Understanding as he did the complex amounts of data Kaleb could sieve through at any one instant, Judd thanked his friend.
Kaleb's response was simple. "DarkRiver protected and nurtured Sahara when she needed it."
Those words said a great deal about the loyalty of which this deadly man was capable, of the lengths he'd go to, to protect the rare few people who'd earned that loyalty. It also hinted at the other aspect of his personality, of the ruthless vengeance he'd mete out should anyone ever harm Sahara.
Black and white, both existed in Kaleb.
Living in the gray was something he did with ease.
"Have you heard from Xavier?" Judd asked, having long ago accepted the duality of nature that was Kaleb Krychek.
"A week ago," Kaleb responded. "I offered to 'port to him, but he continues to insist that he needs to walk alone during this time."
Kaleb never truly betrayed emotion, not even among friends. Likely Sahara alone saw that side of him. But right then, Judd had the feeling the other man was frustrated by Xavier's intransigence. So was Judd. But some things, no one could force. "He knows he can call on us for help at any point."
That they would respond at once should that call ever come was an unspoken vow.
Kaleb didn't reply to that--nothing needed to be said, not between two men who'd fought side by side for so long. "I have to go," he said instead. "Meeting with Ena Mercant."
Judd raised an eyebrow. He'd been out of the PsyNet for almost four years, but he had deep links with his fellow Arrows. As a result of that connection and the information to which it gave him access, he knew the Mercants continued to be a shadow power. It was said the family had more moles and puppets in the Net than everyone else combined. Silver Mercant had long been Kaleb's aide, but Ena Mercant was the reclusive matriarch of the family, one who hadn't been seen in public for years. "Did you blackmail her?"
"I got an invitation," Kaleb replied. "I'm considering taking Silver along to taste test any offered food or drink for poisons. Ena has a reputation for ruthless efficiency."
There it was, that bone-dry sense of humor the majority of the world simply didn't pick up on, much less understand. Judd knew Kaleb would never be anything but gray, but his friend had far more light in him since Sahara came back into his life. Judd understood what love could do to a man. He, too, had once walked in the darkness, once believed he could be nothing but a murderer, his ability to move the very cells of a body a curse.
It had taken a certain stubborn wolf to teach him different, to remind him that he was a man, that he had a right to a life and to love. Never once had Brenna looked away from the darkness inside him--she'd embraced it as simply another facet of his nature. As Sahara had embraced Kaleb. As they hoped Xavier's Nina would embrace their friend.
"I'll send out a search party if you don't return from your meeting," he said to Kaleb now. "Though even Arrows agree that if a Mercant buries a body, it stays buried." Interestingly, no Mercant had ever been in the squad; that family had a way of holding on to its children.
"You see why I want them on my side," Kaleb said before hanging up.
Judd returned to the meeting to find the others discussing details of something SnowDancer's healer, Lara, had proposed in concert with DarkRiver's healer, Tamsyn, two weeks earlier. The two healers had strongly recommended a SnowDancer-DarkRiver function, to be arranged around the birth of Mercy and Riley's pupcubs. Hawke and Lucas had agreed, so now it was a case of hashing out the details and figuring out who should do what.
"Put Mercy in charge," Indigo said, to Judd's surprise.
It wasn't because Indigo had nominated a leopard--the two women were close friends. No, it was because planning parties wasn't exactly in the dominant-predatory-changeling-female job description. The maternals and submissives were far more experienced at wrangling everyone who needed to be wrangled to pull off an event.
Then Indigo added, "She's going stir-crazy, and this is something she can work on with Riley's input for the wolf side of things. For the physical stuff, she can haul in helpers from either pack."
"Luc suggested the same." Hawke's eyes gleamed with wolfish humor. "I think the cat is afraid Mercy will rip off someone's head if she doesn't have something to do now that she can't run patrol and the healers have asked her not to go in to work at CTX."
Judd knew Mercy worked in communications when she wasn't carrying out her duties as a DarkRiver sentinel. It was a job she could've kept doing, but it would've required daily and likely tiring round-trips to San Francisco, which would also mean she wasn't in close proximity to the DarkRiver healer for much of the day.
