by Nalini Singh
"You didn't have the skills." Vaughn's voice was so consciously gentle it hurt.
"Didn't I? Or maybe I didn't want to see what the visions were trying to tell me, was too much of a coward."
"The guilt won't ever go away," he told her with changeling frankness, "but you can stop it from being so corrosive."
"How?"
"By doing something that balances the scales, by saving someone else's daughter or sister." The sharp blade of knowledge cut every word.
She looked up into his face, unsurprised to find his eyes gone utterly cat. "Will you tell me about her?" Already she knew this jaguar walked alone. But she wanted him to trust her this much at least.
His hand stilled on her hair. "My sister starved to death because I was too young and weak to find enough food to keep her alive. And I miss her every day of my life."
Faith reached out in an effort to give comfort, the first time she'd done so. The hand she put on his thigh was tentative, but it held so much and, though he said nothing to acknowledge the act, he began to stroke her hair again.
"What was her name?"
"Skye." His voice dropped until it was more growl than human. "Our parents abandoned us in predator territory with nothing but the clothes on our backs."
"But they were changelings."
"Being animal is no guarantee against evil." Vaughn's thigh turned rock-hard under her hand. "My parents weren't evil, but they were caught up in it—I have to think that to keep myself sane."
She stayed silent, trying to give him what he'd given her.
"My parents were very young and unmarried when they had me—most jaguars don't follow human customs. Skye was born three years later. When she was two and a half, they joined a new church and got married. Soon afterward, they gave up their worldly possessions and we began living in a commune." His voice was hard. "That wouldn't have mattered if I hadn't begun to notice the way some of the 'elders' looked at Skye. She was a baby and they wanted to put their hands on her."
Faith couldn't imagine anything so horrendous. "You protected her."
"I got her killed." Vaughn had lived with that knowledge for over two decades. "I was always with her—I refused to allow them near. I was labeled a problem child and my parents had to discipline me according to their new religion." Hours of beatings, of isolation, of being told he was "full of sin."
It had terrified him that they'd get to Skye while he was locked up, but his parents must not have been completely lost because they'd always kept Skye close while he was being punished. "When it became clear that I wasn't going to relent and that I'd taught the other kids to be wary of the elders, too, they began a campaign to get rid of us. They told our parents to prove their devotion to their new God by giving up the 'fruits of sin,' the children they'd borne out of wedlock."
"How could ... ?" Faith shook her head in bewilderment and he realized how hard he'd clenched his hand in her hair.
Softening his grip, he smoothed the silken mass. "It took a long time for my parents to buckle under." But by the end of it, his mother hadn't been able to look at him without seeing sin and his father had stopped hearing anything Skye had to say. "When they put us in the car and told us we weren't coming back, we were so happy." He could remember every glittering facet of the hope that had gripped his ten-year-old heart. Because despite everything, he'd still been a child.
"Instead, they took us deep into the forest and left us there." That was when they'd spouted the evil they'd been indoctrinated with. Skye had cried and tried to run after them, but they'd been full-grown jaguars and she'd been a baby. Following, Vaughn had waited until she was too exhausted to run anymore and then he'd found them a place to hide.
"Oh, Vaughn."
"She died in my arms five days later." His heart had broken so completely that day he hadn't been sure it would ever recover. "I buried her in a cave." Where it would never rain and she'd never be cold again. "Afterward, I decided to keep walking. I wanted to get to my parents so I could kill them."
"How did you get out?" Her voice was soft, passing no judgment on his need for retribution.
"I didn't. I collapsed two days later." But even exhausted, broken, and lost, he'd been caught in the claws of the most vicious kind of anger. "What I didn't know was that I'd inadvertently walked into DarkRiver territory." If only their parents had left them a little less deep in the forest, Skye, too, would've survived.
"A sentinel found me within hours. Once I could talk, they asked me what had happened and were ready to go for blood on my behalf. But it wasn't necessary. My parents were dead by then."
