by Nalini Singh
“Not like he’s going to give it to me.” She slid her hands into the pockets of her coat, chilled to her very soul. “So since I’m dead either way, do you know what I want to do?”
Dev simply watched her with those amazing, amber-flecked eyes.
“I want to follow the only thing I have left—my gut.”
“What’s it telling you to do?”
She met his gaze, hoping for understanding, for freedom. “To go north.”
But it was ice that met her. Cold, blank . . . metallic.
Dev had every intention of continuing their conversation, but returned home to find a situation in progress. “We’ll talk about this later,” he told Katya.
“There’s not much to talk about. Will you let me go?”
“You know the answer.”
“Say it.” Her body trembled, her hands fisted at her sides.
Angry at her for demanding something he could never give her, he answered with a curt “No.”
Still feeling the impact of her flinch several minutes later, he switched the clear screen of his computer to comm mode, dialing through to Aubry. “Maggie says we’ve got an uprising in progress.”
The other man nodded, face grim. “It’s the young ones, twenty-year-olds who think they know everything there is to know.”
“Are they with Jack?” His cousin stood on the opposite side of the fence to Dev on the most critical issue facing their people, but he’d never gone behind Dev’s back before.
Aubry shook his head. “Looks like some kind of ‘radical’ college group. Snot-nosed punks aren’t as radical as they think.”
“Give me the short version.”
“They think, and I quote, that ‘there’s no need for their families to be tied to Shine.’ According to Beck, the pretty-boy academic leading the charge, we’re an ‘anachronism’ that serves no purpose in today’s society.” A snort. “I think it’s time we showed them the fucking reality—those tortured kids last—”
“No.” Rage infused Dev’s blood at the reminder of the children Shine had lost to the Council’s coolly logical evil, children who’d been murdered simply for being who they were.
Aubry’s scowl was pure thunder. “Why the hell not?”
“I won’t use those children again.” It was a line he’d drawn in the sand. He’d had to use them once, to save the ones who were still alive. It had scarred him. One more time and he’d be so far on the wrong side of the line there would be no redemption for him.
“Yeah, okay.” Aubry rubbed a hand over his face, having had the nightmare branded into his memories, too. “What do we do with Beck’s group, then?”
“Give them what they want. Take them off the Shine register, let them know we no longer expect them to come to our assistance if called.” Those with money contributed to the coffers, but the basic requirement was for service.
“Dev.” Aubry looked troubled. “They’re just stupid kids—they don’t know how much we do, how badly they might need us in the future. What about their own children? Some of the recessive genes can express out of nowhere.”
“I know. But we can’t afford to baby them.” It was a ruthless decision, but he had to focus on the ones he could help, could save. “They’re old enough—if they want out, give them out.”
Aubry met his eyes. “Tough love?”
“You don’t agree?”
“As a matter of fact, in this case, I do.” A sharp grin. “Let’s see how long they hold out without the Shine information line.”
“Yeah, yeah, crow all about it.” Aubry was the one who’d come up with the idea of setting up an information line manned by older members of the Forgotten, people who—between them, and with recourse to Dev and the board—could answer pretty much any question the descendants might have.
“I will, thanks.” Aubry’s eyes gleamed. “I did a shift on the phones the other night and had this anonymous kid call in. He wanted to know if it was normal to be seeing everything in triplicate.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“To get his eyes checked and call me back.”
Dev laughed, but it was a hollow sound. Nothing could ease the vise around his heart—because no matter how hard he tried to keep Katya at a distance, the metal still melted for her, still burned for her. . . for the one woman he could never have. “Anything else I need to know about?”
“Jack’s quiet—don’t know if that’ll last.”
That vise twisted, powered by another layer of emotion. “I understand what drives him,” Dev said, staring out at the snow-covered landscape that spread beyond the windows. “Makes it a hell of a lot tougher to play hardball.”
“The fact that he’s your cousin doesn’t help.”
“No.” Dev thrust a hand through his hair. “If he’s quiet, let it be for now. It’s not exactly an issue we have an answer for.”
“We’re going to have to think of something soon. Or there’s a chance the Forgotten will splinter again.”
“I know.” Leaning back in his chair, he caught a glint of pale gold on his desk . . . a strand of Katya’s hair. It could’ve been transferred to the study on his body, but there was a chance she’d been in here. She’d have gotten nothing, but Dev was well aware she shouldn’t be this free to move, to sabotage.
Looking away from the golden strand, he made himself return his attention to the matter at hand. “You okay to keep an eye on these college kids?”
“Yeah. I’ll tag them in the files—if they do decide to go lone wolf, we need to be able to step in if they have children with active Psy genes.”
“That’s what Shine’s always been about.” Protecting the children. And if that meant the death of a Psy scientist . . . Dev’s hand clenched on a paperweight hard enough to crack it.
PETROKOV FAMILY ARCHIVES
Letter dated June 7, 1972
Dearest Matthew,
I don’t know quite what to write, so perhaps I should just write it as it was and let you make up your own mind. This morning, through the oddest sort of coincidence, I met Tendaji and Naeem Adelaja.
