Allegiance of Honor (32 page)

HAWKE WAS ABOUT
to hold a working dinner with his lieutenants when he received a message from Lucas updating him on the hunt for Leila Savea and on the BlackSea op currently being planned. Sliding away his phone, he decided to give his people a little more time to talk before they began to discuss that situation among others—including the unexpected wrench Lucas had thrown into Trinity by proposing an “adjunct” or provisional signatory status.

The DarkRiver alpha had sent the idea only to SnowDancer and the Arrows at this stage, for their input. Hawke’s initial reaction had been a firm “hell, no.” He couldn’t understand why the fuck Lucas would propose something that could give Ming a way in should he want to take it; it was Riley who’d made him see the reason behind Lucas’s idea.

“Trinity is about creating a world without divisions,” his best friend and lieutenant had said. “There has to be a way for former enemies to prove themselves, or Trinity fails before it ever really begins.”

Hawke wasn’t sure he was civilized enough to accept such rational necessities, but since they had Ming on the ropes, he was at least willing to listen to feedback from the rest of his lieutenants. Having Riley’s calm presence anchor the discussion was partially why this SnowDancer meeting was about to take place in DarkRiver territory.

He and the lieutenants who were based in the Sierra Nevada den had arrived a couple of minutes ago with insulated carriers holding dinner, to find both Mercy and Riley strolling outside their cabin, soaking up the
red-orange rays of the setting sun. Alone with Mercy when Riley was pulled into a back-slapping hug by Riaz, Hawke leaned down as if to kiss her on the cheek.

She growled low in her throat. “Try it, wolf, and lose your face.”

Grinning, he instead gave her what he’d been holding behind his back. “A little present.”

Another growl as she narrowed her eyes. “Why are you giving me gifts?”

“Your pupcubs are half SnowDancer.”

Mercy’s eyes went to where Riley was laughing with Riaz, Indigo, and Judd, the four lieutenants apparently deeply amused by something. Expression softening, she turned her cheek slightly. “You may kiss me,” she said, like a queen bestowing a favor. “But only because you moved your lieutenant meeting all the way down here mostly so Riley could see everyone.”

Hawke didn’t dispute her interpretation of his actions because she was dead right. The agenda for the meeting offered a good excuse, but this was really about looking after a packmate who’d given so much to SnowDancer. Accepting the invitation to kiss Mercy, an invitation she’d never before extended, he drew in her scent. His wolf considered her part of his pack, especially now, when she carried the twinned scents of leopard and wolf far more strongly than usual. “Open your present.”

Gaze suspicious again, she took a seat in an outdoor chair, then tore away the wrapping paper to pick up the baby-sized item on top. It was a legless one-piece bodysuit in SnowDancer blue, with “SnowDancers Rule” written on the front in white and a wolf silhouette on the back in the same shade.

The next item was a tiny white T-shirt with wolves gamboling all over it.

Mercy looked up, her lips trying not to curve. “You’re doing this to mess with Lucas.”

“I’m astonished you’d say that.” Hawke pressed a hand to his heart. “I’m just proud of my soon-to-be-new packmates.”

Shaking her head, Mercy gave in to her smile as she continued to go through the miniature pieces of clothing, all of them SnowDancer
branded . . . except for the last set, every one of which had “Pupcub” written across the front, above a cartoon of an adorable half wolf–half leopard pupcub drawn by Toby.

The thirteen-year-old had shown it to Sienna, who’d shown it to Hawke.

The rest was history.

Mercy’s face lit up. “Riley! Come look!” She held up a little yellow jumpsuit that came complete with a hood that sported two pointed ears.

Cheeks creasing in a deep grin, Riley said, “Perfect.”

The other lieutenants hadn’t seen the gift pack, came over to go through it together with Riley and Mercy, all of them laughing as they debated their favorites. Including Riaz. The dark-haired lieutenant with eyes of beaten gold had been in one hell of a good mood for the past month, stayed that way throughout the working dinner—where Mercy told them what Nathan had said about the terrible error in building Trinity on a foundation of exclusion.

The words hit hard, made them all think.

Hawke was still chewing over the implications when he and the others left Riley and Mercy’s home in the rugged SUV they’d driven down in together. Reaching SnowDancer territory, they decided to park the SUV in a lower area and run the last section home. It was such a clear night, the stars crystalline, that the wolf wanted to throw back its head and howl, but Hawke stayed in human form for now, as did the others.

