"That it's my version of acting out." She laughed at his expression, awkwardness dissipating. "No, she doesn't seem to realize I'm a grown-up, as the kids would say."
"Why do you let her get away with it?"
She was beginning to expect the straight-up questions from him. "My mom was on that train with me. She tried and tried and tried to get me out even though I was pinned under so much wreckage, she didn't have a hope of shifting anything." Her throat choked with the force of memory. "Her arm was broken at the time, but she didn't cry a single tear. She just kept trying to get me out."
Zach reached out to run his knuckles over her cheek. "She loves you."
She found comfort in the touch, and when he returned his hand to the steering wheel, she realized he'd somehow given her strength. "Yes. That's why I let her get away with so much." She leaned her head against the seat. "This thing she has for the Psy, the way she almost deifies them, it has its roots in the accident, too."
"How?"
"There was this boy - I don't know where he came from, but he was small, my age or younger. Cardinal eyes." She shivered at the memory of the chill in those extraordinary white-stars-on- black-velvet eyes. Psy lived lives devoid of emotion, but she'd never seen a child that utterly cold. "He lifted the wreckage off me."
"Telekinetic." Zach whistled. "You got lucky."
"Yeah." The Council didn't release its telekinetics for mundane rescue work - especially not when an incident affected mainly humans and changelings.
"The medics told me he'd saved my life.
My internal organs were close to collapse - a few more minutes, and I wouldn't have made it."
"Did you ever find out who he was?"
She shook her head.
"He disappeared in the chaos. I've always thought that he teleported in from another location, after somehow seeing me in the live coverage. I remember there was a remote media chopper flying overhead, and if he was strong enough to lift the amount of wreckage that he did, he was strong enough to teleport." She couldn't imagine the strength of will it took to harness that much power. "He can't have been on the train - his clothes were spotless, and he didn't have so much as a smudge on his face."
"Psy aren't born lacking emotions," Zach told her, "they're conditioned to it.
So it could be that he was still human enough to feel the need to help when he saw what had happened."
"How do you know about the conditioning?" She answered her own question a second later. "Your alpha's mated to a cardinal Psy." The news of that mating had sent shockwaves throughout the country.
"Sascha," he said, nodding.
"Vaughn, one of the sentinels, is also mated to a Psy."
She couldn't imagine a member of the cold Psy race embracing emotion.
But changeling leopards mated for life, and the bond between mates was a dazzling beacon apparent even to a human observer. If these women had mated with DarkRiver cats, they were undoubtedly as radiant and as strong as the other women she'd seen. "Will I meet them today?"
"I know Luc and Sascha are coming. Likely Faith and Vaughn will, too." He turned down a quiet road lined with trees. "I'll try to get you back by six so you can get ready for dinner, but we might cut it fine."
She bit the inside of her cheek. "I think I should cancel. I really don't want my mom to...I would hate for you to feel that - "
"Hey," he said, shooting her a glance that spoke of the soldier within, "I'm a big boy. I can handle it. Promise."
Promises are for keeping.
Deciding to trust him, she dug out her phone from the pocket of her jeans.
"I'll tell Mom I'm bringing someone and that we'll be late."
"Yeah. It'll give your date time to find another partner." That lethal edge was back in his voice.
Her stomach muscles tightened.
"Zach?"
"Might as well get this out in the open." He pulled the car into a small layby and turned to brace his hand against the top edge of her seat. "I'm not real good at sharing."
She swallowed. "Oh."
Zach could've kicked himself. He'd gone to all this trouble to lull her into a relaxed mood, then the cat had struck out in a burst of primitive jealousy.
"Scared?"
Wary caution crept into her eyes, but she shook her head. "You said you wouldn't bite unless I asked...very nicely."
Surprise had the cat freezing. He'd forgotten that beneath the blushes and big brown eyes was a woman quite capable of calling him on his behavior. "That's true," he drawled, letting the cat out to play. "Come closer and ask me." She shook her head again.
"Please."
Her cheeks colored, but he knew the heat wasn't because of embarrassment. Her arousal was a decadent whisper in the confines of the car, a drug his cat could lap at for hours.
But what he really wanted to do was lap at her. He moved a little closer.
