Tangle of Need

Page 71

 

  “The Territorial Wars were a storm,” Dalton said at last, “creating a thousand ripples. Shattering everything that should be. ”

  Including, Riaz understood with a painful burst of raw hope, the normal rules when it came to courtship and mating.

  “Records from that time are fragmented at best,” Dalton continued. “Many Librarians were killed in the fighting, while others made the choice to begin anew when the postwar packs were founded. ”

  Riaz thought back to his history lessons as a boy, recalled that decimated by the bloodshed, a number of packs had amalgamated across the country, each group choosing a new name to represent their varied membership. “So a lot of the records made during the wars may have been destroyed?” Regardless of his intense frustration at coming up against the roadblock, he could understand the survivors’ desire to leave the horror of war in the past—especially when some of those who had amalgamated had once been bitter enemies.

  “Yes. ” Dalton put his hand on Riaz’s shoulder, squeezed. “But some believed as I do, that the past must not be forgotten, no matter if it is the Librarian alone who knows the truth. Those records exist. ” Squeezing again, his fingers strong despite their apparently gnarled state, he dropped his hand back into his lap. “Even in war, the rejection of a mate was a rare thing. More often, when it happened to combatants on opposite sides of the line, the choice was made to come together, to attempt to effect peace. Sometimes, it worked. Other times…”

  “They failed, were executed,” Riaz guessed.

  “No,” Dalton answered, to his surprise. “Mating is so precious a gift that even warring alphas would not execute those of their packs who bonded with the enemy—but such bonded could not be allowed to remain in either pack. The mated can keep no secrets from one another. ”

  Riaz thought of Mercy and Riley, and the impossibility of the pair remaining part of their respective packs if SnowDancer and DarkRiver went to war. “It would’ve been hell. ” To walk away from your pack was no easy thing, not for a wolf.

  “Especially for the most dominant, the wolves the packs desperately needed to protect their vulnerable. The one unambiguous case I know of where two changelings who felt the mating urge chose to reject one another, involved enemy lieutenants. ”

  Riaz’s wolf lowered his head, comprehending the agony that had to have torn those two apart. Mating was a joy every changeling hoped for, but protecting those under their care was as primal a drive. No dominant could walk away from that duty and live with himself—the guilt would poison any relationship. “What happened?” It was a crucial question.

  Dalton rubbed a fallen oak leaf between his fingertips. “The records aren’t as clear on that, but there are hints the nascent bond may have broken under the force of the dual repudiation. ”

  The ember of hope within Riaz flared brighter—Lisette’s continued and deep love for Emil was as much a rejection as Riaz’s conscious one, their situation not so very different from Dalton’s lieutenants. “So they were able to bond with other people?” To have the chance to mate with Adria…

  Dalton’s smile was sad. “We’ll never know—they both died in the final battles. ” Glancing at Riaz, he shook his head. “Such disappointment. You wanted a road to follow, but all I give you are ghosts and shadows. ”

  Shoving his hands through his hair, Riaz rose to his feet, paced across the pebbles and to the water’s edge before walking back to crouch beside Dalton. “There is no reason for the female to have a choice if it means nothing,” he said at last, because while Dalton would share information, he had always made his students find the answers to their own questions.

  “Yes. ” Wrinkles fanned out from the corners of the Librarian’s eyes. “Perhaps you will be the one who solves this riddle, eh, Riaz? It is ever the lone wolf’s task to journey into the unknown alone. ”

  “I’m not alone,” Riaz said at once, the words requiring no thought. “Adria walks beside me. ” Even if the stubborn she-wolf didn’t see it yet.

  Dalton smiled. “So. ”

  And Riaz understood that while a mate bond would be an incredible happiness, the lack of it did nothing to diminish his love for Adria, his wolf’s devotion absolute. “Call me a fool and be done with it then,” he said to the elder who saw the present and past both with crystal clarity.

  Reaching out, Dalton instead patted Riaz’s cheek as he’d once patted the tree trunk. “Go court the one you have chosen, pup, and leave an old man to his ruminations. ”

  IT wasn’t until Adria walked into the garage that night—two days after Riaz began his relentless pursuit—that she realized she’d been outflanked. “I thought I was on watch with Sam. ” The tiny carving this stubborn wolf had left sitting in her locker earlier, of a hilariously drunken skunk, burned a hole in her pocket.

