Visions of Heat p-2

by Nalini Singh

  "Use the disc?" Sascha was referring to the incriminating recording they'd created when they'd taken down the serial killer who'd butchered Kylie and mind-raped the SnowDancer, Brenna.

  Vaughn wanted to grab at the idea, but he was a sentinel, sworn to protect DarkRiver. "The reasons why we didn't originally release the recording still apply. We can't take the risk of the Council feeling backed into a corner." An animal in that position had nothing to lose by trying to go for the kill.

  "He's right," Lucas said. "They can't know how many more times we might blackmail them."

  "Talk to me, Sascha." Vaughn folded his arms and tried to contain the urge to simply take what he wanted and damn the consequences. "Is there anything else you can think of?"

  "Faith's isolated lifestyle is one thing in our favor." Sascha leaned against Lucas's side. "People know her name, but very few have actually seen her. Her dropping out won't cause as big a ripple as my defection did. But on the other hand, losing her will rob the Council of millions."

  "How?"

  "Taxes in the most basic sense," Sascha answered. "F-Psy create enormous amounts of money and it flows up. I know from my mother that in certain cases, the Council uses foreseers to increase its wealth in a much more direct fashion. They get the service free or at a generous discount."

  "Let me guess," Vaughn interrupted, enraged at the idea of his mate doing anything to assist that group of coldblooded monsters. "Nobody wants to piss off the big, bad Council by asking for payment."

  Sascha nodded. "People who get paid have a habit of disappearing and leaving their money to the Council."

  "So they'll fight hard to keep her. They can't pretend she's defective like they did with Sascha." Lucas's facial markings stood out in sharp relief as anger pulled his skin taut. "And she's a cardinal, too. Those eyes mean she can't be hidden effectively."

  "No one's going to be hiding Faith." Vaughn knew his voice had dropped several octaves, but he was beyond caring.

  "What about Faith?" Sascha asked softly.

  "What about her?" Vaughn put the now empty bottle on the window ledge.

  "Have you asked her whether she wants to leave the Net?"

  "She's my mate." Of course she'd leave the Net. "I'll try to give her some time to get used to the idea, but in the end, she has no choice."

  "I think she does."

  Vaughn's beast prowled to the surface of his self. "How?" Mating was a compulsion with changelings. Even the most independent females, the ones who fought the hardest, found it difficult to spend long periods apart from the males who were meant to be their mates.

  "She's not changeling, so it doesn't affect her the same way it does you, not unless she opens herself up to it like I did with Lucas. It might be uncomfortable for her, but she can probably block you."

  "Are you sure?" Vaughn's claws were so close to his human skin that he felt the hard prick of the tips waiting to break through.

  "No. She's different from me. Being an empath meant I couldn't ignore what I felt for Lucas. I don't know if Faith is as bound to you."

  "So I could be mated to someone who could choose not to be my mate?" A nightmare idea. Mating was a one-shot deal. The link usually involved a conscious decision at some point by the female, which made Vaughn and Faith's bond very unusual. But no matter how it had come into being, once made, even death couldn't break it. No one mated twice. They might find a lover, but the hole in them would never be fixed. Never. "I need to run."

  But though he ran himself to exhaustion, his beast could find no comfort in an act that had always before meant freedom. Because he was chained, tied on the deepest level to a woman who just might destroy him.

  Faith missed her jaguar, missed him badly enough to stumble in her act of normality.

  She was strolling the grounds in the cool light of morning and considering how to arrange another night escape when she started to think of Vaughn, of his presence, and yes, his touch. So deep was she in her thoughts that she nearly walked into a guard. That wasn't the problem. It was the fact that her nerves were poised to jump in alarm.

  Catching the reaction the barest instant before it could become action, she inclined her head. "My apologies. I wasn't concentrating on where I was going."

  "The fault was mine." The guard gave a short nod and continued on his rounds.

