Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
But where Soleil had received friendly smiles, Ivan got narrow-eyed looks. They weren’t hostile. More confused. Because the cats were sensing a bond that shouldn’t exist, a bond that he had to break if he wanted to keep Soleil safe … except he didn’t think he could let her go. Never again could he let her go.
Fuck.
“Introductions later!” Mercy called out to the room, then turned to Soleil. “Luc has to leave for a site visit in a half hour, so we need to catch him before then.”
Ducking her head inside the open office door at the other end of the room, Mercy said, “Luc, our new healer needs your attention. Oh, and his lordship here has informed me that he, Belle, and Micah want to come over to play with Naya. Doable tomorrow?”
Soleil’s hand clenched on Ivan’s. When he glanced at her, he saw a bewildered kind of wonder in her expression. “What is it?” he murmured under his breath, while Mercy laughed at something Lucas had said, his voice inaudible to Ivan except as a low rumble.
“Not once in all my years,” Soleil whispered, “did I ever see a SkyElm dominant speak so casually to our alpha. As a friend and an equal.” Huge eyes, a shaky smile. “There’s so much I have to learn about my new pack, Ivan.”
Mercy turned back to them before he could respond. “Go on in. I’m heading to the nursery to return the escapee and look in on the other pupcubs.”
“Pupcubs?” Soleil pressed her hands to her cheeks, her shaky smile switching to one of pure delight. “You call the triplets pupcubs? I can’t handle it.”
Chuckling, Mercy stroked her sleeping son’s back. “Come over sometime after you’re settled in. I can’t promise peace, but I can promise that the tiny hooligans will be charming as they lure you into their schemes.”
Then she was gone and they were in Lucas’s office, Ivan closing the door behind them to ensure privacy.
The alpha’s office featured a desk, a large window that could be opened, and shelving that held various items—including framed handprints made in colorful paint. The size of those handprints told her they were from a child. His daughter, the Naya that Mercy had just mentioned.
Lucas himself had moved around to stand in front of his desk. Folding his arms over his T-shirt-clad chest, he leaned back against his desk. Look at him in his black T-shirt and faded blue jeans, and you’d never know that he was the effective CEO of a major construction powerhouse.
“So,” he murmured, panther green eyes going from one to the other, “you two have completed the mating … Or something like it. It’s still off in a way I can’t work out, but the scent bonds are embedded so deep now that no shower will ever wash them off.”
The dark heart of Ivan roared in a silent and feral triumph. She was his. Fighting that triumph, he forced himself to lay it out. “I have a defective brain structure,” he said, earning himself a low growl from Soleil. “It may be affecting how such a bond would normally function.”
Lucas’s eyes didn’t go cold, his expression difficult to read. “You know,” he murmured, “another Psy once told me that they were flawed, imperfect. Turned out they were wrong.”
“I’m not wrong.” Ivan could wish he was until he was blue in the face, but he had the brain scans to prove it. “Damage from my mother’s use of Jax while she was carrying me.”
Lucas’s pupils flared. “Understood,” he said before shifting his attention to Soleil. “You’re the healer. What do you feel?”
“He’s mine.” Blunt, argumentative, not at all in any way submissive. “He’s just being stubborn and self-sacrificing.”
“Lei.” Knowing she’d never bend on this point, he turned to her alpha. “It’s not safe for her to be linked to me. I’d release her”—the words were torn out of him—“but the bond isn’t one I can see.”
Lucas rubbed his jaw. “My mate tells me that changeling healers have psychic abilities, but it’s a kind of psychic ability that can’t be measured on the Psy Gradient, and isn’t visible to the usual Psy senses.”
That fit with everything Ivan had learned during his time with Soleil.
“Our bond is real.” Soleil held her alpha’s gaze, her courage unflinching. “I need to be with Nattie and Razi, but I also need to be with Ivan. I want him to have permission to come into pack territory.”
Straightening to his full height, Lucas unfolded his arms to place his hands on his hips. “Mates don’t betray one another,” he said.
It wasn’t a question, but Ivan responded regardless. “I would cut my own throat before I’d betray Soleil—and she’s loyal to DarkRiver. You have my word I’ll do nothing to put the pack in harm’s way.”
“I know. Soleil’s a healer. Their mates are inevitably protectors.”