"Could be an ambush," Max said with the grim clarity of a security chief for a woman a lot of people wanted to kill. "You prepared for that? And don't predatory packs have rules about entry into another's territory?"
"I'm going over land unclaimed by changelings until I hit SkyElm's borders." Warning them of his arrival wasn't on the agenda. "As for a possible ambush, I'll see them before they ever spot me." Being jet-black had significant advantages--advantages Lucas intended to teach his daughter as soon as she got a little older.
Of course, it would make it a devil of a thing to find her when she was being cheeky, but Lucas would rather have that than not teach her skills she could use to protect herself should she ever be trapped alone and far from help. She was fierce, his cub, but while she was small, he would teach her to hide and wait. Hide and wait.
A child panther couldn't win against adult combatants.
Lucas knew that firsthand.
"Panther in the dark." Max whistled. "Yeah, okay, good plan. What're you going to do about clothes when you arrive?"
Lips tugging up, Lucas said, "Humans are so hung up on clothing."
"Don't give me that bullshit." The ex-cop pointed a finger at him. "You're not going to confront some other man while he's clothed and you're not."
In truth, Lucas would have no problem doing that, especially since he knew his dominance far exceeded that of the ocelot alpha. But, in this case, he likely wouldn't have to. "Someone always forgets their washing outside. I'll grab what I need." If not, he'd do the confrontation in his skin--which, unbeknownst to Max, would probably unnerve the other alpha even more.
Civilized manners, including wearing clothing, came from the human part of a changeling's nature. Comfort with their bodies, whether furred or the human skin, came from the primal core of their animal. An enemy might be able to negotiate with the civilized half, but the animal reacted on pure, undiluted instinct. And an alpha panther driven by violent protective urges was not a predator anyone wanted to face.
"There's a duffel back there with some weapons." Max jerked his thumb to the back of the plane. "I packed them just in case, but I guess you can't carry anything?"
"No, not without losing my speed and camouflage." He'd run with a small pack as a panther before, but it changed the sleek lines of his body, made him stand out. "I don't think this will be that kind of a confrontation." Because if the ocelots had actually had anything to do with the attack on Naya and weren't just being set up, they could have no reason to believe they'd been discovered.
Dorian had undertaken his data mining with extreme care, while the people he'd spoken to in the region were all allied with DarkRiver. Two had been born as part of Lucas's pack, moved out when they mated, still had plenty of family in DarkRiver. The other was a SnowDancer wolf temporarily based in the region while he completed advanced technical training in an unusual specialty.
No, the ocelots had no reason to watch for a panther coming for them.
*
IT took Lucas two hours to run to SkyElm's home base after Max landed the plane at a private airstrip that belonged to Nikita. It was hidden in the center of a sprawling spread, the landing strip concealed from casual view by the lay of the land, and even had anyone been curious, the strip was officially used for ranching operations and for the transport needs of the people who ran it.
There were no buildings anywhere within a visual line of sight.
Max had initiated the landing-strip lights by remote control, once he got close enough. The instant he had the plane on the ground and parked, he switched those lights off, plunging the area back into pitch darkness, the moon hidden behind clouds.
The quietness of that strip, however, was nothing compared to the screaming silence that surrounded the ocelot aeries. Though he'd shifted by that point, grabbing a pair of jeans off a line a mile back, Lucas's steps remained panther quiet, causing not so much as a whisper to fracture the disturbing quiet.
Perhaps the crushing power of it was because he knew that a community meant to house near to a hundred people now held only seven. While, like leopards, ocelots were solitary by nature, this pack had a long history of living in close proximity to one another, probably because of the small size of their pack.
The survivors had to be shell-shocked.
Pushing aside the surge of pity that came from both parts of his nature, he reminded himself that SkyElm could have Consortium help. Even if not, wild ocelots were nocturnal for the most part and that tendency showed up in changelings as well, though to a lesser extent. He couldn't count on the pack being asleep, even this deep into the night.