  She forced herself to walk in the opposite direction, her heart a drumbeat in her veins. Careful, she told herself. One slip was all it would take. Deciding to try to distract herself with something less incendiary, she took a seat on a small garden bench and opened up the mental file Anthony had given her.

  Kaleb Krychek had led an interesting life. An unexpected Tk cardinal born of two low-Gradient Tp-Psy, he'd been raised almost like her, having spent his entire childhood in a training facility. Her father had managed to dig out that one of young Kaleb's instructors had been none other than Santano Enrique. She didn't know why Enrique had disappeared, but that piece of history could prove a weapon should she ever need it.

  Kaleb had been conscripted into the Council ranks almost immediately after his successful graduation from the Protocol. His climb up the ladder had been phenomenal, even more so because he was a cardinal—most cardinals, while they worked for the Council, were too cerebral to bother with politics and power.

  Faith turned another page in the file and found herself looking at a list of missing persons. At least ten high-ranking members of the Council substructure had disappeared under mysterious circumstances and, in every instance, it was Kaleb who had benefited. However, nothing had ever been traced to him—a fact that would only make him more appealing to the lethal beings who were the current Council.

  Faith was a babe in the woods in comparison. Which begged the question of why she was even a candidate. She was about to dig deeper into Kaleb's file when she felt it. The push of darkness. "No." It seemed obscene that after three days of psychic peace, the evil should hunt her down in bright daylight.

  Her first instinct was to fight, to stop a recurrence of the last malicious invasion. But she was through with running. If she could tangle with a jaguar and come out alive, then she could deal with this ugliest facet of her own abilities. Releasing a withheld breath, she let him take her under and exhibit his triumphs. She saw through his eyes, forced herself to watch that which had not yet come to pass. It was changeable, mutable. One day soon, he'd stalk the target of his fantasies, stalk and plan. Faith studied every aspect of his intended victim and tried to figure out who she was, where she was, and, most important, when she was.

  Her suit was black, her shirt white, her skin a hue rare among the Psy after generations of intermingling—a pure white that held faint undertones of palest blue. But the expressionless cold of her face made it indisputable that she was, in fact, a member of Faith's race. The unknown Psy's hair was a white-blonde that went with her skin and her eyes were a vivid blue. She looked nothing like Marine.

  But, her mind insisted on whispering, the killer hadn't felt the same with Marine. The visions involving her sister had focused on the death itself and the killer's emotions during it, while this new victim was going to be stalked, watched, savored. Yes, it had been a rush for him to take Marine's life, but he'd experienced none of this extreme anticipation. Perhaps if he had, she might've understood in time ... might've saved Marine from the agony of having her breath choked out of her.

  She shook off the leaden chains of guilt, chains that might cost another life, and followed her earlier line of thought. Newly awakened instinct said that the key to everything lay in answering the question of why Marine and this new target inspired such disparate reactions in the perpetrator.

  Even as she wrestled with that question, the darkness faded away from her consciousness. The killer had been placated by her acquiescence, but that was an unreliable effect. He could as easily decide to rape her mind the next time. However, she couldn't think about that possibility right now. Because someone was watching her. And that someone ra
ised every hair on her body.

  Opening her eyes, she found herself looking up at Nikita Duncan, Councilor and one of the most dangerous women in the Net. The poison of her mind was reputedly more lethal than the deadliest biological virus. And she'd found Faith in the grip of a dark vision.

  Faith stood and brushed down the back of her dress. "Councilor Duncan."

  "I apologize if I disturbed you." Nikita's almond-shaped eyes were disquietingly focused. "I thought your visions took place in monitored surroundings."

  Faith shook her head and told a half-truth. "Sometimes I inadvertently activate a trigger while considering how to best approach a project, or my mind simply finds these surroundings more conducive to a particular vision."

  "I see. Well, I suppose you're not far from the guards, so there's no cause for alarm."

  And no real privacy. "No." She met Nikita's eyes. "What can I do for you today, Councilor?"

