by Nalini Singh
“Then why do you sound so sad, kitten?” He threw her a concerned look before returning his attention to the rough mountain road.
“She was betrayed by one of her own,” Sascha whispered, shaken. “I thought Pack was safe, was family. If you can’t trust Pack, who can you trust?”
Lucas brought the car to a halt in the middle of nowhere and reached over to pull her into his lap. “Pack is safe. Pack is the cornerstone of who we are.”
“Then why? How?” She nestled her head under his chin. “Dieter was a SnowDancer soldier, but he’s so twisted.” Even walking past his cell had made her sick to her stomach. Waves of something rotten, putrid, had emanated from his soul.
Lucas stroked his hand down her back. “Having the animal inside protects us against many sins, but even changelings sometimes spawn evil.”
She thought about that for long minutes. “For there to be light, there must be darkness.” It was what Faith had said after her escape from the Net. But only now did Sascha truly understand. “If you try for perfection, you become exactly like the Psy.” A cold, robotic race without the ability to laugh, love, or cherish.
“No race is perfect.” He nuzzled at her. “And I kind of like you, flaws and all.”
She found her smile again. “Yes. Perfection is vastly overrated—if they measured the Psy race’s contentedness index, the results would undoubtedly be in the negatives.”
“God, you’re sexy when you talk Psy.”
CHAPTER 48
“You’re walking funny,” Lucy said, a shit-eating grin on her face.
Five days of out of this world sex with a starving man could do that to a girl. “You’re just jealous.” Brenna pushed through the door into DarkRiver’s business HQ.
Lucy made a mournful face. “Yes, I am. Goddamn but your man is hot. And he smiles at you! I’ve seen him do it, even if no one believes me.”
“I know.” She smiled herself and it was so wide, her face felt as if it would crack. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“I have to talk to Mercy about a joint holovision project. CTX thing.” Lucy looked over her shoulder after naming the leopard-wolf communications company. “Here comes your beautiful man. Talk to you later.”
Judd put a hand on her lower back as they walked down to the basement. He did that a lot—touch her. Her smile stretched impossibly wider. “I think we should play ‘who’s more patient’ again tonight.”
“Fine.” He sounded oh so Psy but his hand had slipped down to caress her hip. “You do remember that you always lose?”
Losing had never been so much fun. “We’ll see.” She walked through the basement door to find Dorian already at the console. “Where are Lucas and Hawke?” The alpha had preceded them here.
“At the building site,” Dorian replied, referring to the joint Psy-changeling development being designed and built by DarkRiver for Nikita Duncan.
“I thought the wolves were silent partners in the project,” Judd commented as she took her seat beside Dorian and began to check the lines of programming for the last time. “They just supplied the land, correct?”
Dorian nodded. “Lucas and Hawke were talking and decided to give themselves an airtight ‘alibi.’” He smirked. “Hard to accuse them of masterminding this when they were in a meeting with Nikita at the time.”
Of course, Judd thought, the Council would know exactly who to blame for the technological strike, but that was the point. The alphas were sending a message: You attack us and we’ll bite back, and we’ll do it where it hurts. The six Psy assassins who had butchered the DawnSky deer had already been dispatched—that op had taken place the same day Judd obtained the names. Now it was time for the second strike.
He glanced at his watch. “The stock exchange opens in ten seconds.”
“Give it a few minutes—let them think everything’s okay.” Dorian leaned back in his chair as they waited. “Okay. Time’s up. You want to do the honors, kid?”
“Oh yes.” Rubbing her hands, Brenna held her finger over a key. “They should have never come into our territory and taken the lives of those under our care.” She pressed down. “We look after our own.”
The Psy Council convened an emergency session within minutes of the exchange failure. They had barely gotten a handle on that situation when other systems began to fail in a relentless cascade. Major Psy banks and large Psy businesses were the worst hit.
There was no signature, no way to identify the perpetrators of the rapid-fire assault. But Nikita Duncan had looked into two pairs of alpha-changeling eyes today. She got the message. And she made sure the rest of the Council appreciated it.
For the first time, no one argued with her. The damage was too widespread, the intelligence behind the stealthy attack too finely honed. There was no doubt the animals had won this skirmish.
EPILOGUE
It happened in the middle of a wild outdoor lovemaking session that had gotten more than a little vigorous. Winter had left with languid softness and now spring was a cool breeze on her skin. Judd picked Brenna up and put her flat on the ground. Her breath rushed out—not because he’d used excessive pressure—on the contrary, her landing had been angel soft. No, it was because he hadn’t used his hands.
Attuned as he was to the bond, he froze in the act of ripping off his shirt, leaving his ridged abdomen bare. “Brenna.”
“I’m okay. It was a surprise, that’s all.” She meant that. Her mate was a powerful telekinetic and she trusted him never to use that Tk to hurt her.
His eyes darkened, then he smiled. “Do you like surprises?”
That still-rare smile had the ability to send warmth rushing to the juncture of her thighs. Squeezing them together, she nodded. That was when her pants unzipped of their own accord and began being pulled down her body along with her panties.
