CHAPTER 23
Sascha looked into the young cardinal’s eyes and wanted to tell her to let the anger and pain out.
Damming it up behind a wall of silence would only equal a slow death. She’d learned that the hard way.
“We’d also had several… incidents in the past. The Council decided they needed to ‘purge’ our family tree of undesirable traits.” Judd’s eyes went to Marlee. “Non-biological members of the family were given the choice to renounce any relationship or undergo rehabilitation.” Sascha read between the lines and what she heard was so heartbreaking she couldn’t speak. Marlee’s biological mother had forsaken her child, handed her over for torture. The staggering nature of the betrayal was something no one with a human or changeling heart would ever understand. And Sascha’s heart was no longer Psy, if it had ever been.
“How can you be alive?” Lucas raised her hand to his lips for a gentle kiss. She knew it wasn’t a territorial marking—it was simply a changeling gesture of affection for a mate, something he hadn’t even thought about. But all the Psy in the room noticed. And wondered. “According to Sascha, once you’re cut off from the Net, you lose the feedback needed to function.”
“That’s what we thought,” Walker began. “When we decided to defect, we came to the SnowDancers because of their reputation with the Psy. They’re thought of as brutal animals who kill without conscience.
However, we’d researched them during the time the Council allowed us to wrap up our affairs. We knew they wouldn’t destroy Toby and Marlee on sight.”
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Sascha frowned. “I don’t think the little ones need to be here for this.” Their fear was very real and very scary.
“That’s what I told them,” Hawke said, a tic at the corner of his mouth. “We don’t talk about this kind of stuff in front of pups.”
“You expect us to leave them to your tender care?” Judd asked.
“Sienna, take the kids and go,” Hawke ordered.
Surprising Sascha, the clearly headstrong teenager stood and took Toby’s hand. “Marlee, come here.” The girl looked to her father. Finally, Walker nodded. Marlee almost ran to Sienna’s other side and slipped her hand into the redhead’s free one. The young ones had obviously become used to touch in the months they’d been here and, Sascha guessed, the older Psy were trying to learn to accept those touches for the children’s sake. No normal Psy would’ve ever allowed care for another to influence them, but the Laurens were hardly normal.
“I’m doing this for Toby and Marlee, not you.” The defiant words were directed at Hawke.
The alpha gave her a mock-salute. “Heaven forbid you do anything because I asked you to.”
“I deserve to know what’s going on.” Sienna looked at her uncles. “I’m not a child.”
“Stay in contact.” Walker’s tone revealed nothing of what he thought of Sienna’s going over to the “dark side” and obeying Hawke’s command.
No one spoke until the door had closed behind Sienna and the kids. Then they talked of death.
“So you expected to die,” Sascha said.
“Of course.” Walker nodded. “But we wanted to give Toby and Marlee a chance. They’re young enough to learn to live a new way, their minds still plastic. We hoped that they might survive the necessary cutoff from the Net, somehow be able to find new pathways in their brain. It wasn’t much of a chance but it was more than they’d have had otherwise.”
“Sienna?”
“She was sixteen at the time.” Walker’s eyes were so coldly clinical that it startled Sascha to realize they were the same pale green as Marlee’s. “We worked on the assumption that the wolves would see her as a threat and eliminate her.”
“Yet you brought her in?” Lucas’s voice was a whip. “You took a juvenile into almost certain death?” If Sascha didn’t know better, she’d have thought that Judd’s jaw set in anger. “We had no choice,” the younger male said. “Sienna would rather have died than be rehabilitated. If we hadn’t taken her, she would’ve followed us on her own.”
Sascha stroked Lucas with the secret part of her mind, which she was finally learning to understand.
“They’re right,” she said. “Rehabilitation is worse than death, worse than anything you can imagine.” Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Lucas allowed her to soothe him, allowed her to surround him in affection. “Why didn’t you kill them?” he asked Hawke.
“We’re not idiots—it was obvious they’d come expecting death-by-changeling.” His hand was a fist on the table.
“We captured them with the intention of collecting a ransom.”
“Then we told him it was the Council that would pay the ransom and why,” Judd said. “It left him in a bad position. He couldn’t have five Net-linked Psy in his territory and since he has a conscience, he couldn’t simply execute us or hand us over to be rehabilitated. He told us to cut the link.”
“We’d always known that any of us who survived the SnowDancers would have to do that in any case to ensure our safety,” Walker added. “Once the Council figured out we’d escaped, they would’ve used the Net link to exterminate us. No one defects from the Psy.” Judd looked straight at Sascha and she realized that he was quite unbelievably handsome in the perfect way of the Psy. “Sienna was the one who thought of it.” His bearing was as formal as his brother’s.
“Of what?” Sascha was fascinated by the Laurens. It was clear that the two youngest were indeed starting to adapt, their minds able to integrate with the changeling way of life. Equally, Judd and Walker remained locked in their Psy world, having lived the lie for too long.
Unlike her, the two males didn’t have the very nature of their powers forcing them to face up to their emotions. Then there was Sienna, caught in the middle. At sixteen she would’ve been almost fully conditioned, ready to function as a cog in the Psy machine.
“Of a familial PsyNet,” Walker said, meeting her gaze. “She proposed that we start to drop out of the Net one after the other, with only milliseconds between each drop.”
“As if we were butchering them.” Hawke’s eyes were the chill blue of Arctic ice. Sascha fought the urge to reach out to him—he’d likely bite her hand off. The woman who took on this wolf would have to be either very brave or very stupid.
“Exactly.” Walker nodded. “It also made it impossible for anyone to get a lock on us. The second we dropped out, we linked our mind to another member of the family. The first to drop out had to be someone powerful enough to anchor the link, someone who could survive the initial separation and isolation.”
“Sienna?” Sascha asked.
“No. She’s cardinal but she didn’t have enough control over her powers. Judd did it.” Walker looked at his brother. “I was the last to drop out—I had to guide the kids out.” Sascha guessed that Judd had to be just below cardinal level to have taken on the job as anchor. “It worked?” Her heart was in her throat.
“Yes. We created a closed circle that constantly feeds upon the energy generated inside the loop.” Excitement and hope burst inside her. “Can…”
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Walker started to speak before she could get the desperate question out. “No, Sascha. I’m sorry.” The words were gentler than she’d expected from one of the Psy. “For the loop to function, we had to lock it shut. With three immature minds, it takes everything Judd and I have to keep it going. Until Sienna is old enough to help, we’re the ones controlling Marlee’s and Toby’s instinctive attempts to rejoin the PsyNet.”
“The second you open the loop,” she whispered, “they’re going to try to relink.” Walker nodded. “They can’t help it. It’s something we’re born with—this need to be part of the Net.
The two of us are old and powerful enough to control the instinct but even Sienna continues to have trouble. We can’t take the risk of opening the loop to let you in and losing them.”
“I understand.”
Lucas shifted beside her. “Protecting your young comes first.” There was no accusation in his voice and she knew he’d have made the same choice. But she could also feel his frustration, his need to protect her
. If it ever came down to it, she understood that her mate would have no trouble sacrificing every single one of the Laurens to save her. It was almost terrifying to be adored that much. Almost.
The other two Psy looked at him. “Yes.”
“But,” Judd said, “we can provide the distraction you need. Sienna and I are both telepaths with a number of… unusual abilities. We’ve figured out a way to sneak back into the Net through the mind of a weak Psy.
“We intend to feed our powers through that individual’s uplink and scramble a couple of the major lines of communication. It’s going to be fairly rough—secondhand sabotage depends upon the Gradient of the mind being used, and our guy’s scarcely 4.5.”
Sascha knew they were talking about mind control, something that was both illegal and immoral. “If you do that, we’re no better than them.”
Judd looked across at Hawke and back to her. “We’re only going to use the link to the Net. Neither of us has any interest in scanning the drug-addled mind of our volunteer. It’s your choice.” Sascha struggled with the ethics of breaking one rule to uphold another; Brenna’s life against the invasion of a mind. What decided her were the painful shadows she glimpsed around Hawke. He was dying each second his packmate was held in enemy hands, the alpha heart of him shredded by the twin talons of guilt and grief.
“Volunteer?”
“Money talks. He doesn’t even care what he’s volunteering for.” Hawke nodded at Judd to continue.
“The break will be minute—we can’t risk anyone tracing us through the other’s mind. It’s the same reason none of us can play your role. The instant they even suspect we’re alive, they’ll hunt us down.”
“A minute break should be enough. The flow-on effects will ripple through the Net for some time,” Sascha said, frowning in thought. “The killer should detect the changeling nature of my psychic scent before everyone else calms down and starts to wonder what’s wrong with me.
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“Even then, they probably won’t immediately understand—most Psy have never seen inside a changeling mind. There’s no reason it shouldn’t work.” Unless everything went to hell and the first ones to become aware of her were the Councilors.
Her hand tightened on Lucas’s, fear a tight knot in her stomach. She didn’t want to die, didn’t want to leave this man she’d discovered after twenty-six years of loneliness. But neither could she steal an extra few days to love him with Brenna’s death weighing down her conscience. Her mother was part of the horror and she had to save at least one life.
Even if no one could save her own.
The unfairness of it threatened to make her shatter—how dare she be shown this glory only to have it snatched from her grasp? Except, of course, the glory had never been meant to be hers. Fed by the poison of Silence, her mind’s collapse had begun long before she’d met her panther.
“Kitten.” Lucas’s voice was a purr against her ear. “Stop hurting.” Before she could comment, he did something that mere days ago would’ve shocked her utterly. Pushing back his chair, he lifted her into his lap. The casual display of strength reminded her of the differences between them, the surprises, the things she’d never get a chance to fully explore.
Having no desire to fight the embrace, she put her head against his shoulder and breathed in his scent.
Lucas might try to stop her but she knew she was going to go through with this. Death was certain—it was just a case of how she’d make her final exit. So for now she’d live her life to the emotional zenith.
She’d touch and laugh and be publicly held.
“Though we’re the wrong gender to appeal to the killer, Walker and I have both tried to think of a way we could implement your plan, since we’re already out of the Net,” Judd said, watching the way she lay trustingly in Lucas’s arms. “Unfortunately, it’d involve letting them know that at least one of us is alive.”
“Which would make them suspicious about the deaths of the others,” Sascha completed. “I understand, Judd. Don’t feel guilty about putting the lives of the children first. I’d do the same.”
