"Judd hasn't been able to get in touch with his contact, but we should get more information when he does."

"Never thought we'd be helping Councilors stay alive." Mercy reached over to brush away a lock of hair that had fallen across his face in a gesture that seemed exquisitely familiar, exquisitely theirs. Heat arced through her fingertips, and it took her a second to realize she'd closed the distance between them until their bodies met.

"You're connected to Nikita and Anthony through Sascha and Faith," Riley said, his hands closing over her hips. "You couldn't let a packmate lose a parent."

"No," she agreed, wondering what he'd say if he knew Anthony's true loyalties, wishing she could tell him. "But I think I'd have done the same even if we didn't have Faith and Sascha in the pack - after Marshall Hyde's recent assassination, I don't think the world could survive the shock of losing a second Councilor."

He stood there and let her run her fingers through his hair, over his jaw, along his lips. "You're right," he said, eyes going wolf on her. "Much as I hate the Council's guts, the Psy are still the most influential race on the planet - if they crash and burn, we'll all pay the price."

"And the Net's not ready," Mercy said. "That's what Sascha, Faith, and Ashaya all say. Too much too soon and millions of innocents could die."

"It's like the Alliance wants to destabilize the world."

Putting both arms around him, she drew in the scent of him until it was in her very veins, twined with her own. "My theory - someone smart but morally corrupt has a thirst for power."

"Much easier to become king if the world's in chaos," Riley said, his lips brushing her own as his hands pressed her flush against his muscular frame.

"Hmm." She was rapidly losing interest in the conversation, far more -

"Get a room!"

Chapter 46

Mercy released Riley to turn and face her middle brother as he lounged in the doorway. "You have something to say, Herb?"

"I can't believe you're smooshing faces with a wolf," came the acerbic comment. "You really that hard up?"

Growling low in her throat, she ran toward him, aware of Riley's bitten-off curse as he followed. Sage, the idiot, had taken off through the house to come to a standstill behind their mother's petite figure. Mercy skidded to a stop on the kitchen tiles and pointed a finger. "Wuss."

Sage stuck out his tongue from behind their mother, wrapping his arms around her waist as she stood shredding lettuce into a salad bowl. "That was so easy, Mercy. You must be seriously hormonal - ouch!" He raised a hand to rub at his left temple - where their mother had reached up to pull his hair. "What was that for?"

"For being a brat," Lia Smith said without stopping in her task. "Sometimes, I think you're all still in short pants."

"Only when we come here," Bas drawled from the back doorway. "It's like I enter this house, and boom, I lose twenty years."

Mercy, adrenaline lowering now that Sage had gotten his comeuppance, found that she'd somehow ended up leaning against Riley as he stood with his back to a wall, his hand a rough warmth along her arm. He was petting her, calming her. Doing what a mate did.

Awash in bittersweet joy, she looked at Bas. "Where's Grey?"

"Right here." Her youngest brother came in through the kitchen doorway with her father. "Hi, Riley."

"Hi."

Her eyes narrowed when no one bothered to introduce themselves. Even her father just gave a curt nod and kissed Mercy on the cheek before going to his mate. She looked at Bas. "Did you four gang up on Riley?"

Absolute silence in the kitchen except for her mother's exasperated breath. "Michael T. Smith, I told you to leave the boy alone."

The "boy" held her tighter against him, obviously not the least bit worried. "I'm fine, Mrs. Smith. And I have a sister, too."

Lia turned her gaze on Riley. "Good God, Mercy. You brought another one into the family?"

And Mercy knew it would be a good night, no matter the worry that continued to pierce her heart.

Sascha stared at Tamsyn in the rosy evening glow. "You're sure?"

"Sascha, darling," Tamsyn said with teasing patience, "it's a pregnancy test, not rocket science. Even if it wasn't positive, the fact that Lucas says you are is gold - you're probably around two weeks along. That's when males tend to pick it up."

"He told me my scent's changed, that my body's already shaping itself to accommodate the new life in my womb." His eyes had glittered with protective emotion, his soul there for her to see.

"A mate always knows," Tammy said with a gentle smile. "The rest of the pack will begin to pick it up now that he has."

"How?"