No one wanted to take that risk, least of all Mercy or Riley.
"It's a good idea," Judd found himself saying after he'd processed Indigo's points. "Mercy's sociable and she has experience with communications. Plus, with her already off the rotation, it won't mean a change in DarkRiver's duty roster."
"And we don't have to worry that she won't take the wolf perspective into account," Drew said in a voice that held open love for his brother and Riley's leopard mate. "She and Riley want the pupcubs to grow up at home in DarkRiver and SnowDancer both."
Hawke grinned. "My bet is four wolf pups."
Golden eyes going wolf, Riaz snorted. "We're talking about Mercy here. She'll probably smugly produce all cubs. Five of them."
The others booed his prediction, calling out their own bets as they spoke. Judd had placed a two-and-two bet. Word was the pupcubs' changeling animal would be linked to the dominance of each respective parent, and Judd wasn't about to bet against either Mercy or Riley. They were the most evenly matched dominant changeling pairing he'd ever seen. And he didn't think Mercy was big enough to be carrying quintuplets. Triplets or quads were far more likely.
A sudden rise in the noise level broke into the group's friendly argument.
Chapter 6
CHILDREN POURED INTO the White Zone seconds later, having clearly been given permission to escape whatever it was they'd been corralled into the den for. Judd wasn't the least surprised when they made a beeline for the adults--big playmates to climb over were always welcome.
"Hawke! Hawke!" Brown-eyed, silky-haired Ben tugged on his alpha's hand as the lieutenants who'd attended the meeting remotely signed off with good-byes that held smiles. "Are we really gonna have a party with Julian and Roman and Keenan and everyone?"
That explained the excitement in the air, Judd thought as he reached down to pick up a little girl who was too small to push through the pack of pups. Putting her on his shoulders, he held her gently in place with one hand rather than with telekinesis. Children this young sometimes got scared when they couldn't feel his hand.
She laughed and kicked feet clad in sparkling blue sandals. Before living in the pack, Judd would've never understood why changeling parents spent time and money on dressing their children when those children could shift without warning at any minute, destroying the items. Now no one had to explain it to him. Judd had given Ben the superhero T-shirt he currently wore.
The six-going-on-six-and-a-half-year-old was jumping up and down at Hawke's positive reply. "Will we get to play games? And climb trees?"
Ben was one of the few wolves who could really climb, even in his wolf form. All thanks to his leopard playmates--Julian and Roman might be a year younger, but they were as prone to getting into mischief as Ben. The last time the three had been together, when Tamsyn came up to consult with Lara, they'd somehow managed to get into a supplies cupboard and gorge on the fancy chocolate the maternal females had been saving for dessert after a planned working dinner.
The chocolate-smeared miscreants had been found snoring away in the cupboard.
"I don't think it would be a party without play," Hawke answered with a grin before he hitched Ben onto his back, where the little boy clung like a monkey. "I don't know about climbing though. I like the earth under my paws."
"It's fun!" Ben insisted, the chorus repeated by other c
hildren nearby.
"Have you been contaminating your packmates with leopard ways?" Indigo asked darkly, though her eyes were dancing.
"No," Ben said, then frowned. "What does contami-ating mean?"
Laughing, Indigo clapped her hands. "Who wants to play tag? Hawke is it."
"Yay!" The sound wave of agreement shook the trees before the kids scattered, Ben scrambling down to run away as fast as his little legs would carry him.
A slightly older group of kids, meanwhile, was huddled in another corner of the White Zone. As a grinning Riaz jogged past them to the den to safely stow the mobile comm, Judd managed to see between the children's bodies, realized they were filling colorful water balloons from large bottles of water they'd smuggled out.
In front of Judd, Hawke narrowed his eyes at Indigo. "Right, I know who's next."
The lieutenant took off without a backward glance, weaving between delighted children while Drew got in Hawke's way. "Can't let you tag my mate," the tracker said, hands open palms-out on either side of his body.
Having lowered the little girl he'd been holding so she could toddle away to hide, Judd used his telekinetic abilities to move Drew out of the way.