“The Psy don’t feel guilt.” Judd’s eyes were cool.
Despite the urgency of the situation, she wanted to smile. “Of course not.” Lucas kissed the tip of her nose and the gesture was so playful, she could do nothing to hide her smile any longer.
“My Psy does.” Laughter flickered in his eyes but his arms held her tight.
Hawke looked at the two of them. “And we’re not going to lose her.” Lucas locked gazes with the wolf. Sascha didn’t understand the depths to which predatory changelings would go to protect their mates, didn’t understand that she owned him in a way no one else ever would.
“No, we’re not.”
“They refuse to believe I can’t survive outside the PsyNet.” Sascha shook her head. “Tell them.”
“She’s correct,” Walker said. “She needs to have another psychic net in place to link to when she drops Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
out. If she doesn’t, she’ll die of a kind of psychic starvation in a matter of minutes.”
“Even if we could somehow figure out a way to get her out of the Net, she’d be a prisoner like Toby and Sienna.” Judd pointed to her eyes. “We can alter our appearance and go out into the world, but you can’t hide cardinal eyes.”
“She won’t be hiding.” Lucas had no intention of burying Sascha in any way—she’d spent too much of her life buried already. “My mate is going to stand by my side.”
“The Council will find a way to kill her.” Walker’s tone was matter-of-fact.
“Leave them to us,” Hawke said. It was clear he was talking about both DarkRiver and the SnowDancers. “Your job is to help us figure out how to keep Sascha alive outside the PsyNet.” A deep silence spread over the room. Lucas stroked Sascha’s back and thought about how to scare the Council so badly that no one would ever dare touch her. They might not feel emotion but everyone was afraid to die.
Judd’s eyes unfocused in front of him. A moment later, Walker’s did the same. Lucas felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise and knew the two were telepathing intensely. As if aware of his discomfort, Sascha snuggled closer, wrapping her arms around his neck. He let his body feel her soft weight, her heat, her life , and gloried in having found his mate. No way in hell was he going to lose her.
“There’s a possibility,” Walker said.
Everyone looked at the eldest Psy.
“Sienna’s been trying to convince us that our minds simply need feedback, not necessarily Psy feedback.”
“The problem is, there’s no way to test that without dropping out of the Net.” Judd looked like he was continuing to argue with Sienna even as he spoke to them.
Sascha’s forehead wrinkled. “How would I get the feedback without linking with Psy minds?”
“You’d link with changeling minds. For reasons we’ll explain, we don’t think human minds would work.” Lucas squeezed Sascha so tight that she protested. “Sorry, kitten,” he muttered, his concentration on Walker Lauren. “Can that be done?”
“No, of course not.” Sascha sat up, tucking behind her ear a strand of hair that had come loose from her plait. “How could a link be held without Tp power on both sides? All Psy are born with telepathy to a minimal level.”
Lucas’s beast scented a kind of raw desperation in her that told him she was hiding something. “Let them talk, Sascha.”
“Why?” she cried. “So they can sell us lies?”
“Shh.” He ran the knuckles of his hand down her cheek. “Are you so eager to leave me?” How could she not want to fight for every day they could have together?
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Pain fractured the beauty of her eyes. With a ragged sob, she dropped her face into her hands. “I can’t handle being given hope only to lose it.”
He wished he could take the hurt from her, wished he were the empath, not his vulnerable mate.
“Sienna is convinced it’ll work.” Walker’s pale green eyes followed the motion of Lucas’s hand as he rubbed the back of Sascha’s neck. “She thinks the way two mates bond equals a kind of psychic link.
That mating link should keep Sascha alive when she drops out of the PsyNet.” Sascha’s head jerked up. “Don’t you think I haven’t thought of that?”
“What?” Lucas growled. “Why didn’t you tell me?” The panther wanted to bare its fangs in fury.
“Ask them why.” She was more furious than he’d ever seen her. “Because a single mind can’t supply the feedback I need without killing itself. To use a link with you in any way is sentencing you to a slow death with me.”
“Yes,” Walker said. “Our familial net functions the same way as the PsyNet but on a smaller scale—the feedback somehow accumulates. However, we’re all Psy and we all supply the Net as well as feeding from it, which we believe creates the multiplication effect.
“In your case, there would be no such effect. To make up the deficit, you’d have to link with others in your mate’s pack. With three or four minds, there’d be a pool of background feedback—spare energy every mind produces. You wouldn’t be actively draining anyone.”
“Impossible.” Sascha was leaning forward, palms braced on the table. “I agree the connection between mates is almost psychic, but that bond doesn’t exist for me with anyone else. How do I mate with more than one leopard?”
“You don’t,” Lucas snapped before he could stop himself. “You belong to me. End of story.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “I know that, your highness, but I was pointing out the impossibility of what Walker is suggesting. There’s no way for me to link with anyone outside of you.” Lucas’s beast hated the thought of her linked to anyone other than him, but he realized that if it would keep her alive, he’d share her. It would tear him to pieces but he’d do it. It was the first time he’d understood the depth of his own feelings.
“Any other ideas?” Hawke asked.
Silence.
The wolf stood. “Prepare for war.”
Sascha argued with him every inch of the drive home. “You’re going to let hundreds die because you want to keep me alive for a few extra days?”
“An hour of your life is worth more than a thousand people to me.”
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“What about Julian and Roman? What about Kit? What about Rina? Are you willing to lose them?” He felt the questions like kicks to the heart. “They won’t die.”
“Like hell they won’t!” The use of profanity told him how far he’d pushed her. “If the Council decides to eliminate your pack, every single one of you will be eliminated, even if it takes them years.”
“So you want me to lie back and let you kill yourself?” His words were so angry, her head snapped back as if he’d hit her.
“No. I want you to help me save someone’s life. I want you to give me back my pride.” He scowled. “When did you lose it?”
“When I found out my mother was aiding and abetting murderers.” It was a brutally honest statement.
He tried to grasp her hand. She tore it away. “No! I won’t let you do this.”
“You need us to cooperate for your plan to work,” he pointed out. “No one is going to go behind my back to help you.” They knew he’d gut them, tear them into such small strips that nothing would remain.
He wasn’t alpha because he played nice when his people were threatened. And his woman? He’d lay waste to the world for her.
“Maybe I don’t,” she whispered. “Maybe I’ll try it without one of you. My shields are failing one by one—exposure is inevitable. They’ll come after me within days and when they do, I’ll have to drop out of the Net anyway, to escape rehabilitation.”
And he knew. “You’re going to do it with or without my help.” He brought the vehicle to a stop in the front yard of the safe house.
CHAPTER 24
“What would you do in my place?” Her eyes were pure black when he looked at her. “What would honor demand?”
“You’re my mate. Honor means nothing.”
She opened the door and got out. He sat inside until she came around to his side and opened the door.
Her hands were warm and alive on his face. “Liar,” she whispered. “Honor means everything. Otherwise, we’re exactly like them.”
Getting out, he wrapped his arms tight around her trembling form. “I’ll do it.” He wondered if she understood that he’d just torn out his heart and laid it at her feet.
She shook her head. “I can’t hurt you like that.”
“No dice, kitten. I’ll anchor you and, afterward, you’ll psychically reach out for me. No more fighting Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
our mating. Your reluctance is the only thing holding it back—the second you try to link, the bond should snap into place.”
Pushing off him hard enough to break his hold, she said, “No.”
“Yes.”
“What will happen to DarkRiver without you? Have you thought of that?” She was shaking her head, eyes ebony night. “You’re not going to last longer than a couple of months if I link with you in any way—I’ll suck you dry. Don’t ask me to destroy you .”
“Vaughn’s strong enough to take over until Kit comes of age.” There was no choice to be made.
“No, Lucas. No.” Her entire body was shaking.
“It’s the only way I’ll allow you to go in.” He let her hear the steel in his voice, let her remember his threat to incapacitate her. There was nothing civilized in him where Sascha was concerned. “Promise me.”
She shook her head mutely.
“Promise me, kitten.”
Turning, she ran from him. He let her go into the house. Then he waited until Vaughn slipped out of the woods to stand before him. “She’s right. DarkRiver needs you.”
“And I need her.” Lucas had watched one woman he loved die. He couldn’t do it again. “If I survive her, I’ll be as good as dead anyway.”
Aware she hadn’t fully recovered from shadowing Henry, Sascha decided to put the plan into effect the following night. It would give her time to carefully examine the thought patterns she’d be mimicking. Rina had volunteered to allow Sascha to scan her patterns, as it had become clear that the young soldier fit the victim profile.
Those were the logical reasons but the truth was, no matter how selfish it made her, she wanted one more night with her lover. In bed, in the darkness, she was the one who reached for him.
He was wild and angry and she felt his withheld fury. But his hands were unbearably tender, his touch a kind of devotion she’d never dreamed of. She fell asleep in his arms, safe and protected. Which was why when the dream began, she couldn’t quite believe the horror.
“Help me!” It was a scream from the core of a woman’s consciousness. “Please help me!” Broken by the raw suffering she could hear, Sascha tried to soothe her. The woman retreated from her as if she’d been burned. “No!”
“Let me help you,” Sascha begged, tears streaming inside her mind for this woman whose face she couldn’t see.
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“You’re Psy.” That voice was full of rage but agony throbbed endlessly beneath the surface.
“I’m not like him.” She sent out subtle waves of healing. The emotions that washed back up to her echoed with so much suffering, she ached. She kept taking it and it kept coming. “You’re unbelievably strong.”
“I cried.” The defiance was gone from the whisper. It was as if she had to trust Sascha, the solitary voice in the darkness. “I begged him to stop.”
Sascha tried to fix the tattered shreds of the woman’s pride. “You survived and you kept him from your mind. You didn’t break. That’s what’s important.”
“I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”
“We’re coming for you. Survive for us.”
“You’re not Pack. You smell like the cats.”
“We’re all one against the enemy.” The depth of damage in the young girl’s psyche staggered her. That she’d managed to keep the killer from her innermost mind was a testament to her incredible strength of will. “We’re coming, Brenna. We’re coming.”
“Hurry.” The voice was fading. “Please hurry.”
