Allegiance of Honor (20 page)

There was also one other thing. “You do a lot of business with Ming LeBon?” he asked off-handedly.

The Psy male paused and Cooper had the feeling it was genuine. Pax hadn’t expected that question, wasn’t prepared for it.

“A small percentage,” he said at last. “Why?”

Cooper shrugged. “Word on the street is that he’s going to start to suffer significant losses. You might want to pull out before the shit hits the fan.” He wasn’t giving anything away, not with Ming fully aware that SnowDancer had declared war on him.

“Thank you for the advice.” Pax’s tone revealed nothing, but a day later, the financial grapevine was abuzz with the news that the Marshall Group had cut all ties with LeBon Enterprises.

Pax Marshall, it seemed, had chosen a side.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t a cobra in the grass.

MING LEBON HAD
ended his conversation with Pax Marshall an hour earlier without learning anything about why the Marshall Group had suddenly sold all its stocks in businesses associated with LeBon Enterprises. The arrogant young telepath who’d seized the reins of the Marshall empire had insisted the move was simply “part of the family’s long-term business plan.”

But Ming had heard whispers from his spies within the Marshall Group that Pax Marshall was pursuing a lucrative contract with the SnowDancer Wolves. That could not be a coincidence.

He was sending a message ordering one of those spies to get him more details when he received a letter with the official Trinity seal. It stated that the entire body of signatories had voted on his application to join. Despite the backroom deals he’d made, that vote hadn’t come down in his favor.

He crushed the letter in his hand. “SnowDancer.”

Ming wasn’t used to being so blatantly blocked from anything: the majority of people were too scared of him to attempt it.

He also wasn’t about to allow the wolves to push him into a situation where he’d lose face in front of the entire world. The emotions didn’t matter to him, but the impact on his power base could be catastrophic. Already, he could visualize the flow-on effect of this single damning rejection, see the missed opportunities, the chipping away at his financial alliances.

Throwing the crumpled-up letter in the trash, he decided that if SnowDancer and its allies wanted a war, they’d get one. Ming was a combat telepath but he was also a master at strategy.
No one
could beat him on that field of battle. Certainly not wolves driven by a feral desire for vengeance.

“Send me the draft of my proposal,” he said to his aide.

He’d finalize that proposal, then, when the time was right, send it to all parties, including the wolves and the Arrows. He wouldn’t do this by stealth. No, he wanted the world watching and witnessing the fall of Trinity.

LUCAS HAD ASSIGNED
multiple people to tracking down data on the ocelot pack linked to the assault on Sascha and Naya, but it was Dorian who ended up doing most of the heavy lifting.

He’d fractured his leg in the crash, but what neither he nor Jason had let on at the scene, deciding Sascha didn’t need the additional worry, was that he’d also suffered multiple broken ribs and severe bruising to his upper chest. Broken ribs were a general pain in the ass for everyone—even Tamsyn couldn’t totally heal them, so Dorian was off active duty for a couple of weeks.

Tamsyn had also ordered the sentinel to keep the weight off his plascast-covered leg for three of those days. “Or I’ll reverse the healing I’ve already done and you’ll be stuck with a cast for months instead of fourteen days.”

As a result, Dorian took himself and his computer off to Mercy and Riley’s cabin for one of those days. There, according to the message Lucas got from Mercy, the blond sentinel kept her company, made sure Riley didn’t stress out too badly, and researched the hell out of the ocelot pack.

I’m pretty sure he’s hacking things that could get him locked up
,
Mercy had noted.
Watch out for the men in black suits.

It was on the fourth day of his enforced “vacation,” Dorian having spent the rest of the time hunkered down in his own cabin, that he sent Lucas a note:
I have a report on the ocelots.

Lucas could’ve requested that report over the comm, but he wanted
to check up on the sentinel, see that he was, in fact, following orders and healing properly. Vaughn, Clay, and Emmett—as well as Tammy, of course—had all been in and out of Dorian and Ashaya’s home since he was grounded, had kept Lucas updated, but his panther wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d seen the other man with his own eyes.

Dorian, more than any other dominant in the pack, could be stubborn about injuries. He’d always pushed himself too hard, too fast, an outcome of the fact that he’d for so long been latent, unable to shift into his leopard form. Where others might’ve given in to despair, Dorian had channeled his pain into an unremitting drive to excel. It was why he’d trained as an architect, taken up flying, learned hacking, all while being a crack sniper. Not only to sublimate the pain that came from not being able to shift, but to keep his mind busy so he didn’t go insane.

Lucas’s joy the day he’d discovered Dorian had shifted for the first time had been a raw fury inside him. Today, as the blond sentinel met Lucas in the doorway of his home, Lucas took in his balance on the plascast, then scanned his chest. “How’re your ribs?”

Rubbing lightly on the soft dark gray of his T-shirt, Dorian gave a lopsided grin. “Almost fixed and no, I’m not lying. My mate insists on scanning me every night to check the progress of my healing.”

