Caressed by Ice p-3

by Nalini Singh

  “That’s irrelevant.” Turning away, he looked out over the frozen vista. “Emotion is not one of my weaknesses.”

  Faith had just ended a short but disturbing conversation with Brenna Kincaid when Anthony Kyriakus, head of the NightStar Group—and her father—walked into the meeting room. Putting the phone in her pocket, she leaned into Vaughn, waiting for Anthony to speak.

  “There’s a Ghost in the Net.” He circled to stand on the other side of the table.

  It wasn’t what she had wanted to hear, the child in her still hungry for things she knew Anthony might never be able to give her. Hurt was a dull ache in her body. Then Vaughn closed a hand over her nape and the sadness passed—she was loved, cherished, adored. “A ghost?” She sat and the men followed.

  “No one knows the identity of this individual, but he or she is being credited with a number of insurgent activities.” Anthony passed her a disc containing the names of companies that had requested a forecast since they last spoke—forecasts she provided under a subcontracting agreement with NightStar.

  She put the disc to one side, more interested in this Ghost. “Is he one of us?” If there was one thing Faith and her father both agreed on, it was that they wanted their people freed from a Silence that was false—Anthony might be coldly Psy, but he was also the leader of a quiet revolution against the Council.

  “There’s no way to know. However, it is evident that the Ghost is part of the Council’s superstructure—he or she has access to classified data, but hasn’t acted on anything above a certain level. That could be because this individual doesn’t have higher access, or because he—”

  “—is being very careful not to do anything that might narrow the focus of inquiry as to his, or her, identity,” Faith completed.

  “Good strategy.” The jaguar at her side finally spoke, his thumb continuing to stroke over her nape. “The Council’s got to be pissed if this rebel is leaking classified data.”

  “Yes.” Anthony turned back to Faith. “The Ghost was active while you were still part of the Net. Do you recall the explosion at Exogenesis Labs?”

  “The place where they’re theorizing about implants that might lower the percentage of defects?” She spit out the last word. It was the label the Council used to describe those who refused to buckle under the emotionless regime of the Silence Protocol. “They want to cut into developing brains and initiate Silence on an organic level.”

  Anthony didn’t react to her open emotionalism. “The Exogenesis strike killed two of the lead scientists on the implant team and destroyed months of work.”

  “Your Ghost isn’t afraid to kill.”

  Faith heard no judgment in Vaughn’s tone—her cat had killed to protect the innocent. And children, the first victims of implantation should the procedure be put into practice, were the most innocent of all.

  CHAPTER 7

  “It appears not. The explosion was investigated by both Enforcement and the Council, but without active support from a majority of the populace.”

  “Why?” Vaughn asked, his body heat so seductive she found herself leaning ever closer to him, her hand on the hard muscle of his thigh. “Wouldn’t this implant make the Psy even more efficient?”

  Anthony nodded. “In a sense. But the dissidents argue that Protocol I, while ensuring universal compliance with Silence, would have the unavoidable side effect of linking our minds together. Not as the PsyNet does, but on a biological level.”

  Protocol I.

  That it already had an official name was a bad sign. “They’re talking about a true hive mind.” Faith couldn’t control the disgust that laced her words.

  “Yes. It’s nothing that appeals to those of us who prefer to run our enterprises free of interference. That would become impossible should the entire race begin to act as one entity.” He picked up his organizer—the thin computer tablet ubiquitous among the Psy. “From the pattern of attacks, it appears the Ghost shares our goals, but without knowing his or her identity, we can’t coordinate our efforts.”

  Vaughn leaned forward. “The more people who know a name, the higher the chance of exposure. I say let the Ghost do his—or her—thing, and ride the wave it generates.”

  “Your conclusion mirrors mine.” His tone signaling the end of the topic, Anthony brought up something on his organizer. “BlueZ has been waiting for its latest prediction for a month. Can you move it to the top of your list?”

