and back. “I wish I wasn’t an E sometimes, that I didn’t have a conscience! I’d go to Pax and torture him until he broke.”
Lucas let Sascha blow off steam. His mate would never do any such thing, but he understood the raw edge to her emotions. He wanted to tear Pax Marshall apart right now, but the human side of his mind was still thinking. “Pax has also embraced Trinity,” he said. “Eliminate him and suddenly, there’s a power vacuum, a powerful family left anchorless. Major disruption in the Net and Psy turning away from changelings because of our violent tendencies.” That’s exactly how a DarkRiver attack would be spun.
Eyes starless, Sascha walked into the arms he’d opened and hugged him with passionate strength. He held her close, giving her the skin privileges she needed to find her center again, even as she stabilized him in turn.
He knew the answer long before he could trust himself to vocalize it. “We can’t move.” It was a bitter conclusion, but Lucas wasn’t about to be played, not by Marshall or anyone else. “We watch him through every method available to us, including the deal he’s doing with SnowDancer. The Arrows will help us, if only to protect Trinity, so we’ll have eyes in the PsyNet.”
“We can’t tell Nikita.” Sascha took a deep breath, exhaled, her eyes midnight-still when she looked up. “She’ll kill him or insert a virus into his mind.”
“Your mother is cold, calculated, rational,” Lucas pointed out. “Killing Pax Marshall right now would be a mistake.”
“Lucas, my mother is all those things, but she only has one response when Naya or I come under threat.”
Lucas thought about it, nodded. “We don’t tell Nikita.”
Walking over to Naya’s sleeping body, Sascha took a cross-legged seat on the forest floor and carefully transferred Naya into her lap. Their cub purred at her mother’s touch but remained fast asleep, adorable little snores occasionally breaking up the sound of her steady breathing.
Watching the two of them was a forcible reminder to Lucas not to let the evil and darkness in the world taint the happiness he’d been given. He went to join them, sliding in to sit behind Sascha with his legs out on either side of her and his chin on her shoulder. If he kept turning to caress her neck with licks and kisses until she melted into him, well, he was a cat.
“I’ve got it,” Sascha said suddenly, while he was kissing his way along her jaw. “The silver lining.”
He bit her earlobe gently, tugged.
Shivering, she ran her hand along one of his thighs, her other hand on Naya’s back.
“Trust an empath to find a silver lining.” The joke was an old one between them. “Hit me with it.”
“If this was a setup”—she angled her head to kiss his jaw—“then the work is done and the people behind the attempt have no more reason to come after Naya. And if it wasn’t a setup and Pax Marshall tries again, we’ll have eyes on him the entire time.”
Lucas’s growl was one of satisfaction. “Here’s another silver lining—we have a lot of friends now, people we can trust to watch him for us, people who’ll work with us to protect our children as we’ll protect theirs.” No more would they be isolated targets.
“That’s a good silver lining,” Sascha murmured just as Naya lifted her head on a feline yawn that had Lucas tugging playfully at his cub’s ears.
Grumbling sleepily, she butted his hand until he scratched her behind those ears.
Her purr was that of a cat five times bigger.
Lucas’s panther purred deep in his chest in response. “That’s my girl.”
Smile carved into her cheeks and Naya’s tail wrapped around her wrist, Sascha lifted her free hand to his jaw. “Enough of Pax Marshall or the shadow behind a power play. They’ll still be there tomorrow.” It was an order. “Tonight is a time for pack and for family, whether of blood or of the heart.”