by Nalini Singh
There would be a price to pay. There always was. But Judd raised his arms and wrapped them around her smaller frame anyway, tucking her head under his chin. He could feel her trembling from the force of her tears. He wanted to halt those tears but didn’t know how. So he did as she’d asked and held her, aware all the while of the building strain at the back of his head, the dull thud that announced an impending psychic backlash.
That backlash—the use of pain to coerce compliance—was called dissonance. Judd had found the term in an old and highly classified Psy-Med Journal article, an article he’d hacked into after figuring out something as a teenager—that Silence, at its simplest, was built on a foundation of reward and punishment. The larger the breach of conditioning, the stronger the pain.
The journal article had referenced a scientist named Pavlov’s early experiments with dogs, as well as several later papers that expanded on his theory. Judd hadn’t been able to access all those papers, but he had found enough to confirm his suspicions…and understand that his Council had trained him the same way you would a dog. Burn a dog enough times and he’ll begin to fear fire. Shock a child with pain every time he laughs and he’ll learn to never so much as smile. A dehumanizing equation but one Judd could not permit himself to break. No matter what the temptation.
“Brenna, you must stop,” he said after several long minutes—her sobs had turned raw and painful. “Stop or you’ll hurt yourself.” He was holding her so tightly, he wondered that she could draw breath. But instead of complaint, her fingers clawed into his back, further strengthening the connection. “No more tears.” His harsh order didn’t have any effect. He’d never seen her so distraught. During the healing sessions, she’d been this angry, half-feral thing who’d refused to give in, refused to let Enrique win.
Finding the answer in that memory, he bent his head until his lips brushed her ear as he spoke. “You will defeat this as you’ve defeated every other thing he did to you. You are not crippled, not now, not ever.” He’d kill anyone who implied otherwise. “You survived once and you’ll keep spitting in his face by continuing to survive again and again.”
Brenna found herself transfixed by those most unexpected of words. At first, Judd’s voice had been a blur, but now it was a cool, clear anchor that hauled her out of her tears without compromise. That the words came from a Psy was not something she registered, only that they came from Judd, from the man who held her, his arms as unbreakable as steel bands.
She rubbed her cheek against the soft wool of his black turtleneck, able to hear the solid beat of his heart. “I’m sorry I fell apart on you.” She’d been holding things together with sheer stubbornness for so long and when he’d touched her, breaking that ever-present barrier of Silent Psy reserve, it had all rushed out in an agonizing emotional torrent.
“It’s understandable.” Not the petting words a changeling man would’ve used, but they worked for her. She didn’t need gentling. She needed what Judd had given her in those stark words whispered in her ear—the unflinching belief that she would get past this. “Do you want to go inside?” he now asked. “I can light the laz-fire.”
She shook her head. “I’d rather walk out here for a bit. We could go get my pack.”
“You’re not staying.” He released her and took a step back.
She rubbed her hands over her face, wondering exactly how much of a fright she looked—she was not a pretty crier. “Yes, I am.”
Those dark brown eyes seemed to darken to pure black. “You have no reason to be out here. I can’t do what I’m supposed to if I’m babysitting.”
Her eyes felt swollen when she narrowed them. “Good try but you can’t make me mad so I’ll leave.” She suddenly understood something else—the way he made enemies so that no one would even try to get close to him. “I can run the patrols with you.”
“This is not up for discussion.” A statement so arrogant, it reminded her of Hawke and her brothers. Great. Just great. “I’m putting you in your vehicle and you’re driving back to the den.”
“Unless you’re planning on using mind control, that’s not going to happen.” She was looking at him when she said that and saw something very dark and very dangerous awaken in those gold-flecked eyes.
“I’m fully capable of doing that.” A warning, a threat.
Going with gut instinct, she placed her hand palm down on his chest. “To me?” He didn’t speak and that was her answer. “Why do you allow me to cross barriers you don’t allow anyone else?” Surely that meant he had feelings for her.