Guard up, he took to the trees and stayed high while he made his way toward the only two aeries where he could detect fresh scents rather than the dusty loneliness of homes left uninhabited for months. The first one he reached proved to house the children. He could just see their small bodies through the locked window: both were in ocelot form and curled up tightly together, while an adult male lay on a bed right in front of the aerie door.
Blocking it. Keeping the children safe.
The submissive.
Lucas would readily accept such courage into his own pack.
Aware he was missing the healer, the alpha, and the two soldiers, he took extreme care as he moved on. He had no doubts that he could take on all three of the dominants, but he didn't want to turn this into a bloodbath when this devastated pack might've had nothing to do with the attack on Naya.
Instead of moving on to the other aerie, within which he could now see a soft glow of light, he went dead still and listened. His patience was rewarded ten minutes later. The soldiers were below, running a tight perimeter as they sought to protect the remnants of their broken pack. Those two had to be hurting bad--dominants weren't supposed to outlive their vulnerable. They were built to fight to the death.
If the ocelot alpha wasn't careful, he could lose both to their own demons.
Having gained a fix on them, Lucas padded silently along the tree road until he came to a halt directly outside the large open window of the aerie where two people were talking. The window itself offered a view into an empty kitchen, the speakers most likely in the room beyond.
"You have to sleep, Monroe," a female voice pleaded. "You've been up for five days straight except for a few snatches here and there."
"No, I have to stay awake. Have to protect." The tone of the male voice was wrong, the words a little off.
Jagged. Broken.
"You're our alpha." The woman sounded on the verge of tears. "We need your guidance now more than ever, but the lack of sleep is making you erratic."
Growls sounded from within, along with the slap of feet moving back and forth across the floor, back and forth.
"Monroe." The woman, who must have been the healer, tried again. She'd managed to get her incipient tears under control, sounded gentle and coaxing as she said, "I've made you a cup of tea. It'll relax--"
The sound of china crashing to the earth, liquid splashing on wood. "I don't need any fucking tea!" It was a roar.
Concerned for the healer and aware the two soldiers probably couldn't hear the commotion from their watch positions, Lucas flowed into the aerie through the window. His eyes had already adapted to the light so he padded through the kitchen straight into the living area. The alpha was looming over his healer, his brown hair streaked with gray and sticking up in tufts and the pale skin of his face blotchy red, his fists clenched.
The healer was a fragile-looking woman, maybe eighty years of age. To her credit, she wasn't flinching, was in fact still attempting to reason with her alpha.
"Monroe Halliston." Lucas leaned against a wall, his posture deliberately unthreatening. "We need to talk."
Spinning around with a snarl, the ocelot alpha came at him like a hurricane. Lucas had expected the violent instinctive reaction, had the other alpha on the floor in seconds, the older man's wrists locked behind his back. When the healer went as if to cry out for help, he shoo
k his head. "I've come to talk," he said quietly. "You call the soldiers inside and this could end in blood."
The ebony-skinned woman swallowed, looked at his face, her brown eyes on the lines that had marked him from birth. "Lucas Hunter. DarkRiver."
Enraged by the sound of those words, Monroe Halliston attempted to flip Lucas off him. Lucas held him in place with increased pressure. "I came to talk," he reiterated.
"I don't want to talk to the bastard who helped the Psy murder us!"
Lucas's blood ran cold.
Making a snap decision, he returned his attention to the healer. "Call your soldiers," he ordered. "Tell them I'm not here to spill blood, but I will if they don't both come through the door in the next two minutes." Lucas had done a full reconnaissance before he approached the aeries, knew there was no threat out there that could prove a danger while the dominants were away from their watch.
"Don't follow his orders!" the alpha yelled, but the healer seemed to realize Lucas was dead serious.
Running to the door, she called out to the two dominants. They appeared breathless in the doorway within the allotted two minutes, during which time, Monroe raved and ranted. Lucas hauled the other alpha to his feet, but kept his eyes on the soldiers, taking in their ragged condition, the bags under their eyes. "Keep your hands in plain view," he said in a tone that brooked no disobedience. "I've got no fight with you."
