The Psy-Changeling Series, Books 6-10 (140 page)

 

 

Hawke turned up
at camp early the next morning—but he wasn’t alone. “An
drew
,” drawled the lissome young female he’d brought with him, “so this is where you’ve been hiding.”

“Maria—” Drew’s words of welcome were cut off when the petite but curvy woman jumped up and planted her plump, ruby red lips smack-bang on his, her legs wrapping around his waist as he caught her beneath the thighs.

Indigo narrowed her eyes at her alpha, unable to erase the image of Drew’s fingers closing over Maria’s taut flesh. “You brought me another camper?” Catty, she thought, that was catty.

A gleam in those pale eyes, but his tone was even as he said, “Maria’s a soldier, as you very well know, and she’s a capable one.” Hawke looked over to where the kids were grinning and wolf-whistling at Drew and Maria. “I thought it’d be good experience for her to come up here, spend some time coaching the younger kids.”

Drew was putting the girl on her feet now, having broken the kiss—though his hands remained on her tiny waist. Color burned hot and bright over his cheekbones, and Indigo wanted to believe it was embarrassment, not desire. Except that he was a healthy young male, and Maria of the big breasts, flashing dark eyes, and lush hips was giving him some hotly explicit signals, her hands splayed on his chest, all but openly petting.

Indigo felt her claws prick the insides of her skin just as Hawke put two fingers to his mouth and whistled. “Time to go hunting. I want everyone in wolf form.”

Good, Indigo thought, because she was in the mood for blood. Preferably of the “sweet young thang” kind.

 

 

Andrew wanted to
kill Hawke—slowly and with great pleasure. Of all the women to bring up here . . . “Why?” he muttered to his alpha when Maria detached herself at long last to go stash her pack, her hips swaying in invitation as she blew him a kiss over her shoulder.

Hawke’s gaze was so innocent, Andrew knew it was pure bullshit. “I asked for a volunteer—she raised her hand.”

“Uh-huh.” Shoving his fingers through his hair, Andrew glared at the man he fully intended to strangle at the first opportunity.

“Maria’s sweet, she’s sexy, and she wants to bang your brains out.” Hawke’s grin was pure, amused wolf. “I don’t see a problem here—especially since you obviously need to get banged.”

His alpha knew exactly which buttons to press, but then so did Andrew. “Projecting, Hawke?”

Ice blue flared with something hotter, more brilliant, but Hawke didn’t rise to the bait. “Smart-ass. Tell me about the problem last night.”

Andrew laid it out, momentarily pushing aside the complication caused by Maria’s entrance into his courtship of Indigo. “I went out and had another look this morning before you arrived. Nothing.”

Frowning, Hawke stared out at the winter green of the forest. “We’ll keep an eye on the situation, see what develops. Judd’s heard nothing from his contacts that implies a Council operation, but we’ll stay on alert.”

“Cats?”

“I left a message for Lucas,” he said, naming the leopard alpha. “Riaz and Elias are running things at the den today, so they’ll contact us if the cats discover anything.” Looking around, he took a deep breath of the chill morning air. “Let’s enjoy this day—not often we get a chance like this.” Reaching back to his nape, he pulled up his T-shirt, stripping it off as Andrew got rid of his own.

They’d both changed into wolf form by the time the kids ambled back. Maria, too, had shifted. She was a frisky little wolf, pretty and dainty, even in her animal form. Andrew thought she was sweet enough, but she wasn’t the woman he wanted. That woman was an elegant, long-legged wolf with fur of a rich dark gray, and a distinctly haughty look in her golden eyes when she strolled up to stand beside Hawke.

He wanted to bite her.

Maria nipped his flank instead.

The juveniles were
exhausted that night, crawling into their sleeping bags as soon as darkness fell, but they’d dragged those bags outside, so they could sit and listen to the older members of the pack talk. A few had chosen to remain in wolf form, sitting curled up close to the laz-fire, a portable heating device that gave an excellent approximation of flames but with zero chance of creating a forest fire.

As Andrew watched from his spot on a log opposite Hawke and Indigo,
his
lieutenant—and yeah, he was discovering quick-fast that he was a possessive bastard—showed their alpha the little metal ball Silvia had discovered. Hawke played the object over his hand after sniffing at it to see if the wolf’s nose could tell him anything. “We’ll see what Bren and the other techs can do with this,” he said. “I don’t like anyone putting their shit on our land—Council or conglomerate.”

