“He won’t let me,” Hawke informed her. “Not until Mercy’s okay.”
“Men,” Tamsyn muttered but she was already removing his wadded-up T-shirt and checking the wound. “It’s bad, but she’s a fighter. Come on, Merce.” Putting her hands over the wound, she closed her eyes.
Hawke could feel the healing energy emanating from her, though her energy was unfamiliar—feline. Healers calmed everyone when they began working; however, the injured wolf stood guard, ears raised, but mouth closed. Watching. Waiting. If anyone made a wrong move, that unfortunate individual would find their jugular sliced clean through.
Riley was in no way rational right now.
Placing one hand on Mercy’s head beside Hawke’s, and the other on Tammy’s shoulder, Lucas frowned. “Sascha’s got her, I think.”
Hawke knew Luc and Sascha had a strong connection, but he hadn’t realized it was telepathic to a degree. A twinge of envy uncurled in his gut. Like the leopards, changeling wolves mated for life. He’d never had that chance—the girl who would’ve grown into a woman he adored had died decades ago. And now his wolf walked alone.
It was as well, he thought, that Riley had mated. They needed a strong male-female bond at the top of the leadership structure. It would center the pack, anchor it. Now he felt the strength of that mating bond flow into Tammy, and through her, back into Mercy. Changeling healers fixed things with touch, but the energy had to come from somewhere. Riley nudged at Mercy’s nose with his own, touching her with one careful paw.
That was when Hawke felt something tug at him. Similar to when Lara drew power during a complicated healing. He glanced at Tamsyn. “You feel that?”
A distracted nod. “It’s from Riley.”
No, Hawke thought, it wasn’t. It was coming from him, too. And that meant Riley and Mercy had completed the mating. His gaze met Lucas’s.
“You can’t have her,” the leopard alpha said, as if he’d read Hawke’s mind.
Their eyes clashed, alpha to alpha, wolf to leopard. The air stilled.
“Fight over her later,” Tammy hissed, her voice a lacerating whip. “Come on, Mercy, wake the hell up.”
But she didn’t. No matter how many times the wolf tried to nuzzle her back to consciousness.
CHAPTER 53
The Councilors didn’t bother to have a full meeting to deal with the Alliance issue. They simply agreed on a course of action and dispatched squads to take care of it. If the Alliance wanted a war, they’d get a war.
But the chairman had miscalculated on one crucial point. The Council chose stealth, not public violence. With the recent surge of hostile behavior by Psy, overt bloodshed would’ve run counter to their attempts to calm the populace. Instead, things were taken care of with such subtlety, it was impossible to prove Psy involvement.
And the Psy didn’t kill everyone. Instead, minds were scanned and dossiers built. The one called “the chairman” had escaped the net, but three of those at the top of the food chain had been tracked and eliminated. The others would be found sooner or later. The worker bees had been left alone . . . with their memories of what had happened intact. Their leadership had abandoned them to take the heat, knowing the assassins would come.
The Psy had had a century to learn the cold logic of demoralizing the enemy.
Now, the paramilitary arm of the Alliance was crumbling from within.
CHAPTER 54
Lucas and Hawke stood looking down at the badly injured male prone on the hospital bed. “What the fuck happened, Adam?”
“I got shot out of the sky. Like a damn plane.” Ignoring the myriad other wounds that marked his body, the tall, heavily muscled man stared at his shattered wing, having remained in half-shift form to allow the wing to set properly. “Fuck, that’s going to take weeks to heal.”
“Only reason you’re not dead,” Hawke pointed out, “is because you’re alpha in waiting.”
“Wing leader,” Adam corrected, an odd catch in his voice. “It’s you four-legged beasts who have alphas.”
“Insulting us?” Hawke drawled, though his mood was anything but buoyant.
Lucas looked over, his own face drawn. “I don’t think he realizes he’s in our territory and we can bury his body where no one can find it.”
“Ha-ha.” Adam’s sarcasm was rendered less effective by the fact that his normally copper-colored skin was dull with injury—where it wasn’t black-and-blue. “Is Naia here? Our healer?”
“Yeah, she was on your tail. With one of your wing-seconds.” Hawke raised an eyebrow.
“Shut it,” Adam snapped. “She’s one of the highest-ranking members of the wing. She needed to be at the meeting.” A wince. “Jesus, my head hurts.”
“Naia had to shave off your hair to check for injuries,” Lucas said. “Turns out you’re too hardheaded to hurt.”