Sascha woke as morning was breaking and knew they couldn’t wait any longer. “Now,” she told Lucas, finding him in the living room with Hawke, his lieutenants, and two other males. It didn’t surprise her to see the wolves there—both alphas were preparing to rise against the Psy, “We have to do it now. We can’t leave Brenna with him any longer.” Her tone was on this side of hysterical.
Lucas ordered everyone out. Nobody spoke a word as they filed out and closed the door behind them.
Nobody but Hawke. “What time should I tell the Laurens?” Sascha reached for her timepiece as he reached for his. “Five minutes from now.”
“I’ll call Judd.”
She nodded.
“We’ll keep you safe, sweetheart.” He touched her face and left.
Hope was a dangerous commodity and she couldn’t indulge in it. Her eyes met Lucas’s as she walked across the room to face him. “It doesn’t have to be you,” she said one more time, begging him.
“It has to be me. I’m yours.” His kiss held his heart.
It broke hers.
“Let’s start,” she whispered, unable to bear this any longer. If she thought about what she was going to do, she might never do it, might leave Brenna to be tortured and murdered, her mind raped and then Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
discarded. That she’d even consider such a thing made her fear for her soul.
She felt Lucas’s mind welcome hers. Though he wasn’t a Psy, it felt almost like shields dropping. She didn’t need to go completely inside to gain what she needed. Instead, she made a superficial link that would allow her to feed him information and smell of him on a psychic level.
That scent would bolster the impression of a changeling mind that she was going to create using the glimpse she’d had of Rina’s thought patterns. Their minds worked differently enough from those of the Psy that no one would ever mistake one for the other. However, it might be possible to fool the killer long enough for Sascha to get a fix on him.
“Don’t expose yourself unnecessarily.”
Sascha nodded. One way or another, she’d have to drop out of the Net, but she wanted to get out without revealing the entire scope of her empathic mind. It would keep others like her safe… if there were any others like her. “If he’s drawn to this bait enough that he ventures close, I won’t have to. But if he’s wary, I might have to give him a more interesting victim.” Lucas’s eyes flashed with denial but he didn’t try to tell her not to do it. Her alpha male was finally learning that she couldn’t be ordered around. “Come back to me, Sascha. Promise me you’ll initiate the link.”
Brenna’s screams echoed in her mind, urging haste. “I promise.” Leaning forward, she brushed her lips against his, wishing for just another hour, another minute, another lifetime. “Thank you for teaching me how to live.”
His hand clasped the back of her neck, those Hunter’s eyes violent with the animal’s hunger for her. “If you want to thank me, stay alive. Keep your promise.” Initiate the link.
Sascha forced herself to nod. “We should start.” She led him to the sofa. Lucas sat down, legs sprawled along its length. Without argument, she crawled up to lie with her head against his chest, putting her arms around his muscular frame.
She could hear his heart, his life, through the soft cotton of his gray T-shirt. How could he condemn her to steal that from him? How could he force his pack to go on without their leader? She wasn’t worth the sacrifice, a woman born of a race who’d lost their humanity a hundred years ago.
“Ready?” A gentle hand smoothed over her unbound hair.
She’d never be ready to kill them both. Only, the alternative was much worse. “Yes. Judd and Sienna will be setting off the distraction in a minute.” Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and found him.
Lucas’s flame was pure heat, pure light. He’d trusted his mind to her but she didn’t go in, couldn’t face what she might see. His emotions for her might destroy her. Instead, she gently merged into the upper layer until her thought patterns began to echo his in a subtle way that didn’t change them but altered their psychic feel .
Letting Lucas’s heartbeat soothe her, she opened her mind’s eye. She was still behind her shields, still protected. If she wanted, she could pull back without betraying anything.
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Brenna’s screams reverberated in her mind.
No, she could never pull back. First, she checked that the truth of her healing, rainbow-bright mind was hidden deep. Then she manufactured a flaw in her shields, something that looked natural. In a way, her plan was blindingly simple … if you were a cardinal E-Psy forced into becoming a genius of multi-layered shields, and if you were able to link with and so easily mimic changeling minds.
She’d realized sometime last night that her ability to touch changeling minds was part of her gift, because the nature of empathy made it impossible for one to turn evil and do harm to an open mind. When they’d crushed the development of empaths, the Psy had destroyed the growth of their conscience.
“This one’s for us,” she said within her soul. It was for all those E-Psy who’d died tortured deaths in the transitional phase, all those who’d gone insane under Silence, and all those who’d buried their gifts so deep they thought they were broken.
After a lifetime of feeling as if she’d failed at being Psy, she was winning at being everything she was capable of being. And if the changelings alone ever knew of her victory, then that was good enough for her. More than good enough. Because they remembered . Unlike the Psy, they didn’t systematically erase those who didn’t “fit.”
Using the flaw she’d created, she allowed vague tendrils of her Lucas-influenced thought patterns to filter through. She shaped the outgoing whispers based on Rina’s mind. Rebellious, headstrong, loyal, independent, and sensual, these were the traits of the women the killer had taken. The altered blend of her psychic signature was very carefully tailored to appeal to him.
Most Psy would have no idea what was unusual about it. Some might notice but they’d see her cardinal star and put it down to some odd talent. Only a Psy who’d ripped open a changeling mind would recognize this scent for what it was.
Fifty known operators.
Sascha refused to let herself think about failure. She had to trust in fate and the killer’s hunger for this particular breed of prey.
As the thought patterns filtered through, she slipped out a hidden doorway built into her outer shield and into the starry night of the PsyNet. It was the same trick she used while ghosting. But this was even more dangerous.
Today, her mind was trapped inside her shields, because it needed to maintain the contact with Lucas and feed the false illusion. When she went ghosting, she left behind an illusion mind, while her consciousness, her self, traveled the Net. In a sense, she split herself into body and mind.
A variation on the same thing occurred when she “met” someone on the PsyNet. Because she usually needed to continue functioning on the physical level, she sent out a roaming piece of herself. For the time it was on the Net, that piece acted as a separate individual apart from her, almost as if she’d copied herself. There was vulnerability there on account of the underlying connection to her inner mind, but it was so low most Psy never worried about it.
The part of her on the outside today was connected directly to the core of her mind. She couldn’t use a roaming piece of herself because the NetMind would pick it up and so would other Psy. To create the Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
illusion that she wasn’t in the Net at all, she had to be outside but fully connected to the core. However, if someone took control of her here, they’d have unhindered access to her brain—mind control on the most intimate level.
However, she couldn’t worry about that possibility—she had too much else choking up her throat.
Already, the currents of the Net were spreading her bait. All she had to do was wait and watch. Hidden against her own mind, her presence was almost impossible to detect. This was such a dangerous maneuver that most Psy would never think to look for it, but she had to be outside her shields to see the killer’s mental face.
Even if she didn’t recognize him, she’d have enough to ID him from the PsyNet databases. So long as the rainbow of her true mind stayed hidden, she’d be able to use the resources of the Net.
Two curious high-Gradient minds passed close by but didn’t stop. She heard parts of their conversation, which they weren’t bothering to shield. The word “cardinal” featured prominently. The flaw she’d created was unique but not so overwhelmingly a bad fit that normal Psy would question it. She’d counted on their arrogance, which led them to think changelings harmless and thus not worth studying as you would an enemy.
Her nerves relaxed a fraction at the small success. The temptation to go back and wipe away her shields until she could touch Lucas’s mind in a psychic kiss was almost overwhelming. She needed touch and she knew her lover wouldn’t mind the caress despite his independent nature.
He belonged to her as much as she belonged to him.
However, to expose him that way would be sheer selfishness. An intruding Psy could harm him through her if her shields cracked. And Lucas couldn’t die. She wouldn’t allow it.
Something pinged on her outermost shields, which weren’t actually shields but warning beacons, one of her secret creations. Excitement mounting, she watched. Oh hell! Why hadn’t she realized that she’d inevitably draw this one mind?
Sascha.
Mother. I’m sorry I haven’t responded to your call— I’ve been very busy. She answered using the mental pathways of telepathy, as if she wasn’t actually present on the Net. Hopefully, her mother was too preoccupied by the hunt for the killer and the Laurens’ distraction to quiz her about exactly what she’d been up to.
One of your shields has a fracture. Fix it before people try to take advantage and sneak in viruses.
Of course Nikita would worry about viruses. Thank you .
There’s something odd about your patterns. Perhaps a visit to Medical is in order.
Fear and betrayal gripped Sascha around the throat. Nikita had to know what was wrong with her daughter, had to have seen her before she’d been old enough to conceal her mind. Yet she was giving advice that could lead to Sascha’s exposure. Did she suspect how far her offspring had gone from the accepted Psy path?
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Are you sure that’s necessary? she asked. It appears to be a minor problem .
As the head of the Duncan household, I received a notice from Medical noting your lack of physical examinations since you reached adulthood. Nikita’s tone didn’t change but Sascha thought she heard a thread of warning. It might be politic to get a scan done before they pull you up for a random check .
Her relief was almost crushing. Whatever else she might be doing, at least Nikita wasn’t trying to serve her daughter up to the authorities. It wasn’t much but it was something. I’ll do it as soon as possible .
You haven’t reported on the DarkRiver project for a couple of—She paused. I have to go.
Something’s just gone wrong with two of the main information relay points. Things are already becoming gridlocked . With that, Nikita’s mind was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
Sascha felt the information backing up on the Net and breathed a sigh of relief. Sienna and Judd had come through. Every Psy surfing the Net in this location would be streaming toward those points, looking to fix the damage before it cascaded into chaos.
Likely, they’d already fixed it, but the backlog would take hours to clear. In the tumult, her odd signature would hopefully gain no real attention… except from one very dangerous Psy.
These things were thought by the hidden part of her that was a fountaining rainbow inside unbreakable walls. Outside those walls, she was cool and remote, protecting herself from disclosure even when most people, including Psy, would’ve considered themselves safe.
A whisper of violence swept by her. Every one of her senses screamed and she felt the rough edge of a growl in the back of her throat. Lucas’s personality was alpha, too strong. It shouldn’t have been coming through this clearly but it was and she had to use it. Thinking quickly, she merged the anger into the tendrils of thought going out into the Net. These women would have the capacity for anger. Anger was a kind of passion.
Her race had tried to delete anger, rage, hate, but they hadn’t understood that anger could spring from deep love, the most complete need to protect. Lucas was furious because she was putting herself at risk, enraged at the thought of her being hurt. There was nothing evil about those emotions. They were so pure they burned.
