Play of Passion (7 page)

“I’m mated,” Judd pointed out with a cool arrogance that almost hid the laughter in his voice. “You can’t even get the woman you want into bed. I’d listen if I were you.”

Andrew gave him the finger, but his wolf pricked up its ears. “Yeah, so?”

“Sienna,” Judd said in an abrupt change of subject, “is slow to take to people, suspicious of everyone’s motives. She’s had to become that way to protect herself, but she lets you hold her. Do you understand how big a deal that is for her?”

Judd had almost intervened the first time he’d seen Drew pull Sienna into a hug. He’d thought his niece was being forced. But then, right before he’d turned Drew’s bones into so much shrapnel, he’d seen Sienna’s arms go around the wolf male’s waist, her face lift up to his with a tiny smile of welcome.

The sight had literally stopped him in his tracks.

“Yeah,” Drew now said, a tenderness in his voice that was most usually apparent when he spoke to his sister. “I knew she was hurting. Hell, I probably understand what she’s going through in one particular area of her life better than anyone.”

Judd didn’t pursue that avenue of thought—trouble was brewing there, but they had time yet. Tonight, he’d focus on Drew. “How did you get Sienna to trust you?”

“How?” A shrug Judd sensed more than saw, the moon eclipsed by the rain-heavy clouds. “I talked to her.”

“And bribed her with a dozen deluxe cupcakes, each with its own weight in frosting.” Judd could still remember how the three cousins—Sienna, Toby, and Walker’s daughter, Marlee—had sat around and gobbled up the sweet concoctions. “There wasn’t even a crumb left by the end of the day, and I’m pretty sure Sienna and the kids were in sugar comas.”

Drew’s laughter was warmth in the darkness. “I saw her eyeing a photo of them in a magazine. It was just a way to get into her good graces.”

“Same with painting pink daisies on the door of the vehicle she most often uses to drive to DarkRiver territory?”

“It was water paint,” Drew said, clearly unrepentant, “barely took her a minute to wipe it away.” A grin. “She only got mad when she found out I’d painted her rucksack, too.”

Judd couldn’t help it. He laughed. It was still new to him, that sound, the feel of it. But he liked laughing, liked the bubbles of joy in his bloodstream, the feel of his chest muscles flexing in a way that had once been wholly unfamiliar. “You’re an idiot, Drew.”

A low growl colored the air. “My sister might be a sucker for your face, but that doesn’t mean I’ll hold my punches.”

“I’ll ask the question again—how did you get Sienna to trust you?”

Obviously irritated at the repetition, Drew threw a pebble into the water, picked up another. “Indigo would say I charmed her into—Oh.” Still holding the pebble, he stared at Judd. “I
am
an idiot.”

 

 

Having left Drew
to plot the next step in his courtship of Indigo, Judd went home to kiss his mate and promise her he’d be home in a couple of hours. Brenna tugged down his head, rubbed her nose affectionately against his. “You’ll be careful.” It was an order.

“Nothing dangerous tonight,” he murmured, stroking his hands down her back, stunned as always by the delicate strength of her—such power in so small a frame. “Are you planning to wear one of those lacy things to sleep in?”

“I don’t know why I bother.” A smile against his lips, her wolf dancing in her eyes. “They never stay on long.”

“I like them.” He most especially liked peeling them off her inch by slow inch.

A husky laugh. “Then don’t be too late.”

Properly motivated to complete his errand and return to her arms, he made his way down into the night-cloaked streets of San Francisco, and from there, to the peaceful hush of the place Father Xavier Perez called both his vocation and his home. Xavier was waiting for him in the otherwise empty confines of the simple Second Reformation church, and Judd’s light mood transformed into concern as he came close enough to see the lines of strain on the other man’s normally serene countenance.

“Xavier,” he said, meeting the man of God in the center of the aisle, right below the peak of the roof, “what is it?”

“What I tell you now, you cannot share with our mutual friend.” Xavier’s eyes were troubled but resolute. “It’s not that I don’t trust him . . .”

