Considering the facts, Riaz made the tactical decision to share some knowledge. “Tatiana is thought to have the ability to penetrate almost any shield.”

Bo’s pupils contracted. “Shit.”

“Yes. No way of knowing if the chip would’ve held her off, since it’s technological, not natural,” Riaz said, “but seems she can get into most minds without causing major damage.”

“Less scars to hide,” Adria said, and he heard the empathy in her, the soft heart she hid beneath the tough exterior.

“But,” he added, cupping her nape gently with his hand, “Tatiana’s ability is noteworthy because of how unusual it is, so it doesn’t change the impact of the chip. Still, your people need to make sure they don’t get cocky.”

“Noted.”

“Once you take away their psychic advantage,” Adria said into the silence that had fallen after Bo’s curt nod, “Psy are very vulnerable.”

As, Riaz mused, Bowen had proven with deadly efficiency on the yacht.

“They have a tendency to rely on their abilities,” the human male agreed. “The ones I took down on the yacht were armed, but they paid so little attention to me it was the easiest op I’ve ever completed. A single guard on the door?” He snorted. “Soon as I had his weapon, it was all over. None of the others were on alert because they assumed their telepathic sweeps would warn them of an intruder.”

“Why kill them?” Adria’s question betrayed the inherent compassion of her nature. “Why not simply incapacitate?”

“A message,” Riaz answered, the predator in him recognizing the one who sat three feet away. “He was sending a message. They fuck with the Alliance, you aren’t going to take prisoners.”

A small shrug from Bowen, his jet-black eyes steely with lethal purpose. “Leaving them alive would’ve been a sign of weakness, and Tatiana expects weakness from the ‘emotional’ races. What the bitch doesn’t understand is that rage is an emotion, too.”

Chapter 40

HAVING SPENT TWO hours with Bowen, going over the advantages the artificial shields might present the humans in SnowDancer and in the packs of their allies, Riaz reported in to Hawke via a highly secure satellite comm link set up using equipment at a small SnowDancer office hidden in Venice. Though the office was unmanned except for when Pierce was in the city, it had multiple layers of security not even a teleporter could breach without setting off a silent alarm. Not that they’d find much except some expensive comm equipment—the call history was set to erase itself the second after a user signed out.

“Bo says he couriered Ashaya the final chip earlier today, after making the decision to let us in on the secret,” he told his alpha. “Have her test it as well as she can.” Riaz wasn’t certain how far the scientist could go without implanting it in anyone, but it was worth a shot. “No way I’m taking Bo’s word on the effectiveness of the technology.”

Hawke nodded, and Riaz could almost see him weighing up every possible variable before he said, “I also want to send Judd in, test the one Bo has in him.”

“I figured. Bo’s expecting it.”

Hawke glanced to the side, his head cocked at a listening angle. Turning back to Riaz after a couple of seconds, he said, “Judd won’t be able to get there until tomorrow night. You okay to stay?”

“Yes.” He turned to the woman beside him. “You?”

Adria nodded and spoke directly to Hawke. “I cleared two days just in case.”

“Even if you hadn’t,” Hawke said, the wolf’s laughter suddenly in his eyes, “Riley’s so happy right now, he’s granting leave to anyone who asks. I’m half afraid to turn around and find the entire den has left for the Bahamas.”

They all grinned at the idea of solid, stable Riley in a spin of joy. Riaz couldn’t imagine it happening to a better man. “He drive Mercy to violence yet?”

“Not so far, but I have popcorn for when the show begins.”

Signing off after another round of laughter, Riaz and Adria reset the office’s security and left via an ingenious passageway that spilled them out into a small but busy shopping district.

The walk to the hotel was quick, the streets around them swathed in velvet darkness broken by the twinkling lights from several eateries spilling warm conversation onto the street. “Dinner on the balcony?” he suggested as they entered their second-floor room.

Adria lit up.

And something in him gentled, wild tenderness invading his veins. “What do you want?” He picked up the room service menu.

TIPPING the waiter at the door, Riaz took the food out to the balcony himself. The temperature had cooled but remained comfortable, the night below dotted with pretty colored lights from a nearby restaurant, the golden-hued windows of another small hotel, the old-fashioned streetlights. Not far in the distance, water danced black and silken through a canal.

Pouring two glasses of wine, he handed one to Adria. “To Venice.”