Unlike the emotions now coming slowly closer. This violence was sly, cunning in the way of jackals or vultures. Most Psy probably never understood why this outwardly “normal” mind made them slightly uncomfortable, because most Psy no longer had the ability to recognize evil, even if it stood right in front of them. What a perfect hiding ground for a killer, Sascha realized.
The scent of rotting malevolence abruptly stopped approaching and then disappeared altogether. She frowned. Had the murderer been scared off? A second later, she felt another familiar presence and almost cursed. Enrique’s cardinal blaze was obvious a mile away. No wonder the killer had run.
She wanted to scream in frustration. Something deep within her flexed its claws and it felt good. Right at that instant, she itched to tear into Enrique’s interfering arrogance, arrogance that might cost Brenna her life.
He didn’t contact her when he reached her, not seeing her presence on the Net. Instead, he examined the manufactured flaw with the utmost care. Sascha wondered whether he even understood what he was
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looking at.
She’d have suspected him for the murderer, except that she knew there was no emotion in Enrique.
None. Even for the Psy, he was the coldest creature she’d ever met. Nothing in her empathy reacted to him. That, she realized at last, was why he’d constantly rubbed her raw.
Her mother was cold, but Sascha’s senses had always picked up a low-level emotional feedback from her, as they did from other Psy. Her race might’ve buried their emotions but they were there. In Enrique’s case, there was nothing to indicate he’d ever had the capacity to feel.
“Sascha.” A polite telepathic page.
She became the mask. “Sir.”
“Your shield is fractured.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ve already begun repairing it. It isn’t anything major.” So why had the Councilor bothered to tell her about it? Her mother, she could understand. Nikita had a vested interest in ensuring Sascha’s secret never got out—it would undermine her own position.
Which made Sascha wonder why she’d been allowed to live in the first place. Wouldn’t it have been simpler to terminate her once it had been discovered that she was flawed? Or were not even the Psy capable of killing their young? Then she remembered Marlee and Toby and that hope collapsed.
“You have some very unusual thought patterns.”
CHAPTER 25
“Some of my talents are rather unusual, sir.” That told him nothing. Her hidden talents could include a degree of foresight she didn’t want competitors to know about or a hundred other things.
“I always knew you were an interesting woman, but I never guessed you were so perfect.” In the dark velvet night of the PsyNet, Sascha felt shivers crawl along her nerves. Perfect . What was she perfect for? “A high compliment.” She couldn’t move. Enrique’s power was everywhere—he’d surrounded her as stealthily as a hunting leopard.
“I thought you were like me,” he said, his tone shifting to something so polite it was a mockery. “But you’re something else altogether.”
If she hadn’t intended to drop out of the Net, she would’ve panicked at the way his shields had spread to encompass her star. Because this was a trap. Nikita had taught her this variation long ago. Sometimes it paid to have a mother whose power lay in murder and poison.
Enrique believed her to be telepathing. Once he’d finished encircling her star, he’d lure her out into the PsyNet. The instant she emerged, he’d lock a shield around the partial “self” she’d send out to meet with him. For the first milliseconds after a Psy manifested on the psychic plane, he or she was vulnerable. It took that long for the mobile firewalls to rise. Almost no one had the power to spring a trap in that Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
infinitesimal amount of time.
However, Enrique was no ordinary Psy—he could possibly pull it off. If he succeeded, he’d cut off the roaming part of her psyche from the rest. A successful capture was one of the more brutal ways to paralyze the physical body of a Psy. If the paralysis was maintained too long, the underlying connection between self and mind snapped, the two parts of the psyche unable to survive the separation.
The result was death and the absorption of that roaming part of the victim’s consciousness into the vastness of the PsyNet. Some theorized that that was how the NetMind had begun—with the lost minds of Psy who’d been ambushed or otherwise lost in the dark skies of the Net.
“I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”
“I think it’s time we discussed this, Sascha.” He was everywhere. Cold and focused like the finest of lasers.
“I’m in a meeting.”
“Cancel it.” The walls around her began to constrict.
“Mother has given me instructions to close this deal.” This was bad, very bad. What she couldn’t understand was why Enrique was coming after her.
There was nothing overtly “wrong” about the patterns she was leaking. The traces were both very faint and came from a deep part of the changeling consciousness that Psy couldn’t usually access, not without ripping open minds. Only a Psy who’d done that would understand what it was that he was seeing.
“I’m tired of waiting for you to make time. Unless you want to find yourself pulled up before the Council, I want to see you. Now .”
“On what basis would you call me before the Council?” She filled her mental tone with the confidence of someone who’d been born a cardinal, someone whose mother was a Councilor.
“You’re not pure, Sascha. You think like them .” It was an accusation that held supreme confidence.
“Like the animals you work so well with.”
Caught utterly off guard, she almost gave herself away. She’d never known Enrique to have any contact with changelings. How did he recognize the taint in her mental signature? “I’m sure you’re mistaken.”
“I’ve been in their minds. I know exactly what they look like.” His mental trap was almost solid. There was no way she would’ve been able to break out if she’d planned on doing so. Enrique was stronger than she’d ever guessed, possibly the strongest cardinal in the Net.
“How?” Confusion and desperation were taking their toll. Murder sprang from rage, fury, jealousy.
Enrique didn’t feel anything, so how could he be the violence that had stolen so many lives?
“The Council likes to know the enemy. We’ve been using volunteers to study their mental patterns.” He pushed at the flaw in her mind as one would poke at a wound.
It hurt. “Sir, what are you doing?”
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“I don’t like waiting, Sascha.”
But he liked talking, she thought. “I’m tying up the meeting. If I leave suddenly, it’ll negate everything we’ve achieved to date. I didn’t realize the Council was running such research.”
“Call it a private interest. Their women make the best subjects—there’s something perfect about them.” I never guessed you were so perfect.
“They’re weak,” she said, prodding him on. “They feel. It’s the Psy who are perfect.” Enrique’s energy whirled cold and menacing around her as she started to inch back toward the hidden doorway into her mind. She had to get inside before she dropped out of the PsyNet. If Enrique succeeded in infiltrating her defenses, he’d destroy Lucas along with her. No, she thought, furious. Her mate would not die.
A whisper of the forest in her mind. The panther hidden deep within her was pleased by her thoughts but its attention was fixed on Enrique, on the threat to its mate. Claws slid out and she felt her fingertips tingle.
“Psy have to suppress emotion in order to survive, but changelings thrive without breaking under the pressure. I’d say that makes them the stronger species.” He paused and she froze her creeping progress.
“Are you almost done?”
“Yes, sir.” She made her voice hold the faintest thread of fear, let him pick up the emotion.
The walls of his mind went blue like the deepest oceanic ice. It was frighteningly beautiful. “Sascha, Sascha,” he whispered. “You’re truly extraordinary.” She didn’t respond, every ounce of concentration focused on getting back into her mind. His comments had her convinced he was the killer one second and confused the next. How could he be the serial?
How? Those women had been torn part, annihilated from the mind out. Enrique was a man who didn’t feel any negative emotion. Not rage. Not anger. Not hatred.
Was he simply out for her because she was flawed? Had he driven away the real murderer, the one who’d infected the Net with traces of violence? Disappointment tightened her gut. She couldn’t fail, couldn’t let the need for revenge plunge DarkRiver and the SnowDancers into war. They were her people now.
“You’re even more perfect than the changeling women.”
“Who were these women?” she asked, nearly to the doorway. “I’d like to speak to them as well. The leopards tell me nothing.”
“I’m afraid the experiments were a little taxing. They don’t like to let Psy into their minds. I had to damage them in order to gain an in-depth understanding.” Horror stopped her in midstep. “You killed them?”
Lucas lunged at the walls of her mind, wanting to go for Enrique’s throat.
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“Lab animals often die.”
If she’d been in her physical body, she would’ve thrown up then and there. It was crystal clear that Enrique was happy to tell her everything—his only audience—because he thought he had her trapped.
He was closing around her like a giant pincer.
“There’s pressure on my mind.” She could start to feel it but it wasn’t dangerous, not yet.
“I’m at the end of my patience. Either you speak to me or I execute you. I assure you, the Council would back me fully for dealing with a defective Psy.” It was the word “defective” that got her moving again. She wasn’t defective and the changelings weren’t lab animals. They were the most beautiful, most alive, most passionate beings she’d ever met. But before she broke away, she had to make sure she had the right evil, the right killer. “Why seventy-nine?” she asked softly.
“Nineteen seventy-nine, Sascha, 1979. It’s my little way of celebrating what I see as the true birth of our race.” He paused. “How did you know about that?” The crushing walls of his mind came to a standstill.
She used that moment to push through the hidden door and lock it behind her. Something slammed into it a second later—Enrique’s mind trying to shove into hers, destroy hers. Cracks appeared in the already fragmented shields around the doorway.
“Very clever, Sascha,” he said. “How long have you been hiding out here?” She didn’t answer, trying to patch up the door enough that she could run into the second layer of her shields. Even so close to him, her senses picked up nothing of the deep-seated rage she’d expected from the murderer. Enrique didn’t feel. And yet he killed.
You’re a race of psychopaths!
Dorian’s accusation ripped open from some forgotten pocket of memory.
No conscience, no heart, no feelings! How else do you define psychopath?
The true horror of Silence hit her so hard, her inner walls shook. But there was no time to think. Enrique was close to breaking through. Slamming a temporary block on the door to her mind, she ran through the second layer of shields just as the block on the outer shields shattered.
He was inside her mind.
His power crashed into her, shocking pain into every synapse. Shaking, she threw everything she had into her inner shields and went even deeper, until she was behind a third layer. Enrique couldn’t violate these so easily. They were the natural walls of the mind—the walls he’d ripped open in the changeling women he’d taken. She had no doubt he’d tear her apart, too, if she gave him the time.
Fed by adrenaline, she found her mental link to the PsyNet. Even Enrique’s trap couldn’t cut that link. It went too deep, was too instinctive. She touched the lifeline for the last time and whispered, “Good-bye.” Enrique hit her with another Shockwave of pain and at that exact instant, she sliced the link into two.
Everything stopped for her. Her mind was silent. Alone. There were no stars in the darkness, nothing but Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
emptiness.
Death opened its arms.
