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)
He was being kind. It might not seem that way to a person who wasn’t changeling, but Soleil was and she understood. Lucas didn’t have to give her a choice at all—with how she’d sneaked into his territory, he would’ve been well within his rights to simply kick her out and tell her to stay out.
But to sign her life away under the control of another alpha? It made her freeze, shudder. She knew alphas weren’t all cut from the same cloth, but the only alphas she’d ever known had rejected her at every turn. Even to the extent of leaving her in a hospital not knowing herself, her body and mind in pieces.
When it came down to it, however, there was no choice here. The way the cubs had run to her, the way they’d remembered her … Someone did want her here, did need her here. And though she was sure now that the leopards would do everything in their power to give these babies a good home, they’d need to learn things that only another ocelot could teach them. And there were so few ocelots in the country, even fewer whom the cubs knew and trusted.
“I’ll stay,” she murmured, somehow managing to hold Lucas’s gaze through teeth-gritted will; she wasn’t the senior healer, wasn’t yet even part of the pack. “I acknowledge you as alpha.”
A sudden sense of peace within her. Because her cat was a creature of pack. It could be afraid and want this at the same time. The same way it had hated but needed Monroe.
“You’re a healer,” Lucas said. “I’ll have to blood-bond you into the pack.”
She knew that, had expected it, but appreciated the warning. A second later, she realized the explanation hadn’t been for her—Lucas was very aware of Ivan standing ice quiet and predator-still, ready to intervene.
Scowling, she shot him a glance that told him to stay put—the last thing she needed was for her Psy to end up shredded to pieces by Lucas’s claws. His expression didn’t change, those eyes of his still and pristine and as apparently uninvolved. But in her mind shimmered his web, silvery and with an edge of orange and red.
Giving up on nonverbal communication, she scowled. “There’s gonna be blood. Don’t freak out.”
Ivan stared at her. She had the feeling that no one had ever told him not to freak out before. But his body eased a fraction and he leaned back against the wall, arms folded. She didn’t take that as a sign that he was calm. His web continued to hover, cold as a burn.
When she glanced back at Lucas, she was almost certain he was fighting a laugh. But, not making a comment on the interaction, he slashed a line on his palm using a claw, then slashed a fine line down her cheek.
Having expected the cut to be on her throat or perhaps on her arm, she flinched. The web went hard inside her, lines of razored steel. This time, the look she shot Ivan was very much I will handle this.
He narrowed his eyes but stayed in position.
Lucas placed his hand against her cheek at the same time. A jolt ran through her entire body as his blood mingled with her own, the impact sucking all the air out of her lungs. She inhaled jaggedly in the aftermath, staring at the leopard who was now her alpha.
“Hold on,” he murmured, the power of him a thing of teeth and claws—a power that was a shield under which she now stood. “It’s not done yet.”
A thunder of sound through her entire body, a wild pulse made up of hundreds of hearts, a roar for a single breathtaking beat of time followed by pure silence … but she knew all those hearts still sang for her. The pack welcoming a new member, welcoming her.
For this was a bond of pack, not a bond between two people as such.
Tears burned her eyes.
She hadn’t known, hadn’t understood that the alpha-healer connection was a true bond, a primal thing that now lived beneath her skin, connecting her cat to Lucas’s leopard. It was this bond that would allow him to feed her energy should she need it—and it was this bond that would allow her to heal members of the pack, whether ocelot or leopard.
It was a thing beyond flesh and blood, a wild changeling synergy. But it wasn’t intimate—not like her strange bond with Ivan. She could sense Lucas’s presence through the bond, could reach to him for help, but that was it. He remained opaque to her as a person.
Leaning in, Lucas pressed his lips to hers. A tear rolled down her cheek. Because that gentle kiss, it was alive with the energy of the pack, an energy that spread through her like a fire that healed. The cut on her cheek began to seal up—almost but not all the way. The scar, though it would last only a few days, was a public statement that she was now DarkRiver.