  Faith picked up her own organizer. “I can try.” She still hadn’t cracked the secret of bringing on visions to order. It was beginning to appear that that was one thing the Council hadn’t lied about—maybe there was no way to harness her gift that far.

  Anthony moved on to another item on the agenda. Half an hour later, they were done and she was hugging him good-bye. He didn’t return the gesture, but did pat her lower back once. Only a former inmate of Silence could have understood the incredible impact of that act. She had tears in her eyes when he pulled away and walked out the door.

  Barker, a DarkRiver soldier, was waiting to escort him out of the pack’s financial HQ. Located in downtown San Francisco, near the organized chaos of Chinatown, the building was both public and highly secure.

  “Come here, Red.” Vaughn dragged her into his arms, melting the lump in her throat with his rough brand of affection.

  It scared her sometimes, the strength of what she felt for him. “He’s important. The Ghost.” She’d had a knowing, not a vision as such but a hint of how things might be.

  That was when it hit her. A true vision. A split-second image of the future.

  But this one had nothing to do with the Ghost. It was about Brenna. Death. The SnowDancer was surrounded by death, her hands drenched in blood. Whose blood? Faith didn’t know but she could smell the raw-meat scent of it, the desperation, and the fear. Then it was gone—so fast she wasn’t even left with an afterimage on her retinas, much less any of the disorientation that sometimes accompanied the flashes of foresight.

  It had given her nothing concrete, nothing she could share with Brenna, but it did serve to back up her instincts about what the other woman had told her on the phone. Hugging Vaughn, she returned to the topic at hand. “Do you think I should contact the NetMind about the Ghost?” A sentience that was at home in networks of minds, the NetMind was the librarian and some believed, the policeman of the PsyNet. Faith, however, knew it to be so much more.

  “This guy seems to be working fine alone. You sure you want to mess with that?”

  “I should’ve known you’d take the side of the lone wolf,” she teased, delighting in being able to do so.

  He growled and she felt the vibration against her cheek. “Don’t compare me to those damn feral things.”

  Tilting up her face, she smiled. “Damn wolves.” It was an imprecation often muttered by DarkRiver cats.

  “Too right.” He kissed her. Hard. Fast. Vaughn.

  “I’ll take your advice—I don’t want to inadvertently trigger something in the NetMind.” Though the developing sentience was good, it wasn’t completely free of the Council. “You know, I think the Ghost is going to be important to DarkRiver as well. Not now. But one day.”

  “A vision?”

  She shook her head. “Not even a knowing, really, more of a—” The words wouldn’t come.

  “A gut feeling.”

  “Yes.” No wonder she’d been blocked—admitting to such a thing would’ve gotten her medicated in the PsyNet. “Oh, and, my darling cat, we’re going up into SnowDancer territory tomorrow morning for a meeting.”

  “Who?” He fisted her hair in his hand, but she knew it was a gesture of affection.

  “Brenna Kincaid.” She decided not to mention that Judd Lauren would also be present. Vaughn had a decidedly negative reaction to the tall, dark, and very dangerous Psy. Judd…no, she saw nothing about him. Of all the people she had ever met, it was Judd who was the most opaque to her foresight. So dark. So brutally alone.

  Twenty-four hou
rs after she’d bowed to Judd’s demands, Brenna still wasn’t sure about meeting with Faith, but it was too late to back out. They got together in a small clearing about twenty minutes from the den. Despite her misgivings about this, Brenna had to admit the DarkRiver pair had picked a beautiful spot. The snow was soft underfoot and a frozen waterfall glimmered a few meters away, the ice glazed to an almost painful brightness by the midmorning sun. Faith’s dark red hair appeared aflame against all that white.

  Then there was no more distance between them. “Thank you for coming.”

  Faith smiled, but Judd spoke before the F-Psy could respond. “You chose a location extremely close to the den. Why not somewhere nearer your pack?”

  Brenna had wondered about that, too. The cats might be their allies, but the two packs were not yet friends. And the males of predatory changeling species’ were notoriously protective of their women—mates, daughters, and sisters. She should know. Drew and Riley were driving her to madness. It had reached the point where she knew something had to give. She just hoped they all survived the explosion.

