Branded by Fire

Wolf and leopard both looked at her like she was insane.



"What? Don't think you can keep up with me? You're probably right." With that, she walked into the forest and took off, hoping the gamble would work. It did. All three followed her, the protectiveness built into their nature winning out over the possessiveness. Not that she needed protecting. Never had. Never would.



And the fact that Riley didn't understand that more than irritated her. But in a tiny, secret corner, she was surprised to find a hint of pleasure. The wolf saw her as a woman, something men were often too blinded by her status to notice. Too bad Kincaid couldn't compartmentalize - what she'd accept from a lover, she'd never accept from an ally who was supposed to be her partner.



Now she took them on one hell of a chase. All were fast. But Riley knew this land like the back of his hand. Quickly outstripping Eduardo and Joaquin, he tracked her to a spot leading away from her house and toward the Sierra. She kept up the run even when he came up beside her.



"Stop," he said, putting a hand on her arm.



She shook it off. "If I have to escort you home, then that's what I'll do. A SnowDancer lieutenant is not going to be injured on my watch on DarkRiver land."



"This isn't about the alliance." The wolf was riding him so hard, she could scarcely understand the words.



"Yeah, it's about you acting stupid."



"Mercy, damn it. Stop." Riley swung around to block her path. "You're tired and bruised from today. You need to be in a bath." It agitated the wolf that she was tiring herself even further when she should've been resting.



She halted, raised an eyebrow. "I know that. What do you think I planned to do before you three started pounding your chests?"



His vision glazed over at the mention of the other men. "They're here to make a claim on you."



"No one can make a claim on me that I don't allow. And if you don't know that by now, there's no point in this conversation."



He heard something in that statement, a cool finality that told him he could lose her right this moment. Pulling on every ounce of self-control he had, he reined in the wolf and said, "Let me escort you back home. I'll leave straight after."



"No." A flat refusal, but her eyes were full of fire. "I'll get myself home, and if necessary, I'll kick Eduardo and Joaquin's butts."



Riley felt the wolf buck at the reins at the mention of those names but he held on to his humanity. "They won't catch you. You move like lightning and this is your territory."



"Good answer." But she stayed out of reach. "Are you going to leave for the den?"



He wanted to stalk those two unknown leopards, make sure they knew he'd marked her, taken her. But that, he realized, would end any and all chance he had with the woman he wanted more than his next breath. Biting back a growl, he shifted into wolf form and stared at her.



She came down on her haunches and touched him at last, an intrinsically female stroke through his fur. "Go."



Fighting the violent natural urges of man and wolf both, he did as she asked.



Mercy knew exactly how much it had cost Riley to do what he'd done. Yet he had. For her. It shattered another barrier inside of her, made her wonder if perhaps they could do this, become lovers, without it destroying the working relationship between them - a relationship that was vital to the DarkRiver-SnowDancer alliance. They were sentinel and lieutenant, there was no getting away from that. Every one of their actions had the potential to rebound onto their packs.



She felt her phone vibrate as she walked in through her back door, having evaded both Eduardo and Joaquin. The caller ID told her it was her grandmother. Realizing she better not answer it in her current mood, she had a quick meal, then stripped and walked into the shower. The bath would have to wait. She wanted sleep.



But her rest was broken. She was worried about Nash . . . and, if she was honest, about her inability to stay away from Riley. She'd been truthful earlier when she'd told him she was touching him because he needed it. But that wasn't the whole story.



She'd needed it, too.



Those dark eyes that were too often solemn, that beautiful, thick hair, that stubborn male body, it all drew her. Solid, Riley was solid. His abdomen was hard enough to bounce quarters off, his thighs firmly muscled. Bitably muscled. But he was in no way slow - though he was very good at pretending to be. As Eduardo and Joaquin had discovered, Riley could move wicked fast when he wanted to.



He could also move with leisurely patience when inside a woman.



Her entire body sighed, wanting more, wanting him. And only him.



But powerful though the attraction was, she could deal. She was a woman at home with her needs - and it wasn't as if he didn't want her back. No, it wasn't the physical stuff that worried her. It was the other things that were beginning to be woven into the physical.



Like the tenderness she'd felt today.



She should've berated him for going all crazy because she'd gotten a little scratched up, but no, she'd stroked him instead. Because when she'd seen that glint of glass in his hair, her heart had skipped a beat. Irrational worry. But worry.