He felt Faith's shock in the sudden jerk of her head. "What?"
"My mother tried to come back for us." Knowing that gave him some sense of peace, some sense of there being a better God. "My father was determined to stop her. Two adult jaguars fighting in animal form can do a lot of damage—he killed her, then committed suicide."
Faith stood and his hand dropped from her hair. "I'm sorry." Inching closer, she touched his cheek in a caress that lasted a mere second.
However, he knew exactly how much it had to have cost her after her earlier meltdown. "It was better that way. If they'd lived, I would've been the one to kill them." And that might've destroyed him beyond any hope of redemption. "DarkRiver tipped off Enforcement about the cult, and it was raided and shut down. Because the victims included humans who opposed death, they were incarcerated rather than subjected to changeling law." Blood for blood, flesh for flesh, life for life. The judgment had left him with nothing on which to focus his anger, his rage.
He could've gone very bad, but DarkRiver hadn't let him.
"How did you survive?" Faith asked, hugging her arms around herself. "How? That much pain? How, Vaughn? How can you be so strong?"
"Sometimes rage can be a good thing. It keeps you going when nothing else remains." He met those night-sky eyes, so eerie, so beautiful. "Be angry, Faith. Use the need for vengeance as your shield against the darkness while you hunt it down."
"What if I don't have that in me? What if I'm too weak?"
"What if you do?" he countered. "What if you only have to open the door?"
Faith made it back to the compound in the nick of time. The comm console chimed as she exited her room early the next morning. It was Anthony again.
"Father."
"Faith, I have some information for you."
"I understand." She turned off the screen and returned to her room. Locking herself in, she leaned against the wall, closed her eyes, and opened a door on the psychic plane. Anthony's roaming consciousness was waiting for her as she stepped out. Like her, he preferred to travel incognito, his true strength masked by patterns of ordinariness.
"Follow me."
They were behind the walls of a NightStar vault less than a minute later in real time. Most people who wanted privacy in the Net tended to use a simple room that could be created instantaneously. Of course, the security status of that room depended on the strength of the Psy involved in its creation.
In contrast, the NightStar clan could afford to maintain a number of permanent vaults on the Net, sustaining them with a constant trickle of power from most of its members. All the vaults were impenetrable as far as hacking was concerned, but Faith wondered if the NetMind was able to enter them at will. And if it could, did the Council then have a way to retrieve the data it collected?
"I have allies in the Council ranks," Anthony told her. "People close to the Councilors."
"What have you learned?"
"You're one of the favored candidates for replacing Councilor Enrique."
"Who are the others?" Faith kept her mental self calm. She couldn't afford to let her physical mind's disrupted state bleed over to this roaming self. Her father was far too strong a Psy not to detect the anomaly.
"It appears that the name of an M-Psy was also put forward, but the Council is concentrating on you and a Tk named Kaleb Krychek."
"I've heard his name mentioned i
n relation to several events within the Council."
"Correct. Kaleb has climbed extremely high in the ranks at a very young age—he's about to turn twenty-seven. He's highly competent at reading and initiating power plays."
"While I have no experience with such strategic games."
"You have an advantage he lacks."
"I'm an F-Psy." And the Council enjoyed being in a position of power. Her skills would increase that power by several magnitudes.
"I've prepared a file on Kaleb." He showed her the point in the vault where it was stored and she downloaded the information into her roaming mind. "He's dangerous and has certainly killed, notwithstanding the lack of evidence."
"I'll take care to ensure I don't become the victim of an unexpected accident."
"It's not clear which of the Councilors are backing you and which favor Kaleb, so don't let your guard down around any of them."
"They're not Psy I'd ever let my guard down around."
"Who approached you?"
"Shoshanna Scott."
"What was your impression?"
"That she hadn't made any firm judgments." Except for the blood on her hands. Faith crushed that thought as soon as it awakened. It could not be allowed to color her Net presence. "I'm assuming I'll be contacted by the others in due course."
