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.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
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.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
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 .
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
“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.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
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.”
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
“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.”
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
“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?”
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
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
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
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.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
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.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
* * *
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.”
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
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.”