by Nalini Singh
“Have you ever had your foot fall asleep after a period of inactivity?”
“Yes.”
“And the sharp stabs afterward when you try to use it?” A smile flirted with her lips. “That’s what it feels like.” Her eyes opened. “I’m waking up, Max. A little pain won’t make me take a step backward.”
Protectiveness and pride smashed up against each other. “No more tonight.”
“No, Max.” She moved slightly across his body, an erotic stroke and a stubborn will. “No, please.”
He let her kiss him again, let her convince him. But when her skin flushed fever hot, when her muscles began to quiver, he broke the contact, lifting her off his body and onto the couch. No matter how much he wanted to claim her in every way a man could claim a woman, he wouldn’t do it if it would destroy her. “No more, Sophie. You can’t process everything at once.”
“But—”
He placed a finger against her lips. “That foot that falls asleep? It doesn’t wake up all at once.”
She stared at him for long moments, but he got a nod at last. Leaving her to repair her shields as much as she could—and it was a fucking fist in his heart that their touching hurt her on any level—he got up, splashed ice water on his face, then returned with the case files. “Ready?”
“Yes.” Taking a sip of the hot chocolate he’d made her, she met his gaze, those eerie eyes of endless black impenetrable, unreadable. “Max?”
“Yes?”
“Will you remember me?”
His heart broke into a thousand pieces. “Always.”
Early the next morning found Sascha sitting across from Nikita in a conference room at DarkRiver’s business HQ. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
Nikita’s response was pragmatic. “DarkRiver is an important business partner.”
“This isn’t a business meeting,” Sascha said, refusing to let her mother ignore the truth. “I thought I made that clear in my request. I’m sorry if you were misled.”
Nikita remained an ice sculpture on the other side of the table. “Every contact with you is business. If you weren’t part of DarkRiver, there’d be no need for contact at all.”
It hurt, yeah, it hurt. But Sascha was stronger now. And she had the strength of the pack behind her. She could feel their wild protectiveness on the other side of the door that enclosed her in this room with Nikita. But most of all, she could feel the love of her panther. “I wanted to tell you—”
“You’re pregnant,” Nikita said without ceremony. “It’s difficult to miss.”
But so many people had, Sascha thought, trying not to read in Nikita’s keen eyes any kind of an emotional meaning. “I’m about five months along.”
“You must be able to feel the fetus move.”
Sascha curled her hand into a fist under the table, trying to keep her emotions in check. “Yes. The baby is rather feisty, especially at three a.m.”
A pause. “You were the same.”
And there, in that instant, Sascha knew she didn’t understand her mother as well as she thought she did, that Councilor Nikita Duncan had secrets even an empath couldn’t plumb.
Nikita spoke again before Sascha could. “I’ve heard rumors that the leopards isolate their pregnant mates during the final months of their pregnancies.”
Sascha rolled her eyes. “The tabloids made that up after one of the women in the pack was prescribed bed rest because of complications—you must know how they sensationalize everything.” Her panther, overprotective as he was, would never try to keep her apart from those she considered hers—both in the pack and outside of it. But that wasn’t what she’d asked her mother here to discuss. “Why did you send me the book by Alice Eldridge?”
“You’re a cardinal with the strength to control tens of thousands,” Nikita answered, picking up her organizer. “Having an individual of your strength in my corner would be an asset—the benefit would outweigh any cost associated with your flaw.”
Once, that would’ve cut Sascha to the quick. Now . . . now she wondered just how many lies Nikita had told her over her lifetime.
Sophia woke from the most sleepless of nights, her body aching from the inside out, her skin too tight, her nerves shredded. Everything was “off.” Irritation burned inside her, and it had no target, no focus.
Showering helped calm her body a fraction, and so did an intense ten-minute meditation. Feeling slightly more in control, she dressed in a black pantsuit paired with a white shirt, dried then plaited her hair—baring a violence-touched face Max didn’t seem to find the least objectionable—and forced herself to eat a nutrition bar for breakfast. Her cop, she thought, would not approve.