Maria nudged Andrew with her elbow when Hawke and Indigo fell to discussing what adjustments they’d have to make to the watch patrols to free up soldiers for this area.

“Are you off shift next weekend?” she whispered, her breast soft and warm against his upper arm as she snuggled closer. “I have tickets to a new show. It’s got really great reviews.”

Andrew kept his arms hanging over his knees, his fingers loosely intertwined. “I thought you were seeing Kieran.” He’d noticed—and been grateful—that she’d stopped throwing lures his way after hooking up with the boy.

A sniff, firelight glinting off the soft ebony of her curls as she ducked her head. “Yesterday’s news.”

Andrew’s wolf stilled at the deep hurt he sensed beneath the blazing heat of her sensuality. “Come for a walk,” he said, knowing she’d never open up within earshot of the others.

She agreed with alacrity. He wondered if Indigo even noticed their departure, she was so deep in conversation with Hawke—and that was one hell of a punch to the ego. But he kept that to himself as he led Maria away from the campsite and toward a more private spot, because if security was part of Indigo’s mandate in the pack, this was part of his—looking after those who might not trust their pain to anyone else.

Maria slid her hand over his abdomen as soon as they hit the darkness of the trees, her goal the waistband of his jeans. “Soooooo . . .”

Fully in control, he gripped her wrist, squeezed. “Hush.” Then, fingers locked around her wrist, he continued to lead them through the winter green firs.

Maria didn’t resist either his hold or his order, and that was a clear indication that his hunch was right. Young predatory changeling females weren’t at all shy about going after what they wanted, and Andrew had never before been able to discourage her so quickly. Bringing them to a flat glacial rock, he took a seat, tugging her up to sit beside him. “So, he broke your heart, huh?”

“Who?” She wrenched away her hand. “I thought you were bringing me out here to do something interesting, not talk about old rubbish.”

“Maria.”
Reaching out, he did hug her then, rubbing his chin over the softness of those pretty curls. “Talk to me, sweetheart. You know you can.”

Another sniff, this one distinctly wetter. “All the girls warned me about him, but I didn’t listen. I thought I could tame him. How stupid!”

Andrew cuddled her closer, until she was almost in his lap. “Tell me.”

And she did, pouring out her heart. Kieran, for all his humanity—having been adopted into SnowDancer—was more of a wolf on the prowl than most, leaving a trail of broken hearts in his wake. Maria, Andrew thought, wasn’t the first casualty, nor would she be the last. Her heart would heal, but he sympathized with the burning hurt of the fresh bruise—he knew better than most how badly the heart could ache when the one you wanted didn’t want you back.

Indigo had been a warm, luscious presence beside him all night long, her legs tangled with his, smooth against his rougher skin, but he didn’t make the mistake of thinking she’d changed her mind about his suitability as a lover. Still, she’d responded to him in a sexual way more than once since they’d hit the mountains, the scent of her desire a taunting perfume.

It had taken everything he had not to stroke his fingers up to cup her breast last night after she kissed him, to nuzzle his way down and lap up the warm, erotic scent at the juncture of her thighs, to pleasure her with his mouth and his hands, to adore her in the most rawly sexual of ways.

He’d almost snapped when he’d realized she was fighting against her own body’s needs once again. Sometimes he wanted to shake Indigo, make her see sense. After the arousal he’d scented, he now knew he could seduce her by stoking up the embers of her passion until her wolf—sensual, tactile, with far fewer concerns than the human—pushed her into his arms.

But of course, it wasn’t that simple.

Feeling Maria rub her damp cheek against his chest, he pulled his attention back to the present, running his hand over and along her back until she quieted down. “Kieran’s an idiot,” he murmured, continuing to pet her with the undemanding caresses of a packmate. “When you grow up a little more and become the woman you’re going to be, he’s going to kick himself. And you can rub his face in it.”

Maria gave him a shaky smile, dark eyes near black even to his night vision. “You know how to stroke a woman’s ego.”

Using his thumbs, he wiped away the remnants of her tears. “It’s easy with someone like you.” Too bad he was stuck on a woman who might just drive them both to insanity with her refusal to even admit the possibility that there might be something between them.