She screamed awake in Lucas’s hold. Excruciating agony cramped every nerve in her body and she could feel her mind desperately trying to re-create the link. Forcing herself to think despite the red-hot torture sparking through her, she cauterized the wound and shut down the instinctive reaching. It hurt.
Like being shot point-blank in the face.
The agony was everywhere. Her skin felt as if it was being flayed off her. Her mind screamed and screamed, gasping for the feedback it needed to survive. She clawed at Lucas’s chest, unable to breathe.
Claustrophobia closed around her, the darkness pressing down deeper than Enrique’s attempts at crushing her mind. She was going to choke to death. Alone. She was so alone.
Alone. Dark. Black. Cold.
Lucas was terrified by what he saw in Sascha’s eyes. All the stars had disappeared in a blink when she’d opened her eyes and now there was such deep ebony in the depths, he thought he could see eternity.
“Sascha!” He shook her, ignoring the others who’d run into the room at the sound of her screams. It didn’t occur to him that he knew the killer’s name, that he could start the hunt for vengeance. Only she mattered. “Sascha!” She didn’t respond. It was as if she couldn’t see him.
He wasn’t Psy. He couldn’t get into her mind. But he could anchor her another way. Wrapping one hand around her nape, he pulled her close and kissed her. Hard. Without mercy. It was a brutal, savage, possessive kiss and it held every emotion he felt for her. He poured it all into her mouth, calling her back with touch. Her claw-like grip eased but she clung to him, wrapping her arms and legs around him as if she wanted to crawl into his soul.
Alone. So alone.
It was as if he heard the words in his mind. Had she linked? Had she followed through on her promise?
Was that why he could feel the load of darkness pressing down on her? He pushed it back with heat and fire and emotion, squeezing her body close.
When he broke the kiss so she could breathe, she whimpered, “No, no, no, no.” He pressed his lips against hers once again. The darkness was no longer so heavy but it wasn’t disappearing. Why not? She was linked to him. She wasn’t alone. Not anymore. Never again.
The next time the kiss broke, she took a deep breath and said, “It’s Councilor Santano Enrique. He feels nothing. Doesn’t know about you. Thinks I’m just flawed.” It came out in a staccato rush—as if she were spitting things out before they were forever lost.
Lucas looked at Hawke, who’d been first into the room. “Go. Dorian. Vaughn.” His eyes locked with the jaguar’s. Vaughn gave a slight nod. He understood his job—to protect Dorian from his own rage.
Lucas couldn’t go with them, not with his mate growing alarmingly weak in his arms.
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Hawke’s eyes slid to Sascha, who was starting to draw shallow breaths that sounded like fatal whispers.
“What’s wrong with her?” He held his arm out to stop Brenna’s two brothers from leaving the room in pursuit of their quarry. It was an indication of his power that they paused though their eyes had gone wolf.
“She’s dying.” Tamsyn pushed between the males to touch Sascha’s cheek.
Sascha jerked. “Enrique lives in… uh…” Her teeth began to chatter.
“We have the address.” Hawke’s face was a study in the most chilling fury. “I’ll take care of him.” The words were directed at Lucas.
It was time to trust the wolf.
“Complete the plan.” They’d hatched it between them early this morning. It was designed to keep Sascha safe… forever. “Go.” He was entrusting Hawke with his mate’s life. The plan had called for Lucas to ensure this part of their strategy was implemented, but not for anything would he leave Sascha.
“Your Psy belongs to us, too. We won’t fail her.” Hawke moved and the four wolves in the room, along with Dorian and Vaughn, streamed out with him.
Tamsyn dropped a throw around Sascha’s shaking body. “I don’t understand. Your mind should be feeding hers.”
Lucas suddenly understood. “You haven’t tried to initiate a link, have you?” Terror and fury combined to chill his heart.
Sascha smiled and shook her head. “You have to live.”
“You promised!” he yelled, driven beyond patience, beyond anything but demand and need. His mate couldn’t die.
Those beautiful eyes were fading. “I’m sorry.”
“No! No!” He cradled her in his arms, his voice shaking. “Link, damn you! Link!” Her hand rose to lie against his heartbeat. “Love you.” A single tear fell from eyes gone charcoal gray.
“Tammy! Do something!”
The healer was trembling, her eyes wet. “I can’t, Lucas. She has to…”
“Do it, Sascha!” he ordered, crushing her to him. “Don’t you leave me.” She gasped and the fingers on his chest curled. But she didn’t reach out to his mind, didn’t take the step that would complete the mating dance.
“If you don’t, I’ll start taking out the Councilors,” he threatened. “They’ll hunt me down and kill me anyway.”
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But his mate was beyond hearing. Her eyes drifted shut and her face smoothed out as her shivers faded.
“No!” His scream was of purest rage. “I won’t let you die! You’re mine and damn if I’m ever going to let you go. You’re mine. Mine .” The panther clawed to the surface and let out a roar that was nothing human.
That was when he felt it. The bond between them snapping taut. The panther recognized the bond, though it had never before felt it. It calmed him enough to let Lucas think, holding fast even as Sascha’s heartbeat stuttered. Lucas closed his eyes and fed her. He didn’t know what he was doing, just knew that as long as the bond stayed strong, Sascha would live.
A minute later, her eyes fluttered open again. The deathly gray was being replaced by dark ebony.
“Lucas? What’s happening?”
“You’re going to live.” It was nonnegotiable.
He felt her search for and find the link. Felt her try to cut it—his heart stopped—but it wasn’t something she could influence. This link wasn’t Psy. It was changeling and it was unbreakable. The cat began to smile—her safety was no longer out of his grasp.
“You can’t,” she whispered. “Stop doing what you’re doing. You’re giving me your lifeforce. It’s worse than if I simply accepted the bond and let it keep me alive.”
“Then accept, because I’m not going to stop.” He poured even more of himself into her.
Futility darkened her expression. “Damn you for being so stubborn!”
“Accept.”
Her shoulders fell. She shot back along that bond, dropping the barriers she’d erected in an effort to prevent their mating. Suddenly, she was a rainbow inside him, a sparkling fountain of such beauty that he felt blessed to have been allowed to see her. For one instant, their minds were one and he saw how desperately, how wildly, how unreasonably she loved him—enough to break a promise, to choose death so he could live.
She saw how much her panther adored her, how his heart beat for her alone, how life would turn into death after she was gone. The beast was angry at her for attempting to deny him his mate, and the man was beyond angry, but beneath the anger was hunger, need, love . Such intense, furious love that it had no beginning and no end.
She pulled back with a gasp, allowing their two minds to separate, allowing them to think private thoughts once more. Somehow, Lucas knew that if he should ever ask, she’d open to him again. She was his and he was hers. They had under-the-skin privileges.
Those dark eyes looked up at him. Tears streamed down her face. “I’ve killed you. I’ve killed you. I’ve killed you!”
Sascha knew Lucas was enraged with her but she was too mad to care. How could he have forced her into this? It didn’t matter that the mating bond wasn’t controllable. As far as she was concerned, if he’d
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accepted her choice, if he’d let her go, it wouldn’t have come into being. Even now, she was sucking his life away so she could be healthy and strong. Her life at the price of his. Damn him!
Ten hours had passed since the plan had been successfully executed. Depleted by his attempt at trapping her, Enrique’s powers hadn’t been strong enough to withstand the changelings. Improbably, he’d kept Brenna caged in his large soundproofed apartment, safe because no Psy could feel her pain. She was alive. The SnowDancers and DarkRiver’s soldiers had also ensured Sascha’s safety. No one was going to be hunting her or the changelings.
“We took what was due us,” Hawke told her in the living room of the safe house. His gaze included Dorian. “And we left them a message. Should anything ever happen to you, we’ll go after each and every one of the Council, no matter who it was that set the dogs on you. What we did to Enrique will seem like a picnic.”
“How can you be sure that’ll keep them contained?” Sascha knew the Council too well.
“The message we left,” Hawke said, his eyes pure blue flame. “It was stapled to Enrique’s tongue.
Tatiana Rika-Smythe got the tongue in a velvet jewelry box inside her bedroom. Nikita got the remainder of the head.”
She couldn’t breathe. She tried to speak but nothing came out. Hawke continued his bloody narrative.
“The Councilors outside the immediate area have been promised personal delivery of a piece of Enrique—I’m thinking we’ll leave the gifts on their pillows.” Sascha felt her gorge rise. She gripped Lucas’s hand. “How could you… ?”
“We did nothing to him he didn’t do to our women,” Dorian gritted out. “We did less—he raped their minds!”
She looked at him, felt his anguish—anguish that vengeance hadn’t calmed—and knew he needed her to accept what he’d done. She was his alpha’s mate and for the first time, she saw what that entailed. Not quite sure what she was doing, she crossed the room and took his face in her hands. He stilled. When she brushed her lips over his, a sigh seemed to ripple through his body.
CHAPTER 26
Lucas didn’t growl, didn’t act territorial. She was his and this was part of what the pack would need from her. Touch. Love. Affection. Sometimes the best way to give affection to the strongest males was with a simple kiss. They’d accept that when they might reject words of care. How she knew that was a mystery to her.
As she drew back, she felt a stab in her heart. Dorian was looking at her as if she belonged, as if he was sure of her, as if she was Pack. She was. For the next couple of months. Until she dragged Lucas down with her into unconsciousness and death.
“That’s not everything,” Hawke said, when she turned to him again. “We made sure they knew we’re aware of violence in the Psy populace. Enrique confessed quite prettily on camera. Liked to talk.” Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
“They can’t have that getting out.” Sascha watched her mate walk toward her and felt something low and hot in her tighten. Anger was no barrier against the passion he could arouse in her. “Silence would be deemed a failure.”
“Maybe that would be a good thing,” Tamsyn said.
“Only if there’s something to take its place. To spread this information without having any way to manage the fallout would be irresponsible.” She shook her head.
“This big a Shockwave could cripple thousands of innocents. When something happens on the psychic plane, it has physical effects.” She knew that too well. Nothing had prepared her for the agony she’d suffered.
Lucas walked around to her back and hugged her against him. “I wonder how they’ll explain your presence out of the Net?”
“We suggested they tell people a difference in her mind made her susceptible to mating with a changeling and that was how she dropped out.” Hawke shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to us so long as they don’t touch her.”
