by Nalini Singh
"I've already dispatched an Arrow unit to trace Aden's trail," Vasic said, his next words unexpectedly blunt. "You have direct access to the NetMind. Can you work on that level?"
Kaleb did have direct access to the guardian and librarian of the PsyNet. He also had access to the NetMind's dark twin. "I've already initiated a search." He told Vasic about the neosentient entity's confusion as to Aden's and Zaira's status, saw grim realization on the other man's face. "There's nothing else," he added. "No data, no rumors. The only way this could've been done so cleanly was if everything was kept off the PsyNet."
Vasic stopped in the shadow of a wall covered by a trailing vine, his eyes chips of winter in the early morning sunlight. "More evidence of intelligence and planning."
"Yes." None of this pointed to an impulse act, or one driven by mindless fanaticism. "I also have a team of hackers wading through the Internet and setting up alerts." Unless the abductions had been organized by a crack ops team, someone somewhere would eventually make a mistake.
"You'll share any other information you uncover?"
"As soon as I get it." Kaleb had no friendship with Aden, but he considered the Arrow leader a critical asset.
Leaving Aden's second in command on the heels of that agreement, Kaleb teleported to his Moscow office and spoke with Silver about a number of other outstanding matters before teleporting out to the windswept and isolated outcrop where he was to meet Selenka.
The wolf alpha was waiting for him, a tall woman with dark eyes and dark hair streaked with purple against coolly white skin. Clad in black jeans, boots, and a hip-length electric blue leather jacket over a white tee, she could've been mistaken for a stylish human female if not for the aura of untamed power she carried with her.
Selenka was very much an alpha wolf.
"You've suddenly decided to go into the automotive industry?" was her opening salvo.
This was why he liked dealing with Selenka: her directness cut through all the fat. "No," he said, just as directly. "Except for my shares in Centurion, of which I'm sure you've always been aware."
Waving that away, Selenka passed him a sheaf of papers right as the dull gray sky began to spit with rain. He created a telekinetic shield around them without thought, keeping off the rain so he could read the printed material.
"Handy."
Kaleb ignored the pithy comment, his attention on the documents that purported to show him mounting a ruthless assault against the pack's largest business enterprise. "A complex bit of illusion." He shot telepathic orders to Silver to get to the bottom of these corporate filings.
Hands on her hips, Selenka raised an eyebrow. "You're saying this isn't you?"
Kaleb responded with a bluntness he knew she'd appreciate. "I have more important things on my plate right now than starting a fight with a wolf pack known for its aggression."
A slight smile curved her full lips, her eyes suddenly wolf-gold. "If it's not you, then things become far more interesting," she said, the predator inside her adding a gritty roughness to the words.
"It appears someone is attempting to disrupt the peace between us." He was well aware that should he have truly attempted to go head-to-head with BlackEdge, Selenka's pack was more than capable of causing hell in his region.
"Say I believe you." The wolf inside Selenka continued to watch him, its gaze unblinking. "What does anyone get out of pitting us against one another?"
"If the strongest Psy in the region and the strongest pack in the same region suddenly become enemies, the ripple effect would be significant." Impacting every aspect of life. "Psy afraid to go near changeling territory, changelings worried about fatal psychic rapes, humans feeling pressured into choosing sides. A steady build until things explode into violence."
Selenka gave a slow nod. "You'd also lose the goodwill of other non-Psy groups."
"Yes."
"Someone was counting on us not talking to each other."
Kaleb didn't reply in the affirmative because there was no need. "My aide is currently canceling any offers I've purportedly made. You have a clear run." As for the person stupid enough to try to use his name to foster dissent in his region, Kaleb would make certain that individual regretted the mistake.
No one played games with Kaleb.
Chapter 11
ADEN WOKE TO darkness for the second time. Keeping his eyes closed, he listened. Movement around him, the sound of male voices in conversation.
". . . stable, but I won't know for sure until she wakes up." A blown-out breath. "She's tough as a leopard--just refused to die. As for him, I have no fucking idea how he was still walking."
His memories cleared enough that he remembered the yellow-green eyes of the leopard who'd slammed him to the ground. Those same eyes had glowed in the face of the man who'd hauled them to his vehicle. A leopard changeling. Having put the pieces together, Aden lifted his lashes.
A tall man with a heavily muscular build, his shaggy hair multiple shades of brown and roughly tumbled, his jaw shadowed with stubble that was dark against golden skin, was talking to another male. That one had a leaner build, but it was paired with a layer of muscle that made it clear he wasn't used to sitting behind a desk.
The bigger man was dressed in black cargo pants and a dark gray T-shirt, the other in a checked blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, worn untucked over jeans. Neither appeared to be armed.
"The bullet exited all right," said the one in the checked shirt, "but it ricocheted off her ribs and nicked several of her organs on the way out." The man, who had to be a medic, touched points on his own chest, as if indicating the impact sites. "Someone patched her up just enough to save her life--left alone, she'd have been dead long before you found her." He rubbed his face, the honed line of his features placing his age in the late thirties or early forties.
