Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
But Yariela had stopped mentioning the bond by the time Soleil hit eighteen years of age. They’d both known by then that Monroe wanted her gone. The only reason he’d allowed her to remain was because it mattered to Yariela. And the only reason Soleil had stayed was because she loved Yariela and others in the pack more than she hated Monroe.
But Soleil’s adoptive grandmother, her beloved Abuela Yari, was dead now. Lucas Hunter had murdered her. She’d been old, tired, a healer who’d lived her life in service to her pack. What threat could she have possibly posed to this leopard, powerful and deadly?
Her hands fisted, tears hot in her eyes.
A rumble in Lucas’s chest. “You’re not marked by an alpha. Have you come to ask for sanctuary?”
She stared at him, at this man she’d come prepared to hate. It was an out he was giving her, a way to skate under and around the laws that required she be punished for breaching DarkRiver’s territorial boundaries. But if she said yes and he accepted her request for sanctuary, then she knew he’d require a blood bond. A symbol of her commitment to the pack and vice versa.
“No,” she said sadly, because she thought she could’ve liked him if he hadn’t committed such a heinous crime. Meeting his gaze, she searched for the evil in the panther green.
Healers weren’t submissives, and she’d heard that senior healers could gainsay even their alpha, but those were complex bonds she’d never witnessed. Even Yariela hadn’t been able to make Monroe listen. She couldn’t imagine how it could be otherwise—especially when Monroe’s power had been nothing in comparison to Lucas Hunter’s.
This man was lethal beyond anything she could’ve imagined.
“I ask for no sanctuary,” she said, her throat thick. “I ask only for answers.” If she was going to die, she’d die having forced him to face the shame of his actions.
Scowl dark, he growled at her again.
And she became aware of Ivan going very, very still next to her.
Lucas’s eyes snapped to Ivan at the same time. “I’ll deal with you later, Mercant.”
Mercant.
She sucked in a breath. Everyone knew that unusual surname. It was that of the icy blonde who headed the Emergency Response Network—EmNet for short. It made total sense to Soleil’s cat that her enigmatic rescuer belonged to the same powerful family.
“If you believe I’ll sit here and allow you to harm Soleil, it’s best you recalibrate your assumptions.” Ivan’s voice was oddly … relaxed. No frost to it as might’ve been expected—but that did nothing to erase the threat in his words.
He was a cold-eyed predator coiled and ready.
Soleil braced for an alpha’s rage. From what she’d seen in her grandfather, then Monroe, alphas did not like being challenged. And while Ivan was no doubt powerful, he was exhausted and they were in the heart of leopard territory. A single nod from Lucas was all it would take to bring multiple predators down on Ivan.
“It’s fine,” she said quickly. “I can look after myself.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow with … was that amusement in his gaze?
Her cat was arching its spine in mortal insult when he said, “Sure, little healer,” as if she wasn’t five feet nine in her bare feet. “While you fall flat onto your face because you’re so wiped.”
“I certainly will not,” she said, while hoping he didn’t notice the tremor in her hands.
“Stubborn. It’s like you’re all born that way.” A grumbling mutter. “Sit. Eat. I’ll get nutrient drinks sent over for both of you.”
He shoved a hand through his hair, his eyes capturing hers. “I see you.” A low and deep murmur that made her cat stand at attention, because those words had been meant for the animal heart of her, not the human part.
“As for you,” he said, turning his attention to Ivan, “we’ll be having a long-overdue discussion. Until then, look after the little healer.”
A hot flare in her gut that razed reason to ash. “I am not little.”
Lucas pinned her with his gaze. “No,” he said slowly. “You’re not, are you?” A glance at the bar clutched in her hand. “I said, eat.”
She hated that his growl affected her. Lifting the bar, she bit off a piece and chewed in angry silence as Lucas rose and went to talk to a tall redhead in jeans and a fitted black shirt who appeared to be checking in with the traumatized humans and nonpredatory changelings in the street.
That redhead was a cat, too, her grace sinuously feline. And despite the stylish cut of her clothing and the cute black boots on her feet, she was a soldier. Soleil could see it in the cool grit in her expression, the lithe musculature of her body. She was also someone senior in the pack hierarchy—that was obvious from the way she interacted with Lucas.