Mine to Possess

God, she was mad. “These are children, most of whom have no one else to speak for them.”

Max’s jaw locked tight. “I prefer the changeling way sometimes,” he said, to her surprise. “You hit one of them, you get executed. End of story.”

Her stomach twisted. “Who does the executions?”

“The high-level guys in the predatory packs.”

High-level guys like Clay. Talin wasn’t going to lie to herself—she wanted to kill these bastards, too—but the reminder of the brutality implicit in Clay’s world made her break out in a cold sweat.

You always knew what I was. You chose not to think about it, chose to pretend I was what you wanted me to be.

She’d refuted his assessment but now wondered if he hadn’t been right. Had she given lip service to accepting his leopard, while expecting him to be human—exactly as his mother had done? The realization fractured the already shaky foundation of her current emotional state. Shoving her hair off her face, she forcibly contained her confusion and focused on something she could understand. “When can I have my place back?”

Max shook his head. “You can’t stay here, you know that. You need to be in protective custody.”

“No.” The last time she’d run, she’d lost all claim to the only man who had ever seen goodness in her.

“Talin, don’t be stupid. If these people”—he jerked his head toward her apartment—“think you’re getting too close, they won’t stop with a warning.”

“I know.” She stared back at him. “I’ll be fine. I know how to take care of myself.” No more hiding. No more cowering in the corner while someone else fought for her.

Max threw up his hands, having learned his lesson after butting heads with her more than once. “At least find a safer place to stay. This apartment isn’t secure enough to deter anyone determined to break in. Do you have somewhere to go?”

Clay. The answer hovered on the tip of her tongue, but she bit down hard before it could escape. The pain brought tears to her eyes but it did the job, cutting through the confusion to illuminate the stark truth—Clay wasn’t hers any longer, hadn’t been for two long decades. That admission was discordant music in her head, painful and sandpaper rough.

“Yes,” she lied. “I have a friend who’ll put me up.” She had no friends, had spent a lifetime avoiding commitment. Even the Larkspurs hadn’t been able to break through. The truth was, she trusted no one. Not even herself. Especially not herself.

Clay, her mind whispered again. Call him. You trust him still.

Not true, she argued. Yes, she had trusted the boy he’d been, but she didn’t know the man he’d become. And he hated her, was right to hate her. When she thought of the way she’d treated her body, her soul, she hated herself.

“I’ll have one of my officers drop you off.”

She jerked at the sound of Max’s voice. “No. I’ll wait until you guys are done, pack up some gear, and go.”

“It’ll be daylight by then. If you’re worried about a leak, don’t be. The man I had in mind is changeling. Leakproof.” He tapped his temple as if to remind her of the other race’s superior natural shields. “More important, I trust him.”

“I’m not leaving without my stuff.” An excuse. It would buy her time, give her a chance to figure out where to go.

He sighed. “Fine. Park yourself out here until we’re done and I’ll give you a ride myself.”

“Great.” Damn.

Clay woke with the knowledge that he wasn’t in his lair, his head clear. Changelings processed alcohol far quicker than humans and he had stopped drinking just short of hangover territory. Of course, his mouth felt like something small and furry had crawled in and died there, and his disgust at his own behavior was intense, but physically speaking, he was fine.

Tiny scrabbling sounds came from the floor beside the bed. It was those sounds that had wakened him though it was still dark outside. Reaching down without looking, he caught one leopard cub by the scruff off his neck and hauled him onto the bed, catching the second as he tried to dart out. “You two are supposed to be in bed,” he growled.

The two small leopards looked at each other, then rushed him. He held them off without too much trouble, amused. It was the last emotion he’d have thought he’d feel upon waking, but these two made anything else hard.

“Down,” he said after a few minutes.

The cubs obeyed at once, well aware he was dominant to them. In fact, all of a sudden they appeared to be on their best behavior. Suspicious, he focused his hearing and caught the sound of Tamsyn, their mother, searching for them. “Sharp ears,” he muttered, not bothering to get up when Tamsyn gave a soft knock.

“They’re in here.” His throat felt lined with grit.

She opened the door. “Oh, did they wake you?” As she came to pick them up, the cubs shifted into human form in a burst of flickering color. Naked, they scampered out of the room, laughing.

Tamsyn smiled and shook her head. “More energy than sense.”

He grunted. “Time?”

“Five a.m.” Sitting on the bed, she looked at him, her hair sliding over one shoulder. “You feeling okay?”

“A shower and I’ll be fine.” He deliberately ignored the real meaning of her question. Having been DarkRiver’s healer from a very young age, Tamsyn had a disturbing way of getting under people’s skins.

Now, she sighed. “You’re exactly like my boys—no sense at all. I love you, you idiot. Talk to me.”

He wasn’t ready to talk to anyone about the ghost who had walked back into his life. “Leave it, Tammy.”

She shook her head. “Lord, but you men drive me crazy. All testosterone and pride. Well, you know where I live. I’ll go find you some fresh clothes.” Leaning over, she brushed his hair off his face in a gentle move. “We’re Pack, Clay. Remember that.”

He waited until she left before shoving down the sheet and wandering into the bathroom. Pack. Yes, they were Pack, a healthy, functioning pack. He’d never known the like until Nate had dragged him into DarkRiver.

His mother, Isla, had deliberately chosen to live away from the leopard-controlled areas of the country, hiding her son among humans and nonpredatory changelings. The fact that they had never been tracked down told Clay that his father’s—and by extension, Isla’s—pack, had been, or was, nowhere near as strong or as healthy as DarkRiver. It hadn’t protected, hadn’t sheltered, and definitely hadn’t healed.

When Nate had offered to sponsor Clay into DarkRiver, he’d accepted mostly because he didn’t really care where he went. He’d figured he could take off if he didn’t like it. He had discovered different within days. In DarkRiver, isolation wasn’t an option. Loners were accepted, but they weren’t forgotten. And if someone lost their way, the pack hauled them back in kicking and screaming.

Stepping out of the shower, he pulled on the clothes he’d heard Tamsyn bring in a few minutes ago. They were his own—because Tamsyn was their healer, they often came to her bleeding or worse, their clothes useless. It made sense to have spare clothing here. As he dressed, he could hear her and Nate talking downstairs, the low murmur of their voices interspersed with the higher-pitched tones of the twins.

A healthy pack. A healthy family. They were both lessons Clay had learned from DarkRiver. Why hadn’t Talin learned the same from the family that had taken her in? She hadn’t lied about them being good people. He would have picked up the signs of deception—increased heart rate, perspiration, the subtle shift in scent. Not all leopards had that skill but Clay had always been good at it, especially with Talin.

Lots of men.

She hadn’t lied about that either. The thought of his Talin with others continued to stoke the dark fire inside of him, but at least he could think past it this morning. Going downstairs, he grabbed a cup of coffee and a bagel, then left before either Nate or Tamsyn could ask any awkward questions.

He had no time for delays. He was on a hunt.

No way in hell was Talin going to get away from him a second time.