“It’s going to shake things up regardless of how they do it.” Lucas’s arms were solid muscle around her.
Nothing had ever felt as good.
Sascha knew the leopards and wolves had achieved the impossible—they’d leashed the Council. It was a bittersweet victory.
The wolves asked Sascha to come to their hideout three days later, bare minutes after she’d finished speaking with Nikita. Her mother had informed her that she’d been officially cut off from the Duncan family group.
“You’re no longer Psy. Your mind is too flawed. It couldn’t even hold on to the link with the PsyNet.
Obviously, you were never meant to be a part of it.” So that was how the Council was spinning it. “No, Mother. I’m perfect.” Nikita didn’t blink. “The deal with DarkRiver—we’d like it to continue. Lucas Hunter’s odd…
connection with you is why we allowed you to leave the Net. One flawed Psy wasn’t worth destroying business ties with the cats and the wolves.”
Sascha got the message. Business was something every Psy could understand. “We have no problem honoring the deal.” Then she ended the call and let herself cry.
Lucas held her and when the wolves sent for her, he didn’t try to stop her from doing what she had to do.
“Brenna’s dying,” Hawke said the second they entered the tunnels.
Sascha thought of the incredibly powerful will she’d touched once in the darkness. “No.” She refused to Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
let that light go out. “Take me to her.”
Brenna lay in a soft bed covered by a cerulean blue blanket. Tamsyn and another woman, who Sascha assumed was the SnowDancer healer, stood talking quietly in one corner of the bedroom. Tammy’s eyes pleaded with her to do something.
Making a silent promise, Sascha looked back at Brenna. Her hair had been cut brutally short, as if someone had tried to rob her of her femininity. Bruises covered her face and ringed her neck, but Sascha didn’t see all that. What she saw was the flickering candle of Brenna’s mind.
She cupped her healer’s hands around that flame. Don’t give up now, Brenna .
Silence.
You know me. I won’t hurt you.
You lied. A whispery accusation.
When?
You said Pack would come for me. Pain and betrayal. But I’m alone .
Sascha blinked and looked to Hawke. “Was she conscious when you found her?”
“No. The human medics said they couldn’t do anything for her so we brought her home.” Human medics because none of them trusted the M-Psy anymore.
“She doesn’t know she’s home. Talk to her. Touch her.” The wolf didn’t argue. Walking to the bed, he began to caress Brenna’s bruised face with disarming gentleness, reminding her of nothing so much as a father with his child. Brenna’s two brothers moved to join him, one taking her hand, the other kneeling down beside the bed to stroke her spiky hair. There was something heartbreaking about seeing three predatory males, used to protecting their women, trying to be strong while their souls were being torn to pieces.
Inside the darkness of Brenna’s mind, Sascha whispered, You’re home, Brenna .
It’s a lie.
Can’t you feel them? Hawke, Riley, Andrew… they’re here and they’re waiting for you.
A silence so full of terrified hope that Sascha shivered.
They found you. They avenged your honor. She was mated to an alpha Hunter. She knew the value of vengeance, the importance of honor, the power of loyalty. Don’t make them wait any longer — I think their hearts are going to break.
I can’t bear any more. Tears sounded in every word. What if this is a dream, you’re a dream, and I wake to him ? I might never escape again and I’m so tired .
Sascha thought about who Brenna had been before Enrique, about who she still was deep in her soul.
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She thought of Rina and Mercy, of their will, their pride. You have so much heart it humbles me and you fought a brave fight. If you want to slip into the last sleep, no one will judge you. You’ve earned your peace .
I don’t want to die.
Then choose to live. Sascha wasn’t playing games. She’d told the absolute truth—Brenna had earned her right to die. We miss you .
Who are you?
I’m Sascha, mate to Lucas Hunter and a healer of DarkRiver. She was no longer a woman who belonged nowhere, no longer part of a race that would’ve punished her for her gift. Pride shimmered in her tone. Accepted, more than accepted by her new family, she’d never mourn who she’d once been.
Sascha, I’m broken.
So was I, Brenna. She reached out and hugged the girl’s floundering spirit. What is broken can be healed .
Help me. The voice was resolute, that flickering flame settling to a slender column of purity. I won’t give in to death. Help me wake up to reality… whatever that might be .
Pride for the young woman’s courage mixed with anguish for the pain she’d suffered, but Sascha let her feel only the pride. I’m here . Slowly, she guided Brenna’s broken mind through the shreds of her spirit.
Can this ever be fixed? Brenna asked, aware of the extent of the damage that had been done to her.
I was born to heal you. And if it took every second of the remainder of her time on this Earth, she would heal Brenna.
Take me home, Sascha.
Sascha opened her eyes perhaps an hour after she’d spoken to Hawke, and found herself sitting on the bed beside Brenna, her hand in the young woman’s. She had no recollection of moving there, or of clasping her other hand with Lucas’s. Brenna’s brothers and Hawke surrounded the bed, touching their packmate wherever they could.
“Wake up, Brenna.” Sascha brushed a gentle kiss on her forehead. As she sat back up, the girl’s eyelids fluttered and then opened. Wary eyes met Sascha’s. With a smile, Sascha said, “Hey, sleepyhead.” Brenna blinked. One of her brothers choked back a cry and pushed in front of Sascha to cup his sister’s face with hands that were consciously gentle. “Bren? God damn it, Bren, you had us worried to death.” Over the top of Riley’s head, Sascha met brown eyes filled with so much joy it was almost blinding. She got off the bed and let Lucas hold her. Now it was time for the wolves to heal Brenna, to cover her in their love and affection. Sascha would return to help her repair her mind and soul, but for today, this was enough.
“Let’s go home,” she said to Lucas.
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He ran his knuckles down her cheek and dropped a kiss on her nose. “Still mad, Sascha darling?”
“Yes.” Her hug was fierce. She lived with guilt every day of her life for condemning him to death.
A week later, she picked up Julian and rubbed his belly. The little cub growled and asked for more.
Laughing, she gave him what he wanted. Tammy was out of town for the day and when she’d asked Sascha to look after the cubs, she’d jumped at the chance. They’d turned up at Lucas’s lair as two adorable boys in blue jeans and T-shirts, but minutes later, she’d found two cubs chewing on her boots.
“You look like you’re enjoying yourself,” Lucas said from the doorway, a strained smile on his face.
She knew the reason for the strain. It was her. She was so angry with him for what he’d done and he felt it. How could he not? He was bonded with her. She watched him pick up Roman and let the cub claw playfully at his T-shirted chest, and knew she had to give up the anger.
How long did they have left? One month, maybe two. Her man was extraordinary and he knew how to love, how to feel, how to fight for his mate with every emotion he had in him. If he hadn’t fought so hard, if he hadn’t forced her hand, he wouldn’t be the man she adored so hopelessly.
“I love you, Lucas,” she whispered.
His eyes turned cat-green. “No more claws, kitten?” She shook her head. “I’m so glad for you.”
He looked like he wanted to walk over and kiss her till she begged for mercy. Except they had two squirming cubs in their arms. Looking at each other, they started to laugh. Started to live.
That night, she asked him to change for her. Without a word, he stripped off his clothing and the world turned into a multicolored shimmer. It was so beautiful, she felt her heart stop. She blinked and when she opened her eyes, a huge hunting cat lay on the bed beside her.
Despite the fact that she knew this was Lucas, she was a little scared. But not enough to miss the chance. Holding her breath, she ran her fingers through his silky black fur. There was nothing she could compare the sensation to. Bonded as they were, she’d felt him run, felt his joy in the wind and the forests, felt the panther just… be. But never had she touched the animal in him so intimately.
When he made a sound that was incredibly close to a purr, she started to laugh. “You like being petted whether you’re in human or panther form.”
The panther snapped his teeth at her and, under her hands, light shimmered. Heart in her throat, she remained perfectly immobile until Lucas lay naked beside her, the exotic tattoo on his upper arm a reminder of the wildness within. “Wow.”
“Of course. I’m the most beautiful creature you’ve ever seen.” A smug smile.
Laughing, she let him tease her, let him teach her how to grasp the moment, how to love without fear or guilt, how to just be .
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“Something’s wrong,” she said to him a month later.
He put his hand on her breast under the sheet and threw one leg over hers. “What?” His voice was a purr in the darkness.
Already, her body was heating up for his. “I’ve never felt better. You’re the same. Every single physical symptom I had is gone and I don’t think they’re going to reappear.”
“That’s a problem?” His amusement was obvious. On her breast, his hand moved in easy circles.
She let her senses surrender, melting for him. “I’m serious. You shouldn’t be able to keep my mind…
fed, and function so well yourself.”
He stopped caressing her and slid his hand down to her ribs. She knew he’d heard the seriousness in her tone. “Do you think it’s the calm before the storm?”
“No. It should be a gradual drain.” She stared up at the ceiling, where leaves crawled across the space.
Lucas had no problem with the forest taking over his home and she was starting to accept it, too, though she did get the occasional urge to make everything spotless. “Will you mind if I go searching in our minds?” It was the first time she’d asked for that since that initial moment of utter unity.
“You know everything there is to know, kitten.”
“I’m not sorry Tammy told me,” she said, mutinous. They’d finally talked about his family several days ago and she’d held her Hunter as he remembered. Those wounds were scars but not the kind that twisted—his scars had a place on his soul. They were a marker of those he’d lost.
He growled against her neck and rubbed the stubble of his beard on her sensitive skin. “I didn’t think so.
The two of you are too damn close.” There was no anger in him. “Search.” Taking a deep bream, she closed her eyes and unconsciously shifted her body until she was almost covered by him. Body and mind in tune. When she opened her mind’s eye on the psychic level and peeked out, she didn’t see the starry plane she was used to. Nor did she see empty darkness. Instead, she saw a web. At the center of the web was Lucas’s light, so bright it was like a cardinal’s but somehow more pure, more intense, hot instead of cold.
His light was being showered upon by rainbow-colored sparks and she knew that was her. She wanted to smile. She was doing what she’d always said she would if set free—infecting everyone around her.
However, she now understood that the rainbow sparks healed. It was their lack in the PsyNet that had turned the Psy so cruel, so unable to see right from wrong.
Every part of the web glimmered with color.
Web.
“How can there be a web with only two?” she said out loud.
Lucas nuzzled her neck and ran his hands down her body, keeping her anchored with nothing but touch.