  But Faith seemed happy with her overprotective male. “Vaughn finds it amusing to get past your patrols without detection.”

  Vaughn looked unrepentant. “They’re getting sloppy. Even with Red here stomping away, I had no trouble getting in.” He grinned when his mate gave him a warning look.

  Brenna felt something clutch in her stomach at the easy intimacy between the two, at the grin from a cat she’d never before seen smile. That was what she should be seeking—a sensual, affectionate changeling male. They didn’t bother to hide their emotions, touched as easily as they breathed, laughed with their mates even if they didn’t with anyone else.

  The problem was that these days, only one man seemed to register on her feminine senses and he was a Psy who could give her nothing of what Vaughn gave Faith…even if he were interested. Which he clearly wasn’t. Then why did she keep going to him, expecting him to fight her demons, to keep her safe?

  “So”—Faith looked at her—“let’s talk about your dreams.”

  They were nightmares, not dreams. “Do you think we could do it alone?”

  Flickers of light came and went in Faith’s cardinal eyes—white stars on black velvet. Sascha was a cardinal, too, but Faith’s eyes were different from the other woman’s, quieter, less open, touched with a stroke of darkness. Faith saw the future and her eyes said that that future wasn’t always something good.

  Glancing over her shoulder to her mate, Faith inclined her head in a gentle gesture. Brenna was fascinated by the Psy woman’s interaction with a cat who had always struck her as wilder, more animal than most. Maybe she could learn something from Faith about managing unmanageable males.

  Turning herself, she looked up at the profile of a man so lethally cold, she should have been too terrified to approach him. “Please.”

  Judd’s hair lifted in the slight breeze and she had to curl her fingers to fight the temptation to touch. Because, rather than being crushed under the ice of his personality, her fascination with him continued to grow.

  “I’ll make sure no one gets to you.” A promise so absolute, she felt it in her bones.

  “Thank you.”

  His gaze flicked to Vaughn. “I’ll take the south.”

  “I’ve got the north.”

  With that, the men were gone, shadows that blended into the trees ringing the clearing. Brenna waited until she could no longer scent Vaughn, trusting that he’d hold to the changeling code of honor and go out of earshot of normal conversation. “I don’t know where to start,” she found herself saying.

  “You said you’ve been experiencing what might be called visions.” Faith had a very clear voice, hauntingly so. “Tell me what you see and when it began.”

  Taking a deep breath, Brenna poured out the whole sordid story, then asked, “Did he do something to my mind?” She stared down at the purity of the snow in an effort to make herself feel less dirty…less raped.

  Faith’s answer was to say, “Walk with me, Brenna.” She took them on a slow stroll to the bottom of the waterfall. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  She looked up. “Yes.” Before, she would’ve been the first to say that, to see the good out there. One day, she promised herself fiercely, she’d get back that lost part of her, the part that believed in joy.

  Bending down, Faith picked up a smooth stone that had been stranded on the edge of the waterfall and rolled it between her fingers as she rose, her face set in thought. “I’ve never heard of a situation where a non-Psy was altered to have Psy abilities. But they do sound like visions of a sort.” She dropped the stone back to earth and nodded as if reaching a decision. “I need to go into your mind.”

  “No.” An instinctive response, unadorned by civilized thought. “I’m sorry, but no.”

  “Never apologize for protecting yourself.” Faith sounded furious. “I know what it’s like to feel as if your mind is the only safe place.”

  “Except it isn’t. Not anymore.” That was what threatened to destroy her. How did she wash herself clean if the evil was lodged inside of her, becoming more a part of her with each passing hour? She dashed the incipient self-pity with sheer effort of will—it was a weakness she couldn’t afford. “Can you still help?”

  “I can try.” Shoving her hands into the pockets of her coat, Faith blew out a breath. “Do you think you can access the part of your mind that the visions are coming from?”

  “I don’t know how.” The truth was, she didn’t want to go to that twisted place in her soul.