She couldn’t help it. She cried out, especially when he lifted her bottom to help drag the clothing off. They flew to land on the branches of a nearby tree. “Some surprise.” Her heart raced. “What’s next?”
Not answering, he walked around to stand at her feet, looking down at her body with blatant possessiveness. Her shirt was open and parted to reveal her breasts, her lower body naked, her knees raised. She had never felt more deliciously exposed.
“Spread your thighs.” A low, rough order.
She blushed at what he was asking her to do but even as she hesitated, phantom hands began to spread her. Shocked, she didn’t fight because those hands felt just like those of the man who watched her—watched her as if she were a feast he was waiting to gorge on. Then those invisible hands slid down to her curls and paused.
Dangerous Psy eyes clashed into hers. “I want to open you.”
Brenna had known she was getting a dominant male when she chose Judd. His intensity didn’t scare her. Rather, it sent erotic need rushing over her body, further tightening the already taut peaks of her breasts and dampening the woman core of her. But what seduced her to complete submission was that, even violently aroused, he had stopped to check how she was handling this escalation of their sexual life, the working of his Tk fully into who they were together.
“Do it,” she whispered, the words so thick she had to force them out.
Those phantom fingers spread apart her intimate lips, baring her to the air…to his gaze. Blood flooded her cheeks and she could feel herself flushing in other, normally hidden places. An invisible finger dipped into her, pushing in an inch before spreading her cream over the hard bud he’d exposed to the air.
“Judd!” When she could breathe again, she looked up to find he’d undone his pants at last, releasing his erection.
“I want.” A bold sexual statement she could only make because this was her mate.
He fisted himself. “This?”
She couldn’t believe it. “You’re going to tease?” Two could play at that game, even if Judd was undeniably the more skilled at it. Sliding one hand down her own body, she dipped her fingers into her heat, pl
easuring herself with lazy strokes, while she used the fingers of her other hand to caress her breasts, pluck at her nipples.
Judd’s eyes followed the movements of her hands, his own moving over rigid flesh in unconscious synchrony. The sight clutched at her stomach, made her want to speed up her strokes, push herself over the edge. But she was determined to seduce him this time.
She withdrew her fingers from her body on a groan…and held them out. “How about a taste?”
The tree branches over her shifted in a breeze she couldn’t feel, new spring-green leaves flying every which way. Judd. He was making it happen, loosening his rigid control. Instead of fear, she felt pure exhilaration. And when he dropped down on his knees between her spread thighs, all she could see were the glowing embers of a very masculine desire in his eyes. Taking her glistening fingers, he tugged them back down to her sex.
“Touch,” he ordered, voice harsh. “Show me what you like.”
“You know what I like,” she said, but followed the command.
Putting his hands on her raised knees, he spread her even farther, as if to better his view. She was so spellbound by the sexual chains of his unashamed hunger that she was barely aware of the crashing movements of the tree branches, the whiplash speed of the leaves circling around them. Her heartbeat was in her mouth, alive and demanding. Her whole body felt flushed to fever pitch. She wanted something thicker and harder than her fingers stroking in and out of the melting warmth of her body.
Without warning, Judd dragged away her hand and took over the task. His strokes were deeper, rougher than her own and they made her cry out in shocking pleasure. She wanted to wrap her legs around him but one of his hands remained on her knee, telling her he wanted her spread open for him. So she kept her feet flat on the earth.
“Good.” He slid that hand down the inner face of her thigh to grip her hip firmly as she twisted under the force of his driving strokes. All thought of taking charge was lost, but it didn’t matter, because in this sensual game, surrender was the sweetest of victories.
The edge beckoned, promising hot twisting pleasure/pain that would cut through her body like lightning and turn her mind to pure fever for long pleasure-drenched moments. Anticipation had her holding her breath. One more caress—
Judd withdrew his fingers.
“No,” she moaned, so ready to go over she could hardly think.
He shifted his body closer. She felt the tip of his erection nudge at her. Then he gripped her hip tight and pushed in. All the air left her lungs in a harsh exhalation as she felt every thick inch of him scrape past her desire-swollen flesh. Her fingers clawed the earth, but she never took her eyes off his face. What she saw set off the ripples that announced an impending explosion.
He was watching their bodies join, his expression that of a man driven to ecstasy. Red streaked over his cheekbones and his jaw was clenched hard enough to have cracked stone. Beautiful and so sexy she could barely believe he was hers.
He pushed home, going so deep she could feel him in dark unexplored places. Against her spread flesh, the rough material of his jeans, the cold teeth of his zipper, provided an added erotic sensation, a quiet reiteration that Judd was no longer in control.
His eyes finally raised to hers, the gold flecks almost glowing against the bitter chocolate. “I’m going to move now.”
That was her only warning before her lover began thrusting into her with hard strokes that bowed her back and tore a scream from her throat. Pure sensation shot through her, eclipsing the anticipation and cascading into her mind…a bolt of white lightning that traveled from both ends of the bond to create a sensual inferno.
Male to female. Psy to changeling. Mate to mate.