“Enrique was one of my own. And he hurt you.”
“Guilt? That’s why?” Her stomach dropped.
His fingers closed over her wrist, turning that sick sensation into something hungrier, more sensual. “I don’t feel guilt. I don’t feel anything.” Surrounded by snow and ice, he was a man who appeared the blackest of shadows. Yet his hand was careful on her.
She smiled, confidence reassured. “I’m staying.”
“I’m driving you back right now.”
“I’ll turn the car around the second you leave.” Her skin tingled where he held it, his fingers strong, his own skin erotically rough. She wondered how that hand would feel stroking other, softer places. Heat uncurled deep inside her. “Why does my presence bother you so much if you don’t feel?”
His hand tightened a fraction before setting her free. “Don’t get in my way.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” A complete lie. “Let’s go get my things.”
He jerked his head toward the cabin. “Go and start the laz-fire. I’ll bring your pack.”
She was more than willing to let him walk off his temper. And the man had one, even if he wasn’t willing to admit it. “The code’s four-two-seven-zero.” Because it was a pack vehicle, it wasn’t keyed to any single individual’s thumbprint. “See you when you get back.”
He didn’t leave until she was safely in the cabin. Watching him walk away, so tall and starkly alone against the snow, made her want to run outside and hug him. Just wrap her heat around him until her warmth melted his cold Psy armor. The problem was, Judd seemed determined to maintain that icy shield.
Shivering though the cabin was well insulated, she turned from the window and went to start the laz-fire. Unlike most clean-air devices, the LAZ energy source had been created not by changelings but by Psy. The reason? Laz technology saved energy and therefore money. The single thing changelings had done to adapt it was to add a holographic enhancer. It turned the efficient but colorless block of a portable laz generator into what appeared to be a perfectly real blaze, albeit one with zero chance of starting a forest fire.
Brenna checked that the generator was sitting in the correct place in the built-in fireplace before flicking it on. Flames burst into golden life, immediately lightening her mood. However, she didn’t stay in front of the fire, going to stand at the window instead. Judd needed to know that he wasn’t alone, that she was waiting for him.
Maybe he thought she was being disingenuous or that she didn’t understand what he was trying to tell her. She understood. She just didn’t accept it. Judd wasn’t lost to Silence, no matter how much he wanted to be. She knew dominant males, had grown up around them, so she could guess what it must have cost him to stifle his pride and submit to his low rank in the SnowDancer hierarchy. But he’d taken the hit—to protect Marlee and Toby, and even Sienna.
He might think he was beyond redemption, but she knew otherwise.
His body appeared from the trees at that instant, her pack slung over one shoulder. Strong and confident, there was an arrogance to him that said he knew he was too dangerous for any of the forest inhabitants to mess with.
Smiling, she went to open the door. “Hey.”
He dropped the pack inside the doorway. “I’m going to run a circuit. Close the door and stay inside until I get back.”
She was about to tell him exactly what she thought of the way he was giving her orders when he turned and headed out.
She blinked.
The man was fast. Too fast for a Psy. Then again, she had a feeling Judd Lauren was no ordinary Psy. Kicking the door shut, she opened the pack to retrieve a small piece of malfunctioning comm equipment she’d promised to fix for Drew. Her brother might be infuriatingly overprotective, but he respected her tech skills.
It felt good to pick up her tools again, to feel the rush of mental stimulation as she began doing her kind of surgery.
Judd returned to the cabin after dark to find Brenna sitting on the floor by the laz-fire, tools and computronic parts set out neatly in front of her. She glanced up when he entered, but her smile was absentminded. “Gimme a few minutes, baby.”
Baby?
Putting the use of the term of affection down to her preoccupied state, he hung up his jacket and took off his boots before going into the kitchen area. As he’d thought. She hadn’t eaten. Pulling out two of the prepacked meals from the cooler, he put them in the cooking unit. He was trained to go without food for days if necessary, but Brenna needed to get some calories in her. Changelings burned energy faster than Psy. Added to that, she was still recovering from the damage Enrique had done to her body.