The family was scheduled to come to the government block for a meeting with the Council, and security, as you can imagine, was tight. Their older brother, Zaid, there’s such pain in him, and yet such conviction, too. As soon as I looked into his eyes, I knew he’d do anything for Mercury.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. My job as aide to Councilor Moran allows me a certain security clearance, though not high enough to meet the Adelajas now that they’ve become so very important to our race. Today I went in early, because I had a report to complete, and as I was heading through the lobby, I saw three men enter the elevator that goes up to the secure level. I thought nothing of it until someone called out my name.
When I turned, there was Zaid, holding the elevator open. He’d remembered me from when the Adelajas lived on the same street as your father and me—back when we were first married. Well, I went to them and all three boys stepped back out into the lobby, and we were able to talk for a few minutes before their meeting.
Zaid . . . I always liked Zaid. He was such a solemn child—I knew in my heart that he carried the burden of terrible power. Now he reminds me of a soldier, strong, determined, proud. Beside him, his twin younger brothers were slender and so cold I could almost feel the ice on their breath. Tendaji spoke for them both—they were polite, precisely so, and their intelligence can’t be doubted. And yet I kept feeling as if I was talking to two shadows—it was as if something critical was missing.
No, I’m not saying it right. Not missing, dead. Killed. As if part of them had ceased to exist. I said nothing of the sort, of course, spent most of that short time speaking with Zaid. I’d hoped he’d one day find peace. And I can’t argue that today, there was a sense of purpose in him that spoke of peace.
If that’s true, then perhaps this Silence has a chance? But Zaid, with his courage, his strength, and his will, isn’t the future. The twins are. And they’re so
removed from humanity that I fear what such a course will do to the wild beauty of our race. Will the PsyNet one day turn dark, our minds cold, isolated stars?
I don’t know. And it terrifies me.
With all my love,
Mom
CHAPTER 16
Katya jumped when Dev walked into the sunroom, where she was viewing archived news footage in the hope of triggering new memories. His eyes went to the trail mix in her hand.
Heat burned across her cheekbones. She’d all but thrown it back at him when he’d handed it to her after that flat-out “no” about going north. Now frustration, anger, need, it all tangled inside her, stealing her voice. The only thing she could do was watch the contained strength of him as he walked around to sit on the sofa beside her. “NewsNet,” he said, taking the remote. “That’s the Council’s propaganda machine.”
Her paralysis snapped in the face of his arrogance. “It is not.” She tried to get the remote back, but he held it out of reach. “What’re you doing?”
“Here.” His body a line of heat against her side, he switched to an unfamiliar channel. “CTX is what you want to be watching—they’re the ones who broke Ashaya’s story, and they’re currently running a series on the recent surge of public violence by Psy.”
Unwilling, unable, to pull away from him in spite of her simmering anger, she watched. “It’s very energetic.” No NewsNet reporter would ever gesticulate as wildly, much less use such emotive language.
“Hmm.” Reaching over, Dev stole some of her trail mix, popping it into his mouth in a smooth gesture that hijacked her interest from a report on what appeared to be some kind of political turmoil in Sri Lanka.
Drawing in a deep breath, she tried to focus. But the scent of Dev—rich and wild, with an edge that tasted of steel—settled over her senses, holding her in thrall. He glanced over at that very moment and for the space of a single frozen second, everything stopped. Dev broke the electric contact by putting his arm around her.
She resisted. Because in that fleeting instant, she’d glimpsed a thousand shadows in his eyes. “What’s going to happen when we get back to New York?”
“Later, Katya.”
Shaking her head, she turned to push at his chest. “The pretense ended last night.” With the painful honesty of that kiss.
He closed his hand over hers, holding her palm against those pectorals she ached to have the right to stroke. “A few more hours,” he said, his expression stark with things unsaid. “Do you want this to end so soon?”
No, she thought, no. Even if their relationship was a fragile construct formed of hopes that would never survive in the harsh light of day, she wanted to cling to it with all the strength in her. Giving in, she settled herself back by his side, curling her fingers lightly into his chest, her knees scraping against his thigh as she sat with her legs bent, feet pointing away from him.
His chin brushed her hair as he said, “Watch this.”
It took her emotion-torn mind several seconds to realize the import of what the reporter was saying about trouble in Sri Lanka’s legislative capital. “She’s talking about Psy.” Her mouth fell open. “The reporter’s saying Psy attacked a government building!”
Dev’s free hand came to rest on her knee. “Only four people,” he murmured, “but that’s four more than should exist under Silence.”
“That’s Shoshanna Scott!” Blasted by memory, by reams of connected knowledge, she would’ve jerked upright had Dev not been holding her.
On-screen, the slim brunette waited until the reporters had quieted to make her statement, her pale blue eyes striking against the darkness of her hair, the creamy white of her skin. Shoshanna Scott was the Council’s public face for a reason—she had an appearance of such delicate beauty that people forgot the Psy ruled with their minds, not their bodies.
“This was,” she began in a clear voice, “an incident provoked by Jax.”
Katya couldn’t believe it—her memories, shaky as they were, told her the Council liked to consign the Psy drug problem to the darkest of corners.
