Hostage to Pleasure

“Yeah, I know. She’s always muttering about how she has three overprotective morons for brothers now.” Andrew snorted. “Wait till she has a baby girl. I can’t exactly see Judd being any less feral.”

Dorian grinned in agreement. Judd was his sparring partner and one cold son of a bitch. Except when it came to Brenna. “Cut the shit, Drew. You didn’t come here wanting to shoot the breeze.”

“To tell the truth, I wasn’t planning to talk to anyone at all.” Andrew rotated his shoulders, as if resettling his bones, before leaning up against a slender fir. “I was out for a good, hard run. Decided to come down here for a change of scenery.”

Dorian nodded. “But?”

“But I saw something, thought it might be important. Then I caught your scent and voilà.” A sly glance behind Dorian. “I caught another scent, too. A much more delectable one.”

“You know, Drew,” he said conversationally, “Judd’s right-you have a fucking death wish.”

“What the-!” Andrew stared at the quivering handle of the knife blade stuck into the tree trunk he’d been leaning against. “Where the hell did that come from?”

Dorian was about to answer when he heard something behind him. His senses sharpened-he hoped to hell that Ashaya wasn’t about to do something stupid and walk out. The second she did, this would escalate. Because no matter how much he liked Andrew, Dorian wasn’t ready to allow any unmated male near her. Not yet, not when the mating dance remained incomplete.

But the next sound he caught turned his cold fury into a smirk. “She has a gun pointed at you.”

Andrew’s eyes shot toward the cabin. “Should’ve known you’d hook up with some chick as crazy as you are.” Light words but his eyes were already serious. “I saw Psy guards. Fully armed, black uniforms, right on the edge of your territory.”

“Shit.” He stuck his hand into a pocket and found the phone he hadn’t bothered to take out when stripping earlier that night.

“Wait.” Andrew thrust a hand through his hair. “It didn’t seem like they were looking to mess with us or you. Far as I could tell, they were taking every care not to step over the boundary lines.”

That made Dorian pause. “We’ve had no problems with the Council since we fucked with their computer systems.” The sabotage had been in retaliation for an attack on a defenseless changeling group under DarkRiver’s protection. “You sure they’re not out to attack?”

“Seemed more like they were searching for someone.”

Dorian’s neck prickled. “Coordinates.”

The SnowDancer male rattled them off. At the same time, Dorian’s phone came to life in his hand. When he answered, it was to hear Lucas say, “Got reports of Psy activity on the borders.”

“Hold on.” He nodded his thanks to Andrew as the other man made good-bye motions. An instant later, the SnowDancer shifted in a shower of multicolored sparks and then a sleek silver wolf was shooting away in the opposite direction. “Luc, I think they’re tracking Ashaya, probably through her twin.” He’d already given his alpha a quick rundown on Amara’s psychic bond with Ashaya when Lucas had arrived with Sascha to drive Keenan up to the SnowDancer den.

Lucas swore softly. “What else have you got?”

Retrieving his knife from the tree trunk, he slid it back into a pocket while telling Lucas about Andrew’s inadvertent discovery. “If they have tracked Shaya here, might be they’re trying to cut off her escape routes, set it up so they can grab her outside our territory.” Not that it would work. Dorian would hunt down anyone who dared take his mate from him.

“Won’t happen. I’m on my way to have a chat with them.”

Dorian’s instincts, the instincts of a sentinel sworn to protect his alpha pair, awoke with a vengeance. “Who’s with you?”

“Mercy and Clay will have my back. Sascha’s going to stay out of sight and keep an eye out for any attempts at psychic interference.”

“Sascha’s a cardinal but she’s not trained in-”

“Did I tell you my mate’s been hanging around with the bloody assassin?” A growl.

Dorian calmed. “Judd’s been teaching her to scan for interference? Good.” He switched gears. “When did you get back from the SnowDancer den?”

“Half an hour ago. Sascha decided Keenan would take it better if we all treated his being in the den as a normal visit. Both Hawke and Judd have their eye on him, but the kid settled down easy as pie after he met Walker,” he said, referring to Judd’s older brother.

“None of us up there?” Dorian was sure the SnowDancers would look out for Keenan, but he didn’t want the boy to feel completely lost among strangers.

“Hawke thinks I have issues with trust, but I had Rina and Kit follow us up. Keenan knows Kit and it’s good training for both of them to spend some time with our main allies,” he said. “Look, I’m almost there. I’ll give you a call afterward.”

Dorian put the phone in his pocket and turned to find Ashaya in the open doorway. “I thought I told you to stay inside.”

“The other man left.” She held up the rifle he’d had stashed in his closet. “And I don’t have to be a good shot to hit a man from this distance.”