by Nalini Singh
He filled the doorway, all green eyes and dark hair. Such a beautiful man, was her mate. Such a dangerous one, too, especially when the protective streak that had been honed in blood was riding him. “Do you have time to discuss something?”
His expression gentled. “Two minutes? I want to send this note off to Zara.”
“I’ll be here.” Watching as he left, she played with the spine of the Eldridge book.
“You need a better bedtime story.” Lucas prowled in to sprawl on his back beside her.
She raised her head instinctively, and he slid one arm beneath before turning to curve his big body around hers. It had become their favorite sleeping position.
“I’m not sleepy,” she said. “Just wanted to rest my feet.”
“I’ll give you a foot rub.”
Joy shimmered through her, an incandescent light. “Lucas, you do realize you’re spoiling me beyond redemption?”
“Don’t worry—I plan to ignore you once you give me my baby princess.”
She laughed, secure in the knowledge of his love. “Did you manage to talk to Sienna?” The teenager, part of a family of Psy defectors that had found sanctuary with the SnowDancer wolves, had been staying with DarkRiver on and off for the past few months.
“She got up to the SnowDancer den safe and sound.” A kiss pressed to the sensitive skin below her ear. “She’s a very good driver.”
“And Kit?” The DarkRiver male was a young soldier, a future alpha—and appeared to be forming an attachment to Sienna.
“He’s still down here.” Lucas sounded as if he was frowning in thought. “I don’t know if we have any right to say anything. They’re both adults.”
“I’m not sure if Sienna is thinking straight.” The Psy teenager had been close to the breaking point when she first came to stay with DarkRiver. She’d stabilized since then, but . . . “How’s Hawke?”
Lucas didn’t curse at the mention of the SnowDancer alpha, an indication of just how seriously he was taking this. “Seems fine, but it’s hard to read another alpha—we get pretty good at keeping our thoughts to ourselves when necessary.”
“Hawke and Sienna—there’s something there.” A raw, almost angry fury. “With Kit, it’s harder to pinpoint. I can sense something between them, but what, I can’t yet tell.”
“Kit would be the better choice for her,” Lucas said in a quiet tone that did nothing to hide the depth of his concern for everyone involved. “Hawke isn’t going to be easy on any woman he takes as his own. And the fact is, he lost the girl who would’ve been his mate as a child. I don’t know if his wolf will allow him to accept another female on that level.”
Sascha had no answer to that. Like changeling leopards, wolves mated for life. She’d sensed Hawke’s anger, his wolf’s tormented rage, but she’d also sensed Sienna’s anguish at her response to the SnowDancer alpha. And then there was Kit—gorgeous, loyal, strong Kit.
“Is that what you wanted to discuss?” Lucas took the book from her hand and put it on the bedside table before returning to hold her close again.
The imp of mischief that had awakened after she mated with Lucas made a sudden appearance. “No—did you hear the wolves are calling Mercy ‘their’ sentinel?”
A growl that made every hair on her body rise in primal response. “She might’ve had the bad taste to mate with a wolf, but she’s ours. They try to co-opt her, I’ll be giving you a nice, new Hawke-fur coat for your birthday.”
Unable to withhold her laughter, she patted his arm. “You’re so easy.”
“Brat.” But the panther was laughing with her. “You okay?”
She knew he was talking about Nikita, about the confused emotions in Sascha’s heart. “I’m getting there.”
CHAPTER 22
Sophie, my sweet, sexy, Sophie, I do think I’d like to unbutton that perfect little suit jacket. After that, I’d like to slip each and every tiny pearl button out of its slot to open your shirt to the waist.
—Handwritten note from Max to Sophia
Max walked out of the shower an hour later to find Morpheus glaring at him from the bed. “What?” he asked, pulling on a pair of jeans and a dark green T-shirt.
The cat continued to glare.
“I fed you,” Max muttered, glad for the prosaic reality of life for giving him a way out of the memories that had haunted him for over a decade. “Don’t scowl at me because you snarfed it in one minute and now have a stomachache.”
