Tangle of Need

“Yeah, too late to back out now. We know where you live.”


Judd’s response was to put the wrench with the other tools and raise his eyebrow. Of course Riaz couldn’t turn down the challenge, and they were scrambling over the modified jungle gym in seconds. It dumped Judd on his ass two minutes in. Riaz lasted another ten seconds. “Damn,” he said with a satisfied laugh. “Got us both. Excellent.” No one was going to learn to beat this configuration in a hurry.

Eyes narrowed, Judd stared at the structure as if at a mortal enemy. Slapping his fellow lieutenant on the shoulder, Riaz said, “Don’t even think about it.” A pissed-off telekinetic versus the complex metal pylons and tubes of the jungle gym—the results would not be pretty.

Judd glanced at his watch. “I’ll destroy it later.” Cool as ice, but Riaz caught the glint, knew the Tk would be back until he’d beaten the obstacle. “We’d better get to the meeting. It’s almost two.”

Heading in, they put away the tools and quickly washed up before walking into the special conference room set up for lieutenant meetings. Hawke and the other lieutenants—via comm link and in person—were all present. Indigo, her feet propped up on a second chair, her legs crossed at the ankles, said, “You’re late,” without looking up from her datapad.

That datapad was suddenly hovering several inches in the air … before it zipped to a stop in front of Judd. Taking it, he said, “And you’re playing Wolf versus Leopard.”

Everyone laughed as Indigo threatened Judd with bodily harm, but the Psy lieutenant continued to study the datapad. “You have an excellent territorial strategy—though it appears this game skews to favor wolves. Was the developer a wolf?”

“I confess!” Tomás threw up his hands. “It was me.”

Nudging the datapad back to Indigo, Judd twisted a chair around to sit with his arms braced on the back. “If you want cats to play it, too, you have to even out the playing field.”

Tomás’s eyes gleamed. “I think you just volunteered to be my impartial test player.”

“Fine. As long as I get a share of what are certain to be huge profits, taking the competitiveness of wolves and leopards into account.”

Tomás tapped the side of his nose as more laughter filled the room. “I’ll have my people talk to your people.”

Hawke leaned back in his chair, tipping it so it balanced on two legs. “His ‘people’ is Brenna, so watch out or you’ll be lucky to come out of it with the shirt on your back.” Hands linked behind his head, he glanced at Riley. “Okay, what’s on the agenda today? Any attempted mini-strikes by Pure Psy I don’t know about?” It was an irritated question. “It’s like that mole game where they keep popping up.”

“Nothing in the last four days,” Riley replied to a round of applause. “And Sam is leading the trap-detection pool with an impressive nine points.”

“Four days,” Indigo said in a musing tone of voice. “That’s the longest gap to date. Strain on their limited personnel beginning to show?”

“Moles reproduce very quickly,” Judd said dryly.

Jem almost snorted out the water she’d been drinking. “Enough with the moles, let’s not give them the satisfaction of sucking up more of our time.”

“I now declare a mole moratorium.” With that solemn statement—which made Cooper choke—Riley picked up the datapad in front of him. “BlackSea’s first on the list. Kenji, Riaz, give us an update.”

Riaz nodded at Kenji to answer.

“We had a bit of back-and-forth, but they’re now happy with the contract.” Pushing his shockingly sedate black hair out of his eyes, Kenji glanced at Hawke. “They made their decision about the alliance before they ever approached us. It was just a case of working out the details.”

Riaz had to agree. “It’s going to come down to the meet.” He and Kenji, as well as Riley, would accompany Hawke to the face-to-face with Miane Levèque, while BlackSea was sending along Emani and two other representatives of their ruling board with Miane. In deference to BlackSea’s preference to be near water, the meeting was set to take place in a waterfront building owned by DarkRiver. “Still no hint on why they’re suddenly so keen on an alliance.”

“We get an answer at the meet, or we walk.” The alpha’s smile was all teeth. “Beautiful Garnet. Report.”

Jem rolled her eyes. “Nothing new. I’ve still got the steady trickle of Psy coming into my sector. I think the majority are continuing on to San Francisco.”

Frowning, Indigo said, “City’s going to start having a population and housing issue if this keeps up.”