Allegiance of Honor (Psy-Changeling #15) - Nalini Singh Page 0,69
hand, he pressed a kiss to her palm. “I’m fine, Sascha darling. A little busted up, but that was those bastards and that fucking goddamn truck. You can’t scare me.”
Sascha thought of the pulse she’d sent out, knew it must’ve been horrible. And still he’d fought his way out in an effort to protect her and Naya. “Can I make it up to you?”
A curious look that was so feline, she didn’t need his eyes to change to know she was talking to the cat now. “Go for it.”
He gave a startled laugh as she blanketed him in a wave of innocent happiness that tasted of all the pups and cubs that Sascha knew. “Damn, that’s good shit.” His grin was beautiful. “You could make a fortune charging for a hit.”
Having satisfied himself the sentinel wasn’t bleeding inside, Jason glanced up from taping Dorian’s ankle. “I want some.”
Sascha poured the same sensations over the younger male.
“Whoa!” He grinned, too, held up a hand. She high-fived it before looking guiltily back at Dorian.
The sentinel crooked a finger and, when she leaned in close, he dropped a soft kiss on her lips. The affectionate touch of one of her favorite packmates, it told her he really was all right. “I’m tough,” he whispered. “Go pet Lucas. He’s freaked out.”
Still shaky inside, she left Dorian and Jason with another wave of childish joy, so pure and unfettered that it made both men collapse into laughter once more. Then she walked straight back into Lucas’s arms. He held her trembling form until she could breathe again. At which point, she stroked her hands down the viciously taut muscles of his back.
“I’m unharmed and so is our daughter,” she whispered in a subvocal tone, aware of the sharp little ears in the car. “We’re not easy prey.”
“Damn straight you’re not.” A hard kiss, his claws brushing her hair and skin as he cupped her face with one hand. “Come on, mate. Let’s get our cub home—we have enough people here we can trust to keep us updated.”
Chapter 19
IT WAS CLAY who called them with that update, the leopard having taken charge of the scene after Lucas’s departure. They’d reached the aerie in the interim. Leaving Naya busy with her play blocks, the two of them walked out onto the balcony to talk to Clay. Lucas answered the call on visual and put the sentinel on speaker at a volume Sascha could hear but that wouldn’t reach Naya.
“It’s the same mercenary team the Rats warned us about,” Clay said. “We confirmed their identity using various back channels courtesy of Nikita’s tentacles.”
Sascha had already received a call from Max Shannon. He’d patched her through to Nikita, who’d wanted to see firsthand that Sascha and Naya were all right. Sascha had heard the ruthless tone in her mother’s voice, known that had Nikita not been as weak as she was right now, she’d have ripped the truth from the mercenaries’ minds. The fact that they’d have been drooling vegetables afterward wouldn’t have bothered her in the least.
“How the fuck did they stay under this long?” Lucas asked as Sascha’s gut went cold.
Perhaps she and her mother weren’t that different after all.
“They’re a crack team. They come in and set up, then don’t move until the timing is perfect. Makes them almost impossible to catch if you don’t get them the instant they enter.”
“It sounds like they’re talking.” Fine tremors started to race once more over Sascha’s skin.
The last word of her statement broke.
Lucas squeezed her nape. “Remember,” he murmured so low only she could hear, “you did what you did to protect our cub. Those bastards would’ve taken her, hurt her.”
Sascha gave a jagged nod as, on the phone, Clay said, “I got one of them to talk pretty damn fast by threatening him with what happened out on the road.” An edge of amusement in the sentinel’s voice.
“I would never torture anyone,” Sascha blurted out, her stomach churning at the idea of it.
“I know that, Sascha,” Clay said with unexpected gentleness. “The assholes don’t.”
His immediate agreement eased her sudden fear that her packmates would see her as a monster now that they knew what she could do.
“They were aware of DarkRiver’s strength before they took the job,” Clay continued, “but the money on the table was enough to make up for the risk. They were totally focused on Dorian as the threat, expected Sascha to be a soft target.”
Lucas’s furious growl reverberated through her bones. “Psy?” he