Morpheus licked his paw. He was not amused.
Deciding not to pet the damn cat right then in case it decided to bite off his hand, he ran a comb through his hair and walked out to the kitchen. Thanks to the grocery shopping he’d done the day he arrived, he had all the ingredients for the dinner he planned to cook for Sophia.
“Shouldn’t we focus on the case?” she’d asked before she left his apartment, her eyes huge. “My incident has already taken time we could’ve spent going over the evidence.”
He’d realized, with a strange warmth in his chest, that she was once again trying to help him in her own way—that smart mind had figured out he’d feel better if he buried himself in work. “We can discuss as we eat,” he’d said. “And, I think we’ve got time.”
“Why do you sound so certain?”
“You know the pattern we talked about?”
“With the victims all being murdered on the verge of a major deal?” An intent look. “Edward Chan’s murder doesn’t fit.”
“I did some digging on that.” He’d set his cell phone to run a number of Internet searches, glanced at the results as they finished up the final interview today. “Chan was scheduled to speak before a group of changeling alphas in South America later this week. No Psy has ever before been acceded that right.”
Sophia had gone very quiet. “Did they kill him because he was about to get Nikita access to a major untapped market—”
“—or because the contact would’ve violated a belief in Purity?” From what he’d learned of Pure Psy, he was convinced they wouldn’t shy away from murder. “No way to tell. But I’m going to call Nikita, alert her to the possibility.”
When he did contact Nikita, she’d not only agreed with his theory, she’d confirmed that no other project was at a stage which might trigger a kill. “I’ve also got twenty-four-hour surveillance on all my high-level people. They won’t be easy targets—and if one of them is behind this, it should give him pause.”
Now, as Max began to prepare dinner, he considered the possible impact of his and Sophia’s investigation on the conspiracy. Not significant, he decided. Whoever was behind this—the kingpin—was running things with a cool, clear head. He or she wouldn’t be put off their game by a mere human and a J at the end of her useful life.
His jaw went tight just as the doorbell chimed. Putting down the knife he’d been using to chop up some herbs, he went to the door and pulled it open. The woman at the center of his thoughts stood on the other side dressed in jeans and a cardigan in a delicate cream shade that made him want to peel it open—to expose skin of an even richer cream.
“Max?” Her voice was tentative when he continued to block the doorway.
He stepped back, waiting until she was inside and away from the cameras before he gave in to the urge to touch her. Lifting away her hair, he pressed a single kiss to the soft skin of her nape.
Her shiver was violent, but she didn’t pull away. “I wasn’t sure if I was meant to contribute anything to the meal.” A breathy voice, her head angled slightly to the side, as if she was welcoming another kiss.
Unable to resist the exquisite temptation, he moved behind her, put his hands on her hips, and said, “You’ll be dessert.”
Sophia felt her throat lock, her skin stretch painfully taut over her body. “Are you playing?” she finally managed to say. “Like with the notes?”
Max’s breath against her neck. “No.”
She balled her fingers into fists. An emotional reaction. One that would’ve c
oncerned her before she’d decided to live . . . to love. She wasn’t sure she knew how, wasn’t sure the capacity hadn’t been cut out of her with brutal efficiency. But Max was important. She’d kill for him, she thought, this man who saw in her a woman worth trusting . . . a woman worth teasing. “This cardigan has pearl buttons, too,” she whispered.
His body seemed to relax a fraction at her reference to the note he’d dropped into her bag earlier, and she hoped she’d brought some light into his heart. “Witch.”
Releasing her clenched fingers one by one, she lifted her hands and then, very deliberately, stripped off her gloves. Dropping them to the floor, she reached for his hand.
His palm met hers, his fingers twining with her own to curl into her palm.
For an instant, everything went black. When she could see again, she found herself leaning against Max’s chest, his free hand curved over her abdomen as he held her against the masculine heat of his body. “I’m here.” A rough murmur.