"If you need to speak to me at any stage, don't worry about formalities. 'Path."
She nodded, cognizant it was a privilege. Anthony might be her father, but only a select few had the right to initiate telepathic contact with him. "Of course. Thank you for the file. I'll study it carefully." She meant that. Her mind might be starting to spin out of control, but it wasn't yet gone and neither was she. Maybe she could still salvage her sanity and her life as a Psy, the only life she knew how to live.
What she refused to think about was the inevitable consequence of achieving that goal—never again being able to experience the exquisite agony of emotions that pleasured as well as hurt... never again tangling with a jaguar.
CHAPTER 16
After spending all day on the sculpture of Faith, Vaughn met up with the other sentinels and their alpha pair late that night to work on shielding. The location was a glade close to Lucas's lair, not far from a small river that bisected the area and turned the air damp. Tamsyn, their healer, was also present.
Sascha ran them through the drills over and over, merciless in her drive to make them invulnerable to Psy attack, only calling a halt when they started to snarl at each other. "Given your psychic blindness, you're doing far better than I expected. You're actually learning to shield on a level beyond the normal changeling defenses."
"Which are pretty damn strong." Nate threw an arm around Tamsyn's shoulders. His mate smiled and laced her fingers through his hand.
"Yes." Sascha nodded. "Soon you'll be close to invincible."
"We already are, Sascha darling," Dorian said from where he was sitting with his back against a tree.
Sascha walked over to the blond sentinel and tugged him to his feet for a quick hug. Dorian was no longer the open wound he'd been straight after his sister Kylie's murder at the hands of serial killer—and former Councilor—Santano Enrique, but he remained badly damaged. The violent loss had done nothing to affect his abilities as a sentinel, but they were Pack. And Pack didn't look the other way when one of their own was hurting.
Dorian's needs made him no less respected in a pack where touch-hunger was accepted and fed. Sascha's empathy in particular seemed to reach the latent male far deeper than anyone else. Now, she leaned her back against his chest, his arms around her waist, and closed her eyes. "Let me check the Web to see if any of these changes are manifesting there."
She opened her eyes a second later and looked straight across to where Vaughn crouched. But she didn't say anything of what he knew she wanted to say. "Everything looks good."
"Then school's out?" Dorian asked. "Anybody got detention?"
"Go before I change my mind." Sascha kissed him on the cheek, laughing at his attempt to steal a more intimate kiss. "Vaughn, could you stay? I want to talk to you about something."
Mercy made a sound of doom. "In trouble with Teach, cat. Didn't do your mental exercises, did you?"
"He's been distracted," Clay murmured, a shadow almost invisible in the darkness.
"It speaks!" Mercy threw up her hands into the air. "How many words does that make for today. Ten?" She was still kidding the silent sentinel as she walked with him and Dorian out of the training area.
Tamsyn hugged Sascha good-bye. "I think my sons are in love with you. You should hear what they're like when they get home—Sascha said this and Sascha said that." The healer shook her head. "Lucas had better watch out."
Wrapping an arm around Tamsyn's waist, Lucas dropped a kiss on her hair. "Tell your damn brats to leave her alone."
"Lucas!" Sascha sounded shocked.
Tamsyn laughed. "Don't take him seriously. He took my adorable brats out for a run yesterday with Kit and some of the others."
"Sorry, I'm not completely used to the way you interact."
Coming around to hug his mate from behind, Lucas began nibbling on her neck.
"Don't worry, honey." The healer smiled at Sascha's attempts to make Lucas behave. "You've only been cat for a few months. Give it time."
Nate took Tamsyn's hand. "We'd better go pick up Roman and Julian before Lysa decides she's no longer our friend."
Lucas waited until Tammy and Nate were out of earshot before saying, "Why don't we head home to talk? It won't take long if we run."
"What about me?" Sascha asked, looking from one to the other. Honestly, they kept forgetting she couldn't go furry.