That done, he went to sit near the fire and watch her work. Two things became immediately clear. One, that Brenna loved what she did, and two, that she was very, very good at it. Not that that was anything unexpected. She was a qualified computronic tech and had been engaged in further study before a sociopath changed the course of her life.
The images came again—of her, bruised and battered, the blood on the walls, the sounds of tearing flesh. Enrique’s screams. Everyone screamed at the end. Everyone.
Judd had watched the former Councilor being torn to shreds by claws and teeth and felt no sense of racial allegiance. Blood for blood. Eye for eye. Life for life. It was changeling justice and Santano Enrique had deserved nothing less.
Brenna suddenly smiled and it was a flash of light cutting through the grim darkness of memory. “Finished.”
“Are you charging for that?” he asked, aware of the value of her work.
“Oh, it’s for Drew.”
“And what does your brother think of you being here?”
Color flooded her cheeks. “Um, he sort of might think that I’m with Sascha.”
“Ashamed to be seen with a Psy?”
“You know,” she said, scowl gathering, “I think Indigo’s right about the size of men’s brains.”
Judd decided not to ask for clarification. “You need to eat.” He fetched the meals.
For once, she didn’t argue. Dinner passed in silence but one unlike any he’d ever before known. It was…easy. After they’d cleared away the plates, she pulled him back to the fire. “Sit.” He obeyed, the sofa at his back. Following, she proceeded to tell him what Indigo had discovered about the murder victim.
“Rush is used primarily by changelings?” he asked, not familiar with the substance.
“Humans, too, but less so. Their bodies process things differently from ours.” She stretched out her legs, the movement more like that of a cat than a wolf. “Ruby Crush was developed specifically for changelings, like Jax was for Psy.”
“Jax isn’t a recreational drug.”
Brenna half turned to face his profile. “You mean it has a medicinal use?”
Medicinal. That was one way to put it. “In minute doses calibrated to precisely match the patient’s weight and metabolism, it has the effect of both intensifying the strength and enhancing the endurance of natural Psy abilities.”
She braced one elbow on the sofa. “Like an upper for the psychic mind?”
“Yes. But without the physical consequences suffered by street users. The effect fades over a set period and then you’re back to a normal level of strength. No crash.”
Brenna frowned. “You said physical. What about psychic?”
All at once, he understood why he’d told her, what he was about to confess. “They said there were none—the M-Psy in charge of dosing us.”
“You took it?” A shocked whisper.
“I was an Arrow. An elite soldier.” He had never before either confirmed or denied his rank. “We were the reason Jax was originally invented.” So they could be better, faster, deadlier than anything else in the Net. “Taken in the correct dosage, it has none of the psychic side effects you see in the addicts.” A slow loss of Psy powers followed by a quiet form of insanity and then death. Yet his people continued to use it. He’d heard it allowed feeling during the high, a chemically induced short circuit of the conditioning.
Scooting to sit in front of him, Brenna touched a trembling hand to his knee. It felt like a brand even through his clothing. “It terrifies me that you were exposed to it. Tell me about the effects the M-Psy didn’t warn you about.”
CHAPTER 12
He knew he should push off her hand. But he didn’t. “It changed us while we were functioning under its influence, made us less human, more capable of killing. Perfect programmed soldiers who could still think with crystal-clear accuracy.” Jax had altered the Arrows’ view of right and wrong, made them incapable of seeing shades of gray.
“How long were you exposed to it, Judd?” She sounded frantic. “There could be long-term effects.”
“A year,” he told her, wondering why she wasn’t running—he’d admitted to having blood on his hands. “I believe I’m safe. My brain didn’t have a chance to reset permanently.” As had happened with some senior Arrows. They truly were the darkness, lethal machines who followed the will of their handlers with unswerving dedication.