She stepped over a broken branch to retrieve her pants. “Baby, I love you, but when we go furniture shopping, I want titanium alloy.” In the months since their mating, he’d already destroyed the wooden stuff. Four times. Currently, they had no table, no sofa, and no chairs. “Thank goodness the walls are stone and the bed’s got a metal frame.”
Her teasing made him stretch out, half-naked and indolently at ease on the forest floor. “If you’d stay still, I’d be fine.” Except he didn’t sound particularly enthused by the idea of her remaining still.
Turning to face him, she pulled on her pants over bare flesh, shoving her panties into a pocket. She very definitely had his full attention. “Where would be the fun in that?” Grinning, she left her shirt open and walked to kneel beside him. His abdomen was pure hard muscle under her touch. “Aren’t you going to get up?”
He put a hand on the curve of her hip, a possessive gesture that had already become familiar. “No. Let’s have more sex.”
“Insatiable.” She kissed him, loving that he trusted her enough to allow her to see him without barriers. As far as the rest of the den was concerned, he was still the Man of Ice. They couldn’t understand how she could have mated with him. But he’d earned his stripes as far as being Pack went so they shrugged and accepted the pairing. “Any more sex and we’ll expire. Don’t you have a meeting with Hawke anyway?”
A grunt and he deigned to get up. Kissing her as she rose to her feet, too, he zipped up his pants. His shirt continued to hang open—from the look in his eye, he was more interested in watching her button up her own. “Shooting practice with Dorian?” he asked after she’d finished.
“He says I’m getting really good.” Though that didn’t make up for what Enrique had done to her, what he’d stolen, it helped to know she could still defend herself, as well as protect those who mattered to her.
“Hey.” Her mate stroked her hair off her face. “No being sad. I can’t handle it.”
She knew he was speaking literally. He continued to find it difficult to process certain emotions, but he was learning. “I just”—she gripped his waist with one hand—“I just wish I could go wolf again.” But then she smiled and it was real. “I’m happy and strong now, but I’ll always miss that part of me. As you miss the Net.” He never complained about the loss but she was beginning to understand the depth of what he’d given up to save his family. It must have felt like cutting off a limb.
He kissed her. “You’re the sexiest wolf I know.” A pulse of love came down the mating bond. It was rich and unashamed and it exploded in her like a bomb.
She was about to reply when her claws sliced out, drawing Judd’s blood. She jerked back. “Oh, God, I’m so s—!” Everything disappeared in a familiar burst of searing agony and endless ecstasy, her cells changing on a level that was emphatically changeling.
Judd froze as the world dissolved into a multicolored shimmer around Brenna. Shifting was something he’d witnessed with other wolves, but this was different in the most fundamental way. This was his mate. He could feel what was happening to her as if it were taking place in his own body. Sheer torment and excruciating bliss, an exquisite mix unlike anything he’d ever before experienced.
Seconds later, it was over. In front of him stood a sleek wolf with soft gray fur that beckoned touch. Without thinking, he went to his knees and stroked his hand over her neck, his eyes locked into those so intelligent and unique that they could only belong to Brenna—in spite of the fact that she’d shifted, her irises hadn’t lost that flare of arctic blue.
She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Something came down the bond. Uncertainty. Fear. “What is it?” He thought rapidly. “You’re perfect, beautiful,” he reassured her. “No errors in the shift.”
Laughter in his mind, joy. Pulling out of his hold, she loped across the clearing they had used for their play. He let her go, an odd sensation tightening his chest. He knew she needed her freedom, no matter that he ached to go with her.
She stopped at the edge of the clearing and looked over her shoulder. His mate might’ve changed form, but he could read her loud and clear. She was throwing down a challenge. Feeling a smile warm his whole body though only a hint reached his face, he rose. “You’re on, B
renna Shane.” The meeting could wait. The whole world could wait.
Brenna didn’t cut him any slack, taking off through the trees like silver lightning. He ran after her, focusing his Tk into this simple exercise so he could fly alongside the gorgeous woman who was his mate.
The early evening turned to true night and still they ran, playing hide-and-seek with each other, trying to sneak up at times, kicking up fallen leaves just to watch them move. Simple play and the closest he had ever come to feeling like a child.
By the time she’d had enough, they had circled back to their original starting point. They were both breathing hard but energy flickered through the air. When she shifted this time, it was even more beautiful, because he could feel her joy from the start. She appeared from the sparkling motes, a lovely naked woman with a huge smile cracking her face.
“Judd!” She threw open her arms and he bent down to lift her up. Her legs wrapped around his waist as he stood and she laughed. “I can shift!”
Spinning around with her in his arms, he kissed the side of her neck then planted his lips on her mouth. She kissed him back with wild abandon and under his hands, her skin was smooth and hot and welcoming. Skin privileges. Breaking the kiss, he drank in the sight of her happiness. “You are too damn gorgeous. In either form.”
Her face filled with tenderness. “I was afraid you wouldn’t…that you’d get freaked out at seeing me as a wolf. Then you told me I was perfect, that I had no ‘errors.’” The last word was a tease.
He was incredibly glad his response had reassured her, even though he’d misunderstood the reason for her worry. “You are.” He held her with one arm and ran the other over her thigh to curve around her bottom. “And you’re naked.”