  Faith’s eyes held no judgment, only understanding. “I know it’ll hurt, but I want you to attempt to relive the vision. At the same time, imagine shoving all that—thoughts, feelings, images—outward.”

  Brenna’s gorge rose at the idea of returning to the malevolence, but she was no coward. She reached inward…and found it horrifyingly easy to awaken the memories, to feel the victim’s fear and her own sadistic satisfaction. Stomach threatening to revolt, she thrust the emotions and images out of her mind with the desperation of a trapped creature. This evil wasn’t her, couldn’t be her. Because if it was, then she hadn’t walked out sane from the butcher’s torture chamber. She had walked out a nightmare.

  “Enough.”

  Brenna clamped down on the repugnant stream of memory. “Did it work?” The snow was too bright. It hurt her eyes.

  Faith was frowning when she replied, “I’m not that powerful a telepath, but I did catch bits and pieces—things you pushed outside your shields. All I can say is that it doesn’t…taste like foresight.”

  “I can hear a ‘but.’”

  “There’s something there that shouldn’t be—not wrong by itself, but because you’re changeling.” The foreseer folded her arms around herself. “I hate the cold up here.”

  “I like it—the way the snow makes everything pure again.” She regretted the words the second they were out. Faith’s eyes were too intelligent, too knowledgeable. “Can you tell me anything more?”

  Thankfully, the F-Psy took her lead. “I think Enrique succeeded in doing something to your brain itself.”

  At the echo of Judd’s words, Brenna felt her nails cut into her palms. “Could he have caused irreversible damage?”

  Night-sky eyes met hers. “I wish I could answer you with certainty, but I can’t. I’m sorry, Brenna.” She touched a hand fleetingly to Brenna’s arm. “What I can say is that everything you’ve told me points to a psychic side effect, rather than an organic one. You were scanned at a human hospital, weren’t you?”

  She nodded. “Lara and Sascha wanted to make sure they’d caught everything.” An M-Psy—gifted with the ability to see inside a body—could have done the same thing at less cost, but her pack didn’t much trust any Psy hooked up to the PsyNet.

  “Then I don’t think you have to worry about brain damage—those scanning machines catch the tiniest tears and lesions. I should know. While in the Net, I was scanned o
n a regular basis.”

  The practical reminder grounded Brenna. She’d seen the scans herself, seen the lack of damage. “So what do you think he did?”

  “Well, Enrique did say he experimented on changeling women. We read that as the justification of a madman, but perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps he succeeded with you.”

  “He still would’ve killed me.” Enrique had been pleased with her, but only as you’d be pleased with a lab rat. It, too, was disposable. “Is there any way to find out what his goal was?” And whether he’d torn into her brain for reasons other than psychopathic pleasure.

  “He has to have kept records.” Faith sounded very sure. “I’ll ask those I can, but it’s almost certain that they’re in the Council’s hands by now.”

  In other words, utterly out of their reach. “If you had to guess, what would you say he was trying to achieve?”

  “Let me think.” Faith picked up a handful of snow and began to sift it through her fingers. Flakes caught on the dark green of her gloves. “Do you mind if I ask Sascha? I won’t tell her details about the dreams—just what Enrique might’ve done to your mind.”

  Brenna looked at the waterfall rather than at Faith. “Ask.”

  Faith’s eyes lost focus for a microsecond before brightening again. “Okay, I’ve got her.” A pause. “Apparently,” she said into the silence, “Enrique thought that changeling women were perfect because of their ability to bear emotion without breaking.”

  “Could he have been trying to create a hybrid?” Brenna scowled. “But that’s stupid—he could have as easily spliced DNA, or gotten a changeling woman pregnant.” But though he had violated her in so many ways, ways she still couldn’t think about without her vision hazing over with the dark red of blood, he hadn’t tried to impregnate her.

  “Sascha agrees. So do I.” The F-Psy dusted off her hands. “From my own experience, I’d say it was more likely Enrique somehow ripped open a previously dormant section of your brain.”