by Nalini Singh
The slightest hesitation, the man’s eyes flicking to his hair. It was currently dirty blond, his eyes a pale gray. “Who sent you?” The other man didn’t lower his weapon.
Instead of answering, Judd—having built up the correct focus—bent the muzzle of the gun downward, rendering it ineffective. The rebel Arrow threw it aside, hitting Judd with a telepathic blow at the same time … but Judd had his psychic hands in the cells of the male’s heart. He shifted things enough to pinch a blood vessel.
The man paled at the warning. “Tk-Cell.” It was a gasp, his hand up, palm out.
Judd released him, fixing the damage as he left. “I assume no further introductions are necessary.”
The answer came from behind him, where he’d sensed a familiar presence. “I apologize, Judd,” said the melodic female voice. “Alejandro has orders to incapacitate all unknowns who enter the courtyard.”
Keeping Alejandro in his line of sight, he turned to see a petite woman in her late twenties with a face that was all soft curves, her lips lush. But it was her eyes that told the truth of her nature—the color of coal, they were like chips of ice. “Zaira.” Born in Jordan and raised in an Arrow training facility in Turkey, she’d been lost in action five years ago.
Zaira’s gaze shifted. A second later, Alejandro gave a sharp nod and left. Only then did Zaira turn and invite him to join her for a walk around the courtyard. “We did not expect you until this evening. That’s why one of us wasn’t on watch.”
“Alejandro is damaged.”
“His neural functions are fine, but he was given an overdose of Jax while on a mission. It’s left him unable to veer from an order. Alejandro no longer understands subtleties.”
“Is he safe?”
“So long as I don’t give him a direct order, he won’t kill.” Zaira paused for a long second before continuing the walk. “I saved his life, and he … imprinted on me. It concerns me, but according to Aden, there’s nothing to be done. His mental pathways are locked.”
Judd picked up the nuances of deep emotion, wondered how much of it was truth and how much a mask created to blend into the human world. Arrows did not easily break Silence. He knew that better than anyone. “Why did you want to see me?”
“From what I’ve gleaned from the media reports, you appear to have carved out a stable life for yourself and your family. We want to know how you did it.”
Judd glanced around the courtyard, aware he was being watched by more eyes than Zaira’s. “You all live here, in this compound?”
“Yes.”
“What do you do for income?”
“Diversified investments made over a number of years, including properties in various cities and localities.” Zaira turned the corner of the courtyard, coming to a stop beside a curved archway. “Money is not what concerns us.”
Judd asked one final question before giving the other Arrow the answer she sought. “Do you intermingle with the outside population?”
“Only as much as necessary. The rest of us aren’t like Alejandro, who simply can’t handle the stimulation, but we continue to grapple with being outside Silence.” She looked at him with a directness that would disconcert most non-Psy. “I defected before you, as did a number of the others, but we are nowhere as integrated into the world.”
Judd thought of the kiss Brenna had given him as he left the den, the hug Marlee had run after him to claim, the punch on the shoulder that had been Drew’s way of saying “stay safe.” “You have to accept,” he said, “that you need the humans and the changelings, as they need you.” His race had abilities that had once been greatly respected, not merely feared.
“Isolating yourself will simply further what they began in the Net.” He’d had a family, had known that Walker, Sienna, Toby, and Marlee all cared if he lived or died, and still he’d been brutally close to the edge. The Arrows who lived here had only each other for family—and most Arrows didn’t understand what a family was, much less how to create one.
Zaira looked up at a sky gone that hazy blue that preceded sunset. “We can’t take the chance with any outsiders. Not yet.”
“No,” Judd agreed, because their task was to be a hidden escape hatch. “But change is coming.”
Zaira’s eyes reflected only the steel will that had made her an assassin without compare. “We are ready.”
We are Arrows.
“COME on. Judd’ll be here in a couple of minutes,” Adria said, having showered and changed after their day out.
Riaz, his hair damp from the same shower, followed her out into the corridor, shutting the door behind them. “Pierce just sent me a message to say he’s going to get you for that stunt.”
