Caressed By Ice

by Nalini Singh

Page 21

 

  She ran to catch up. "Are you going to be able to cope? Your eyes. . . "

  He gave her a sideways glance so full of male arrogance, the wolf in her wanted to snarl. "Psy eyes do that when a large power expenditure is involved - I'm fully capable of making the necessary report. "

  "I should learn to keep my worry to myself where you're concerned," she muttered.

  "That would be wise. "

  Scowling at his back, she decided to concentrate on something that didn't make her want to go clawed. "How did you get me out?"

  "Teleportation. "

  Utter silence in her mind, the cold emptiness of angry fear.

  If he could teleport, that meant he was a telekinetic. A very strong Tk. Like him. The butcher. "When were you going to tell me?" Her heart felt like a block of ice.

  "Never," he answered in a clipped tone. "You're not rational about Tk-Psy and your prejudice bleeds onto others. "

  She didn't quite understand what he was getting at, but she knew it wasn't complimentary. "This is between you and me, no one else. "

  He stopped and faced her, perfect Psy beauty and ruthless control. "No, Brenna. It's about you, your family, the entire den. You start hissing at me and they'll follow. "

  "Since when do you care what anyone thinks?"

  "Since I realized that Marlee is beginning to exhibit signs of having at least some Tk in her skill set. It didn't show up in her initial tests but that occasionally happens with children who are very strong in another ability. But now it's rising to the surface. "

  Anger flashed to guilt, then back again. "She's a baby. No one in the den would go after a pup!" Her face burned at the idea, but at the same time, something else was trying to rise, information she couldn't quite grasp. All she knew was that it had something to do with the connection between Judd and Santano Enrique.

  He folded his arms. "She's not going to stay a baby. If you poison the den against telekinetics, where's that going to leave her when she grows up?"

  Her claws threatened to release and the rage washed away that ethereal piece of knowledge floating in her brain. "That's what you think of me? Well, fuck you!" Spinning away, she sprinted the rest of the way to the cabin fueled by red fury. It didn't improve her mood to realize that Judd kept pace. He was Psy - he shouldn't have been able to keep pace. But damn if she was going to ask him what he was doing to make himself changeling-fast. "The bottom-feeders are gone. " Fragments of wood and glass lay scattered on the snow, the air thick with the astringent scent of explosive chemicals. But curiously, the cabin wasn't too badly damaged - the blast had only taken out one discrete section.

  Going down on his haunches, Judd held out a hand. "Do you have a handkerchief?"

  "Do I look like I have a handkerchief?"

  "Any clean cloth will do. "

  "Wait. " Skirting the debris, she went to a window.

  "Don't enter," Judd warned. "We haven't checked it for explosives. "

  She gave him an evil look and, pushing up the window from the outside - after ensuring that it wasn't rigged to blow - reached in to pull open a drawer. The small kitchen towel was in her hand a second later. "Here. "

  "Thank you. " Using the soft cloth, he picked up something she couldn't see.

  "What is it?" she snapped more than said.

  "A trigger. Unfortunately very generic. "

  "Maybe the techs can get something off it. " SnowDancers made it their business to keep on top of new technology so they could beat the Psy at their own game. She used to help with the technical stuff. . . before.

  "Oh," Judd murmured, "I think there's no maybe about it. " He rose, the trigger in hand.

  "You think it was planted?" She caught the scent of Pack in the wind. "Packmates incoming - they must've been in the area, to get here so fast. "

  "I sent Hawke a message this morning stating I'd detected signs of unauthorized access and suggesting it might be wise to inspect the border sections adjoining my watch. "

  Wolves began pouring out of the forest. She recognized Riley and Andrew. Shit.

  Chapter 16

  Brenna averted her eyes as her brothers shifted, having no desire to see them in the raw.

  "I'm going to kill you" were the first words out of Andrew's mouth. "What the hell do you think you're doing with my sister?"

  "Later. " Hawke's authoritative voice.

  Brenna looked up and found him standing across from Judd. He was dressed and in human form, having apparently run that way while the others had gone wolf. It was an indication of his strength, part of what made him alpha.

  "You made good time," Judd commented to Hawke, then held out the trigger. "I have a feeling you'll find some prints on this. Convenient ones. "

  "You mean like this?" Riley's voice.

  "What is it?" Brenna asked, still not looking. Of course she'd seen others naked after a shift - it was normal. But these were her brothers.

