something very close to a purr rumbled through his chest. and at last, he began to move faster, the hard heat of him a pounding beat inside of her. she held on, was held safe... even as she held him safe.

dorian was feeling very much the cat when he blinked open his eyes - after his heartbeat finally calmed. his first instinct was to check the security panel. still okay. good. 'cause he had no intention of moving - his body was loose, his limbs relaxed, and his leopard curled up in a sexually satisfied ball, complete with smug feline smile. not to mention, he had a damn sexy woman half-comatose next to him. he grinned at her complaining moan when he ran his fingers over her abdomen.

ticklish, he thought, delighted. she was ticklish.

flattening his palm on her, he rolled the good feeling through his mind, wrapping it around himself like a cloak. the guilt he'd deal with later, he thought, caging it when it began to rise. but it wasn't so easy. the thoughts ate away at him. his sister's death. his parents' pain. his own violent rage. and now his pleasure.

but though the realization hurt like hell, he couldn't regret it. not this. not his mate.

ashaya turned her head, looking at him with those perceptive eyes. "emotion is a complex system, isn't it?"

he traced her profile with his fingertip. "one way to put it."

"a plus b doesn't always equal c." her tone was contemplative, her luscious skin warm and a little damp under his palm.

"no." yawning, he glanced at the bedside clock. "it's almost one in the morning."

"hmm." she gave a delicate yawn in response to his own.

"that's called the pandiculation reflex, you know - the urge to yawn when you see someone else do it."

"now that's what i call pillow talk." he yawned again and had the surprise of seeing a tiny smile light up her face.

when sleep came, it was in a soft whisper. he slept curved around her, his senses alert for any hint of an intruder. but when he awoke no more than ninety minutes later, it was to the awareness of ashaya watching him. "you look like you've never seen a cat in your bed before."

color brushed across her cheekbones. "you know i haven't."

he was about to tease her some more when he caught the edge of a scent that didn't belong. even as he moved to grab his jeans from where he'd left them, the security panel pinged to warn him of a breach in the outer perimeter. "get dressed." smile wiped off, he zipped up the jeans and headed to the door. "be alert, but don't come outside."

he stepped out without waiting for a response. a minute later, another man appeared from the silky dark of the trees. andrew had clearly been in his animal form, because he was naked now - and at ease with that fact, as was the way of changelings. though dorian was leopard to andrew's wolf, they understood each other. the snowdancer male's sister had also been taken by santano enrique. unlike kylie, brenna had survived, but only after going through the worst kind of torture.

however, dorian's acceptance of andrew only went so far. and it was nowhere near enough to allow him this close to ashaya. "what are you doing here?" though snowdancer and darkriver had free range over each other's territory, the wolves preferred to stick to the higher elevations.

andrew's eyes shifted over dorian's shoulder. "i can smell her."

"don't."

the younger male grinned. "she's all over you, too. is she as sexy as she smells?"

dorian knew andrew was deliberately jerking his chain. "why don't you come closer and find out?"

"do i look stupid?"

"you look like a wolf."

andrew bared his teeth. "i thought we were friends."

"and i thought you got posted back to san diego."

the other man shrugged. "i came back to visit my baby sister, check up on that mate of hers."

"she's fine," dorian said, relaxing a little at andrew's deliberately nonaggressive stance. "i've been keeping an eye on her."

"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 voila." 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."

"yeah?" he watched as she tried to tuck her hair behind her ears. the unruly stuff refused to stay in place, dancing gleefully in the quiet air currents rushing through the trees.

"i heard some of what you said - have they tracked me this far?"

he couldn't lie to her. "amara must've told them."

"no." a stubborn shake of her head. "she would never betray me."

"shaya - "

"no, dorian." her hand clenched on the rifle and she frowned. "even if they broke her mind, she'd find some way to misdirect them. this is too close - there's too much of a chance they'll actually locate me. not like in the chaos of chinatown."

he was swayed by the sheer belief in her tone. "that leaves only one other option."