Strange twisting sensations in her abdomen, the renewed prickling of her skin. Heat was just starting to spot her cheeks when the doorbell rang. Throwing the wrapper of the nutrition bar in the recycler, she walked over and opened the door.
It was his scent that hit her first. Exotic and familiar, male in a way she couldn’t explain. But she knew she’d be able to distinguish it from a million others. “Max.”
His eyes narrowed as he entered, closing the door behind himself. “You’re flushed. What’s wrong?”
She rubbed gloved hands over her arms. “I don’t know. I feel . . . edgy. My skin, my body—”
The worry disappeared from his face, to be replaced by something darker and full of a quiet masculine amusement. “It’s called frustration, sweetheart.”
Frustration: synonymous with aggravation, irritation, dissatisfaction.
Yes, she thought. That’s the word.
“I’d have more sympathy for you except that I spent the night with a permanent hard-on.”
Her eyes dropped to his groin. He groaned even as his body reacted rather spectacularly.
Sophia wanted to touch. “Fix it,” she ordered. “You know how to end my frustration and yours, and I’m no longer as overwrought as I was last night.”
He blew out a breath. “Yeah? Maybe I do. And maybe so do you.” There was something exquisitely sensual in his words. “I—”
She never got to hear what he would’ve said, because his cell phone beeped at that moment. And everything changed.
“It’s Bart.” All hint of sensuality leaving his expression, Max put the phone to his ear, his responses not telling Sophia much. “I’ll talk to her.” He snapped the phone shut. “Bonner’s broken sooner than we thought.”
“He’s angry,” Sophia said, feeling a layer of ice form around her, an impenetrable barrier threaded with dark tendrils that “tasted” of the Net. “His ego can’t take that I ended yesterday’s comm-conference before he was ready.” Turning, she headed to her bedroom.
Max caught her arm, felt her tremble though he’d been careful not to touch skin. “What’re you doing?”
“Packing an overnight case,” she said, her voice firm, though her body swayed toward his before she caught herself. “He’ll talk this time, I’m sure of it.” She nodded at his cell phone. “Call Nikita.”
“We can’t leave midcase,” Max said, because though those lost girls owned a piece of his heart, they were already gone, their lights doused. But Sophia, she was alive, her flame flickering against the violent storm of Bonner’s evil. He couldn’t believe that Carissa White and her sisters in death would want him to sacrifice Sophia to bring them home.
“Nikita will allow us to take a short break,” Sophia replied. “As you said yourself, this killer is unlikely to strike in the near future.” She kept talking, though he could see the jagged rise and fall of her chest, the glittering pain in her eyes. “The forensic data from Edward Chan’s murder scene will have been more thoroughly processed by the time we return, and we’ve already spoken to the witnesses. We can continue to run deep background checks and verify their alibis for the earlier murders from a distance.”
Max waited until she paused for breath. “You have to turn this over to another J.”
“No. This is mine.” Tiny lines fanned ou
t from the corners of her lush mouth, an indication of stubbornness—one he’d just learned to read. “I’ll do this. I’ll finish this.”
Max didn’t budge—he had a whole streak of stubborn in him, too. “You’ve told me how close you are to losing your telepathic shields. Working with a mind like Bonner’s will only put more stress—” He froze as she pressed a finger to his lips.
“They’re lost, Max.” A bleakness in her eyes it hurt him to witness. “I have to find them, bring them home from those unmarked graves.”
He heard in those words an echo of the nightmare summer that had almost destroyed her, a silent, painful ache, and knew he had to let her do this. “Even a hint of a problem and you get out. Agreed?”
It was more an order than a question but she nodded. “Agreed.”
“I’m letting Bart know he needs to have an M-Psy on standby.”
“That’s a good precaution.” No M-Psy could heal the telepathic deterioration of a J, much less of an already damaged one like Sophia, but they could perhaps help her handle any physical symptoms. “However, make sure the M remains outside the interrogation room—Bonner will pounce on even a hint of weakness.”