“The psychological weakness,” Councilor Scott continued, “inherent in those who succumb to Jax is unfortunately not a genetic abnormality we can screen against.”
“Councilor!” A short man with stiff black hair stood up, his eyes that of a rottweiler. “There are rumors this incident was caused by Psy who’ve given in to their emotions. What’s your answer to that?”
“It’s a ridiculous assertion. Normal Psy do not feel.”
“Clever,” Dev muttered, stroking his hand down her calf in a caress that shattered her concentration. “She’s sidelining those four, effectively making them non-Psy.”
Another reporter stood up even as Katya realized he was tugging her feet out from under her, placing them on his lap. “Dev—”
“Shh.” His eyes were on the screen, but his fingers continued to stroke lightly over her calf. “Listen.”
She forced her attention back to the screen, hearing only the last part of the newest question.
“—Jax is a problem for Psy?”
“For the weak among us, yes,” Shoshanna said. “Some individuals are intrinsically flawed.”
The report cut off at that moment, with the anchor doing a short analysis. “She took the less damaging blow,” Katya said, skin stretching tighter with Dev’s every languid stroke, “acknowledging the Jax problem rather than admitting Psy are beginning to break Silence.”
“Yeah, that’s my take, too.” His hand closed over her ankle in a grip that screamed possession. “It’s not really admitting anything, is it? Everyone knows some Psy do Jax. The junkies are hard to miss.” The lazy stroke of his thumb over her anklebone.
Her thighs pressed together in an instinctive response she barely understood. Dragging in a breath, she tried to find her train of thought. “But it’s the deeper issue that’s really interesting—the public nature of the breakdowns.”
“These four aren’t the first,” he said, his breath mingling with hers as their faces came ever closer. “There was a rash of similar incidents not that many months back. They’ll be in the CTX archives.”
It should’ve been a startling piece of information, but—“I worked with Ashaya for years. I always knew there was something imperfect about her Silence.” And if there was one, why not more?
“Stop that.”
Only then did she realize she’d been petting him through the thin cotton of his T-shirt. “I—”
His hand curled into her hair, tugging back her head and cutting off her words. She found herself looking up into a face that could have as easily belonged to some dark age of war and conquest. Devraj Santos, she thought, made a good show of being civilized, but peel that away, and this was who he was at the core. Hard. Ruthless. Quite possibly without mercy.
“Such big eyes,” he murmured. “Don’t you know you shouldn’t play with what you can’t handle?”
“I figured,” she said through a throat that had gone as dry as dust, “my status as a likely enemy spy would save me.” Except somehow, she was draped across his lap, her heart thudding in time to his.
“No one said,” he murmured in that low, compelling voice, “I couldn’t have it both ways.” His lips touched hers.
The intensity of it made her toes curl. “You can’t.” But her hand was on his neck, though how she dared touch a man this dangerous, she didn’t quite know—no matter how tame he appeared, he wasn’t, never would be.
“No?” Another fleeting touch, the hand that had been on her leg closing gently around her throat.
“No,” she whispered. “I’m either the enemy or . . .”
“Or?” He sipped at her lower lip, a tiny, suckling kiss.
“Exactly.” It came out ragged, her heartbeat pulsing in every inch of her skin.
He gave her another one of those maddening little kisses, making her fingers clench on his neck, her body twisting impossibly closer. Something flickered in his eyes, a glimmer
of what seemed to be gold. Then his head dipped and she forgot everything but the pleasure that arced through her body.
Taking her lips in a slow, so slow kiss, he drove her mad even as he gave her just what she wanted. The heat of him was a wave against her body, making her nipples ache, the soft cotton of her bra suddenly unbearable. It would’ve made a “normal” Psy pull back, scramble to reinitialize the conditioning. But Katya craved the sensations, the feeling of being alive, of existing.
Here, with Dev, there was no room for the madness that had stalked her in that lightless, formless chamber, where the temperature never changed, and no one spoke to her for so long, she would’ve debased herself for a simple human kindness.
Teeth sinking very deliberately into her lower lip.
She opened her eyes to find him watching her with the glittering gaze of a tiger who’d sighted prey. When he released her kiss-wet lip, she stayed in place, feeling his pulse against her palm, his skin hot and somehow intriguingly rougher than hers, his body so big, so strong that it blocked out the world. What would it be like if he covered her with that raw male heat, if he simply took her over?
She shivered.
Rubbing his thumb over the sensitive hollow at the base of her neck, he said, “Top or bottom?”
“What?” Had he read her mind?
“Top or bottom?” he repeated softly.
She was suddenly very certain she was in over her head. Devraj Santos wasn’t the kind of man a woman “learned” on. He’d not only take, he’d demand, and if those demands weren’t met . . . He’d be no easy lover.
As his next words proved.
“Would you like me to kiss you here”—the brush of his knuckles across her breasts—“or go lower?” A big hand closing over her thigh.
Dev knew he should stop, that she’d hate him the next day if this went any further. But he’d used up his self-control last night. No amount of metal on earth could stop him now. All he wanted was to strip her naked and taste. “I’m a selfish bastard.”
Her eyes were almost pure green as she looked at him. “Not if you’re the one being kissed.”
