“Eduardo, you’re not an idiot. You have to know I’m with Riley.” She still couldn’t quite believe she’d agreed to be his lover. Part of her was convinced it wouldn’t work—they clashed far too often. But another part of her was exhilarated, ready to take on the wolf on every level and then some.
Eduardo shrugged, tone insouciant when he answered. “You don’t wear his scent. You haven’t accepted him as a leopard female needs to accept a male. Means the coast is clear.”
The way he said that disturbed her enough to agitate the leopard. “I might never wear any man’s scent.” The leopard liked running wild. To be tied that intrinsically to another, until their scents melded, was something that made it restless, wary. “But even then, we’d have zero chemistry.”
He stood from his half-sitting position against the railing and gave her a smile that she figured would’ve sent most women into orgasm on the spot. “How about a kiss to test that theory?”
“How about you stay right there.” It was a command. “I need to get to work—and you should go home.”
A very Latin sigh. “You break my heart, Mercy.”
“I’m sure you’ll find someone to patch it up for you.” She’d already had a few inquiries from interested parties as to whether “the sexy one with gorgeous eyes” was off-limits. They continued to be a little wary of the “dangerous bite of beautiful.” “I’ve told the women of the pack that you’re free to a good home.”
“Such cruelty.” But he smiled and it was real this time, stripped of the charm he’d used as a mask till then. Eduardo was as lethal as any of the sentinels in her own pack, his protective nature honed to a fine edge—he’d make as possessive a mate as Riley.
She scowled. All this talk of mating was starting to affect her sanity. Riley would never be her mate. Heat aside, she wasn’t what he was looking for, and he was exactly the kind of man who made her cat the most wary . . . in spite of the fact that it was his strength that drew her to him.
A painful paradox.
Maybe she’d been right in what she’d said to Tammy—perhaps she’d never be able to surrender that absolutely to a man, to trust him with that much of herself. It was a real possibility that one day soon, she’d have to watch Riley mate with someone else. Her hand fisted. “Call it what you like,” she said to Eduardo, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He shrugged. “I’ll stay—after all, Joaquin’s still in with a shot.”
Not deigning to answer, she turned on her heel and left, arriving at her current CTX station just after lunch. She had every intention of working with single-minded focus, but couldn’t forget the disturbing ferocity of her reaction to the thought of Riley mating with another woman, a woman who’d have the right to touch him, kiss him, hold him when his demons got too bad. Even now, as she made her way to the garage, the idea made her blood ignite.
“Security cameras, check, weapons detection system, needed,” she muttered in an effort to drown out the cat’s angry hissing. “Can’t do much about Psy teleporters, though. How do you detect someone who poofs in?”
A familiar scent came to her on quiet air currents. “Talking to yourself, big sis?”
She pecked her middle brother, Sage, on the cheek. “I smelled you a mile off, Herb.” It was an old joke, one that never failed to make him scowl.
It didn’t today either. “Ha-ha. This is my I’m-not-amused face.” That done, he put his camera equipment on the floor and rubbed the back of his neck. “Guess where I just was.”
Based on the now genuinely pained expression on his face, she said, “Lifestyles of the rich and famous?” Sage normally covered the crime beat.
“Close. I had to sit through an interview with Bibi Pink.”He looked like he was about to throw up. “If she has three brain cells, I’m a frickin’ wolf.”
Mercy’s stomach dipped at the way he said “wolf.” What would her family say if they realized she was consorting with the enemy on a very intimate basis? “Who did you piss off to get on that?”
“Nobody—it was Eamon’s turn to do the celebrity stuff, but he got called out to a shooting at the Berkeley campus. I was the closest to Bibi so I covered.”
“Another shooting?” Frowning, she turned to look at her brother. Sage had inherited the family red hair, but on him, the red was tangled with so much brown, most people didn’t realize he had any red at all until he walked out into the sun. “Details.”
Deep hazel eyes frowned. “Would it hurt you to say please?”
“Would you prefer I broke your arm?” She’d grown up with three little hooligans who didn’t seem to understand the meaning of a closed door. If she’d let them, they’d have swarmed her like a horde of locusts. “Give it up, hotshot.”
“Abuse,” he said, but then gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek, the scent of him a familiar and much loved touch of firs dusted with snow, and the sweet crushed nutmeg of home. He’d hate to be described that way, but that was how she saw him—if Bastien was the rock, and Grey the sea, then Sage was the tide. Fluid. Enduring.
Now he put an arm around her shoulders. “I’m getting this second hand,” he said, “but apparently it was so much of a mess that there’s no way the Council’s going to be able to keep it quiet. Some senior Psy professor put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.”
“Suicide by a Psy is news, but you’re talking breaking news bulletin if Eamon got pulled off schedule. Why?”
“ ’Cause the professor held his physics class captive for twenty minutes beforehand. He shot himself in front of them.”
“Jesus.” Mercy rocked back on her heels, datapad dropping to her side. “You hear of any other episodes like this?”
“I got a buddy up in North Dakota—he says they’ve had acouple of incidents of Psy acting out violently. One guy almost beat another to death before they managed to pull him off. And Garrick, up in Chicago, he’s had a couple of hits on his radar, too.”