“Don’t let the bastard get to you.” Tugging down her glove to expose a patch of naked skin between glove and cuff, he bent his head as she watched in thrall. His kiss branded her from the inside out. “We have the little matter of frustration to discuss.”
CHAPTER 25
Sometimes evil wins. But not here. Not today.
—From the private case notes of Detective Max Shannon: State of New York v Bonner
Nikita wasn’t pleased at the interruption in her investigation, but she didn’t attempt to stand in their way after Max made it clear that not only would they continue to work her case while in Wyoming, but that Bonner’s victims had a prior claim on his loyalty.
“How long will this trip take?” she asked.
“If Bonner gives up the bodies”—a grim hope—“I’ll have to inform the parents.” They knew him, trusted him . . . would know why he’d come after so long. “After that, forensics will take over. Since Bonner is already in prison for the length of his natural life, it’s not imperative I be there at every moment.” Though before, he would’ve been, would have wanted to see it through to the bitter, destructive end.
Now, he had other priorities. “I can delegate the supervision to one of the other detectives”—good cops, cops who’d sacrificed weekends, given up vacations, to help Max in the hunt for the Butcher of Park Avenue—“and keep an eye on things from a distance.” Of course, he’d never be free of the Bonner case, not truly. And perhaps he didn’t want to be. A man carried scars on his heart. They made him who he was.
Sophie would leave the biggest scar of all.
No. He refused to lose her, this J with her hunger for touch and her gifted mind.
“Very well, Detective.” Picking up a cell phone call, she turned to the plate-glass window. “I expect you to keep me informed.”
Max found himself momentarily caught by the image of Nikita standing silhouetted against the glass, her gaze somewhere far in the distance. Powerful. Lethal. Alone.
Sascha stretched out her legs on the ottoman in Tammy’s living room and leaned back against the softness of the couch. Like everyone else in DarkRiver, she’d headed to their healer the instant she’d needed comfort of a feminine kind. Lucas had dropped her off after lunch with a kiss—though she knew it was only because Tammy’s mate, Nathan, was home. Likely, there was another sentinel prowling around outside anyway—DarkRiver took the protection of its healer dead seriously.
Suspicious scrabbles sounded from behind her. Feeling her lips tug upward, she remained in place, her eyes closed. Little click-clacks on the wooden floor, silenced as they hit the rugs. Then a few whispering scratches and she felt a warm, playful presence walk along the top of the sofa back to lie down a few inches from her ear. Another presence, just as playful, a little more mischievous, settled beside her thigh.
She’d half expected a baby roar to make her jump up in surprise, but when she opened her eyes, Julian and Roman, Tammy’s twins—both in leopard form—were looking at her with expressions so innocent, her heart melted. “How am I supposed to resist?” she murmured, stroking Jules while she glanced up at Rome.
Getting up, he padded over to nuzzle at her ear. She tried to catch him in one arm to bring him down, but he jumped onto the couch beside her so she could pet him, too.
“Are my little demons bothering you?” Tammy asked, walking into the living room with a tray piled high with Sascha’s favorite chocolate-chip cookies hot from the oven.
“They’re being sweethearts,” Sascha said, as Rome settled down with his paws on her thigh, his eyes closing in bliss as she petted his gorgeous little head with firm, sure strokes. “They’re not as rambunctious with me anymore.”
“What do you expect?” Tammy rolled her eyes. “They’re growing up around Nate and the others. They’ve figured out you’re to be ‘looked after.’ ”
Sascha laughed as Tammy took a seat opposite her. Ferocious, the twins’ pet kitten, immediately made himself at home in the healer’s lap. “Shouldn’t they both be in kindergarten?”
“They’re doing half days at the moment—just got home a few minutes back,” Tamsyn said with a fond smile. “They both got a good-behavior report from the teacher.”
Kissing the pad of her index finger, Sascha touched it to the tip of Julian’s nose. Lifting a paw, he nipped playfully at her finger. “Why do you sound so surprised?”
