When he'd arrived at the site, it was to find Dorian up to his neck in angry male juveniles. The sentinel had had them under control, but it was clear he'd had to bust a few heads to do so. Kit was bleeding from a split lip and Cory looked like he had a broken jaw. Several of the others wore bruises and everyone but Dorian was naked - a sure indicator that they'd been in leopard form.
"What happened?" he asked, shifting from jaguar to man.
Dorian thrust a hand through his hair. "Kit here decided to romance Nicki and Cory thought he had exclusive rights."
"This is about a girl?" Vaughn couldn't believe that, not with the way juvenile females were known to put their freedom above anything and anyone else.
"What it's about is these two boneheads using the excuse to call out their 'packs' on each other to settle who's more alpha." Dorian caught Vaughn's eye. Both of them knew it was Kit who had the smell of a future alpha. The kid was just faster, harder to hurt, and more aggressive than the others. But until he'd proven his alpha status, he was simply another juvenile.
"Kit." Vaughn dragged him up by the scruff of his neck. "What the hell is this about your own pack?"
The boy wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. "It's just a bunch of us who are friends."
Vaughn didn't speak, didn't break eye contact.
The kid shrugged, but the anger remained in his eyes. That was why young alphas needed careful guidance, and if they stepped out of line, harsh discipline. They could go bad very easily. "So what if we call ourselves a pack?" His hands fisted into balls. "It means nothing."
"Cory?" Vaughn looked to the lanky kid propped up against a tree. "You think the same?"
The boy spit out blood. "Yeah."
Dorian slapped down a couple of others who tried to rise in renewed rage. "Stay the hell down or I swear I'll break all of your jaws."
Nobody protested. Dorian might be latent, but he was also a sentinel - he could snap these kids in two without thinking.
Vaughn returned his attention to Kit. No matter what Cory thought, it was Kit the juveniles looked up to. "If you're the alpha of your pack, you won't mind me challenging you for authority."
Some of the arrogance seeped out of Kit's eyes. "What?"
"You want to lead your own pack? Fine. But if you're the alpha of another pack, you give up your right to be part of DarkRiver." Harsh but true. "We have no treaties with you, which means you're in violation of Law. I have the right to kill you for trespass."
Kit wiped away another trickle of blood. "We don't want to separate from DarkRiver." He was beginning to look a little green around the gills.
"There is only one Pack. And none of you is alpha." Vaughn made sure he met the eyes of every juvenile in the clearing. Several heads dropped. "If and when you can challenge Lucas for the title, I'll respect you. Until then, you're a bunch of whiny brats who've fucked up the defense grid by pulling two sentinels from their duties."
Wounded pride showed on the face of more than one boy, but predictably, it was Kit who spoke. "We didn't ask for interference."
Vaughn actually liked the kid for his spine, but not enough to cut him any slack. Not after what he'd glimpsed in his quick reconnaissance before entering the scene. He glanced at Dorian. The younger sentinel dragged an unconscious juvenile out from behind a tree and dropped him at Kit's feet. "You did this."
The injured male had had his chest sliced open. If he'd been human, he'd have been dead by now. And that was before you added in the head wound. "Were you going to be able to stop without Dorian's 'interference'?" Vaughn made his question a whip.
Kit swallowed. "Oh, shit. Oh, man - I didn't realize - is Jase going to be okay?" Suddenly he was a child again, no trace of the alpha he'd one day become.
Vaughn let go of the boy.
Dorian was the one who answered. "Tamsyn's on her way back from the wolf den. Can you get Jase to her without killing him in the process?"
Kit nodded. "Yeah."
"I'll help you." Cory stood, one hand on his jaw.
The two boys looked at each other and then at the sentinels. "We can deal with it from here."
"You no longer have the right to my trust," Dorian responded, tone flat.
Vaughn saw the effect it had on Kit - the kid worshipped the blond sentinel, looking up to him like an older brother. But to his credit, he only nodded. "We'll get him to Tammy's, I swear."
"I want every single one of you in the Pack Circle tomorrow. The women can decide your punishment," Vaughn ordered, and it was no kindness. Leopard females were merciless about breaches of Pack law, because they knew that without Law, their children would start to die one by one at each other's hands.
Pack was One.
That was the ultimate rule.
