BONDS OF JUSTICE

“No, Max.” She moved slightly across his body, an erotic stroke and a stubborn will. “No, please.”


He let her kiss him again, let her convince him. But when her skin flushed fever hot, when her muscles began to quiver, he broke the contact, lifting her off his body and onto the couch. No matter how much he wanted to claim her in every way a man could claim a woman, he wouldn’t do it if it would destroy her. “No more, Sophie. You can’t process everything at once.”

“But—”

He placed a finger against her lips. “That foot that falls asleep? It doesn’t wake up all at once.”

She stared at him for long moments, but he got a nod at last. Leaving her to repair her shields as much as she could—and it was a fucking fist in his heart that their touching hurt her on any level—he got up, splashed ice water on his face, then returned with the case files. “Ready?”

“Yes.” Taking a sip of the hot chocolate he’d made her, she met his gaze, those eerie eyes of endless black impenetrable, unreadable. “Max?”

“Yes?”

“Will you remember me?”

His heart broke into a thousand pieces. “Always.”


Early the next morning found Sascha sitting across from Nikita in a conference room at DarkRiver’s business HQ. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

Nikita’s response was pragmatic. “DarkRiver is an important business partner.”

“This isn’t a business meeting,” Sascha said, refusing to let her mother ignore the truth. “I thought I made that clear in my request. I’m sorry if you were misled.”

Nikita remained an ice sculpture on the other side of the table. “Every contact with you is business. If you weren’t part of DarkRiver, there’d be no need for contact at all.”

It hurt, yeah, it hurt. But Sascha was stronger now. And she had the strength of the pack behind her. She could feel their wild protectiveness on the other side of the door that enclosed her in this room with Nikita. But most of all, she could feel the love of her panther. “I wanted to tell you—”

“You’re pregnant,” Nikita said without ceremony. “It’s difficult to miss.”

But so many people had, Sascha thought, trying not to read in Nikita’s keen eyes any kind of an emotional meaning. “I’m about five months along.”

“You must be able to feel the fetus move.”

Sascha curled her hand into a fist under the table, trying to keep her emotions in check. “Yes. The baby is rather feisty, especially at three a.m.”

A pause. “You were the same.”

And there, in that instant, Sascha knew she didn’t understand her mother as well as she thought she did, that Councilor Nikita Duncan had secrets even an empath couldn’t plumb.

Nikita spoke again before Sascha could. “I’ve heard rumors that the leopards isolate their pregnant mates during the final months of their pregnancies.”

Sascha rolled her eyes. “The tabloids made that up after one of the women in the pack was prescribed bed rest because of complications—you must know how they sensationalize everything.” Her panther, overprotective as he was, would never try to keep her apart from those she considered hers—both in the pack and outside of it. But that wasn’t what she’d asked her mother here to discuss. “Why did you send me the book by Alice Eldridge?”

“You’re a cardinal with the strength to control tens of thousands,” Nikita answered, picking up her organizer. “Having an individual of your strength in my corner would be an asset—the benefit would outweigh any cost associated with your flaw.”

Once, that would’ve cut Sascha to the quick. Now . . . now she wondered just how many lies Nikita had told her over her lifetime.


Sophia woke from the most sleepless of nights, her body aching from the inside out, her skin too tight, her nerves shredded. Everything was “off.” Irritation burned inside her, and it had no target, no focus.

Showering helped calm her body a fraction, and so did an intense ten-minute meditation. Feeling slightly more in control, she dressed in a black pantsuit paired with a white shirt, dried then plaited her hair—baring a violence-touched face Max didn’t seem to find the least objectionable—and forced herself to eat a nutrition bar for breakfast. Her cop, she thought, would not approve.

Strange twisting sensations in her abdomen, the renewed prickling of her skin. Heat was just starting to spot her cheeks when the doorbell rang. Throwing the wrapper of the nutrition bar in the recycler, she walked over and opened the door.

It was his scent that hit her first. Exotic and familiar, male in a way she couldn’t explain. But she knew she’d be able to distinguish it from a million others. “Max.”

His eyes narrowed as he entered, closing the door behind himself. “You’re flushed. What’s wrong?”

She rubbed gloved hands over her arms. “I don’t know. I feel . . . edgy. My skin, my body—”