"Something happens when the male member of a pair knows - it's like his protectiveness coats you, and your own scent changes with it, to something unique, something that speaks of life newly begun."

Life. Sascha laid a fluttering hand over her abdomen. "I still can't quite believe it." A soft warmth lay curled in her belly, a presence that she sensed with every empathic sense in her. It was a spark now. No, a tiny fraction of a spark. So tiny that she had to focus all of her power to feel it. "I never expected to be a mother." Perhaps that's why she hadn't understood what her body had been trying to tell her.

Tamsyn looked surprised. "Really? But you love children."

"Yes." She reached out for Tammy's hand, wanting to share the depth of her joy. "But when I was in the Net, when I thought I was flawed, I swore I'd never submit a child of mine to that kind of an existence."

Tammy leaned forward to kiss her lightly on the cheek. A gift. A comfort. "You're not in the Net any longer."

"And," a deep male voice said from the doorway, "you were never flawed."

She raised her head to look into the face of the panther who was her heartbeat, and now, the father of their unborn child. "You were supposed to stay downstairs."

"Yeah," Tammy said, even as she released Sascha's hands and walked to the doorway, "this was a girls-only session."

A slow smile crossed Lucas's face. "I wonder if it'll be a girl."

Tammy passed him, brushing her fingers over his arm in an affectionate gesture. "Way too early to tell."

Lucas stayed in position after Tammy left, his green eyes stroking a caress over her. "Scared?"

"Yes." She didn't know how to be a mother. "Nikita was hardly a good role model."

"I'm scared, too."

"You're the alpha of the pack," she said, finding they'd somehow moved toward each other without realizing it. "You're only saying that to make me feel better."

He took her hand, placed it over his heart. "Listen."

It was jagged, touched with a tinge of sheer terror. "Why?" she whispered.

"My parents were wonderful," he told her, continuing to hold her hand. "But they couldn't protect me. It terrifies me that I won't be able to protect our child."

She shook her head, pressed her hand more firmly against him. "They died fighting for you. If that's the legacy we leave our child, that child will grow up knowing he or she was loved, loved so completely."

"Such faith in me, kitten." He cupped her cheek with his free hand, his touch warm, wonderfully familiar. "Have the same in yourself."

Leaning into him, she drank in the beat of his heart. "Give me a few months. I have to study the mother thing."

"Ah, Sascha." He laughed, and the sound of it wrapped around her like a sensual blanket. "I'm sure you'll have a graduate degree in it by the time the kid decides to pop out."

She fisted her hand and thumped him on the chest, fighting the smile that threatened to edge her lips. "Don't tease."

He kissed her, a quick, wild burst of easy male affection that echoed down the mating bond. "I'll take you to the bookstore."

"Will you read the books?"

"I won't have to - you'll read them to me." He smiled and it was a slow, feline curve of his lips. "I do love the things you say in bed."

She burst out laughing, the emotional chaos of the day buried under the incandescence of their mingled joy.

Everyone was early to the Council meeting. "Are we all secure?" Nikita asked.

There was a round of confirmations.

Kaleb asked the next question. "We need to have an idea of what they're capable of. I'm willing to share what I found - I'm assuming I was the hardest to get to?"

"Correct," Ming responded. "Your teleportation abilities made you the most difficult target. However, Tatiana is also close to impossible to get to without warning."

Kaleb had heard rumors the other Psy could strip shields, enter any mind she chose. She hadn't yet broken his shields, and he made sure never to be anything but absolutely guarded against her. "Tatiana?"

"I see no harm in sharing the information," the other Councilor said. "Downloading the details now."

Streams of silvery data began to flow against the pure blackness that was the psychic vault of the Council chambers. Kaleb caught the vital facts on the first pass. "They planned to poison you."

"It appears that way," Tatiana said. "It's difficult to fully guard against insects in my part of Australia. The perpetrators released a number of toxic funnel-web spiders around my property."

"That strategy has a high chance of failure," Shoshanna pointed out.

"Yes," Tatiana agreed. "From what I discovered afterward, I think it was an opportunistic ploy after their first one failed. I was meant to be on a private jet to Papua New Guinea today - that jet, I'm now told, developed mysterious engine failure and crashed into the ocean, killing all on board."