She clung to the strength of him, the lean muscle of his body a solid wall in a shifting universe. It was difficult to breathe—he was in the air, too, an invisible caress. Dark, potent, male, Max surrounded her.
“Your shields,” he said against her ear, his lips touching her skin in small, erotic bites. “Are you safe?”
Knowing he was right to be concerned, she opened her psychic eye and checked her protections against the PsyNet, ready to patch any fractures, hide any weaknesses. What she saw made her go motionless. “They’re holding, but not in a normal way.”
“Explain.”
“My shields have always been rock solid, but now . . . they’re moving. It’s as if I’m in the middle of a tornado.” The psychic wind blew back her hair as she stood shocked in the center of her mind. “Nothing can get in or out because the layers shift constantly, tearing apart anything that attempts to penetrate.”
“Is it harming you?”
“No. It’s efficient beyond anything I’ve ever seen, but it may bring attention to me.” She’d survived this long by being faultless when it came to her work, but deliberately unremarkable in any other way—the perfect Psy.
Even as she spoke, there was a mental knock on her mind. “Someone’s seen,” she said, before answering the telepathic contact. Sir.
Jay Khanna’s psychic voice was clear, direct, his telepathic reach close to 9.8 on the Gradient. That reach had given rise to speculation that the reason Khanna had been taken off the active roster at an early age was because the Council had other uses for his telepathy. Ms. Russo, he said now, there’s been a significant change in your shields. Do you need assistance?
It was a thinly veiled query about whether her conditioning was close to total collapse. If she said yes, she’d be picked up for emergency reconditioning—and find herself undergoing total and comprehensive rehabilitation, her memories of Max scrubbed away, her mind broken until it was nothing but an empty shell.
Silently thanking the M-Psy who’d told her the truth about her status, she said, My shields appear to have evolved to provide better protection.
Shields do not evolve.
No, she thought, they didn’t. I misspoke, sir. I’ve been working with the idea of this type of a shield for a while—they simply went into effect before I planned. It was a reasonable response—all Js tinkered constantly with their shields in an effort to eke out another day, another hour of life.
Khanna accepted her explanation, his tone retaining its professionalism as he switched topics. Have you reviewed the Valentine file?
Yes, sir.
And your conclusions?
Remain unchanged.
Very well. Continue with your current assignment.
Ending the telepathic conversation, Sophia sagged against Max, telling him what had occurred. Max moved the hand he had on her abdomen, inciting a strange twisting sensation in her body. It wasn’t painful. No, it was . . . interesting. “What else is up?” he asked.
“What?”
“Your expression changed toward the end.”
She thought about what her boss had asked her to do, thought, too, what it would mean to share that with Max. He’d know. What she’d done. The lines she’d crossed. Pain rippled down her spine. “I don’t want to tell you,” she said, incapable of any sophisticated evasion when it came to this man.
To her surprise, Max squeezed her hips and said, “Keep your secrets”—his voice an intimate darkness in her ear—“for now.”
Max felt Sophia’s hand tighten on his, wanted only to bend his head even farther and put his mouth on the unsteady beat of her pulse, suck hard. The possessive urge, the violent need to claim her to the core was a gnawing ache in his gut. He wanted the world to know she was his—make certain no one would dare lay a finger on her.
It took every ounce of will he had to fight the craving and lead her to the bar stools on this side of the kitchen counter. Dropping her hand, he put both of his around her waist and lifted her onto a stool.
Her hands flew to his shoulders. Gripped.
A sweep of black erased her irises between one blink and the next.
“Sophie.” He squeezed her waist. “Stay with me.”
“I’m right here.”
“Your eyes.”
“Oh.” She blinked, but the black remained. “It happens when we utilize a strong burst of psychic power, or . . . I suppose”—a wash of color across her cheekbones—“feel an intense emotional response.”