The bigger man, by contrast, had to be around twenty-eight or twenty-nine.
"You get the bullet from his leg?" he asked.
A nod. "It's so distorted it's pretty much useless."
Aden didn't have to listen any further to know the muscular man was in charge--predatory changeling alphas had a certain unmistakable bearing. Young or old, they carried responsibility as well as power.
The alpha turned to him right then, his eyes a striking, clear topaz striated with light. Eyes that looked feline, though the alpha was in his human form. Despite the change in eyes from leopard to human, Aden immediately recognized him as the man he'd met on the mountain.
"You're awake," the alpha said, walking over. "I'm Remi. This is Finn."
Not about to have this meeting lying on his back, Aden sat up, quickly getting a visual of Zaira on the infirmary bed next to his as he did so. His skull throbbed violently but he wasn't as weak as he might've expected. It appeared he'd been given something to maintain his strength, his fluids replenished. "How long have I been out?" he asked, noting that he was wearing only loose black drawstring pants.
Remi threw him a white T-shirt from a shelf to one side of the room. "Eighteen hours."
An eternity for an Arrow in hands that were not those he trusted, but these hands had saved his life. Pulling on the tee, he reached back and gingerly touched the spot where Zaira had dug out the chip right as Aden had sensed it build up to explosion point, lightning bolts of electricity crawling through his neurons on a direct path to his cerebral cortex.
His fingertips met a thin-skin bandage. "Any permanent damage?"
"I can't tell." White lines bracketed the medic's mouth, his leaf green eyes grim. "Whatever it was you two had in you, it was jammed in--hack job. You probably did less damage taking the things out than was done putting them in."
Aden couldn't risk testing his telepathic muscles. If he suffered a backlash of pain, it might leave him helpless again even if it didn't do any further damage. As it was, he didn't think the news would be good--he'd consciously dropped his psychic shields when he woke. Instead of sensing a loud background hum that denoted the
minds of the people around him, he'd heard only echoing silence.
The fact that he was around changelings didn't explain that silence. Changelings might have strong natural shields, but they existed. And from things Judd had said now and then, he knew most packs had human members as well. He should've at least felt a faint murmur that was created of the surface thoughts of a group of sentient living beings.
Controlling his psychic need to reach out took harsh effort. Akin to a changeling leashing his animal, or a human not using her dominant hand while attempting to complete a delicate task. "The current date and time?" he asked, trying not to think consciously of the absolute silence inside his head . . . and of what that silence would do to Zaira if she was in the same condition.
When Remi answered his question, Aden did a rough calculation and realized his and Zaira's captors had only had him for twenty-three hours prior to their escape. Zaira had to have been taken after him, else he'd have heard of her abduction. Rushing the surgery had been their unknown enemy's biggest mistake. A longer time frame and the implants would've likely become too deeply embedded to easily remove.
"I'd like to take your vitals." Not waiting for an answer, Finn picked up what Aden recognized as a top-of-the-line medical scanner and closed the distance between them.
Cooperating with Finn's requests because the medic clearly knew what he was doing, Aden said, "You didn't contact the squad?" It was very possible this unknown pack had no contacts in the PsyNet, and thus no way to get a message back to Vasic and the others.
Remi shook his head. "Communications are out because of the storm. We figured you'd get in touch with your people once you woke." He tapped his temple in a silent reference to Aden's psychic abilities.
"I'd feel better if you had a specialist look at you," Finn said, putting down the scanner to physically check Aden's wounded leg. A lock of his light brown hair fell across his forehead but he ignored it to continue his task.
Flexing the limb for the medic and feeling no pain, Aden said, "You appear to have done an excellent job." It was simple enough to seal a minor wound with the correct laser, but repairing all the tiny blood vessels, torn ligaments, and other shredded internal mechanics would've taken hours of concentrated and careful work.
And Aden's wound had been far less complicated than Zaira's.
Finn didn't speak until after he'd tested Aden's reflexes on that side of his body. "I'm a qualified and certified doctor as well as a healer," he said, switching to the other side, "but I'm no neurosurgeon. I can't guarantee I didn't miss something."
Remi stirred, eyes locking with Aden's. "I don't want to end up with two dead fucking Arrows in my territory," he said with brutal frankness. "Call in one of your teleporters, go see an M-Psy."
Aden had to make a decision--tell the truth and reveal his vulnerability, or make up a lie. For now, he decided on the lie. Remi could've killed him while he was down, but the leopard alpha's assistance could also be a cunning double cross. Remi had been in the same isolated area as their captors, after all. Aden couldn't afford to trust the alpha or his packmates until he'd categorically confirmed their lack of involvement in his and Zaira's abductions.
"I'll need to realign my mind before I can make contact," he said, banking on these changelings not being close enough to a Psy to know his words meant absolutely nothing. "The insertion of the implant disoriented my pathway to the PsyNet."
