Sascha swallowed and sidestepped the question. “You did a fantastic job, Nicki. I’ll be sure to tell Keely.”
Nicki made a little noise of delight. Laughing, Sascha was about to say good-bye when Nicki said, “Oh, wait, Sascha, I almost forgot—a copy of Eldridge’s book goes for over five hundred thousand dollars, it’s so rare. Any that are left are mostly in very private collections.”
“Thanks, Nicki.” Breath lost, she hung up and just sat there for several minutes.Five hundred thousand dollars?Dear God. Not that Nikita couldn’t afford it—that amount was nothing to her—but still . . .
She stared at the book once again, knowing it might provide the very answers she’d been seeking. Freed from the bondage of Silence, her empathic powers were changing, developing,growing. What she didn’t know was what they were growing into.
Her hand reached out. Withdrew. “Am I being a coward?” she asked out loud, then shook her head. “No, I’m being cautious.” Picking it up, she took it back inside the house—storing it in the safe hidden under the eco-cooker.
Despite her questions, her curiosity, she wasn’t yet ready to face her mother’s gift. Nikita had cut her off without a blink. It would take time to see anything but rejection when she looked at Eldridge’s book.
Riley headed out from Mercy’s office with a deep sense of rightness in his gut. She’d accepted the mating dance. He had no intention of letting her escape the mating itself, no matter what he had to do.
Walking into the underground garage, he raised an eyebrowwhen he saw the tall, red-headed male leaning against his four-wheel drive. “Bastien.”
“Riley.”
“Where are your brothers?”
Bastien smiled and it was nothing friendly. “They’ll be along soon. So, what makes you think you have any right to lay a hand on my sister?”
“She gave me that right.” He met those bright green eyes without flinching. In a physical fight, he knew he’d win. But this wasn’t about the physical. It was about something far more important—Mercy loved her family. He was not going to fuck up their relationship by beating on her brother. “Seems to me she’s a woman who knows what she wants.”
“She’s also my sister.” Bastien straightened. “And you’re a wolf.”
The hairs on Riley’s nape rose as another man entered the garage. He was older, his hair lightly threaded with gray. “I didn’t expect your father.”
“When you’re touching his baby girl?” Bastien snorted. “Hi, Dad. Shall we kill him here or take him out to the forest?”
Michael Smith folded his arms and fixed Riley with a gimlet eye. “You going to hurt my girl?”
“No, sir.”
“According to her grandmother, you already broke my Mercy’s heart.”
Riley’s stomach pitched, not at the words, but at the memory of how he’d hurt her. “She’s not that fragile.” He felt a sudden kinship with Judd. Riley and Drew had made his life hell after he first started seeing Brenna.
“No, she’s fucking not.” Bastien grinned as Sage and Grey entered the suspiciously otherwise-empty garage. Riley was now surrounded by Smith men. He didn’t make any aggressive moves toward the two youngest, though they were pushing into his space. Pups, they were just pups. Bastien could be dangerous, but in this, Michael Smith was the one who truly mattered.
Now the older man stepped closer. “She ever beaten you in a fight?”
“Almost.” And he knew full well that if she ever came after him with lethal intent, he might not end up the victor—predatory changeling females were inexorable hunters once they decided on blood.
“How’d that go down?”
Riley understood that was the most crucial question of all. He could’ve lied. He didn’t. “Like sandpaper.”
Michael blinked, as if surprised. “Then why are you with her?”
He held the other man’s gaze, let his own fill with the raw fury of the wolf. “You know why. And you know I won’t walk away.”
CHAPTER 41
Two hours after Riley left, Mercy tracked down and talked to Teijan. The Rat alpha was visibly frustrated, his normallyGQ-tidy hair wind-tousled, his black shirt wrinkled. “I know something’s happening, but damn if they aren’t good at hiding their tracks.”
Mercy thought about that. “Humans have learned to be invisible. These guys take it to the extreme.” And if the Human Alliance wanted to show muscle, display what it was capable of, it would send its best. Her cat suddenly sat up, seeing an answer to a riddle.
Leaving Teijan to reorganize and disperse his troops, she found a private spot and made a call to Lucas. “Have you considered the fact that maybe we should be using Bowen and his team?” They’d know all the tricks their ex-compatriots might use.