It was easy enough for him to fall in beside Riaz, while Indigo and Judd ran ahead. “The idea of giving former enemies a way to prove their good intentions is never going to make sense to my wolf.”

“It took a human to stop the Territorial Wars for a reason,” was the lieutenant’s answer. “I’m fucking impressed Lucas was able to fight his own instincts enough to put the proposal together.”

Hawke was quiet for a while, the wind cool against his face as they ran. “Having a cub, being responsible for that vulnerable life, it changes a man.” He’d seen it in Lucas, only now understood the depth of that
change—to give Naya an undivided world, Lucas was willing to battle even his panther’s most primal urges.

Because the cats? They were as possessive and as territorial as Hawke’s wolves, and they did not forgive anyone who’d harmed their own. “Five years is a long time,” he mused. “Plenty of room for people to fuck up if they’re trying to game the system.” Arrogant bastards like Ming LeBon would never have the patience to stay “clean” that long.

“And just because an asshole signs the accord doesn’t mean we have to work with them.” Riaz’s voice was familiar in the night, as familiar as the dark woodsmoke edged with citrus that was his natural scent. “Open communication doesn’t mean open access.”

“Yeah.” Hawke pushed his hair off his face, decided the adjunct proposal was one he’d have to sleep on. This would not be an easy or uncomplicated decision. “In other matters,” he said to the man who ran beside him, “you’re scaring people with your happy.”

Riaz’s laugh was all wolf, his eyes night-glow in the darkness when they met Hawke’s. “You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?”

“I’ve got some clue. You want to tell me if I’m right?”

“You know how I had that mating tug toward Lisette?” Riaz asked. “Like she was meant to be my mate?”

Hawke nodded, aware that lingering remnant of a relationship that had never been and never would be, had deeply frustrated Riaz. Wolf and man, both parts of Riaz had chosen Adria, loved the senior soldier with a furious passion.

“It’s gone.” Riaz’s tone was jubilant. “Like it stretched so thin it just broke.”

Hawke’s wolf opened its jaws in a lupine grin. “I’m guessing this doesn’t worry you.”

“Are you kidding? It bugged the hell out of me. I
love
Adria, and that tug, it was like a splinter stuck under my skin.”

Hawke could hear Riaz’s scowl in his voice.

“Lisette and I had a chance once, sure,” the lieutenant added, “but that
chance passed. Adria’s my woman, the only one I want. The suggestion that it might be otherwise pissed me off every fucking day.”

“I get it.” A predatory changeling who truly loved, loved all in. “People have always wondered what would happen if a changeling found his mate but chose to walk away.”

“I don’t know that my experience would apply to everyone,” Riaz said after they’d navigated around a large rock in their path. “I mean, the whole situation was messed up. Lisette being human and madly in love with her husband, for one. That would’ve never happened if she’d been changeling. It was all off from the start.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” If a changeling was in love, the mating bond couldn’t come into play with anyone else—it was a law written in stone. Hawke knew of no exceptions. “You just did things backward,” he said in realization. “Your love for Adria pushed the possibility of the mating bond with anyone else out.”

“Damn straight.” Riaz’s tone held wolfish satisfaction.

“Hell, Riaz.” Hawke whistled. “You’re going to give the philosophers enough meat to chew over for years, if not decades. What, for example, happens to two changelings who try to walk away from a bond when neither is attached to anyone else?” Hawke couldn’t imagine why anyone would walk away from the other half of their soul, but the philosopher types tended to think up ridiculous questions like that.

Riaz shrugged. “I don’t think that would happen unless they were at war, like this couple Dalton told me about who were on opposite sides during the Territorial Wars. Even then, it’d be a two-way pull—I can’t see how that’d give you enough breathing room to fall in love with anyone else. With me and Lisette, it was a dual repudiation.”

A sudden grin as the lieutenant turned to run backward for a minute so he could face Hawke. “But really, I don’t give a fuck about the philosophers. They can philosophize all they want. I just want to love the woman who owns my heart, the empress whose name is on my fucking soul.”

Nothing more needed to be said.

•   •   •

RIAZ
caught the scent of crushed berries and frost the instant he entered the den. Adria had passed by this way recently, as had several others. Skin aching with the need to touch her, he followed the scent—and realized Indigo and Drew were following along right behind him. SnowDancer’s tracker had met his lieutenant mate at the waterfall, run the rest of the way back with them.