  "A sweatshirt," Judd told her.

  "A sweatshirt that smells like leopard. " Riley again. "The whole area reeks of cat. "

  The silence that fell after his words was ominous. DarkRiver and SnowDancer had been business allies for over a decade but their alliance had turned into a blood bond mere months ago. Trust was a dicey thing.

  Hawke's face was grim as he glanced at the damning piece of evidence. "If Lucas's people had been behind this, they would have done a better job of cleaning up. I can smell another signature below the leopard markers. "

  The others frowned and Brenna saw several pairs of eyes widen in puzzlement as they tried to sort through the scent layers to identify the vaguely "sweaty" taint of something that shouldn't have been there.

  "It was a pack of hyenas," Brenna said into the quiet.

  Everyone stared. Chief among their reaction was disbelief.

  "Those scavengers?" Drew said at last. "You sure?"

  Scowling, she rounded on him, keeping her eyes firmly above his neck. Her brother, like most changelings, was totally comfortable nude. It was her reaction that was unnatural. She knew that. She just didn't want to examine the reason why. . . was scared to discover what else Enrique had mutilated inside of her. "I didn't lose my nose during the abduction, only half my mind. "

  Andrew winced. "Christ, you're mean when you're pissed. But can you blame me? Hyenas don't go near anything that might bite back. "

  "We need to talk," Judd said to Hawke.

  The alpha gave a sharp nod. "I want everyone except Riley, Drew, and Indigo to start running a search perimeter. Try to pick up the hyenas' trail. I'll make a few calls - we might get lucky if the eagles were in the area. "

  "Eagles?" Brenna looked up as if she might see some. "How many?"

  "A small flight. They're here to attend a human wedding. "

  Clearly they'd made sure to ask permission from Hawke before setting foot or taking wing in the area under SnowDancer control. Otherwise, they would've been labeled enemies and taken out. A harsh law, but one that allowed stability in the agressive world of predatory changelings. Without it, the carnage that had been the eighteenth century's Territorial Wars would never have ended.

  Hawke looked at his soldiers. "Go. "

  For a stunning few seconds, the world shimmered with a thousand brilliant colors as the soldiers shifted. Then wolves dashed off in all directions, their paws flying swift and silent over the snow. Brenna's entire body went immobile as she watched them move, so strong, so beautiful. Envy was a hateful buzz in her head, one that had the power to turn her bitter and full of spite - Enrique might not have killed her, but he'd succeeded in crippling her.

  You are not crippled, not now, not ever.

  The memory had her looking away from the sleek forms of her packmates to Judd. He was watching her, no hint of an apology in his features. Her earlier fury reignited, but Hawke spoke before she could let her temper get the better of her.

 
"Tell me what you found. "

  Judd responded with military precision. "They were carrying high-grade laser-powered weapons. None are readily available on the general market. "

  "Psy supplied?"

  "High likelihood. They're produced by Psy companies. "

  Riley changed position and it caught her attention - her older brother didn't make random movements. It was Andrew who was the more physically impatient.

  Hawke had also noted the action. "You have something to add?"

  "For a race that dislikes using weapons," Riley commented, "the Psy sure seem to have some advanced ones. "

  "What makes you think the Psy have an aversion to weapons?" Judd asked, so eerily calm it made her want to shiver.

  Riley stared hard enough to have sent lesser men cowering. "They've never used them to take us out. "

  "Only because such an open move would cause too big a ripple. It might destabilize the economy if people thought a Psy-changeling war was in the making. " Judd's arctic tone was akin to the baring of fangs by a wolf. "That's why they prefer quieter, less detectable methods of removing changelings from the equation. "

  "Like setting us against the cats. Exactly how stupid do they think we are?" Hawke pulled a sleek black phone out of his back pocket and punched in a code. "Lucas," he said a second later. "We may have a situation. " A short pause and then Hawke's face went preternaturally still.

  Brenna stood in tense silence as her alpha listened to whatever it was the DarkRiver alpha was telling him, blindingly aware of the unsettling quiet of Judd by her side. A Tk. One of the same breed that had tortured her, broken her.

  You're being stupid and childish, a part of her mind said. No, she wasn't, replied another part, one that had been bruised and bloodied.

  "How bad?" Hawke asked, his savage tone snapping her back to the present. "Do I need to pull out my people?" Another pause. "Try hyena. I'll see you as soon as you can make it. " He ended the call and returned the phone to his pocket.