“It was his own fault,” she said with a laugh, feeling a warm affection for the handsome wolf who was Riaz’s friend.
Riaz’s response was unexpectedly serious. “Shower or not, you carry my scent in your skin.” Watchful eyes. “That bother you?”
Adria waited until they were inside the elevator cage to answer, the frothy happiness of the day suddenly a lump in her chest. “The last time I had a man’s scent in my skin, it nearly destroyed me,” she said, tearing open a barely healed wound.
Knuckles brushing her cheek, the dark wood and citrus tang of his scent in her every breath. “We’re not all bastards, Adria.”
The doors opened, saving her from having to continue the conversation. Not that she didn’t agree with his words. But the memories, they were raw, painful things that clawed and bit and threatened to steal her rational mind without warning … because it had started out tender with Martin, too.
Gut churning at the conscious acceptance of a dread that had been a noxious whisper at the back of her mind throughout the day, she almost walked past Judd where he stood against a column in the busy hotel lobby. It was his scent that cued her, that touch of ice that was a cool kiss. “You make a good blond.”
“Brenna doesn’t like it,” he said as they headed out into the early evening light, Riaz on her left and Judd on her right. “She’s already bought the neutralizer to get rid of the color once I’m back home.”
If Adria had met him on the street, she’d have thought Judd sophisticated and aloof, but there was no missing the love in his tone when he spoke of his mate. “I have to admit,” she murmured, “if I had a choice of you with chocolate brown hair or blond, I’d go with the brown every time.”
“Chocolate brown?” Riaz muttered. “Why don’t you just go ahead and call him a stud?”
Adria blinked at the edgy comment, belatedly realizing the lone wolf by her side was irritated by the attention she was paying Judd. She’d never been a woman who got off on making a man jealous, and that hadn’t changed. Which was why she said, “Because I’m partial to pretty gold eyes.”
Color streaked his cheekbones. “Judd, you’re not listening.”
“Listening to what?” The other male shot them a quietly amused look. “We have a tail.”
“Alliance,” Riaz said. “I think it’s more of an escort.”
Adria had picked up the three men as well. “Bo,” she explained to Judd, “is acutely paranoid, but in his shoes, I would be, too.” She explained his abduction, as well as the brainwashing of the comm technician, the suspected fate of the former chairman.
Judd didn’t sound surprised. “Rumor is, Tatiana reached her position on the Council by killing her mentor. I know for a fact that she used psychic coercion to get certain contracts—she’s one of the most dangerous and unscrupulous women in the Net. Bowen is right to be paranoid.”
Further conversation stopped as they reached the Alliance building and were ushered inside to where a scowling Bo was waiting by the elevators. “We had all the routes into Venice tagged,” he said, eyes on Judd, “full surveillance with facial recognition software, and yet you got through.”
Judd’s response was pragmatic. “There’s not much you can do to stop someone with my training coming into your city.”
Expression still
dark, Bowen led them down to the same room they’d used yesterday. This time, the water was an invisible, inky blackness beyond the glass—it created the unsettling illusion of being cocooned in nothingness. Hiding her shiver, Adria glanced at the four people who sat waiting for them around the conference table: a slender woman Bo introduced as his sister, Lily, along with three other males ranging in age from midtwenties to early forties.
“I figured five test subjects,” Bo said to Judd after they’d all settled in, “would give you enough of a range to cross natural shields off the list.”
Not necessarily, Judd thought, not given the breadth of the Alliance. If the conglomerate that represented human interests was playing some kind of a high-stakes game, it had enough of a membership that it could have gathered five individuals with the rare type of shield. However, all he said to Bo was, “Ready?”
The male nodded.
The instant he touched Bowen’s mind—or attempted to—he knew without a doubt that what stopped his intrusion was no natural shield. Such shields had always felt like solid walls to his psychic senses, but a wall that could bounce things back, repelling any psychic probe. This was a storm of electricity. His probes got through … but were destroyed before ever reaching their destination.