  “I’ll only give you so much space,” Riaz said, his smile dangerous, “and you’ve used up your quota. ”

  She didn’t tell him he was an arrogant S. O. B. who had a store of impossible charm, and she didn’t wrap her starved body around him until nothing hurt anymore. Instead, she got into the SUV and said, “I didn’t have a chance to read the entire brief. ” Three of her kids had been pulled into the principal’s office—proof that being submissive didn’t mean good behavior. She’d spent the past two hours getting to the bottom of things. “Anything I need to know about this particular anchor or the location?”

  “No, it’s standard. ” A pause. “Hold on. ” The SUV shuddered over a hole in the road.

  Ignoring the jolt, Adria pulled out her mini datapad. “I better scan it anyway—I’d tell off my trainees if they skipped homework. ” She focused, managed to absorb the material, but when she tried to carry on and catch up on the pack-wide senior soldiers bulletin, it proved a failed effort. She couldn’t turn off her wolf’s awareness of the male in the passenger seat, the one who did not belong to her, regardless of the unexpected, wonderful battle he was waging.

  “I saw Lisette yesterday,” he said without warning.

  The words in front of her blurred. “How is she?”

  “Not in love with me. ” The words were hard, making it clear that courtship or not, his anger had in no way dimmed.

  It somehow hit her deeper, that even though he was so mad at her, he continued to want her, continued to court her.

  “Which is great,” he added, “because I’m not in love with her either. ”

  “Give it time. ” Love and the mating bond were interlocked for every mated couple she’d ever met—she wasn’t going to fool herself by pretending they would be the exception that proved the rule.

  “God you’re obstinate. ” It was a snarl. “Must make me a masochist that I like that about you. ”

  Her wolf bared its canines, charmed but trying not to allow it to matter. “I only get worse the more you know me. Consider it a lucky escape. ”

  The smile Riaz shot her was feral. “I’m not the one thinking of escape—and just in case you haven’t figured it out, I’m not about to let you succeed. ”

  With that warning, he brought the SUV to a stop in the drive of a small home tucked neatly in the Presidio, enough land around it that the place must’ve cost a substantial sum.

  Stepping out of the vehicle, she circled around the front. Riaz met her there, curling his fingers around her upper arm when she would’ve moved past. She jerked, the spark of contact explosive. “I’m not going to leave,” he murmured, his breath hot against her lips, “and I’m not going to change my mind, so get used to having to deal with me. ”

  Hope was a tiny light in her heart she no longer had the willpower to stamp out. “We have a job to do. ” Practical words, but her voice held a vulnerability that terrified her—especially when she saw Riaz’s eyes turn night-glow and knew he’d heard it, too.

  SIENNA stopped on a promontory, looking out over the land below. It was her second day in a row on the routine tas
k of running perimeter security—though Riley made sure her routes remained erratic—but she didn’t mind. As she’d said to Hawke, this time around, it was how she could help the pack.

  “Anchor watch isn’t much more exciting,” Riordan had said to her as he left tonight to act as backup to two senior soldiers, no novices having been posted as main guards. “Mostly they just sit there working or reading, or sleeping. ”

  “Maria said you had a good story about your first anchor. ”

  “Oh yeah, that’s the one who kept watching me as if she was waiting for me to grow fangs and try to eat her. I couldn’t help it—I used my claws to scratch my nose. Her eyes almost popped out of their sockets. ”

  Smiling at the memory, she wondered if those in the PsyNet would have offered another group such help. Once, she would’ve said no. But now … Though Nikita Duncan and Anthony Kyriakus might have helped defend San Francisco out of their own self-interest, stories had come in, in the aftermath of the battle, that told of ordinary Psy helping their fellow man, regardless of race.

  A DarkRiver soldier had fallen in combat, been dragged inside by two elderly Psy women while they held back his attackers using their combined telepathic abilities. One of the humans DarkRiver knew well had told of how his son, a curious little boy, had snuck outside and down a block to peek at the jet-choppers dropping Pure Psy operatives from the sky.

  Out of his mind with worry, his father had been getting ready to head out into danger to search for the missing child when a Psy neighbor—one of three students sharing an apartment—called to say he was safe. They’d snatched the boy off the street and hidden him in their home, protecting his mind from the psychic strikes the operatives had thrust out as a defensive measure while they landed.

  It would’ve been safer for those students, the elderly twosome, to stay inside. After all, neither an injured soldier nor a small child could offer them any tactical advantage. But they hadn’t remained behind closed doors, safe. They’d helped for no reason except that it was the right thing to do.