Tangle of Need (50 page)

“Something happened and he just stopped talking to me,” she said in an almost sub-vocal tone. “I can’t believe he’s having an affair, but what else could it be?” She wiped off another rush of tears. “I said I was leaving him, hoping the shock would get through to him and he’d finally tell me what was wrong … and he said he wanted a divorce.”

MERCY
wasn’t the teensiest bit surprised when Riley turned up that night to join her on her security patrol of the city. Her leopard butted up
against his scent, playful and affectionate. Riley’s returning touch was careful, almost … tentative.

Tilting her head to the side, she said, “What’s up, my personal and very sexy big, bad wolf?” Riley was never tentative. Though quiet, the man had steamrollers beat. He’d have made mincemeat of the little submissive he’d once dreamed about—Mercy had forgiven him for that, but she still liked to jerk his chain about it now and then.

Not tonight, not when he looked so solemn.

“You’re being sweet,” he said, the tentativeness replaced by frustration. “I keep waiting for a hiss and a swipe with your claws, and instead you pet me.”

Laughing softly, she pressed her body to his. “Riley, my Riley.” So solid and strong and stable, he was her port in the storm. No matter what happened, she knew she could come home to Riley, his love as enduring as the mountains themselves. “I know what it does to you to have me vulnerable.”

The fact she carried a child—
children
—in her womb, meant she was no longer as fast or as lethal, cognizant as she was about not doing anything to injure their young. It was the reason she’d asked to be put on routine patrols. “I
know
.” Claws kneading gently at his shoulders, she spoke with her lips against his. “It doesn’t make me crazy when you check up on me.” His deep need to care, to protect was patent in every shimmer of the mating bond. That’s who Riley was, and she loved him for it.

“Honest?” he said, stroking his hand around to her nape.

“Honest.” Sealed with a kiss. “Are you going to stay?”

He gave a sheepish nod. “I put myself on shift here. I know it’s doubling up, but we have enough people that no one will notice.”

And Riley, she thought, had earned the time. He was SnowDancer’s rock, too, had been for as long as Hawke had been alpha. “Come on. Let’s go neck on the pier—Zach will cover for me.” Her partner was being very discreet on the other side of the street.

Riley laughed; it was one of her favorite sounds in the universe.

Chapter 60

“IT’S AS I
expected,” Vasquez said to the man inside the sterile chamber. “The anchors in the California region are now under heavy guard.”

“Can we get to them?”

“Yes, but we may jeopardize our primary operative.” Too late, Vasquez realized that he shouldn’t have given ground on the Cape Dorset strike. “We should change the focus of our next planned hit from San Francisco to another major center with the potential for high impact.”

“We aren’t mindless anarchists,” came the rasped-out response. “The populace must see we do this for a reason. To cleanse the Net of those who have failed to maintain their Silence.”

“The risk is high. Nikita and Anthony have changeling support.”

“Which only displays their weakness.” His judgment was one Vasquez shared. “It’s time we demonstrated that. San Francisco remains the target.”

Every part of his training told him the move was a foolish one, but he also knew Henry was right. Violence alone was not the answer. The message must be heard. “I’ll begin the preparations.” It would take extensive reconnaissance and extreme patience, but Vasquez had never yet failed in his task.

Chapter 61

ADRIA HAD BEEN
coping. She hadn’t interrogated Riaz about his meeting with Lisette the previous day, hadn’t picked and prodded at the unspoken truth that hovered between them, conscious that doing so would only create a wound that would fester. Instead, she’d made the decision to cherish the tender and passionate tie that had grown between them, to bask in the wild affection of his wolf, and not obsess over the primal bond they’d never have. So she didn’t know how this had happened, how she’d ended up alone with the woman who made it impossible to think about anything else.

“Thank you so much for this,” Lisette said, strapping on her safety belt. “I truly wasn’t hinting at a ride when I ran into you.”

“It’s not a problem.” Having dropped off some papers at DarkRiver HQ for Hawke, Adria had been walking back through Chinatown to her car when she’d run into Lisette coming out of a souvenir shop. “Buy anything interesting?”