Riveted, he tried the most subtle telepathic tricks he knew, including ones Walker had taught him during his clandestine ’ports to his brother when Judd was a half-broken teenager in an Arrow training facility. They failed, all of them. The shield was a masterpiece, powered by the electrical charge of the brain itself, and calibrated to provide maximum protection.
As with a changeling, the only way to disrupt it without having long-term access to the victim would be to blast in with brute power, which would likely result in severe brain damage. Futile if data extraction was the target. The solitary other option was the surgical removal of the chip. Unless—“Is the chip fused to your brain stem?”
Chapter 44
BOWEN GAVE A short nod. “Any attempt to remove it once it’s fully integrated will cause death.”
Which meant extraction would be as pointless as violent force.
Considering other ways to get through the electricity, Judd turned to Lily. She went white, clearly less certain of the efficacy of the shield than Bowen, but nodded when he asked for permission to attempt to breach the shield. Hers, he found, was different from Bowen’s—less “active” in some ways, the currents smoother, but it was just as efficient in degrading his probes.
“The test is complete,” he said, retreating from the mind of the final subject.
Bowen indicated that it was alright for Lily and the others to leave, but they hesitated. The security chief looked at Judd. “They want to know if you were able to get in.”
It was a desire Judd could appreciate. “No. Infiltration proved impossible.”
Bowen continued to grin after the doors closed on the four volunteers, lines creasing the pale brown hue of his skin. “Do you have any doubts about the origin of the shield?”
“It’s unequivocally mechanical,” Judd said, speaking to Riaz and Adria as well as Bowen. “An extremely beautiful piece of biocompatible engineering.” His admiration was genuine—as was his concern. “Is it safe?”
“We’ve done extensive tests.” Despite the confident words, Bowen’s smile faded into a look of grim resolve. “Now that we’ve authorized a general rollout, requests are far outstripping supply, even though we’ve been blunt about the risks. The fact is”—the Alliance security chief’s jet-black eyes locked with Judd’s—“even if it does blow up our brains in a few months or a few years, we’d still have had that time knowing that no one could come in and take what he or she wanted. Knowing our thoughts were private.”
Judd understood the need. He’d felt the same helplessness as a child. His entire life had been out of his control, held in the hands of those who wanted only to use him. “Full integration—how long does it take?”
“A year according to the projections,” Bowen said. “After that, the chip will, in essence, become part of the brain stem.”
“So”—Riaz’s tone was quiet, serious—“deciding to put in one of these is a lifetime commitment.”
“Yes.” Bowen rubbed the top of his head, the stubble rasping against his palm. “We did the first five two weeks apart. We’re the controls. If something goes wrong with number one within that grace period, number two has a shot to get the chip out, and so on.”
“You’d be the first to fall.” Adria’s husky voice.
“It’s my job to protect my people.” Pushing his chair back from the table, Bowen stood, hands braced on the table. “Share the information with your pack, and with DarkRiver and WindHaven. If you have human packmates who’re prepared to take the risk, the Alliance is willing to let a certain number of them cut into the queue as a gesture of good faith.”
SIENNA was sitting beside Indigo on the edge of the White Zone, supervising a group of two-year-olds playing in the sandpit while their minders had a coffee break, when the lieutenant said, “You need to start shadowing different members of the pack.”
“Other soldiers, you mean?” Sienna asked, assuming it was an exercise of some kind.
But the taller woman shook her head, her long ponytail brushing against the back of the fitted Western-style white shirt with three-quarter sleeves she’d tucked into her low-slung jeans. “One person from every subgroup in the den, from maternal females to healers, to techs, to mechanics, to domestic operations. Soldiers, you already know. And, it’s not an order,” the lieutenant added, “but a suggestion.”
Sienna took time to think through Indigo’s recommendation, understanding the lieutenant meant far more than she’d actually said. “Like Hawke,” she finally murmured, speaking more to herself than Indigo. “He knows every minute detail of every aspect of the pack.”