She held up the phone. "I need to make this call." Her voice was breathless, her tone jagged.
Instinct urged him to keep pushing, but he didn't want to make her feel cornered. No, he thought, shifting back into his seat, he'd do his teasing out in the open arms of the forest. "Go on, sweetheart." He smiled. "I've got all day to play with you."
She sucked in a breath. "Is that what this is? Play?"
"Sure." He drove them back onto the road, knowing she was talking about more than his teasing promise - pretty, sexy Annie Kildaire thought they were heading for a quick, hot fling. He grinned inwardly. Poor baby was going to get one hell of a surprise when he told her the truth, but she wasn't ready for that yet. "The best kind of play."
She was silent for a few minutes, then he heard her coding in the call. With her being so close, he could hear both sides of the conversation. Most humans who lived with changelings tended to get earpieces, so they could have private conversations. He'd have to get Annie one, he thought absently.
"Mom, it's Annie. About tonight," she began.
"Don't you dare cancel, Angelica Kildaire."
Angelica?
"I'm not," Annie said, obviously attempting to keep her temper in the face of the sharp response. "I'll be late, and - "
"We're doing this for you," her mother interrupted. "The least you can do is turn up on time."
Annie pressed her fingers to her forehead and seemed to mentally count to five. "I'm bringing a guest," she said without any lead-in. "His name is Zach." Complete silence from the other end. Then, "Well good grief, Annie.
Now you tell me. I'll have to find another woman to balance out the table.
Who is he?"
"A DarkRiver soldier."
The silence was longer and deeper this time. Zach could feel Annie's distress at the reaction, but he was proud of her for sticking to her guns.
"Mom?"
"Aren't you a little too old for childish games?" her mother asked. "I know some women find those rough types attractive, but you have a brain.
How long do you think he'll be able to keep that engaged?"
Zach's cat smiled in feral amusement. He was used to the preconceptions some humans, and most Psy, had about changelings. The majority of the time, it rolled off his back. But this time, it mattered. Because this was Annie's mother.
"I am not having this discussion with you," Annie said, tone final. "We'll be there for dinner. If you'd rather we didn't come, just say so."
"No, bring him," was the immediate response. "I want to meet this Zach who's got you ordering your own mother around." She hung up.
Annie stared at the phone for several seconds before thrusting it back into her pocket. "How much did you hear?"
"All of it."
She shifted uncomfortably. "Sorry - "
"Annie, sweetheart, leave your mom to me." He shot her a grin brimming with deliberate wickedness.
"Today, I want to lead you astray." Her returning smile was a little shy but full of a quiet mischief he figured most people never saw. "Are you sure I'm not already beyond redemption?" He chuckled. "How could you be with a name like Angelica?"
She made a face. "I'm an Annie, not an Angelica."
"I prefer Angel."
"Do you like your women angelic?" He chuckled. "No, baby, I like my woman exactly as she is." He knew he'd surprised her, waited to see what she'd do.
"So, this thing...you want more than just a day?"
He wasn't going to lie to her. "Are you going to run if I say yes?" He pulled into the forest proper, taking a narrow track that would lead them to one of the smaller waterfalls. It was only a trickle right now because of the cold, but it was still a sight to be seen.
"I'm here today, aren't I?" A question with a slight acerbic bite.
Tasting the piquancy of it on his tongue, he decided he liked it. "All alone with a big, bad cat who's rethinking his policy on biting." Arousal colored the air again, and he sucked in a breath to contain his most primal instincts. "Look ahead," he said, voice husky.
"Oh!" Her eyes went huge. "It's a buck," she whispered, as if afraid the animal would hear her. "His antlers are huge."
Zach slowed the vehicle to a crawl, but the buck caught his scent and shot off into the trees. "Sorry. They tend to scatter the instant they smell leopard. It's why I look after the predators - it's hard for me to check data on the nonpredatories."
"They know they're prey." She looked at him. "Do you hunt them?"
"When the cat needs it, yes." He glanced at her. "Can you handle knowing that?"
"I teach a lot of little cats," she reminded him in a prim, schoolteacher voice. "I might not be an expert on changeling behavior, but I've picked up enough to know that when in animal form, you behave according to the needs of the animal."
