Silver went motionless.
But before she could consider what to do about the strange intimacy of being surrounded by him, Valentin was pulling open the door and stepping out. Silver decided she could bear the discomfort, given the advantages of having the alpha of StoneWater as her guide.
She began to roll up the sleeves of the sweatshirt as she walked over to join him.
“Here,” he said and took over the task. “Done.”
She had to admit he’d been far more efficient with two hands than she had with one. “Spasibo.”
He smiled.
And it was different.
She couldn’t quite understand how or why, but she knew it had something to do with how she’d thanked him without any hint of the edgy challenge that was always present between them, two alphas struggling for control.
Their eyes met. Held.
“Valentin!” A woman of a height near to Silver’s, her build athletic and her eyes a stunning greenish gray, jogged down the hallway. “We had an attempted incursion.” The woman, who Silver recognized as Anastasia Nikolaev, had a grim expression on her face.
“When?” Valentin’s tone was harder than Silver had ever heard it.
“Just now. I got the report from one of the sentries.” Anastasia held up a hand, tapped her ear. “Thanks, Yasha.”
Dropping her hand, the other woman looked at Silver, then Valentin. “It was a reporter.” Her lip curled, her mouth unexpectedly lush in an otherwise angular face. That face was capped by short strands of ink-black hair that suited the handsome lines of her features. “Parazit. He was trying to sneak in to get an exclusive of Silver Mercant’s torrid affair with the StoneWater alpha.”
Silver blinked at the coda. Beside her, Valentin glared at his sibling. “Save the jokes, Stasya. I need the facts.”
“Those are the facts.” Smile wide, the other woman folded her arms across generous breasts. “It was Yasha who caught the journalist. You know how fucking scary he can look—he made the man all but pee his pants. The asshole was from a tabloid.”
Silver asked the most pertinent question. “Why would a tabloid reporter think I was having a torrid affair with your alpha?”
Anastasia raised both eyebrows. “Sascha Duncan with Lucas Hunter? Or that gorgeous redhead—though her hair’s more dark cherry—with the SnowDancer alpha? What made her choose a wolf, I’ll never know.” A mournful shake of her head.
“Also,” the other woman added, “you did disappear into the clan after Valentin was spotted in your vicinity.” She returned her attention to her brother. “You got snapped climbing up her apartment building, Mishka.”
“I wasn’t trying to hide,” Valentin said, his expression harsh when Silver would have expected him to laugh and shrug it off. “Any risk the reporter could have gotten through?”
“Our perimeter is solid. Pasha’s scanners picked up the reporter, but Yasha acted even before Pasha could feed him the incursion report.”
“Good. If need be, we can ramp up security while Silver is in Denhome.”
“Got it—I’ll keep you updated.” Walking backward deeper into Denhome, the other woman smiled at Silver. “In case you are in the market for a torrid affair, I know a number of bears far more erudite than this hulking beast next to you.”
“According to my understanding of the matter, erudition isn’t necessary for a torrid affair.”
Valentin laughed, the sound huge and real in a way Silver couldn’t explain. “Burned by ice, Stasya.”
His sibling didn’t seem to take offense. She called out, “Have fun!” from behind them. “Do everything I’d do!”
Evaluating the situation as they reached the Cavern, Silver said, “I didn’t believe I’d draw trouble to your pack.” The attempt on her life had been a thing of stealth, not orchestrated by an individual who’d expose themselves to the light. She’d never considered that the media would be a concern. “I apologize.”
“We can handle it.” Valentin pointed a finger at a curly-haired child of approximately three who was about to run headlong toward him. “Not now, Dima. I’m taking our guest for a walk.”
The child’s face fell for an instant before his dark eyes gleamed and he ran headlong toward Silver instead. Valentin intercepted him with a primal swiftness that would’ve surprised many.
A bear changeling wouldn’t win a race against a cheetah—or a wolf—by any measure, but Valentin would beat Silver in a footrace without trying. A smaller bear might not be able to overtake her, but their physical endurance was legendary. She’d be long down before the bear stopped moving.
Bringing the grinning child to his face, their noses a bare half inch apart, Valentin rumbled in his chest. “What did I say?”
Giving a big sigh, the boy Valentin had called Dima shook his head.
“Exactly.” He squeezed the child into a big hug that had Dima smiling again. “Now go join your friends for your own walk, and stop getting into trouble.”
After the child ran off to the knot of cubs at the entrance, Silver said, “What was he planning?”
“Dima’s suddenly developed the habit of clinging to people’s legs like a barnacle.” The words held deep affection. “It’ll pass, but for now, he’s often a one-sided weight when I’m walking around.”
“I see.” She halted, her eyes on a couple who’d begun kissing in the center of the Cavern the instant the area cleared of children, the male’s arms tight around the woman, her fingers digging into his back.
They broke apart an unusually long time later.
“Two minutes, eleven seconds!” called out a woman who’d been watching.
“Beat that!” The couple pumped their fists in the air.
“Pfft,” a male said. “I can kiss on a single breath for at least three minutes.”
“Yeah? How about you show us?”
“Or are you all words and no action?”
The heavily built bear spread his arms. “Which lovely lady wants to volunteer to be the object of my lusty affections?” His gaze landed on Silver. “Ms. Mercant? I could show you— Never mind, I like my head on my neck.”
Silver glanced at Valentin. He gave her that terrible innocent look. “You can watch this uncivilized show every night,” he told her. “Once the cubs get back from their outing, it’ll be much harder to make a clean getaway.”
“Let’s go.” She replied politely to the greetings sent her way, but didn’t stop again until they stepped outside Denhome.
The foliage began almost immediately at the entrance, but for two narrow pathways in among the trees and heavy shrubs. There was one larger cleared area that she already knew was used for a limited number of vehicles, though it was empty at present. “Where do the cubs like Dima play?”
“They’re free to run amok inside—Cavern’s full of natural light and more than big enough. It also has the pond to splash in and rocks to clamber over,” Valentin told her. “But we take them out several times a day to let them play in the open air. That play is how we teach them the beauty and the danger of the wild.”
He led Silver into the rich green of the trees.
It didn’t take extraordinary deductive skills to recognize why the clan maintained such an impenetrable wall of forests across their territory—even from the air, no one would be able to pinpoint the exact location of the place they called Denhome. Looking back, Silver had trouble finding it, even though she knew it was there; the camouflage of trees, shrubs, and moss on the mountain was flawless.