"You're holding our alpha hostage." It was a tired statement from the male half of the pair. "We have to act."
"I'll incapacitate you in seconds," Lucas said over Monroe's screaming at them to intervene. "At which point your remaining packmates, including the cubs, will be helpless."
The two soldiers looked at Monroe, who continued to demand they fight. Faces growing tight, they stepped back to take up watchful positions by the door, their hands clasped in front of their bodies as per Lucas's order. Their actions told Lucas this alpha-pack relationship had been all but broken long before Lucas arrived--Monroe's unthinking orders had simply put the final nail in the coffin.
Holding the other alpha's wrists in an unbreakable grip, Lucas grabbed a navy blue scarf from the floor. It must've been the healer's. He dragged the alpha into a chair, then used the scarf to tie the other man's hands to the back of it, so that they could have a face-to-face conversation.
He didn't think Monroe Halliston was thinking clearly enough to attempt to break his bonds by semi-shifting, but if he did, Lucas would do what he had to do to control the other alpha. "You blame DarkRiver for the deaths of your packmates?"
Eyes now a pale greenish brown with an elongated black pupil, the alpha bared his teeth. "It all began with you!" he yelled. "You and your Psy mate." He spat on the floor, as if he'd tasted something foul. "Without you, the Psy would've remained in their world and we would've remained in ours. Safe."
This wasn't the time to tell the ocelot male about the rot in the PsyNet and how it had infected Psy minds. The outbreaks of insanity had been inevitable. It was Sascha and other empaths like her who'd stopped the massacres from being even worse. Without the domino effect of Sascha's defection, those Es might've never awoken in time.
"You hired mercenaries to kidnap my child," he said, a heavy feeling in his gut.
A sly look flitted over Monroe Halliston's face as the healer lifted a trembling hand to her mouth, while both soldiers visibly blanched. "Prove it." It was a challenge.
Chapter 26
"DO YOUR PACKMATES know about the two million dollars you transferred into an offshore account in the Caymans?" Lucas asked. "The mercenaries tell us that the full fee was four million." An irresistible amount. "That second payment would've cleaned out your pack's savings."
The ocelot alpha curled his lip, but the healer spoke before he could spit out further insults.
"How could you?" It was a shaky whisper. "That money was the only thing we had left to give the cubs. Their parents are gone, their grandparents are gone, their friends are gone! At least with that money, they could have a good life, have choices!"
Baring his teeth at the elderly woman, the alpha said, "Shut up and get out."
He didn't seem to notice the reaction of his soldiers, but Lucas did. The two were staring at their alpha not only in shock . . . but also in disgust. The healer was sacrosanct in a healthy pack. No one, no one in Lucas's pack, would ever get away with insulting Tamsyn. He might disagree with her at times, might even get angry with her on very rare occasions, but even he would never talk to her in that ugly tone.
"No!" The healer's entire body trembled as she came to stand next to Lucas. "You don't get to give me orders anymore. I don't know who you are, but you are not my alpha!"
Hissing and growling, the ocelot alpha attempted to get up, chair and all. Lucas slammed him back down but didn't speak. Instead, he gave the healer the chance to say whatever else she needed to say.
When Monroe Halliston ignored her to shout, "Get this traitor out of here!" to the two other dominants, they didn't respond.
The once-alpha had lost them.
As if realizing that at the same time, the older man began to yell. "You're fools! Don't you see what he did? He opened the floodgates and we were caught in the flood! Your brothers and sisters and parents would still be alive without him! My mate would still be alive. My son would still be alive!" Another growling snarl. "Why should he get to keep his mongrel child while my son lies dead?"
Lucas's claws sliced out but he forced his enraged panther into patience. There was more here than met the eye. Monroe was too unstable to have pulled off what he appeared to have pulled off. First of all, according to the conversation Lucas had had with Bastien prior to leaving for Texas, Monroe couldn't have done the financial maneuvering involved.