"Hey!" His brother-in-law scowled at him as Hawke took off after Indigo, their alpha pretending to growl and go after several small children along the way, who all ran off squealing. Sienna, meanwhile, was laughingly trying to herd Indigo into a trap, with a returned Riaz's help.
"What the hell was that for?" Drew snarled, his shoulders moving fluidly under a dark blue tee with a silver design on one side as he threw up his hands.
"Remember that time we played war games and you almost broke my ribs?" It had been before Judd and Brenna's mating, at a time when Drew was certain Judd was no good for his baby sister. "I decided I'm still holding a grudge."
"You got your own back!" Drew's response was half wolf, his claws sliding out of his skin. "You almost dislocated my shoulder that day!"
Judd pretended to think about it. "I did, didn't I?" Having telekinetically stolen a water balloon from the enterprising group in the corner, he said, "So maybe I just wanted you here so I could do this," and threw the balloon at Drew.
It caught the wolf in the face.
Growling as water dripped from his face onto his chest, Drew body-slammed Judd, and they went down. At which point, the other man clawed up dirt and grass and stuffed the mass down Judd's back. Judd attempted to flip his brother-in-law off him, was foiled when pups drawn by their commotion ran over.
"Here, Drew," one said, holding out a bright pink water balloon.
Drew bared his teeth and smashed the balloon right on Judd's neck, which meant the water went down his back and chest, turning the dirt to mud. "Oops."
Fighting dirty now, Judd got him with a couple more balloons. This time they were supplied eagerly by the children. Then he got lucky and managed to rub dirt onto Drew's face. The pups, young and old, loved this new game. Mud was soon being rubbed onto both Drew and Judd with enthusiastic little hands, while the pups laughed like little demons.
Judd, sitting up now, with Drew behind him, back-to-back, felt something build inside his chest.
"Your fault," Drew growled. "Remind me to wring your neck."
"Noted." That powerful feeling kept building and building.
And then a pup stopped squishing mud into Judd's hair to peer at him with big blue eyes. "Uncle Judd's laughing!"
He was, he realized. Quietly, shoulders shaking, but the laughter, it wouldn't stay inside. Drew elbowed him from the back. "Not funny, man. I had on a new T-shirt."
Judd just laughed harder, until Drew gave in and began to chuckle, too. Judd's stomach was aching when he looked up and saw a beautiful blonde SnowDancer step into the carnage of the White Zone. His mate was dressed in sleek gray pants cropped at midcalf, her formal white shirt tucked into the pants. Colorful orange flats rounded out the professional look.
Her hair, which she'd grown out, was twisted into a complicated knot at the back of her head, her sideswept bangs providing a frame for her fine-boned face.
"I see," she said, coming to stand over him and Drew, fisted hands on her hips. "While I'm off having serious meetings at the university, you all get to play." Her attempt to sound stern was totally defused by the sparkle in brown eyes shattered by spikes of arctic blue that speared out from midnight pupils.
Those extraordinary eyes were all that remained of her trauma at a monster's hands, and she'd made them her own. The vicious Psy serial killer who'd taken and tortured Brenna had wanted to mark her, break her, then end her life. But he was the one who was dead. Brenna had survived, grown strong, reclaimed every part of her self. And the monster? She'd banished him from her mind until he couldn't even stalk her nightmares.
People called Judd tough; he had nothing on Brenna Shane Kincaid.
"Want to join us?" He held up a muddy hand, while Drew said, "Yeah, Bren. Come play." His voice was suspiciously cheerful.
Raising her hands and clearly realizing both her brother and her mate were up to no good, Brenna backed off. "I love you both, but no. Not when I'm wearing these clothes."
She was gorgeous and so incredibly smart, Judd's mate. She was also in the middle of the White Zone with kids who'd figured out the adults were in the mood to play. The first water balloon hit her ten seconds later, catching her on the back. Her yelp of surprise was followed by a second balloon that soaked her front, revealing the lines of the simple white bra Judd had watched her put on this morning.
He loved watching her dress, loved the way she moved about so energetic and chatty in the morning. And he loved that she fed his touch hunger with demands of her own. Judd liked nothing better than to get his hands on her.