  The last thing Vaughn expected to see when he leaped over the fences and tracked Faith's scent to a hidden part of the property was his mate deep in conversation with Nikita Duncan. Mindful that Sascha's mother was a powerful telepath, he allowed the beast to rise to the surface of his mind—if she did notice him, she might not recognize him as a changeling. He also kept considerable distance between them. But he could still hear every word they spoke. And what he heard made him want to shred the tree branch under his claws.

  "You're not stupid, Faith. You have to know why I'm here."

  "Of course. However, I'm at a loss to know the reason behind the nomination." Faith's voice was as cold and efficient as a scalpel, utterly different from how she sounded when speaking to Vaughn. It shook him to realize she was that good an actress, made him question which persona was real and which a fraud.

  "There are things you won't know until you've been accepted."

  "I understand the need for the Council to keep things confidential, but to be perfectly honest, I see no advantage I have over other possible aspirants."

  Nikita's ruler-straight black hair shifted around a face that looked nothing like her daughter's. "Who would you put on that list of aspirants? I'm curious to see how much of a finger you have on the pulse of the Net."

  "If you don't mind, Councilor, I'll keep my thoughts to myself." Faith glanced in Vaughn's direction and he waited for her to reach out to him with her mind, but she didn't. Disappointed despite his anger, he continued to watch. And listen. "There are certain names it's better not to speak of in advance."

  "True." Nikita was silent for a few seconds. "Your monitoring is extensive."

  Faith said nothing and he realized it was because Nikita had made a statement, not asked a question. It was the cold logic of the Psy in operation. And Faith hadn't missed a beat.

  "How do you know anything if you're wrapped in cotton wool?" Nikita asked.

  "The PsyNet."

  "I was given the impression that F-Psy rarely frequent the Net."

  "Some of us do." There was knowledge in her tone and the predator in Vaughn appreciated that. She couldn't afford to appear weak in front of Nikita, a woman so without heart that she had cut off her daughter as easily as another woman might throw out the garbage.

  "Good. Before I go, you should know that certain Councilors are not in favor of your nomination." Nikita glanced at her timepiece. "Expect a summons within the next week."

  Vaughn kept to his hidden position until Nikita's scent was inside the car waiting at the gate. Then he tracked his treacherous human prey to another isolated section of the compound. Faith's eyes widened when he landed in front of her in jaguar form but she didn't back away. "Vaughn. I thought I saw you."

  He knew she was lying. She hadn't seen him. She'd felt hm. That she didn't want to admit that truth only added fuel to the fire of his anger. Butting at her with his head until she got the message and sat down on the ground, he went behind the gnarled trunk of a nearby tree to shift.

  Part of him wanted to shock her with his nakedness, but there was too much anger riding him right now—he didn't want to taint her awakening sexuality with the bloodred of fury. It was as well that he'd utilized the jaguar's instincts soon after meeting Faith and cached several articles of clothing nearby. Having already retrieved a pair of pants, he slid them on before making his way back to her.

  She was waiting with her arms wrapped around her knees, watching for him in the exact direction from which he came, though he hadn't made a sound. "Vaughn, the guards—"

  "—make enough noise to wake a garrison, not to mention that they stink to Psy heaven." He crouched down in front of her, but didn't touch. He didn't trust himself enough.

  "What?"

  "Never mind. What the hell was Sascha's mother doing here?"

  Those night-sky eyes, which had been edging toward wariness, hardened. "You have no right to talk to me like that. If you're planning on intimidating me into whatever it is you came for, you can go crawl in some dark hole and stay there!"

  CHAPTER 17

  The Jaguar was impressed by Faith's claws. If he hadn't been so sure of her betrayal, his temper might have thawed, soothed by her open emotionality. But that wasn't going to happen today. "Nikita Duncan is Council, our enemy. What were you doing consorting with her?" He understood what he'd heard, but he wanted to know if Faith would tell him the truth.

  Her mouth thinned. "This is the second visit I've had from a Councilor. Shoshanna Scott was the first."