She stroked her own hands down the heated silk of his back as she followed the strands of the web.
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At the end of one filament blazed a light somehow feminine in feel, and yet, it also held hints of martial strength. At the end of another two were solid masculine stars, brilliant enough to burn.
One of those masculine stars had another strand of the web tracing out from it. At the end of that was a gentle, beautiful flame that spoke of purest love. Amazingly, that light had two small glowing beacons tracing from it. The strands from those two linked back to the male star.
Another strand led from Lucas to a light that was bruised and battered, but slowly being healed by the rainbows that crept in when the mind wasn’t looking. And the last light, it was somehow unique, golden and wild, pure like Lucas’s but tantalizingly different.
“You’re connected to five others,” she whispered.
“Of course,” he muttered against her neck. “The sentinels take a blood oath.” Shock had her eyes snapping wide open. Mercy, a soldier female. Clay and Nate, pure strength. It was Nate’s line that was joined by another’s—Tamsyn, his mate. Dorian, broken but healing. Vaughn, jaguar not leopard. She searched more carefully for her own cardinal star.
There she was, enclosed within Lucas’s light, the rainbow showers bursting through him to the outside. It didn’t hurt him. In fact, it seemed to make him stronger, as if she were repairing the tiniest of fissures. It didn’t mean he didn’t feel negative emotions, only that he was able to see past them.
“Lucas,” she said, pushing at his shoulders until he got up and looked down at her with those hunting-cat eyes.
“What’s wrong?” His body tensed.
“Nothing,” she whispered, starting to shudder. “Nothing. Everything’s perfect!”
“Kitten, you’re scaring me.” He leaned down to kiss her. “What did you see?”
“You’re part of a network, Lucas. The feedback you give me is bolstered by the sentinels and Tamsyn.” He thought for a moment. “The blood oath links the sentinels to me on a psychic level?”
“Somehow,” Sascha said. “I don’t understand how—nobody has ever seen this before—the Psy don’t know changelings can link this way.” Part of her wanted to share the exciting discovery, but a bigger part of her wanted to keep it secret, a weapon unlike any other. “You didn’t know?”
“No. I knew the sentinels gave me their loyalty but we’re not Psy.”
“You have Psy potential. Everyone does. Don’t forget—we all started with the same basic material.” She frowned. “Sienna Lauren was right.”
“Why is Tamsyn in the net?” Lucas asked, and then answered his own question. “She’s linked to Nate through the mating bond. The cubs?”
“They’re there, too.”
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“Why aren’t parents and siblings?”
“I’m guessing but I’d say that parents aren’t because those are bonds we break as we grow older. We love but we’re no longer as intertwined. The cubs will likely drop out as they age.” She frowned. “Maybe sibling bonds aren’t strong enough? From what I see, it’s only mating bonds and the blood oath that work.”
“I can understand that. Mating is psychic on some level. The blood oath—well, I guess there’s a reason it’s been passed down through the centuries.”
She looked again at the web and her hands clenched on Lucas’s biceps. “The Laurens were wrong on one point.”
“What?”
“This is amazing! Though I’m the solitary Psy, there is a multiplication effect. Our web is bursting with energy.” She couldn’t work out how but now she had a lifetime to figure it out.
They were both quiet for a long while.
“Sascha, what does this mean?”
“We’re safe,” she whispered, barely believing it. “Seven adult minds are feeding the web… giving me what I need. It’s more than enough.”
Lucas clasped her to his chest, rolling over on his back. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She kissed his chest, his neck, his chin. “Yes! Thank you for being so damn stubborn.” He didn’t return the caresses, holding her so tightly she could barely breathe. “You almost killed yourself for no reason.”
“No, Lucas.” She squeezed him back. “I lived because of you. That’s how I’ll always remember it.”
“It’s going to take me a long time to forgive you.” Sascha wanted to cry in joy. “We’ve got forever.” EPILOGUE
They held a meeting of the sentinels and Tamsyn later that week. The leopards were sprawled around the living room of their lair, some seated, some standing.
“So you can come into our minds?” Mercy asked.
“Only if you let me. I’d never walk in uninvited—I can’t.” Sascha knew she was talking to the most independent members of DarkRiver. They would hate to be vulnerable on any level.
“But I know you’re doing something to me,” Dorian said quietly. “I wondered what it was. It feels like before… when I wanted to go for your throat.”
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“I’m sorry, Dorian. That’s not something I can help.” Amazingly, the sentinel gave her a slow smile. “I can handle being kissed by you.” She wanted to blush. “It’s not like that.”
“A hug, then.” He shrugged. “It feels good.”
The others frowned. Clay said, “I don’t feel any different.” Sascha wondered how to say this but Dorian beat her to it. “Because you don’t need patching up, Clay.
Right, Sascha?”
She sighed. “I think you’re a menace but yes, Dorian’s a little bit more battered than the rest of you.
Once he’s up and running, my empathic gifts won’t really affect him, like they don’t really do anything to you.” The sparks healed, but on the most subconscious of levels. Dorian was only feeling them because he was so hurt.
Lucas squeezed her shoulders as she stood in front of him by the short hallway that led to the kitchen area. “We’re giving you a choice. Sascha says she can cut some of you free from the web without doing damage.”
“Tell me, Sascha,” Tamsyn said, “is it easy to slip in and out of our minds?”
“No. Every mind has a natural shield. On the PsyNet, the only open minds belonged to the exhibitionists.
All of you are shut up tight. To go in without your consent, I’d have to rip you apart.”
“And kill us.” Vaughn’s eyes were almost glowing.
“Yes.” She wouldn’t lie to them, wouldn’t tell them they weren’t vulnerable to her. “Remember, I’m an empath. Causing you pain would double back on me.”
“When I took the blood oath,” Vaughn said, “I vowed to lay my life down for Lucas. As his mate, you have that same promise.”
She’d expected the loner, the jaguar, to balk. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Sascha darling.” He prowled over to stand in front of her, tall and beautiful and dangerous. She gasped as he brushed his lips over hers. “My life is yours.” Then he was gone, a golden blur as he leaped off the porch.
Shaken by the commitment, Sascha leaned backward into Lucas. Her eyes followed Dorian as he stood and walked over.
“I’ve been yours since the day you first took my pain.” Dorian picked up her hand and kissed her fingertips, before leaving the same way as Vaughn.
Mercy uncurled from her cushion and came to stand in front of Sascha. Her stunning face was serious but there was a smile in her eyes. “Think you could find out some male secrets for me?”
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Sascha smiled. “The only male I know that intimately is this one.” She turned to steal a kiss from Lucas.
“And his secrets are mine.”
Laughing, Mercy hugged her. “I’m a sentinel. I vowed to stick by Lucas to death. If he trusts you, so do I. I’ll see you later—I’m going to catch up with Dorian.” Clay, the most distant sentinel, the one who never touched her, was the one Sascha had feared most would choose to be cut from the web. She didn’t know what effect it would have on him, and had discussed it with Lucas. They’d decided to wait for the decisions before borrowing trouble.
Now the dark-skinned man came to stand in front of her. “My mind is not someplace you want to be,” he said quietly.
She felt his coolness, felt his control, wondered what lay behind it. “I’ll only come in if I’m invited.” He touched her cheek and she knew he’d accepted. Moments later, he was gone. Nate and Tamsyn were the only ones left. The healer was grinning. “You know I’ll never say no, and Nate’s so dedicated, I think he loves our alpha more than me.”
“I resent that,” Nate grumbled. “I might love football more than you, but definitely not Lucas’s ugly mug.”
Sascha laughed at their joking, fully aware they were crazy for each other. The web spoke for itself. It was bursting with light, with rainbows, with love. “The Web of Stars,” she whispered.
“Is that what it looks like?” Lucas’s voice was a rough purr in her ear.
“Yes.” The starry plane of the PsyNet was barren compared to the Web of Stars, a cacophony of color and emotion, a web created not by need alone but by choice. Choices of loyalty, choices of love, choices of emotion. “I’ve got so much to learn.” Her powers were growing, changing, becoming .
“We have a lifetime.”
Turning, she wrapped her arms around him and threw back her head as he picked her up to spin her around. Her laughter sparkled along the Web of Stars, flickering joy that affected every mind within it. It was small and barely aware, but at that moment, the Web was far, far stronger than the PsyNet could ever hope to be.
Turn the page
for a preview of the next
paranormal romance from Nalini Singh
Visions of Heat
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Coming Spring 2007 from Berkley Sensation!
Faith NightStar of the PsyClan NightStar was aware she was considered the most powerful F-Psy of her generation. At only twenty-four years of age, she’d already made more money than most Psy did in their entire lifetimes. But then again, she’d been working since she was three years old, since she’d found her voice. It had taken her longer than most children, but that was to be expected—she was a cardinal F-Psy of extraordinary ability.
It wouldn’t have surprised anyone if she’d never spoken.
That was why the F-Psy belonged to PsyClans, which took care of everything the foreseers couldn’t, from investing their millions to checking their medical status and ensuring they didn’t starve. The F-Psy weren’t very good at practical things like that. They forgot. Even after more than a century of forecasting business trends rather than murders and accidents, disasters and wars, they forgot.
Faith had been forgetting a lot of things lately. For example, she’d forgotten to eat three days in a row.
That was when NightStar employees had intervened, alerted by the sophisticated Tec 3 computer which ran the house. Three days was the allowable window—sometimes, F-Psy went into trances. If that had been the case, they would’ve put her on a drip and left her to it. “Thank you,” she said, directing her words to the head M-Psy. “I’ll be fine now.”
Xi Yun nodded. “Finish the entire meal. It contains the exact number of calories you need.”
“Of course.” She watched him leave, preceded by his staff. In his hand was a small medical kit that she knew contained both chemicals designed to shock her awake out of a catatonic trance or knock her down from a manic state. Neither had been required today. She’d simply forgotten to eat.
After consuming all the nutritional bars and energy drinks he’d left behind, she sat back down in the large reclining chair where she usually spent the majority of her time. Designed to double as a bed, it was uplinked to the Tec 3 and fed it a constant stream of data about her vital functions. An M-Psy stood on alert should she need medical attention any time of day or night. That wasn’t normal procedure even for the F designation, but Faith was no ordinary F-Psy.
She was the best.