Since Ashaya was a scientist—and more important, loved Dorian with a furious passion—Lucas nodded. For once, it appeared the sentinel was following orders when it came to his health. “You want to talk inside or out?” Dorian’s architectural skill was reflected in the home he’d built. It was all glass panels covered by greenery and foliage except for cunning clear areas that let in the sunlight, until being inside was like walking in the forest.

Next to Lucas’s own aerie, Dorian’s home was his favorite design in pack territory. But today, his skin was itchy, wanted to be outside. Still, since Dorian was injured and might want to sit in a comfortable spot within, he’d follow the other man’s preference.

But Dorian said, “Definitely out. Look at that sky.”

It was a cauldron of color, the sun in the process of setting.

Dorian looked over his shoulder as he stepped out. “Keen! You want to kick your ball around?”

The answer came immediately. “Yes!”

Dorian’s adopted son ran out seconds behind him, a soccer ball held in his hands. “Hi, Lucas!”

Lifting the six-and-a-half-year-old in his arms, Lucas said, “What’s up, Keenan?”

“I got a gold star at school.” Keenan’s blue-gray eyes sparkled, the dusky brown of his skin glowing from within. “For helping my friend with his adding.”

“Good. You make the pack proud.” Ruffling the boy’s hair, he put him back down on the ground, man and panther both happy to see such open joy in a child who’d been far too solemn when he’d first come into the pack. “I hear you’re having special lessons.” It had become obvious that Keenan was highly gifted, but though normal schoolwork was so easy for him that he was bored, he didn’t want to separate from his year group.

His parents agreed with his choice, as did Lucas. Even a gifted child should have the chance to be a child, to take music and art lessons with his friends, to play games with them during breaks, to participate in group activities where it was more about communication and working together than specific knowledge.

“Children in Silence weren’t allowed friends,” Ashaya had said to Lucas when the question of Keenan’s education came up, her voice thick with emotion. “I don’t want that loneliness for my son, and I’m afraid that’s what’ll happen if he skips grades and ends up far younger than his classmates.”

As a result, DarkRiver had authorized a special education grant that meant Keenan had a teacher’s aide whose task it was to work with him on more advanced lessons while he remained among his usual classmates. When the class did math, Keenan did math, too, just at a more difficult level. When it was time for a sports or music lesson, he took it with his classmates.

Ashaya and Dorian could’ve easily paid for the teacher’s aide themselves, but cubs were considered the responsibility of the pack as a whole, for they were the pack’s heart.

It was an alpha’s honor to ensure they had what they needed to thrive.

“Yes!” Keenan bounced up and down in front of Lucas. “My new teacher’s name is Shonda and she makes my brain hurt.”

Lucas hunkered down to Keenan’s level. “Is that a good thing?”

A determined nod. “I like thinking hard.” He glanced up at Dorian. “Will you watch me kick the ball, Dad? I can get the goal sometimes now.”

As Lucas rose to his feet, he felt more than saw the emotion that crashed through Dorian at the innocent request. Swallowing, the sentinel said, “Lucas and I will watch you while we talk.”

Smile luminous as the sun, Keenan ran off a short distance to the leaf-strewn section in front of the cabin, while Lucas and Dorian leaned up against the trees. “It’s a punch to the heart each time he calls me dad,” the sentinel admitted in a gruff tone. “Right fucking here.” He pressed down on his chest above his heart, as if the organ ached.

“When did he start?”

“After the leg.” Dorian tapped the slightly green-tinged transparent plascast. “He said, ‘Dad, that’s just like the one I had on my arm!’” The sentinel grinned. “He was so excited and it was all so natural. No big deal, you know? Except it is to me.”

Lucas understood. To earn the trust of a child, that was a gift nothing could beat. “I heard from BlackSea,” he said into the emotional quiet. “They’ve narrowed Tanique’s vision of ‘Edward’s Pier’ down to twenty possible locations and are planning to check them out one by one. Of course, that’s if the place is even in Canada.”

Dorian folded his arms. “I feel so fucking helpless.”

“We’re here if BlackSea needs us.” Despite his rational words, Lucas felt the same prowling frustration as Dorian. To be a dominant was to protect. “Miane and her lieutenants have to be going crazy by now.” Leila Savea was only one of BlackSea’s many vanished.

“Yeah.” A long pause. “Reminds me of Kylie. How I held my baby
sister in my arms and there was nothing I could do to bring her back to life.”

Memory smashed into Lucas. Of a laughing young packmate whose life had been stolen in a bloody, brutal way. “We made the fucker who hurt her pay,” he said with a growl. “Nothing will ever bring her back, but never forget that we did her memory justice.”

Dorian nodded. “I look at Keenan and I feel this pain deep inside because he’ll never know the funny, loving aunt he would’ve had. I can almost see how she would’ve played with him, how she would’ve taught him to dribble.” Swallowing, he smiled when Keenan kicked a goal. “But I figure she’s around, watching over us. Kylie would do that.”

Ashaya walked out of the cabin before Lucas could answer, two mugs in hand and her feet bare. Her body was clad in a simple orange shift that set off skin a shade darker than her son’s, as well as the arresting blue-gray eyes she shared with Keenan.