"Since you're wet anyway . . ." Rolling to his feet, he started to stalk toward her.
"You keep your distance," Brenna ordered. "Judd Lauren, I mean it! I am not getting mud all over--"
Giving up trying to make him behave when it was clear he wasn't about to listen, she took off into the trees, kicking off her flats along the way.
Judd went to race after her . . . only to be brought down hard by a grip on his ankle. All the air in his lungs exploded from his mouth as he went chest-down right into the spot the pups had made their impromptu mud-creation zone. When he looked back, it was to see a certain blue-eyed wolf smirking at him. "Remember that time you used telekinesis on me?" Drew said. "I decided I'm still holding a grudge."
Judd took a breath then unstuck himself from the mud by pushing up onto his hands.
Drew tightened his grip.
And Judd took a leaf from Ben's book of mischief. The pup was a master at innocent misdirection. Judd's misdirection wasn't so innocent. "Indigo's on the ground," he said after pretending to look to the other end of the White Zone. "I think Hawke's making her eat grass."
Drew's hold grew slack as his head snapped in the direction Judd had been looking. "What?" It was a growl. "Where?"
Breaking free before the tracker could figure out Judd was lying through his teeth, Judd followed his mate's scent into the forest beyond the clearing of the White Zone. She'd made good use of her head start, but while she was a wolf, he was an Arrow. He was also teleport-capable. He didn't cheat though, staying on foot and using only the tracking skills he'd learned since becoming a real part of SnowDancer rather than simply existing within the pack.
When he caught Brenna, it was because she'd paused to take a rest by a large, deep pond. It had a mirrorlike surface kissed by sunlight and surrounded by purple blooms with yellow hearts as well as by tiny white wildflowers that reminded him of daisies, the mountain flora having adapted to survive at this altitude. Careful to stay upwind so she wouldn't catch his scent, he crept up behind her.
"Judd!" she screamed as he wrapped his arms around her and rubbed his muddy face against the side of hers, his equally muddy chest sticking to the back of her wet shirt.
He wasn't expecting her to hook her foot around his
legs, unbalance him. They fell into the pond together, came up spluttering.
Splashing water at him, Brenna grinned. "Serves you right."
"I needed to wash off the mud anyway." Going under, he scrubbed his face clean before coming back up and hauling her close with one arm around her waist. Her body was softly curved and lithely muscled both--Brenna was a tech rather than a soldier, but aside from her lupine love of running under the moonlight, she attended certain compulsory training sessions alongside fellow packmates who weren't submissive, but who weren't dominant enough that a protective security role in the pack was a driving force.
They had the combat training so they could provide backup should SnowDancer suffer an assault that broke through the ranks of aggressive dominants. The training was intense and regular, and it satisfied the dominance of the wolf within while permitting Brenna to continue to work in another field.
Because her true asset was her dazzling mind.
"How was the meeting?"
"Good. The university wants me to teach a class."
Judd felt no surprise. Young though she was, Brenna was at the forefront of her field, her ideas cutting-edge. "You want to?"
"I'm considering it." Mind clearly on other matters, she smiled and wrapped her legs around his waist, having already linked her arms loosely around his neck. "Do you think we're far enough away from the White Zone not to be interrupted?"
He knew that tone in her voice, slightly husky and soft at the same time. His body responded as if it had been conditioned. Unlike the brutal suffocation of Silence, however, this conditioning was chosen, was wanted.
Gripping her lush lower curves, he opened to the kiss she claimed, felt his erection harden further as she licked her tongue against his. His hands flexed on her, his body hers to command. His mate had taught him pleasure after a lifetime of cold discipline engendered by torture that had forever ended his childhood, and now he craved that pleasure. Craved her. Only with Brenna could he be this man, a man who demanded and gave and who sank into sensation.
Sliding one hand up her back, he was about to deepen the kiss when he heard voices, felt the thunder of pounding feet. He broke the kiss just in time to witness an invasion, as all the adults who'd been in the White Zone jumped into the pond en masse, most with loud whooping and hard splashes. Brenna threw back her head and laughed as she was splashed, broke free to splash back. Judd watched her grin, watched her sparkle . . . and he played.