Every prediction Faith ever made, if not purposefully circumvented, came true. That was why she was worth untold millions. Possibly even billions. NightStar considered her their most prized asset. Like any asset, she was kept in the best condition for optimum functionality. And like any asset, should she prove defective, she’d be overhauled and used for parts.
Faith’s eyes blinked open at that furtive thought. She stared up at the pale green of the ceiling and fought to bring her heart-rate down. If she didn’t, the M-Psy might decide to pay her a return visit and she didn’t want anyone to see her right now. She wasn’t sure what her eyes would reveal. Sometimes, even the night-sky eyes of a cardinal Psy told secrets that were better kept within.
“Parts,” she whispered out loud. Her statement was being recorded of course. The F-Psy occasionally made predictions during trance states. No one wanted to miss a word. Perhaps that was why those of her designation preferred to keep their silence when they could.
Used for parts.
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It seemed an illogical statement but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that once again, her abilities had told her of a future she could never have imagined. Most defective Psy were rehabilitated, their minds swept clean by a psychic brainwipe that left them functioning on the level of menial laborers, but not the F-Psy. They were too rare, too valuable, too unique.
If she went insane beyond acceptable levels, the levels where she could still make predictions, the M-Psy would see to it that she met with an accident that left her brain unharmed. And then they’d use that flawed brain for scientific experimentation, subject it to analysis. Everyone wanted to know what made the F-Psy tick. Of all the Psy designations, they were the least explored, the most shadowed—it was difficult to find experimental subjects when their occurrence in the population was barely above 1
percent.
Faith dug her hands into the thick red fabric of the chair, hyperaware of her breath beginning to grow jagged. The reaction hadn’t yet proceeded to a point where M-Psy intervention would be deemed necessary, as F-Psy displayed some unusual behavior during visions, but she couldn’t chance her overload turning into a mental cascade.
Even as she attempted to temper her physical body, her mind flashed with images of her brain on a set of scientific scales while cold Psy eyes examined it from every angle. She knew the images were nonsensical. Nothing like that would ever happen in a lab. Her consciousness was simply trying to make sense of something that made no sense. Just like the dreams that had been plaguing her sleep for the past two weeks.
At first, it had been nothing more man a vague foreshadowing, a darkness that pushed at her mind.
She’d thought it might herald an oncoming vision—a market crash or a sudden business failure, but day after day, that darkness had grown to crushing proportions without showing her anything concrete. And she’d felt . Though she’d never before felt anything, in those dreams she’d been drenched in fear, suffocated by the weight of terror.
It was as well that she’d long ago demanded her bedroom be free of any and all monitoring devices.
Something in her had known what was coming. Something in her always knew. But this time, she hadn’t been able to make sense of the raw ugliness of a rage which had almost cut off her breath. The first dreams had felt like someone was choking her, choking her until terror was all she was.
Last night had been different. Last night, she hadn’t woken as the hands closed about her throat. No matter how hard she’d tried, she hadn’t been able to break free of the horror, hadn’t been able to anchor herself in reality.
Last night, she had died.
Vaughn D’Angelo jumped down from the branch he’d been padding along and landed gracefully on the forest floor. In the silvery light that had turned darkness into twilight, his orange-black coat should’ve shone like a spotlight, but he was invisible, a jaguar who knew how to use the shadows of the night to hide and conceal. No one ever saw Vaughn when he didn’t want to be seen.
Above him, the moon hung like a bright disk in the sky, visible even through the thick canopy. For long moments, he stood and watched it through the dark filigree of reaching branches. Both man and beast were drawn to the glimmering beauty, though neither could’ve said why. It didn’t matter. Tonight the Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
jaguar was in charge, and it simply accepted what the man would have been tempted to think about.
A whisper of scent in the breeze had him lifting his nose into the air. Pack . A second later, he identified the scent as that of Clay, one of the other sentinels. Then it was gone, as if the leopard male had realized Vaughn had already claimed this range. Opening his mouth, Vaughn let out a soft growl and stretched his powerful feline body. His lethally sharp canines gleamed in the moonlight, but tonight he wasn’t out to hunt and capture prey, to deliver merciful death with a single crushing bite.
Tonight, he wanted to run.
His loping gait could cover vast distances and usually, he preferred to run deep into the forests that sprawled over most of California. But today he found himself heading toward the populated lake city of Tahoe. It wasn’t hard to walk among the humans and Psy even in his cat form. He wasn’t a sentinel for show—he could infiltrate even the most well-guarded citadels without giving himself away.
However, this time he didn’t actually enter the city proper, drawn to something unexpected on the fringe.
Set back only a few meters from the dark green spread of the forest, the small compound was protected by electrified fences and motion-sensor cameras among other things. The house within was hidden behind several layers of vegetation and possibly another fence but he knew it lay inside. What surprised him was that he smelled the metallic stink of the Psy around the entire compound.
Interesting.
The Psy preferred to live surrounded by skyscrapers and cities. Yet deep within that compound was a Psy, and whoever that person was, they were being protected by others of their kind. Rarely did a non-Council Psy qualify for such a privilege. Curiosity aroused, he prowled around the entire perimeter, out of range of the monitoring devices. It took him less than ten minutes to discover a way in—the Psy race’s sense of arrogance had led them, once again, to disregard the animals with whom they shared the Earth.
Or perhaps, the man thought within the beast, the Psy just didn’t understand the capabilities of the other races. To them, the changelings and humans were nothing because they couldn’t do the things the Psy could with their minds. They’d forgotten that it was the mind which moved the body, and animals were very, very good at using their bodies.
Climbing onto a tree branch that would lead him over the first fence and into the compound, the cat’s heart beat in anticipation. But even the jaguar knew he couldn’t do this. He had no reason to go in there and put himself in danger. Danger didn’t bother either man or beast, but the cat’s curiosity was held back by a deeper emotion—loyalty.
Vaughn was a DarkRiver sentinel and that duty overcame every other emotion, every other need. Later tonight, he was supposed to be guarding Sascha Duncan, his alpha’s mate, while Lucas attended a meeting at the SnowDancer den. Vaughn knew Sascha had agreed to stay behind reluctantly and only because she’d known Lucas could travel faster without her. And Lucas had only gone because he’d trusted his sentinels to keep her safe.
With a last lingering look into the guarded compound, Vaughn backed down the branch, leaped to the ground, and started to head toward Lucas’s lair. He hadn’t forgotten and he hadn’t given up. The mystery of a Psy living so close to changeling territory would be solved. No one escaped the jaguar once he was on their trail.
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* * *
Faith stared out the kitchen window, and though only darkness looked back at her, she couldn’t shake the feeling of being stalked. Something very dangerous circled the fences that kept her isolated from the outside world. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself. And froze. She was Psy—why was she reacting like this? Was it the dark visions? Were they affecting her mental shields? Dropping her arms through sheer strength of will, she went to turn from the window. And found she couldn’t.
Instead, she pressed forward, lifting one hand to press against the glass, as if she could reach outside.
Outside. It was a world she hardly knew. She’d always lived inside walls, had had to live inside them.
On the outside, the threat of psychic disintegration was a continuous drumbeat in her head, a pounding echo she couldn’t block. On the outside, emotions hit at her from every angle and she saw things that were inhuman and vicious and painful. On the outside, she was breakable. It was far safer to live behind walls.
Except now the walls were cracking. Now things were getting in and she couldn’t escape them. She knew that as certainly as she knew she couldn’t escape whatever it was that prowled the edges of her property. The predator hunting her wouldn’t rest until he had her in his claws. She should’ve been afraid.
But of course, she was Psy. She felt no fear. Except when she slept. That was when she felt so much, she worried that her PsyNet shields would crack, revealing her to the Council. It had gotten to the point where she didn’t want to fall sleep. What if she died again and this time it was for real?
The communication console chimed into the endless silence that was her life. This late at night, it was an unexpected interruption—the M-Psy had prescribed certain hours of sleep for her.
She looked away from the window at last. As she walked, a sense of impending disaster seemed to cloak her, a sinister knowing that lay somewhere in the shadowlands between a true foretelling and the merest inkling of what might be. This, too, was new, this heavy awareness of something hovering maliciously in the wings, just waiting for her guard to slip.
Schooling her face to show nothing of her internal confusion, she pressed the answer key on the touchpad. The face that appeared onscreen was not one she’d anticipated. “Father.” Anthony Kyriakus was the head of her family. Before she’d officially reached adulthood at twenty, he’d shared custody of her with Zanna Liskowski, with whom he’d formed a fertilization contract twenty-five years ago. They’d both had a say in her upbringing, though her childhood had been nothing anyone would ever label as such. At three years after birth, she’d been removed from their care, with their full cooperation, and placed in a controlled environment where her ability could be fully trained and utilized.
And where the encroaching tendrils of madness could be kept at bay.
“Faith. I have some unfortunate news concerning our family.”
“Yes?” Her heart was suddenly a sledgehammer. She pushed all her strength toward containing the reaction. Not only was it unusual, it was the harbinger of a potential vision. And she couldn’t have a vision right now. Not the kind of vision she’d been having lately.
“Your sibling, Marine, is deceased.”
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Her mind went blank. “Marine?” Marine was her younger sister, a sister she’d never really known but had kept an eye on from afar. A cardinal telepath, Marine had already climbed high in the family’s interests. “How? Was is a physical abnormality?”
“Fortunately not.”
Fortunately, because it meant that Faith was in no danger. Though having two of the rare cardinals had made NightStar a line of considerable power, it was indisputable that Faith was the biggest NightStar asset. She was the one who brought in enough income and work to place the entire PsyClan above the masses. Only Faith’s health was truly important—Marine’s death was a mere inconvenience. So cold, so brutally cold, Faith thought, though she knew she was as cold. It was a matter of survival. “An accident?”
“She was murdered.”
The blank that had been her mind buzzed with white noise, but she refused to listen. “Murder? A human or a changeling?” Because the Psy had no killers, hadn’t had them for a hundred years, ever since the implementation of the Silence Protocol. Silence had wiped violence, hate, rage, anger, jealousy, and envy from the Psy. The side effect had been the loss of all their other emotions.
“We don’t know which. Enforcement is investigating. Get some rest.” He nodded in a sharp physical period.
“Wait.”
“Yes?”
She forced herself to ask. “What was the mode of murder?” Anthony didn’t even blink as he said, “Manual strangulation.”