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)
DarkRiver’s senior dominants, she realized, were tougher than Monroe had ever been. Forget about Lucas Hunter; the redhead alone could’ve taken him down.
SkyElm had never stood a chance.
“I can get you out of here.” Ivan’s voice was a subvocal murmur that shivered over her skin.
Favors always come with a price.
One of the things her father had often said. While it might be true of many adults, it was never true of children. Children didn’t keep score. They gave you their treasures just because they thought those treasures might make you happy—even if it was a cookie they’d been waiting to eat.
Soleil missed the children the most.
Her heart hurt.
“Why would you?” she asked this man who was nothing like those innocent souls.
“Because I saved your life,” Ivan said, the compulsion to be with her no less powerful than the first time they’d met; Soleil had been written into his life, never to be erased. “It’s now mine to protect.”
A flash of temper in eyes that were ocelot, not human. “I be—” She slumped over, and it was only by moving with all the speed at his disposal that he managed to catch her before she slammed sideways into the ground. As it was, he stopped her downward motion with her head a bare inch from the asphalt.
Chapter 16
Alpha.
Healer.
Sentinel.
They are the foundations. The firm soil on which we all stand.
—From A History of DarkRiver by Keelie Schaeffer, PhD (continuing project)
SHE WAS INCREDIBLY light, far too light. Changeling bones were heavier than Psy or human, and Soleil was light with that factored in. Her shoulder bones—revealed by her tank top—jutted out against her skin, her arms were barely clothed in flesh, and he could feel her ribs against the arm he’d used to stop her from falling.
“Shit.” Lucas crouched down in front of her as Ivan straightened her up again, holding her protectively to his side. “I knew she’d burned herself out but I was hoping she had more reserves.”
Green eyes landed on Ivan, the alpha’s power a thing of claws and teeth, primal in its intensity. “This isn’t your fight, Mercant.”
Ivan didn’t bristle. That wasn’t how he functioned. Rather, he did a mental analysis of his psychic reserves, a count of the weapons on his body, and decided he could reach a single small shock device before Hunter decapitated him.
Not good enough.
Yet he didn’t release Soleil, driven by a protective urge that had nothing of reason to it. He didn’t care. Not when he felt whole for the first time since she’d walked out of his life. “She can’t fight for herself right now, so it’ll have to be me.”
Lucas stared at him for a long moment. “I should gut you, but turns out I can’t gut a man who’s putting his life on the line to shield a healer.” Hidden, unspoken things in that statement, a reference to information Ivan didn’t possess.
“I give you my word nothing will happen to her while she’s under DarkRiver’s care,” Lucas continued. “She needs that care. She’s showing all the signs of a healer who’s gone beyond her limits. What you’d call a flameout.”
Of course Hunter knew how to refer to a psychic burn that threatened to collapse a Psy mind for a day or more; the alpha was, after all, mated to a cardinal Psy.
Ivan was yet weighing up whether to trust Lucas’s words when the alpha said, “My mother was a healer.” His expression grew shadowed. “No one in my pack will ever harm a healer.”
Family, Ivan knew, was the core of a changeling pack. And Soleil was not only a changeling but a changeling healer. She had needs about which he knew nothing. In holding on to her, he could cause her irreparable harm.
So, even though allowing her out of his sight made a cold black rage boil within, the spider stretching its limbs in a nightmare fury, he permitted Lucas to gather her up in his arms.
The alpha stood with Soleil held to his chest. “Are you about to flame out?” he asked. “Do you need psychic protection?”
“Why would you help me?” Ivan was, after all, a spy in Lucas’s city.
“Because you saved lives today.” Grim words, an even grimmer expression. “The information coming out of the PsyNet is fragmented, but one thing is certain—a lot of people died during the incident. According to what we’re hearing, most of the Psy in this location should be dead—that they aren’t is because of you.”
Ivan knew he should look on the Net, check on the situation, but he had little to no reserves. “I’m not going to flame out.” He was, however, teetering on the edge and needed rest. Else he’d fall, his mind exposed and without shields.
“Then we’ll talk later—we know the location of your apartment.” Lucas walked away, taking with him a cat who’d prowled so deep behind Ivan’s defenses that she’d become embedded inside him.