Riaz stopped. “Don’t you two want to go to bed?” he asked pointedly.

Throwing one arm around Indigo’s shoulders, Drew grinned. “Nope. Wide awake here.”

Indigo’s smile was less aggravating. “I wanted to ask Adria about one of the older pups under her authority and I keep forgetting. Promise it won’t take more than a couple of minutes.”

“Two minutes,” Riaz said with a scowl. “Then scat.”

“Gee whiz, Riaz, impatient m—oof.” Rubbing at his abdomen, Drew made a pitiful face toward his mate. “Your elbow’s really sharp, Lieutenant.”

“I’ll kiss it better.” Indigo’s tone was dry but she had her hand on Drew’s back, was probably petting him under his T-shirt. “Now stop provoking Riaz. He hasn’t seen Adria since this morning.”

Drew’s expression turned sympathetic, that of a man who understood what it was to adore a woman. Riley’s younger brother might be the most irreverent wolf Riaz knew, but under the playfulness was a man who knew what it was to love, what it was to be loyal. “Best behavior,” the tracker said. “I swear.”

As it turned out, Drew hadn’t needed to make that vow. Adria was up and awake and at an impromptu party thrown by the senior soldiers to celebrate the birthday of the man who held the leadership position among them. Elias was grinning and having a beer when Riaz walked in, his mate Yuki by his side. The hard-nosed lawyer had her hair down and was dressed in a white shift dress with wildflowers on it. Her eyes were only for Eli.

“Hey, how come we didn’t rate an invite?” Drew groused while Riaz made a beeline for Adria.

“Riaz.” Eyes of deepest blue-violet filled with delight. “Did—”

He cut off her question with a hot tangle of a kiss that made her claws dig into his nape as a moan formed in the back of her throat. A split-second later and his possessive lover was kissing him back with equal hunger as her scent heated up.

The others around them were predictably whistling like a feral pack of wolves when Riaz and Adria came up for air. A few had thrown back their heads to add a howl into the mix.

Ignoring the lunatics, he savored the taste of the strong woman who was his by taking another kiss, his heart thundering in his ears. “Drew’s right,” he said afterward. “Why no invite for us?”

Lips swollen and pupils dilated, Adria ran her hands down his body to the bottom of his T-shirt, so she could slip her hands underneath. He shivered.

“We threw it together after you’d all already left for Riley’s,” Adria told him with a smile that cut him off at the knees. “D’Arn found out it was Eli’s birthday and sweet-talked Aisha into baking a quick cake.”

“Sakura with friends?” Eli and Yuki’s pup was a little slip of a girl.

“She’s having a sleepover with Marlee.” Leaning up, Adria nuzzled at his throat. “How was the meeting?”

“Good to see Riley and Mercy.” He told her about the baby clothes Hawke had gifted the couple, drank in her pleasure. “Rest was business.” A nip at her lower lip. “We can talk about it once we’re in our quarters.” No one expected mates or couples in committed long-term relationships to keep secrets from each other, and Adria was senior enough to have a right to the information he’d share regardless.

“You must be tired,” Adria said with a soft, luscious brush of her lips over his. “Ready for bed?”

The golden-eyed black wolf that was Riaz’s other half wanted to growl an assent. Wolf and man, Riaz’s intent had been to steal Adria away, lick her up in the privacy of their quarters, but he could taste her own wolf’s
happiness in this gathering of those she worked with most often—the maternal cabal’s lures notwithstanding.

And Adria’s happiness was Riaz’s.

“Let’s stay,” he said with a smile, his hunger sated enough to take the edge off. “I’ll pet you later.”

The gold streaks in her eyes going night-glow as her wolf rose to the surface of her skin, she grazed her claws teasingly over his neck. “Deal.”

Indigo and Drew came over shortly afterward, and while the two women spoke about a teenager Adria was supervising as part of her secondary maternal dominant duties, Riaz and Drew went across to wish Eli a happy birthday.

Not surprisingly, Hawke, Judd, and their mates turned up bare minutes afterward, as did a number of others, word clearly having gotten around that a party was in progress.

Riaz was with Hawke a quarter of an hour later when his alpha’s phone gave a sharp ping. “It’s time?” he asked.