“But the Ghost has his own agenda.” Judd, too, was worried about the powerful Psy rebel who was the third part of their triumvirate. The Ghost was connected to, and loyal to, the PsyNet. But the growing darkness in that very Net seemed to be in danger of corroding what remained of the other man’s soul. And if the Ghost snapped . . . A chill snaked its way up Judd’s spine. “I will not tell him.”

Xavier dipped his head in voiceless acknowledgment before saying, “I’ve never spoken of it, but there are a number of Psy among my congregation.”

Judd bit back his surprise. Religion was nonexistent in the PsyNet. Silence did not allow for it. “Do they come to you for guidance?”

A faint smile that did nothing to ease the tension around Xavier’s mouth. “No, they hide in the shadows. But I know they are there, and some have been coming for long enough that I feel they are mine to watch over.”

Judd waited as the priest opened his Bible and withdrew a folded piece of paper.

“A few of them have, over time, trusted me with their contact details.” He passed the paper to Judd. “This woman, Gloria, has attended the service every Thursday night without fail for two years.”

Judd had been an assassin, an Arrow the Council used as a weapon. He connected the dots before Xavier drew them. “She has stopped coming.”

“Just once, tonight,” Xavier said. “But she
always
contacts me if there’s even a chance she might miss a service. I received no message today, and no one answers when I attempt to call.”

Memorizing the information on the slip of paper—a simple telephone number—Judd passed it back to Xavier. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

Xavier slid the paper back into the Bible, his dark eyes drenched with worry. “Her soul was so lost when she first began coming—she was cold to the point of lifelessness. This past year, though, I could see her coming to life.”

Judd didn’t say anything, but he had a feeling that Gloria’s awakening had brought her the wrong kind of attention—the kind that led to rehabilitation. No one came back from rehabilitation. It erased the personality, wiped the mind, and left only the shambling husk of an empty shell behind.

Indigo didn’t see
Drew the next morning as she strode through the corridors, her destination the small office that was her own near the training rooms. She’d glimpsed him leaving Riaz’s party early with Judd the previous night. Now she found herself wondering if he’d stayed with the Psy lieutenant, or hunted up one of his little playmates and gone horizontal.

Gritting her teeth against her mind’s obliging slide show of images that displayed Drew tangled up with some faceless female, she told herself she should’ve taken up one of the offers that had come her way last night as the senior members of the pack let down their hair. A good sweaty workout between the sheets would certainly have wrung the tension out of her body. But she hadn’t—for reasons she couldn’t quite understand—and now she was paying for it, her skin too sensitive, her wolf irritated and out of sorts.

Ordering herself to focus, she switched on her datapad as she walked, bringing up the day’s schedule. She’d been in charge of training the novice soldiers for eight years, four of them as assistant to her father, Abel, the last four on her own, with Abel taking over another role. However, over the past couple of years, she’d also started handling more personal issues related to the young dominants in the pack. They came to her with questions, for advice, to vent, and sometimes just to hang out—because her wolf calmed theirs. “Which you will not be able to do unless you get yourself under control,” she muttered, annoyed with herself for allowing Drew to rattle her in this way.

That was when she ran into the one person who could take one look at her and read her like an open book.

“Baby,” her mother said, her smile so full of love it made Indigo’s heart ache, “give me a hug.”

Indigo was already leaning across to do exactly that, every part of her adoring this woman who was the template from which she’d been cast. Tarah Riviere had the same jet-black hair, though hers bore a few—very few—glimmers of silver now, the same vivid blue eyes shot with streaks that were almost purple, the same long-legged height.

But that was where the similarities ended. Where Indigo’s frame was all supple muscle, her mother was fit but sweetly curved. Where Indigo was a dominant and had been from soon after birth, Tarah was a true submissive, one of the gentlest people in the pack. And where Indigo would never surrender everything to any man—even one she loved—Tarah found incomparable joy in leaning on her mate.

“Morning, Mama.”

Cupping Indigo’s face in her hands, her mother examined her with those wise eyes. “What’s troubling you, my big girl?”

With every other person in the den, Indigo would’ve stood firm and frozen off any inquiries. In front of her mother’s tender concern, she folded like a leaky balloon. “I’m fighting with Drew,” she said, hoping Tarah would take that at face value. She really didn’t want to explain the genesis of the fight.