And later, when she should've left him to fight it out with Eduardo and Joaquin, what had she done? She made sure he left without any bloodshed. Part of it she could blame on a sentinel's duties - he was a SnowDancer lieutenant, and if he was attacked by guests of DarkRiver, it would shake the foundations of the alliance. But the rest . . . in spite of her anger at his unearned possessiveness, she hadn't wanted him hurt. Of course, she thought, kicking off the covers, in the mood he'd been in, he'd probably have made mincemeat of the other two.



She had to . . . Sleep finally crept over her in a stealthy wave, her dreams hot and dark.



Riley ran himself to exhaustion, but he dreamed, too. They weren't good dreams.



He was late. Always too late. Willow's broken body lay in a shallow grave, and he couldn't even pick her up, couldn't even hold her close.



Her eyes snapped open but they weren't her eyes. Only one person had such unique eyes - and that's when he saw it was Brenna in that grave, being buried alive. Her hands reached for him, but he was locked in place, unable to move as his sister screamed.



Until the dirt covered her face, filled in her mouth, stilled her hands.



Riley jerked upright with a scream of anguish stuck in his throat. His first instinct was to check that Brenna was okay, but it was two thirty in the morning. And there was no way he wanted her aware of the demons that continued to haunt him, night after endless night.



Shoving back the sweat-damp hair on his forehead, he got up, knowing he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. Instead, he took a shower and dressed.



It didn't take long.



There were so many night hours left to go.



When he began to head down to the garage, he told himself to stop, but his feet kept moving forward. Grabbing the four-wheel drive closest to the exit, he drove through the pitch black of night in the Sierra and onto DarkRiver land. Normally he loved the night, the beauty and the peace of it. But tonight, the darkness haunted him, reverberating with a thousand echoes of nightmare.



Fighting those insidious whispers, he kept his focus strictly on his destination. And then he'd arrived. Mercy's vehicle was there in its spot. Something in him relaxed. Parking next to it, he exited into a world cloaked in the opaque hush of a moonless night. It was instinct to go to her cabin and sit on the steps. His wolf was still agitated, but here, he could think. Blowing out a breath, he decided to simply wait for dawn. For Mercy.



That was when the door opened. "Riley?"



Of course she'd known he was there - she was a sentinel. And in some part of his soul, he'd counted on that. "Don't ask me any questions tonight, Mercy." He didn't look at her, feeling vulnerable in a way that panicked his wolf.



"All right." Soft footsteps. "But would you like to come inside?"



Wary of her agreement, but needing . . . something, he walked in. She took his hand, her golden eyes luminous in the dark. "Come on, wolf."



He let her lead him to the bedroom.



"Boots off," she said, and crawled beneath the blanket.



Sitting on a chair near the vanity, he took off his footwear and just watched her, not sure he could do this. She'd given her word so she'd ask no questions, but she'd know, she'd see too deep, to things he kept hidden because they shamed him so utterly.



"No questions," she said again after an endless moment, and lifted up the edge of the blanket.



Man and wolf both hungered for the simple beauty of her touch. He had no power, no will, to resist. Standing, he crossed the carpet to slide into bed beside her, fully dressed. And when her arms came around him, when her fingers stroked into his hair, he buried his face in the curve of her neck and let the unexpected tenderness heal the wounds of the night.



Sometime before dawn, he slept.



Mercy woke to the knowledge that she was wrapped around Riley like ivy, her face against his chest, her legs tangled with his, her hands under the T-shirt he was wearing beneath a khaki shirt. The blanket had been kicked off but she was toasty warm, he generated such luscious heat. Her cat purred, wanting to stay like this all day.



So when the phone rang, she had a hard time extricating herself so she could grab it before he did. She succeeded only because the wolf was half-asleep.



"We had contact from the kidnapper," Lucas said. "He wants a meet."



She snapped upright. "It's mine."



"It's yours," Lucas agreed and gave her the details. "I'll call Hawke, have some wolves meet you there."



She decided not to mention she had one wolf right in front of her. Closing the phone, she ran her fingers over his stubbled jaw. "Time to move, Kincaid."



No words, but his muscles grew painfully rigid under her hands.



He only relaxed half an hour later, when she continued to keep her promise to ask no questions. She didn't have to. She knew what haunted this powerful, proud male, though he'd never spoken of it, never even acknowledged it. And yet when the demons had become too bad, he'd come to her.