The maleness in him smiled in sensual satisfaction. “I like the sound of that.” Leaning forward, he slicked his lips over her own, a tease that made his cock throb—but conscious of how far he’d already pushed her, he was on the other side of the counter before she exhaled and swiveled to face him.
“That,” she said, “was . . . interesting.” Her chest rose and fell in long, deep breaths, her skin colored with a heat that invited a man’s mouth.
The excruciating pulse of his body, the unremitting hunger, might’ve consumed him if he hadn’t had something critically important in mind for this evening. “Let me finish making this sauce,” he said, voice rough with sexual desire. “You want to shred the lettuce for the salad?”
He waited until she’d washed her hands and retaken her seat before asking the question to which he needed an answer before he could begin to work out how to engineer her defection, how to keep her forever. “Sophia—I’ve been patient.” His hand fisted, because he knew this truth would be nothing good, but at least he’d have a starting point. “Tell me where Js go when they stop working.”
A quiet, quiet moment. “Some who are removed from the active roster early enough take up desk jobs in Justice,” she said in a voice so soft he had to strain to hear her, “others go insane, and the rest of us . . . we die.”
CHAPTER 23
Max staggered, bracing his hands on the counter. “Tell me.”
“My Sensitivity”—she glanced back at her discarded gloves—“is a result of failing telepathic shields. They’re so thin now that when they shear, the thoughts of every man, woman, and child in this city will smash into my brain, crush my mind.”
The brutal forecast had Max clenching his jaw. “How long?”
“Not long.”
Anger—hot, protective, violent—was a rush of white noise in his ears. “When were you planning to tell me?”
Sophia swallowed at the tautly held fury in that question. “I’m sorry.” It hurt her to see him so angry with her. “I thought if you knew how . . . broken I truly was, you wouldn’t want me.”
“Sophie.” A low, dark word, a shake of his head that made the sleek black strands of his hair catch the light. “They’ll rehabilitate you if they find out how close you are to the edge, that’s the bottom line?”
“Yes.”
His shoulders firmed, the intelligence in his eyes a razor. “They can’t do that if you’re out of the Net. We’ll figure out a way to fucking rebuild your shields once you’re safe.”
He was
fighting for her, she thought with a wrench deep inside of her. Never had anyone fought for her. She’d never been important enough. It broke what fragile defenses she might’ve still had—she couldn’t, wouldn’t, hold back the final truth. “Without the biofeedback my mind needs from the Net,” she began, “I’ll die within seconds.” Realizing she’d somehow shredded the entire lettuce, she began to peel the cucumber on the counter.
“Sascha isn’t dead.” Max pushed back from the counter, folding his arms across his chest. “Neither are the other Psy in DarkRiver.”
“Yes, they’ve found an exit route.” Finished with the peeling, she began to slice the cucumber into precise, thin slices. “However, even should such an exit be open to other Js, I couldn’t take it.”
A silent pause, his thrumming anger a whip against her skin.
“I function as a minor anchor.” Sophia knew she shouldn’t be speaking of this. The agony spearing through her nerves, a conditioned response, told her it was deeply forbidden. But she wanted, needed, Max to understand.
“Keep talking.” It was an order.
Part of her wanted to rebel, but she knew she’d pushed him too far—anything more might destroy this bond between them, this beautiful thing that had never been meant for someone so broken—but that she refused to give up. Max was her gift. “Anchors are literally that,” she said, fighting the pain with the stubborn possessiveness inside of her. “They’re born with the ability to merge into the PsyNet itself. They help keep it stable and are almost always cardinals.”
Max tapped the counter in front of her. Jerking up her head, she saw him holding out a hand. “Knife.”
She gave it to him, realizing the cucumber was now in hundreds of tiny, tiny squares. “Oh.”
No shrug, no smile that revealed the lean dimple in his cheek. The loss speared through her. She’d seen human and changeling women coax their men into smiles, but had never imagined she might one day need to do the same. Or that she’d so desperately want to. Getting off the stool, she wiped her hands on a towel. “Max—”