“Only a year.” She rose up on her knees and leaned in close enough to grip his sweater. “How long were you an Arrow?”
He found he’d made a space for her between his raised knees. One more move and his hands would be on the soft curves of her hips. He fought the compulsion with the hard truths of memory. “From eighteen to twenty-six. Eight years.” But he’d been in training since the age of ten, since the day he’d first killed.
Brenna uncurled her hands from his chest and reached out to touch him lightly on the side of his jaw. He met her gaze, fascinated as always by the spiking explosion of arctic blue around the pupils. He’d never seen it as a scar, but as a symbol of her strength. Most people did not walk out sane after having their minds torn open.
“How?” she asked, dropping her hand to his collarbone. “How did you escape being administered with the drug after that first year?”
The dissonance had kicked in during that fleeting caress along his jaw, but the pain was slight. Easily manageable for a man trained not to break even under torture of the most inhuman kind. “I realized what it was doing to me seven months in.” He had known his handlers would never agree to a simple request to halt the drug regime, not when Jax gave them a fully obedient and extremely lethal army.
“My abilities aren’t common, not the specific subdesignation.” Of which she could know nothing. The second she found out about his Tk, she’d classify him in the same group as Santano Enrique: the cabal of murderers. No matter what he’d decided about the need to force her to keep her distance, he didn’t want Brenna seeing him that way. A jagged spike of pain speared through his skull—the dissonance had moved to stage two. “So there was no way for anyone to cross-check my statements about it.”
She reached out to brush a lock of hair off his forehead and her skin felt so delicate, so different from his. “You lied.”
“Yes. I began to deliberately make psychic mistakes while on Jax.” Such as not applying enough pressure to cause death or the specific type of injury he’d been instructed to bring about. “Then I told them I was having dreams.”
“Dreams?” Her forehead lined with concentration. “What’s wrong with having dreams?”
“Psy don’t dream.” To dream was to be considered flawed. He’d begun dreaming as a child, but the dreams he had as an adult were not the ones he’d had then—before his ability had come to vicious life.
Brenna’s hand clenched on his shoulder. “No freedom, even in sleep.”
“No.” He wanted to touch her hair, it looked so soft and silky. The dissonance became a fraction stronger, but it was nothing compared to what he’d undergone as a ten-year-old boy put into the custody of the squad’s trainers. They’d placed modified electrodes on the most sensitive parts of his body, strapped him down, and proceeded to teach him the meaning of pain.
It had taken him only a week to learn to stop screaming, another five to stop blacking out. By his eleventh birthday, he could watch his arm being broken and not react. “My plan worked—they took me off Jax.” They had also removed several others with related abilities. Interestingly, none of those men had ever asked to be put back on the drug.
“I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to hear that.”
He didn’t respond, his attention caught by something else.
“You’re staring,” Brenna accused a minute later, a faint blush coloring her cheeks.
“I apologize.” Her skin looked creamy and rich in the warm light from the laz-fire, her hair golden and her eyes—they appeared lit from within. “You’re staring, too.”
Her blush deepened. “I can’t help it. You’re so pretty, so perfect.”
It wasn’t the word he’d been expecting and he wasn’t sure it was the one he wanted to hear. “Are you attracted to perfection?” He wasn’t being vain. He’d been told during advanced training that he had a face of perfect symmetry, something that attracted humans and changelings alike, and could, therefore, be used to his advantage. He’d never followed that advice—it would have been one step too far into the abyss.
She laughed, the sound husky and intimate. “No, pretty doesn’t do it for me. Otherwise Tai would have succeeded in reeling me in during high school.”
He recalled the young wolf’s face—a shock of straight black hair, high cheekbones covered by healthy brown skin, slightly slanted blue-green eyes. The elements added up to a picture that Brenna’s comment told him was attractive to females. Pretty. His hand curled into a fist on the carpet. “Then if you don’t find me attractive, why are you staring?”