“Yes.” One arm hooked easily over the leg she’d drawn up at the knee, her back to a young green pine, Indigo paused to call out encouragement to a couple of little ones who were struggling with their sand pails. “Hold on, I better go help before they bury each other.”
Returning a couple of minutes later, sand on the knees of her jeans and the fading echoes of the wolf’s laughter in her eyes, she settled back into her spot. “Tell me the reason why,” she said, as if their conversation had never been interrupted.
“So I can be his sounding board.” The person with whom he could discuss ideas he wasn’t yet ready to take to his lieutenants. “So I can understand the nuances of the situations he has to handle day in, day out.”
“Smart girl.” Brushing off her knees, the lieutenant turned to look at her. “But that’s not the only reason.”
“It’s for me, too,” Sienna said slowly, grasping what it was Indigo wanted her to see. “To make the journey from novice soldier to … something like a lieutenant”—but not the same, her priority Hawke rather than the pack—“faster and smoother.” Wolves respected strength, and she had that. But she needed more experience, and crucially, she needed the acceptance of the pack when it came to any change in her place in the hierarchy. “The more people I shadow, the more connections I make.”
Indigo’s shoulder brushed her own as the lieutenant nodded. “Every wolf likes to feel appreciated. Hawke does it instinctively—you’ll have to do it more consciously, but in no way does that devalue the commitment you’d be making to know and understand the beating heart of the pack.”
Spoken, Sienna thought, like the protector Indigo was. They were stronger, undeniably more lethal, but all dominants considered themselves in service to the vulnerable in the pack—because without those gentler packmates, there would be no one to protect, no reason for them to exist … no sense of a home colored in affection and warmth. It had taken her years of living with SnowDancer to understand such subtleties. “I think it would be a good idea to start with a dominant maternal female, don’t you?” They wielded as much power as the lieutenants, simply in a different sphere.
Indigo’s glance held open approval and a pride that made Sienna feel as if she’d been given the most lavish praise. “Yes. I think if you ask Lara, she’ll set it up with Ava.”
The tension Sienna hadn’t been aware of feeling until that moment leaked out of her, her shoulders relaxing. She’d met Ava any number of times. Her son, Ben, was one of Marlee’s friends, though the two had recently fallen out—and neither would say what the problem was. “I will.” Drawing in long breaths of the crisp, clean air, she watched a pup in wolf form help his friend complete a sand castle, patting the sand into place with baby paws. “It feels like I’m building the foundations for the rest of my life.”
“Do you mind that?”
“I’m so happy, sometimes I think I’ll burst.” The depth of her joy scared her on occasion. Never had she imagined she’d have a future, a life, beyond the fury of the X-marker. Now that she did … “I’m going to build a foundation so strong, so solid, it won’t ever shake, no matter what the future brings.” No one, not even Ming LeBon, was going to stop her living her life.
RIAZ and Adria joined Judd for the trip back to the den that night. The automated water bus from Venice to the mainland was empty, no chance of being overheard, so they spoke in quiet voices, the wind brisk against their cheeks.
“Do you think anyone will want to take the risk?” Adria asked, worry and empathy battling for space within her. Sam, strong, loyal, courageous, was both a dominant and human. It would devastate him if he fell victim to a Psy mental violation, the act a savage blow to the heart of his nature. “I can see why they would.”
Bracing his forearms on his thighs, Riaz said, “I have to admit, I never really considered just how vulnerable humans must feel,” a troubled expression marking the strong lines of his features.
“Yes,” Judd said from her right.
It hadn’t escaped her notice that the two had sandwiched her between them the entire time they’d been together. Her wolf was irritated, its hackles raised. She wasn’t a pup to be protected, but a senior soldier, well able to get herself out of trouble. “Do you think Hawke will want the information circulated throughout the pack?” she asked, fighting the urge to snarl. It would be like trying to explain trigonometry to someone who’d never seen a math book. The words just would not compute in their testosterone-laden male brains.