The woman laughed, and it was a sweet, gentle sound. In spite of her perfect makeup and hair, her pristine tangerine-colored dress that looked both professional and summery beneath a neutral-toned trench coat, Lisette gave off a warmth that was genuine. Now, she rustled in her bag and came out with a small jade statuette. “The storekeeper said it would bring me good luck—I’m going to ask DarkRiver and SnowDancer for permission to set up an apartment in the city.”

Adria’s heart stuttered. “You’d continue to be the liaison?”

“Yes. It might actually work better if the packs have me here on the ground.”

The other woman’s words made too much sense, speaking as they did to the changeling preference for situations where they could judge the other party’s mood, his or her scent. “Have you and your husband decided which part of the city you’d want to live in if you get the okay?” The question was a reminder to herself that Lisette was happily married, had no desire to press a claim on the lone wolf who was Adria’s.

A long silence from the passenger seat, so long that the hairs stood up on the back of Adria’s neck, her mind working a hundred miles an hour. “Your husband’s not moving,” she guessed, knowing she shouldn’t pry but unable to let it go.

“No.” It was a whisper. “We’ve separated.”

Adria’s wolf felt as if it had been kicked with steel-toed boots, was broken and bleeding as her world crashed down around her, but her voice sounded oddly calm. “I’m sorry.” She understood the hurt that came with the collapse of a long-term relationship, couldn’t not feel compassion, even toward a woman who threatened to steal everything from her. “It’s final?”

Lisette turned her head toward the window, her hair a pale gold in the sunlight. “The last words he spoke to me were about a divorce.” A bleak confession. “I never knew how easy it was to dissolve a marriage.”

The other woman’s despair was a black wave, and Adria knew Lisette’s love for her husband hadn’t died, just been badly bruised. Riaz deserved more, deserved a woman who’d give him everything … but Lisette was his
mate
. And she was now free.

Adria wasn’t sure how she managed to function the rest of the drive to Lisette’s hotel. Her good-bye was curt enough that the Alliance liaison gave her a concerned look, but Adria was barely keeping it together—she didn’t have enough goodness in her to be gentle with the other woman’s pain. Leaving before Lisette could ask her what was wrong, she drove with single-minded focus to SnowDancer land, parked the vehicle in a heavily wooded section, braced her hands on the steering wheel and screamed … until her sobs robbed her of breath, shattering her to pieces from the inside out, the pain in her chest nothing to the one in her heart.

No matter if Lisette remained in love with her husband, she was Riaz’s mate. Adria would’ve fought for her black wolf with everything in her against any other opponent, but that single fact couldn’t be altered,
couldn’t be wished away. It wasn’t coincidence that Lisette found herself wanting to settle in California, her actions colored by a connection she didn’t consciously understand or realize. Riaz had to feel it, too, feel that primal draw that was the greatest gift of a changeling’s life.

But he’d made a promise to Adria, and he wasn’t a man who reneged on his promises.

So she’d have to be the one who broke her own heart.

JUDD
walked into the infirmary just after twelve, aware Walker had taken Lara off to lunch. It was easy to skirt Lucy’s attention—the nurse was involved with a young girl who’d come in with broken ribs after tumbling out of a tree, her tearstained face red, though she was making a valiant effort to fight back the sobs. Still, she was only seven.

Fighting the instinctive urge to help, he slipped unseen past Lucy and the pup and into the room occupied by Alice Eldridge. He made sure the door shut with the softest snick at his back before he turned to take in the patient. She lay with her eyes closed, her hands on top of the sheets, her head angled to the side. Though no longer hooked up to a feeding tube, she continued to wear the thin computronic skullcap.

Her chest rose and fell in easy breaths, her lashes dark against the dull brown of her skin. That skin needed the sun, needed to be burnished. Brenna had found some old photos of Alice Eldridge hidden online, including one taken by her rappelling partner as she came down beside him. Her legs had been gently muscled as she braced herself on the wall, her smile brilliant, the unexpected blonde-kissed brunette curls exposed under her helmet shiny with health.

Nothing like the wasted woman in the bed.

Yet her eyes, when they opened and zeroed in on him, were the same. Ebony, so dark the pupil was difficult to distinguish from the iris. He waited for a reaction, and it wasn’t long in coming. “Arrow,” she said. “Former.”