  "That doesn't answer my question." Anger was a fine tremor over his skin, his muscles held in savage check. He'd never physically hurt her, but damn he was mad.

  "If you'd listen instead of just threatening to go jaguar on me, I'd tell you. Do you realize your eyes have gone completely cat?" She shook her head. "Nikita was here for the same reason as Shoshanna. I've been nominated to fill Santano Enrique's position on the Council."

  Vaughn curled his hands into fists so tight, his bones protested. "Enrique was a piece of Psy garbage. And you want to take his place?"

  Faith jerked at the verbal slap. "What do you know about Councilor Enrique?"

  "Ask your fucking precious Council." Eyes no longer even partially human, he stared at her, daring her to continue.

  Lines of conditioning already stretched to the limit by her earlier vision snapped with an audible mental sound. She was angry. Really, truly angry. Angry enough not to care about maintaining the appearance of Psy normality. The only thing driving her to keep her voice to a harsh whisper was her awareness of the guards.

  "Yes," she hissed. "They are my fucking precious Council, the leaders of my race. How would you feel if I asked you to cut Lucas's throat simply because he didn't behave according to the rules I said were the right ones?"

  "Lucas doesn't hide murderers from his own people."

  "Neither does the Council." It was an instinctive reaction. The Psy were her people for better or for worse. She refused to withdraw her loyalty so easily.

  "Bullshit." Vaughn leaned forward and, in spite of how infuriated he'd made her, she hoped for his touch. But he kept his hands to himself. "The killer you see in your visions is Psy and there are lots of others exactly like him."

  She shook her head. "Serial killers are always human or changeling."

  "Why the hell would you be having visions about races you've never come into any real contact with?" He was the one who shook his head this time, a violent movement reminiscent of the jaguar, not the man. "Christ, baby, listen to yourself—this bastard is supposed to be a vision, but he holds you prisoner. No human or changeling would have that ability."

  The endearment was rough, almost a growl, and it broke her. Because he was making too much sense. "It can't be true. Silence ended violence."

  "Yeah, and your sister's still alive."

  She slapped him. Hard. The second it was done, her whole body began to tremble. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She stared at the white mark on his face, now filling with blood. "Oh, God." This was her ultimate nightmare come to life. "I thought my inne
r protections were holding, but I must've been wrong—I must be close to a total psychic and mental breakdown." Insanity by any other name.

  "Shit." He cupped her face, his hands gentle. "There's nothing wrong with you. I went way over the line. You had a right to do more than slap me."

  She put her hands over his. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she repeated, frantically attempting to locate the fissures in her mind and coming up blank. "I've never hit anyone. I didn't even know I could—why did I hit you?"

  "Because Marine was your sister and I had no right to use that loss against you." He dropped his head until their foreheads touched. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. Don't look like that, Red. If you were a cat, you'd probably have gone for my face with your claws."

  She shook her head at the savage image. "That can't be true."

  "We're not human," he said slowly. "We play by different rules and we're never going to act civilized when in the grip of passion, good or bad. That's when the animal is at its strongest, most powerful."

  Faith wondered if she was imagining the underlying warning... the underlying invitation. "But I'm not changeling. I don't hit people."

  "Human women have been slapping men for being bastards for centuries. You were doing what comes naturally."

  "Not for a Psy."

  "Faith, Silence isn't normal. It's an imposition. What you are without it is normal." His head snapped up. "Someone's heading this way."

  She felt the brash of a guard's mind hit her peripheral shields. "Go," she whispered. "Go!" Her fear for him was greater than any other emotion.

  "Tell me something first—are you going to accept the offer?"

  She knew what he wanted her to say, but she couldn't lie to him. "I don't know."

  "Decide. You can't live in both worlds."

  Then he was gone, a blur within the treetops. Rising, she headed toward the house and away from the approaching guard. She was afraid of what her eyes might reveal. Because for the first time in her life, the night sky within was starting to show something other than the endless Silence of a perfect cardinal; it was starting to show vulnerability.