“Coffee.” Her smile was sunshine, banishing the dark—and her eyes, they were focused on Dorian, as if she’d sensed the pain that had rippled over her mate’s soul, come out in response to it.

“Thanks, Shaya,” Lucas said, deliberately using Dorian’s pet name for her as a silent tug pulling the sentinel back into the beautiful present. If there was one thing Lucas knew, it was that Kylie would’ve wanted only joy for her adored big brother.

The provocation worked.

Growling low in his throat as he accepted his own mug, Dorian hauled Ashaya to his side, the electric curls of her unbound hair shining with hidden highlights in the sunset light. “Why did you get him coffee?” he grumbled. “Now he’ll never leave.”

Ashaya laughed and kissed Dorian, her fingers lingering on his jaw for a long moment before she turned to face Lucas. “Did you hear Mercy was trying to do pull-ups?”

Lucas almost spit out his coffee on a bark of laughter. “Did she succeed?”

“She told me she was up to seven when Riley made her stop,” Dorian
said, his very amused leopard in his eyes. “Can you imagine his face when he walked in?”

It was a priceless visual. “Poor Riley.” Lucas had a good idea what Mercy was up to with her antics—because when a dominant predatory changeling female loved, she loved with every ounce of her being.

“While I was there,” Dorian added, “I got into the swing of things. Pretended my ribs were killing me and I needed all kinds of assistance. I thought Riley was going to strangle me at one point.”

Shaking her head in laughing reproof, Dorian’s scientist mate gently patted his chest just as Keenan called out to her. “I’ll leave you two to talk. I’ve been in the lab all day working on the Human Alliance implant.” Her smile faded at the edges. “It’ll do me good to stretch my legs with our future soccer star.”

Dorian closed his hand over hers, his eyebrows drawing together. “Hold up. What aren’t you saying?”

Ashaya looked over as if to ensure Keenan was happy in his play before replying. “I don’t know for certain yet.” Her voice was troubled. “But . . . I have a very bad feeling the implants are going to start failing in months if not sooner. I don’t mean simply in effectiveness. I mean a degradation that’ll impact the brain.”

Lucas sucked in a quiet breath, all amusement instantly erased. “You’re talking about the same implant that’s in Bo’s head?” he asked, referring to the effective leader of the Human Alliance. “The one that shields his mind against psychic manipulation?” Natural human shields were far weaker than the rock-solid ones possessed by changelings.

Nodding, Ashaya said, “I haven’t shared my concerns with him yet. Amara and I want to be positive beyond any doubt—because the very first group that received the implants? They’re beyond the stage where a surgical removal is safe.”

That group included Bo and his top people.

“I won’t mention it,” Lucas promised as Dorian cuddled Ashaya against him, murmuring things to her that made her nod and whisper back.

“Shit,” Dorian said after Ashaya left to play with Keenan. “If those implants fail, we lose Bo.”

That would be disastrous. While the other man had made bad mistakes in his original interactions with DarkRiver and SnowDancer, he’d proven to be a cool head with whom they could build a relationship. Even more critically, he had the charisma and the passion to reach millions of humans and convince them to believe in the vital importance of uniting under the Alliance banner. Lose Bowen Knight and the Alliance would disintegrate, of that Lucas was convinced. It wasn’t strong enough to survive without him, not yet.

And if they lost the Alliance, Trinity would fall.

The world
could not
afford for Trinity to fall. The instant it did, the Consortium would sweep in and chaos would reign.

Jaw grim, Lucas said, “Let’s hope Ashaya and Amara disprove their own theory.” It was a very faint hope: together, Ashaya and her twin were the best in the world in their field.

Dorian’s eyes reflected the same bleak knowledge, but he just nodded. “So, the ocelots.” His expression darkened further. “Our old information was out of date. They did use to be a small but strong and stable pack in their region, but they got caught in the insanity that hit the Psy.”

“You’re talking literally?” Lucas’s gut went tight as he remembered the murderous violence that had nearly overwhelmed the Psy race at the start of this year.

“Yeah. SkyElm was—is—based next to a large Psy hamlet. The ocelots have plenty of room to roam but their main pack settlement has always been near the border—just a historical thing no one bothered to change because the two sides kept to themselves.” Glancing over at his mate and son when they laughed, Dorian exhaled.

“But when the Psy started losing their minds because of the shit that was going down in their PsyNet, the pack was caught out.” Dorian drank more of his coffee but didn’t seem to taste it, his mind on whatever it was he’d discovered. “I can’t figure out why the hell the alpha didn’t move his
people, since the hamlet outbreak happened after the first major outbreaks in New York.”

At which point, Lucas thought, the entire world knew ordinary Psy had suddenly become deadly neighbors to have. “How many?” he asked quietly. Dorian wouldn’t be this affected if the pack had lost two or three members.

The sentinel’s words were brutal. “There are only seven survivors. From a pack that was ninety-three strong.”

Lucas’s hand clenched so hard around his mug that he almost cracked it. “How is that possible?” The casualty rate was far too high for a predatory changeling pack pitched against the unthinking insane.