Lucas gave her his back. "Hop on, darling." His smile was this side of sinful, reminding her of the very first time he'd offered her a ride.
Later. It was a mind-to-mind warning that turned into a promise.
Seconds later she was on his back and they were running. She trusted him absolutely, even at this breakneck pace. The changelings could move in either form. Holding on to the muscular body of her panther, she considered what she'd learned tonight. Only one thing was certain—Vaughn's life was about to become very, very complicated.
A cold rush of wind across her face. The low rumble of Lucas's growl as he warned away something in their path. The rich scents of the forest. It all dragged her firmly into the physical. Glorying in her freedom to indulge, she threw herself into the experience as only a former inmate of Silence could.
But the exhilarating ride was over too soon and they were at the lair. Leaving her alone with Vaughn, Lucas went to grab some drinks. Sascha glanced at the male lounging against the window ledge across from her. "Vaughn."
"I know." The jaguar folded his arms across his chest, his tattoo hidden by the gray sweatshirt he was wearing over his jeans.
Lucas walked back into the room. "Catch." He threw a beer to Vaughn and handed her a bottle of cranberry juice— alcohol had an odd effect on Psy minds.
She waited until both men had taken long drafts from the dark green bottles. "I saw something in the Web."
Lucas wrapped one arm around her neck and began to play with the end of her braid. "What?"
"Maybe Vaughn should be the one to explain." She felt uncomfortable. "I didn't mean to breach your privacy. I'm really sorry."
The jaguar threw the half-empty bottle from hand to hand. "I knew you'd see the bond."
"With Faith?" Lucas stopped tugging at her braid. "Why didn't you tell us you'd mated?"
"Because Faith doesn't know." Vaughn thrust a hand through his hair, his frustration evident. "She's not ready."
"You can't ignore a mate," Lucas pointed out. "The bond has a way of showing itself at unexpected moments."
"She's feeling trapped as it is—how do you think this is going to look to her?" Vaughn rocked back on his heels. "Could other Psy detect the bond?"
Sascha took a moment to think about it. "They shouldn't. The mating bond is change
ling in nature, completely separate from the PsyNet. But"—she paused—"Faith is linked to both. I don't know how that's going to affect things. You need to tell her."
"It might make her run. She's had enough as it is."
Sascha knew he was right. Vaughn was the sentinel Sascha had always been the most wary of—there was something dangerously primal about him. His animal roamed very close to the skin. She couldn't imagine how Faith was going to deal with such an aggressive male. The F-Psy was new at emotion, at feeling anything. To ask her to embrace not only a male like Vaughn, but also the extreme devotion implied by the mating bond, might be to ask for far too much.
But as Lucas had already stressed, the bond couldn't be ignored. "She might surprise you," Sascha said. "She's seeing some horrific things without any training in how to deal with them, but she hasn't crashed. I think Faith is tougher than even she knows."
Vaughn's body was a tight wall of muscle as he faced them. "How do we get her out of the Net? Will the Web be able to support both of you at the same time?"
Sascha bit her lower lip. "I think there's enough biofeedback." Feedback no Psy could live without, the reason why dropping out of the PsyNet usually equaled suicide. "Two Psy minds should, in theory, augment the multiplication effect."
"Should?" Lucas shifted around to scowl at her.
Vaughn watched Sascha scowl back. "It's pure guesswork. DarkRiver's Web isn't supposed to exist in the first place. I don't know how it'll work, but we have to try. There's no other choice."
Lucas turned to him. "Shit, Vaughn. You had to go and mate with another damn Psy." Dragging his mate closer, he bit her lightly on the neck. "Okay, so we have to utilize the Web. We'll figure out the rest later."
"It could kill all four of us if we get it wrong and there's not enough feedback," Vaughn said, fists clenched.
"Then I'll just have to blood-oath some new sentinels if that's what it takes to strengthen the Web." Lucas's promise held the determination of a friendship forged in the darkest of fires. "But first, we need to get Faith out. Any ideas?"