She clinked her glass to his, her hair tumbling around her shoulders. “To Venice.”

It almost felt as if they’d made a vow … but to what, he didn’t know.

The food was simple but the flavor satisfied, as did the darkly romantic music lilting up from an evening busker. Wineglass in hand after they’d eaten, the wine midnight rubies in the muted light, Riaz watched Adria. She’d twisted in her chair to cross her arms on the curlicued metal of the railing, her face tilted into the soft wind and her ear cocked to the music. All her cares seemed to have vanished, the hardness created by life gone, until her beauty was exquisite, the lines of her face elegant and graceful.

This, he thought, this was who she was beneath the wariness and the hurt and the shields. A woman who, he suddenly knew, would tell him truths the other Adria never would. Dangerous though it was, this tightrope he was walking, he put down his wine and held out a hand. “Dance?”

A startled look, the gold streaks in her eyes vivid in the dark … her wolf coming to the surface. But she stood, flowed into his arms, one of her hands at his nape, the other locked with his own as he wrapped his free arm around her waist. She was tall enough that he didn’t have to bend, didn’t have to do anything but step closer. Their bodies aligned in sweet perfection, her head coming to just below his chin.

A faultless fit.

Drawing in the hidden notes of earthy warmth in her scent, he moved to the sway of the music, his blood hot, his body ready. But neither part of him was in any rush. He’d rushed too much with Adria, always been in too much need. Tonight, that need was tempered by the sexual pride of a dominant male, the desire to show her the lover he could be when his head wasn’t messed up.

The fact it wasn’t, even though he stood in Venice, where it had all begun, was because of her, this strong, guarded, complicated woman turned into a lazy-limbed goddess in his arms. He couldn’t quite understand how it had happened, how he had come to trust that she would never betray his secrets, but he did. So when she lifted her face to his, long fingertips stroking his nape, he bent his head and met her kiss halfway.

Hot and lush and open, it was a languid tangling of mouths. The softness of her, the curves, the lean strength, it all intoxicated. Her scent was in his every breath, and he wondered if she was becoming embedded in his skin, becoming part of him. It happened with lovers—he’d fought the change, not wanting another woman’s scent on his skin … but his wolf didn’t claw away the idea this time.

Painful as it was, the wild heart of him had accepted what could never be, though he couldn’t yet forget. But it wasn’t simply that, would never have been enough. Man and wolf both, they were fascinated by the enigma of Adria. The courage he’d witnessed under fire was only a single facet of a complex gemstone. Already, he knew her harsh, prickly surface to be a facade, the woman underneath one who understood SnowDancer’s most vulnerable … and who knew how to offer comfort to a broken male without unmanning him.

Spreading his hand on her lower back, he urged her closer. “Do you know what the words to the song mean?” he asked as the busker began to sing a song in Venesiàn, a language Riaz had made an effort to pick up during his time in Europe.

She shook her head, strands of ebony silk catching against his unshaven jaw. “It sounds beautiful, though.”

Nuzzling at her, he began to translate, their clasped hands held against his chest. Her sigh at the poignant emotion of the romantic ballad was eloquent, the lips she pressed to the dip at the base of his throat lush and inviting. It stroked a low, deep sound of pleasure from him, his body primed. “Stop that if you want me to keep translating.”

A teasing feminine chuckle. “I’ll behave.”

Riaz murmured the words to her until the song ended, the busker’s voice replaced by the sweet sounds of his fingers caressing the strings of his guitar.

“We should tip him.” She moved the hand at his nape down to curve over his shoulder, her breath blowing a delicate kiss across his skin when she spoke.

“Do you want to go down?”

She looked up, violet eyes lit by amber. “Yes.”

Fingers tangled, they left the room and made their way to the busker. The tip they dropped into his open guitar case made him grin. “Come,” he invited with a flourish of chords, “dance!”

Adria’s smile was shy. “Would you like to?”

Riaz had his arms back around her before he realized he was moving, the familiar cobbled streets of Venice made new by her laughter as she navigated the uneven surface high enough to have escaped the flooding, her fingers tightening on his hand.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured.

His wolf, so long trapped in pain and confusion, pressed against her, happy. Sliding his hand down her back, he danced with her under the half moon, barely aware of passersby until an older Italian couple, the woman’s hair a luxurious mink streaked with gray, her mate’s face lined with age and life, swirled in to join them.