 

 

Indigo found herself
alone half an hour after Drew left with Maria clinging to him like kudzu. No guesses as to what the two of them were doing, though thankfully, they’d gone far enough out of range that she couldn’t hear or scent their bodies. As for Hawke, he’d noticed that four of the juveniles weren’t as exhausted as their peers and had rounded them up for an exploration of the night-swathed forest.

The eight Hawke had left behind were all lost in deep sleep, their faces—no matter the form they’d chosen—content. Only Indigo remained awake by the fire, her spine stiff, her wolf snarling inside her mind as she stared at the spot where Drew had disappeared into the dark, his arm curled around Maria’s shapely form.

Her eyes shifted without conscious control, until she saw everything with the wolf’s piercing night vision. Furious with her lack of control, she went to the tent—to be confronted by Drew’s sleeping bag. He wasn’t likely to come back here, and even if he did, she sure as hell did not intend to sleep next to a male who stank of another woman. Decision made, she rolled up his bag and put both it and his pack in a neat pile against a tree a small distance away, where he couldn’t miss it.

Just being a good packmate, she told herself. It had nothing to do with the fact that an odd kind of anger was boiling through her system. She didn’t want to sleep with Drew. Okay, yes, she did, but she wasn’t going to do it, so she had no reason to be so savagely angry that he’d gone off with another female. There was nothing worse than a woman who played dog in the manger—it would be the worst kind of hypocrisy on her part.

Her mind snapshotted to an image of Drew’s naked body as he dropped the towel the night of the storm, his muscled flesh inviting touch. Maria was probably in raptures—
Enough
.

Stripping off her clothes, she pulled on a large tee over her panties and slipped in between the unzipped halves of her sleeping bag. She’d ended up kicking off the top half last night, not needing it given the blazing heat of Drew’s body. His heartbeat had been a slow, steady rhythm behind her, his breath warm against her temple. Sometime in the night, he’d spread his hand out over her abdomen and intertwined his legs with her own, the hairs on his thighs rubbing rough and sensuous against her skin. It hadn’t only been comforting to sleep like two tangled pups, it had been . . . more.

Gritting her teeth against the heavy impression of memory, she closed her eyes. Sleep continued to evade her like the most frustrating prey . . . and she was wide awake when she scented two familiar forms coming back to camp. Her hand fisted and she set her jaw, determined
not
to take a deeper breath, to peel apart the scents in a search for the musky taste of sex.

“Looks like everyone’s asleep.” A feminine whisper.

A pause and though Indigo knew it was impossible, she could’ve sworn Drew’s eyes were drilling into her skull. “You better get some rest, too.”

Sounds, skin meeting. A kiss? “Good night, Drew. That was really nice . . . thank you.”

Nice?
Not exactly a ringing endorsement. She hoped that burned Drew’s ego.

The next sounds were of Maria moving about, heading to her tent. Drew’s heavier tread didn’t follow. Instead, Indigo felt him go to his pack . . . and then more quiet, determined sounds—fabric being unrolled, boots being unlaced and dropped to the ground.

Unable to resist, she opened her eyes and twisted toward where she’d left his gear—to find him stripping off his T-shirt and throwing it on his pack in a way that shouted temper. His sleeping bag lay open beside him. She should’ve closed her eyes and gone back to sleep, but her wolf’s edgy temper prodded her to get up and confront him. “What are you doing?” she asked in an almost subvocal tone, not wanting Maria to hear. The kids were too tired to wake.

Cool blue eyes met hers. “Going to sleep.”

The cutting bite of his response took her aback for a second—she’d never really seen Drew angry before. “I thought you’d be sharing with Maria.”

“Is that what you think of me?” he asked with a frost in his tone that made her want to wrap her arms around herself. “That I’d take advantage of a girl who’s just had her heart broken?”

“I—what?” She was a good lieutenant, but she hadn’t seen anything in Maria’s behavior to betray that kind of hurt. “Who?”

“Doesn’t matter. She’ll be fine.” His hands went to the top button of his jeans and he flicked it open. “Might as well shift,” he muttered, not undoing the zipper. “Since it smells like rain, I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep tonight if I stay in human form.”