Cleaning up the mess the juveniles had made, including tracking down and notifying Jase's roaming parents as well as the maternal females in charge of discipline, swallowed up several hours. It was almost five by the time he reached Faith's compound and he was feeling so violently possessive that he probably shouldn't have gone to her. But no way in hell was he waiting any longer.
He was about to scale a tree from which he intended to jump the outer fence when he smelled his prey on the perimeter of the compound. Surprised, he flattened down into a cautious stance. Her scent came nearer, until he could hear the flutter of her heartbeat, the sound of her breath. She stopped inches from him and when he appeared out of the tree shadows, she nodded. "I'm ready."
Her unexpected surrender calmed the beast, but only a fraction. He led her farther into the woods and toward one of his caches before moving out of her sight to shift into human form and pull on a pair of jeans - this was not a time to push Faith any more than she'd already pushed herself. Yet when he returned to her, her face went immediately wary.
"Your eyes are more cat than man."
"I know."
She walked to him. "I'm coming home with you."
"For how long?" He was keeping her. That was nonnegotiable. He just wanted to know how much persuasion it would take.
Her hand rose to lie over his heartbeat. A tentative touch that made the cat snarl for more. "For always."
It was the one answer he hadn't expected, but instinct told him what to do. Closing his fingers over her hand, he raised it to his mouth and kissed her fingertips. Her pulse shuddered, but she didn't pull away. The cat was pleased. Dropping that slender hand, he turned his back to her. "Jump on."
A beat of hesitation and then her hands were on his shoulders. He slid his palms up the back of her thighs and felt her fear, her confusion, her need. But when he pushed upward, she wrapped her legs around his waist and held on.
Exhilaration lacing his bloodstream, Vaughn ran through a forest slowly fading from day brightness - night fell quicker under the canopy. Faith's weight, even given her small pack and the long distance, was nothing. The jaguar gloried in having her in his territory, in his world, though he knew they still had to extract her safely from the Net. But that could be done anytime she was ready. First, he needed to claim her on a much more primal level.
He took her deep into DarkRiver territory and then even deeper into his own, not stopping until she was in the bedroom of his lair, the only woman he'd ever brought there. Lowering her to her feet, he let her stretch and explore, able to wait now that she was in his home.
Her face tried to maintain that cool Psy look, but wonder broke through in sporadic patches. "Your home is amazing. Like we're part of the forest."
He let out a jagged breath. "Do you want me to shower?"
She froze, eyes flicking to the waterfall behind him. "What?"
"The run made me sweaty." The falling night had been cold, the wind crisp, but a fine layer of perspiration covered his skin.
"Oh." The answer was soft, breathy. "No, that's okay."
He watched her mouth as she spoke, surprised to realize he'd closed the distance between them without being aware of it. Raising his hand, he rubbed a finger over her lips. "I want to eat you up."
Even as her eyes widened, the beast began to haze his brain with unforgiving sexual need. He wanted. And he was through with waiting. Faith was his mate. It was his right to take her. He'd angled his head to claim a savage kiss when out of nowhere, something else kicked in - the protective instincts that would never allow him to harm her. And if he took her now, he might even break her.
Shaken into civilized thought by that unforgiving truth, he forced himself to do the hardest thing he'd ever done. He took a step back. "I might hurt you if we do this." He was too much on edge, too hungry, too damn strong to chance a loss of control while in the grip of passion.
He watched her swallow and the cat wanted to lick at her neck, to hold her pulse in its mouth and feel the power of her heartbeat. It was about sex, not pain. The thought of abusing her was abhorrent to him, but he was afraid of caving in to the violent need of the beast and losing his capacity for rational thought. And when he rose from the animal hunger, he might find that his claws had permanently marred Faith's skin, that he'd bitten and cut. The possibility terrified him as nothing else had ever terrified him.
"Vaughn," she said, "it's okay. I know you won't hurt me. It's my conditioning and the impact it might have that we have to worry about."
"I could rip you to pieces if the cat takes over. I won't think I'm hurting you, but I will be." His voice held the thickness of a growl - his beast might have saved his life as a child, but the payment it demanded was being a greater part of his consciousness. "I want you too much, so much that I might damage you without meaning to."
Faith didn't move any closer. Instead, she stood watching him, studying him with those night-sky eyes that seemed to shimmer in the dim light of this cavern he called home, which seemed to soothe her. It had surprised him when he'd picked up the signs of relaxation, but now he was glad. At least she could feel safe in this place. His place. He'd never steal that feeling from her by using it as a trap to maul her.