Tarah laughed and, dropping her hands from Indigo’s face, slipped her arm through her daughter’s and began to walk toward one of the large common areas in the den. “Have you got time for a morning coffee with your mother?”

“Always.” It was a ritual they had—though it had no rules, no set dates. But at least a couple of times a week, Indigo found herself alone with Tarah. Sometimes they chatted over coffee, sometimes they walked in the forest, and sometimes they made a bowl of popcorn and watched some movie that made them both bawl like babies.

Her father tended to avoid being in those nights.

Grinning, Indigo found herself thinking back over the years. “We’ve been doing this in one form or another since I was, what, ten?” It was, she knew, because of Evangeline.

Her much younger sister had been frighteningly weak as a child, though no one could diagnose the reason behind it. Indigo would catch a cold and be up and running the next day. Evie would catch a cold and need to be hooked up to machines so she could breathe, her little body wracked by shivers. It used to terrify Indigo that she might lose the sister she loved so much—and to something Indigo couldn’t fight, couldn’t defend against.

Her mother squeezed her arm. “You’re my baby, too.”

Indigo shifted closer to her mother, the wolf wanting to brush up against her as they walked. “How is Evie? I haven’t spoken to her for a few days.” Her sister had finally thrown off the inexplicable—especially for a changeling—sickliness in her teens. Now in her second year of college, she was a sweet-tempered, submissive wolf chased by more than one young wolf in the den—and humans outside of it.

“She’s coming for a visit in three weeks’ time.”

Indigo’s wolf stretched out its paws and arched its back in pleasure.

“And,” Tarah continued, “she told me to tell you not to scare off all the men beforehand—she wants to date the wild and dangerous types, thank you very much.” Laughing at the look on Indigo’s face, she said, “Grab us a good seat. I’ll get the coffees.”

Still scowling at the idea of her willow-slender sister with some of the rougher young males, Indigo wandered through the room filled with furniture in bright citrus tones until she found two armchairs facing each other in a quiet corner. They were both a funky orange, the table between them a dark, varnished wood that bore the nicks and scratches of constant use.

“Hey, Indigo.”

Waving a casual hello at Tai as the young soldier passed by, she settled in to wait for her mom. That was part of the ritual, too. It was always Tarah who got the coffee, mixing the ingredients in a way that made it taste incredible.

It’s love,
Tarah had once laughingly said.
That’s the secret ingredient.

“Indigo?” Tai had circled back.

She looked up into his pretty, pretty face, all silky hair and those wild green eyes with a slight upward tilt that spoke of the Balinese ancestry on his mother’s side. “Yes, she’s coming home for a visit. No, I will not give you a free pass. You put one finger on her, I’ll beat you to a pulp.”

Tai snarled low in his throat, his wide shoulders going stiff as he fisted his hands. “Yeah, well, maybe I’ll beat you back.” Face thunderous, he stalked off as she fought her smile. Hmm, perhaps Judd’s young protégé had potential. None of the others had dared stand up to her. And Indigo wasn’t handing over her vulnerable younger sister to a wolf who couldn’t protect her from all comers.

Tarah placed a tray between them as Tai left the common room. It held two steaming mugs of coffee and a couple of large blueberry muffins. “They were the last ones there,” Tarah said, shaking her head. “And it’s only nine.”

“Pack’s got a young population,” Indigo said, taking a sip of her coffee before putting down the mug and picking up a muffin. “You should see how much some of my trainees go through in a day.”

“Speaking of the young population”—Tarah eyed Indigo over the top of her own mug—“I told you not to scare off Evie’s dates.”

Indigo wasn’t the least cowed by her mother’s mock scowl, well able to see the amusement behind it. “She’s mine to look after.”

“You always were possessive about her.” Shaking her head, Tarah sipped her coffee.

“Mama?” Indigo asked after several minutes of companionable silence.

“Yes, baby.”

Indigo felt her lips curve. Tarah alone could call her that and make it sound perfectly acceptable. Of course, her father tended to call her “pumpkin” and ruffle her hair like she was five years old. No respect, she thought with an inward smile, she got no respect from her parents. “Do you ever get angry at Dad?”