"He doesn't have the skill," the man in charge of DarkRiver's financial assets had told Lucas. "The steps it took to move that money from the Caymans' account without leaving any kind of a trail? It requires years of experience and an in-depth knowledge of banking systems."
Bastien had thrust a hand through the dark red of his hair, his green eyes sharply intelligent. "To put it another way--you couldn't do it and you've got way more financial expertise than the ocelot alpha. The only person in San Francisco who could is talking to you right now."
And since Bastien's level of expertise was in no way common, it was highly improbable that Monroe Halliston had simply hired someone. Especially when Bastien had found zero indications that the ocelot had paid out any money but the two million down payment to the mercenaries. No one that good would work for free.
Unless they had an ulterior motive.
"Mongrel child?" one of the SkyElm soldiers said into the stunned quiet, her voice trembling. "Is that how you think of me, too? My father was human, after all."
Her former alpha stared at her and when he spoke, he betrayed far more than he intended to. "It would've been a lot better for the world if we'd all stayed in our separate corners, human, Psy, and changeling." The ocelot's tone was broken rock, harsh and grinding. "This so-called Trinity Accord, it'll just lead to more death, more destruction." Volume increasing, he said, "The smartest people have already realized it. They're working to get us back to where we should've been from the start!"
That sounded very much like it could be Consortium rhetoric, but Lucas wasn't about to rely on guesswork. Before he could speak, however, the male soldier said, "Those aren't your words." A steady tone but one that demanded attention. "Who did you betray us with?"
Monroe jerked. "I didn't betray this pack!" His voice shook with the force of his passion and resolve. "Everything I've done was for you!"
"Oh?" the soldier asked. "What were you intending to do with the DarkRiver cub? Murder her in vengeance?"
The man who'd once been alpha to these people suddenly paled, as if realizing how far he'd gone. "Of course not," he whispered. "I don't murder children."
"So where was she supposed to go?" the soldier insisted. "Did you expect us to take you at yo
ur word and accept her as falling out of the sky, never mind that DarkRiver would've ripped apart the world searching for her?"
The sarcastic question made Monroe Halliston snap. Wrenching at his bonds, he said, "My friends made preparations for the child to be shipped out to Australia!"
"What friends?" the healer asked.
"I never knew their names."
"You trusted anonymous strangers?"
"Strangers who saw the truth, who wanted to help us get vengeance." A smile meant to intimidate. "The ship was ready and waiting in San Francisco Port. That was the genius of it--our enemies would've been scrabbling to find clues and all the while, the child would've been locked up in a boat in their own territory."
"You're a fool if you think that would've worked," Lucas said quietly, though his blood was raging. He didn't need more from this pathetic excuse for an alpha. Luca's people were more than good enough to find the ship in question, given the relative scarcity of vessels bound for Australia that used San Francisco Port. "Do you really think a single ship, plane, or car would've been allowed to depart San Francisco had Naya been taken?"
"You don't have that much power."
Lucas shrugged. "We have enough." And they had friends, including a woman who had the authority to ground entire fleets of planes, and an ally who controlled vast areas of the sea, but he wasn't about to share those details with this man who was about to die. "Go," he said to the soldiers and the healer. "You know there can be only one outcome here."
Had Monroe Halliston been mentally ill, with no awareness of right or wrong, Lucas would've swallowed his rage and forced himself to show mercy, but grief alone wasn't an acceptable excuse for what this man had almost done. He had taken actions that could've led to the murder of Lucas's mate with her warm, empathic heart and smile that was his world, and the abduction of his barely one-year-old cub. Naya's fear would've been a traumatizing wound carried forever in her heart, as Lucas carried the scars of his parents' deaths.
No, he could not, would not forgive such a crime. The world had to understand that DarkRiver protected its own and that to come after anyone under Lucas Hunter's protection was to sign your death warrant. Yes, he could act civilized, but he remained a panther under the skin.