BRANDED BY FIRE

And saw what he’d missed in the first sweep.

Humans had learned to compensate for their lack of psychic or shifting abilities. Especially in the area of weapons. The portable guided missile launchers almost hidden in the mass of body heat were likely primed and ready to level his house the instant he stepped inside. A fast, quick kill. The only way to take a cardinal Tk by surprise. Too bad he knew they were there.





CHAPTER 45





Several hours after the wrench of leaving him, Mercy tracked Riley to the former Alliance hideout on the Embarcadero. His wolf flashed into his eyes when he saw her, and it was all she could do not to press close, and simply savor the warm masculine scent of him.

It wasn’t professionalism that held her back. It was the knowledge that to do what she craved would be to torment them both. “What’re you doing here?” she asked.

“I always do a pass through here in case one of them doesn’t realize it’s been made. Might get a new trail.” His gaze never moved off her, his jaw a brutally hard line.

Such control had to hurt.

She couldn’t let him hurt. Closing the distance between them, she stood so they brushed shoulder to thigh. He sucked in a breath, his hand shifting to lie on her lower back. “I can’t be near you and not touch.”

She nodded. “Who were we kidding?” The humor was fragile, the truth inescapable. “But that’s not why I came.”

Riley watched as his cat took out a small datapad and pulled up a map of the city proper. “Something bugs me about the tips we’ve had about possible Alliance movements.” She overlaid the map with the location of those tips. “If we remove the clear outliers, and focus only on the tips that really had some substance behind them, we end up with this.”

He leaned in, until the wildfire vitality of her filled his every breath. “A very rough circle.” He studied the diagram. “It’s still a massive area. Includes the ware house Bowen and his group are using.”

“I know, but all this”—she waved a hand—“the bomb making, the cloak-and-dagger stuff—seems too coordinated for a small hit like that.” She pulled out a laser pen and began making Xs. “If it’s revenge they’re after, for the squad we took out, they could hit our pack HQ, the central CTX station, a couple of other places, but most of our stuff is spread farther out—toward Yosemite.”

“You think it has to do with the Psy. That corpse?”

“Yes, and because then, the centralization makes sense. Plenty of Psy targets in the city.” She annotated major Psy institutions, including banks and, nauseatingly, schools.

He knew why—the Alliance had given them no reason to believe it had a conscience.

“But why San Francisco?” he asked, playing devil’s advocate. “It’s not a logical choice—we know to be on the lookout for them. We’ve already disrupted their operations to a degree.”

Mercy pursed her lips in a way the wolf found fascinating. He’d never seen that expression before, never seen that facet of her. “A particular target?” She shook her head almost at once. “There’s nothing unique about these places. They’re important and it’ll cause chaos on a major scale if they go down, but the Alliance could find the same caliber of target in New York, Los Angeles, a dozen other cities.”

The wolf came to attention. “But we do have one thing no other city does.” Taking the pen, he put an X on one of San Francisco’s most well-known buildings.

“Nikita?” Mercy’s mouth dropped open. “No.”

“What better way to leave a mark?”

“Flaming idiots!” she yelled, igniting without warning. “Whoever the fuck is driving this operation needs to have their head examined, preferably after it’s been ripped off! No way would anyone be this much of an imbecile!”

To Mercy’s surprise, Riley chuckled and leaned down to press a kiss against her parted lips. “God, my mom would’ve loved you.”

Her heart almost stopped. “Riley?”

“She was a lieutenant,” he told her, his voice husky. “So was my dad. They died defending the pack.”

She turned to wrap her arms around him. “They were protectors.”

“Yeah.” He nuzzled into her neck, as if soaking in her scent. “My dad, he was the strongest man I ever knew, but he used to turn to putty in Mom’s hands.”

“That sounds like the perfect mating.”

He chuckled. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Damn straight.” Kissing his neck, and smiling at his responsive shiver, she hugged him extra tight. “I think your mom and dad would’ve been so proud of the man you’ve become. If I ever have a son,” she whispered, “I want him to be like you.”

He shuddered. “We’ll figure it out, kitty cat. Somehow.”

She was about to respond when her cell phone rang.

A tenseness filled his body. It was gone an instant later. “Answer it,” he said. “You’re a sentinel.”

The leopard batted at him with playful humor. “Damn, but you’re trying to be good, Kincaid.”