“Tell me you’re not.”
Sascha couldn’t help it, she laughed again, even as Jules and Rome both gave little growls. “They’ll grow up into wonderful young men, you know.”
Tammy’s eyes softened. “I know.” Petting a purring Ferocious, she leaned back in her seat. “So, you saw your mother today.”
“Yes.” Roman butted against her hand when she stopped stroking him, and she continued at once, scratching him behind the ears in that way he liked before moving up and down through the beautiful gold and black fur of his back. “I don’t know if I’m fooling myself, but I think . . . there’s something different about her.”
Tamsyn didn’t say anything, just let Sascha talk. And she did. She talked about her hopes, her worries, her fears. “Do you think,” she said at last, “it’s just the emotions of pregnancy? I mean, I love our baby so much. I can’t imagine any mother not feeling this way.” Under her now unmoving hands, Jules and Rome lay curled up, fast asleep, two exquisitely precious lives.
“Psy are different,” Tammy said at last, “you know that far better than I ever could. But you’re also an empath, and if your heart tells you there’s some hope of a healthy relationship with Nikita . . .”
“I don’t know,” Sascha said. “I just know I’m not ready to give up on her yet.”
Tammy’s smile was slow, strong as her healer’s heart. “Then I guess Councilor Nikita Duncan had better watch out.”
Having dropped a dubious-looking Morpheus off at DarkRiver HQ—to be taken home by Clay—Max and Sophia arrived at the closest airport to the D2 penitentiary less than three hours after Max’s meeting with Nikita. A twenty-minute drive later and they were at the facility.
“Bonner still refusing to talk?” Max asked Bart after Sophia returned to the room, having undergone a quick preliminary checkup at the M-Psy’s hands. Max met her gaze, caught the very slight shake of her head. Relief twisted around his heart—she was hanging on, refusing to surrender to the death that had been stalking her her whole life.
“Bastard hasn’t said a word since he asked for Ms. Russo,” Bart said, glancing at Sophia. “Be careful, Ms. Russo. I have a feeling he’s enraged after we sent in a male J to do a follow-up on his comm-conference with you.”
Sophia’s expression didn’t change. “I expected that, Mr. Reuben. Bonner isn’t used to being denied.”
Max folded his arms across his chest. “That’s an
understatement.” Bonner had been born into wealth, gone to the most exclusive private schools, summered on a vineyard in Champagne, wintered at a ski resort in Switzerland. He’d had simply to ask and his parents had given it to him, their only son—a hundred-thousand-dollar car at sixteen, a trip around the world at seventeen, a private residence on their extensive property at eighteen.
“He’ll try to play you,” Bart said, tapping a pen on the old-fashioned legal pad he insisted on using. “He’s had a few days to do some underground research, maybe find out things about you—”
Sophia shook her head. “I’ve survived worse monsters.” Her eyes met Max’s. “It’s time for me to go in.”
Every single muscle in his body went rock hard in rejection of the idea, but he nodded. “I’ll be right here—one small signal and I come get you.”
Sophia walked into the same room she’d entered only a few days prior, but this time, she was viscerally aware of Max’s gaze on her no matter that he stood hidden behind the wall that separated the room from the observation chamber. And though a prison guard stood with his back to the wall behind Bonner, it was the knowledge of Max watching over her that kept her calm, focused.
Her cop would never let the monster touch her.
With that knowledge in her heart, she said, “Mr. Bonner,” as she reached the table.
Gerard Bonner’s smile presumed an intimacy that made her skin crawl. “Sophia. I’d rise to welcome you, but alas . . .” He gestured to the clamps that kept him immobilized, his hands jerking to a halt.
“It’s for my protection that you can’t move,” she said, taking a seat across from him. “You have very strong hands.” After torturing Carissa White in a multitude of horrific ways, he’d finally killed her with the intimacy of his hands.
“Are you attempting to shock me?” A warm chuckle from the outwardly handsome man in front of her. “I enjoyed it, you know. Poor Carissa. She begged me to do it in the end.”