“You remember.” He hadn’t been certain she’d recall anything about their fleeting conversation.

“I thought,” she said, her voice rough with disuse, “you were a dream.”

Walking across the room, Judd grabbed a chair and sat down beside
the bed. “Your memories from before?” Lara and the others had become frustratingly closemouthed now that Alice was awake, citing the trust a patient needed to have in her physician. But this woman had incredible knowledge locked inside her mind—knowledge Sienna would need going into the future. Alice was the
only
authority on X-Psy in the world.

A deep breath, ebony eyes shifting to the right.

Following her gaze, Judd saw the water bottle. He picked it up and held the straw to her lips. She took a sip, two, before halting. Waiting until he’d put the bottle back, she said, “A broken kaleidoscope. Those are my memories.”

“Yet you know what a kaleidoscope is.”

A faint smile on that too-wide mouth. In the photo, her mouth had seemed perfect for her face, her smile huge. But here, her face all jutting bones, the lushness of her lips didn’t fit. “Yes,” she said. “Strange place, the mind. I’ve lost me, but I’ve retained the world.”

Her intelligence was clear, even now, when she was so damaged. It made him wonder who Alice would be if she ever again regained her full self. “Do you know when you are?” A hundred years, more, had passed since the beginning of Alice’s forced sleep.

“Yes.” Such loss in that acknowledgment. “I had parents. I remember them. They’re gone.” Simple words to describe an ineffable truth.

“I’m sorry.” There was something about Alice that made him think “she’s one of us,” though the scientist was human, and from a time long gone. Perhaps it was because she had tried to study the most outcast of all designations.

The sorrow in Alice’s expression was replaced by a quiet knowledge as she watched him. “You wanted to break me,” she said. “Any Arrow would.”

“I needed the knowledge in your mind.”

Alice’s lashes came down, lifted, her chest rising and falling. “Strange how I remember the Arrows.”

“Perhaps we were the last thing you saw.” His historic brethren could well have been the ones who had taken her.

A frown, the smooth skin of her forehead wrinkling. “No,” she whispered. “Zaid wouldn’t have allowed them to put me in a box.”

Za-eed.

Alice’s pronunciation of the name, Judd thought, was perfect. It was her acquaintance with it that surprised him. Zaid Adelaja had created the squad, been the first Arrow, a telepath with a ferocious ability in mental combat. “You knew Zaid?” It wasn’t impossible—if Judd was right about the date of Zaid’s death, the other male’s lifetime would’ve intersected with Alice’s.

Her hand fisted on the white sheet. “I think so.”

Shattered memories, he reminded himself, certain she wasn’t healthy enough to lie. “You’ll remember.”

“You sound more certain than the lovely healer with the black curls.” A pause, her fingers rising to touch the computronic skullcap that covered her shaved head. “I had curls. So many colors in there—as if my father’s blond and my mother’s black hair collided in me.” Dropping her hand, she stared at the wall, her gaze distant.

He wondered what she saw, but he kept his peace for now. Force would not make Alice remember, regardless of how important it was that she did. Rising, he returned the chair to its spot against the wall and was about to leave when Alice spoke again.

“All I remember before you,” she whispered, “is sadness, such terrible sadness. It made my heart tear in pain, until the agony took over my world. Zaid … Zaid was there.”

ARRIVING
back in the den four hours after she’d dropped off Lisette, Adria might’ve allowed herself a little more room to breathe, hope struggling to find a ray of light in the darkness, but then she saw Riaz walking toward her, and knew time had run out.

Riaz’s smile reached his eyes. “Hello, Empress.”

“Hey you.” Flowing into his arms, she let the strength and heat of him surround her one last time. “Do you have time to talk?”

“A few minutes,” he said, wrapping the long tail of her hair around his hand as he had a way of doing. “I have to head in for a discussion with Hawke about BlackSea.”

“Something come up?” Such an everyday question. Such a quiet intimacy she’d never again experience. The next time they met, it would be
as senior soldier and lieutenant, not lovers who had become friends … more.

“No.” His chest rumbled against her. “Just a case of setting up a permanent communications line. We’re thinking Kenji for the liaison, since I have the Alliance.”