Remi frowned but nodded. "It'll be at least a day, maybe two before you can get out if your people can't get in. Rain's caused landslides lower down the mountain, blocked most of the roads, and last forecast we caught before the systems went down say this weather isn't going to let up anytime soon."
There was a massive boom just then, the thunder loud enough that both changelings visibly reacted, Finn with a grimace and Remi by going preternaturally still. Acute hearing, Aden realized, had to be a disadvantage in these circumstances.
"I have technical training," he said. "I might be able to jerry-rig a transmitter."
"You're welcome to try." Remi folded his arms. "But the conduit lower down the mountain has most likely been fried by lightning and my techs tell me the interference caused by the combination of the weather and our location makes it unlikely any lower-strength signal will get out."
Aden wasn't certain that was a drawback--because if this pack was friendly, then he and Zaira had a safe haven in which to recover from their physical and psychic wounds. Their psychic blindness could well be seen as an invitation for further violence in the outside world.
Aden, in particular, couldn't afford to have his lack exposed. It would pin a target on the entire squad's back if their leader was shown to be "human" in his vulnerability. Arrows survived not just because they were dangerous but because people saw them as dangerous. Else they were simply threats who needed to be put down.
As PsyMed had once wanted to put down Zaira.
Allowing himself to look toward her for the first time, he made certain to keep his tone neutral as he said, "I heard you note Zaira was stable."
"She is, but she'll only be out of the woods once she wakes up." Finn shifted to give Aden an unobstructed view of the other bed.
Zaira's body lay motionless in a way it never was in life. The rebellious, brilliant fire in her whispered its continued existence in the way she fought, so quick and smart, in the way she spoke with such rapid-fire intelligence, in the way she protected those who were her own with icy fierceness.
Aden made himself look away before he betrayed the depth of his concern for her.
"You aren't fully Silent, Aden. You never have been."
He'd thought it was his contact with Vasic and Ivy's bond that had changed him, but maybe Zaira was right about his Silence. He cared, had always done so for the people he saw as his own. And Zaira . . . she'd never been just another Arrow in his squad. Always, he'd been drawn to the fire in her, that untamed wildness that was so unlike his own controlled nature.
Aden had been taught discipline from the cradle, been taught to never draw attention or be anything but unremarkable in the eyes of the world. Zaira was like the storm outside in comparison. She'd become the perfect Arrow, but even that, she'd done on her own terms. Since the day they met she'd been disagreeing with him about everything under the sun, never watching her words, never offering him anything but the searing truth and her absolute and unflinching loyalty.
The room suddenly flashed with a shocking brilliance of purple-white light.
"Given your unworried demeanor," Aden said when neither Remi nor Finn made a comment on the closeness of the strike, "I assume this building is protected from lightning strikes?"
A teeth-baring grin that was very feline. "Careful, Arrow, or I might think you were insulting my ability to look after my pack."
"No insult intended." Aden fought his compulsion to hold the alpha's gaze in a primal power struggle, the instinct one he'd learned to rein in over the years. Instead, he returned his attention to Finn. "Zaira's condition?"
"She has less severe bruising at the implant site, but her internal injuries were significant." At Aden's request, the healer listed those injuries one by one. "I made damn sure I fixed each and every tiny shredded piece--that I can promise you."
Aden believed him. There was a strong sense of competency about the other man, added to which, he'd picked up on injuries even Aden might have missed. Finn wasn't just a doctor and a healer, he was a very good one.
Taking Aden's pulse again after asking him to stand beside the bed, Finn said, "If she doesn't regain consciousness, though, there's nothing else I can do at this point except try the drugs I have. None are calibrated to Psy physiology."
It wasn't what Aden wanted to hear and he could tell it wasn't the news Finn wanted to give.
"The best-case scenario is that she wakes on her own in the next few hours," Finn continued. "At that point, the major issue will be with the site of her gunshot injury; it'll be tender for a period, and her body will tire mo
re easily for roughly a week, but she'll be fine as long as she doesn't do anything to tear open the new skin."
Making a note on an electronic chart, the healer walked backward several feet. "I had to stimulate growth of her own skin because none of the patches I had would bond to her, so it's more fragile than she might expect."
When Finn urged Aden to walk toward him, Aden knew the other man was judging his balance. "Anything feel off?" the healer asked, his eyes intent as another burst of lightning lit up the lightly tanned skin of his face.
"No." Except for the painful silence in his head.
"Headache?"
"Yes."
Finn asked him several more questions to gauge the amount and exact type of pain and Aden had to think not like an Arrow but like a civilian to answer him. An Arrow's pain threshold was far higher than most people's, but that could be dangerous in this circumstance.
"Okay," the healer finally said. "Nothing unexpected here, and the pain should ease up after twelve hours. If it suddenly increases in strength, or changes in some way, I want to know immediately." The words were an order. "Any delay could be fatal if there's an unexpected bleed."
"Understood." Thanking the healer for his work, Aden turned to Remi. "I can't recall if I ever identified myself to you." Neither could he place the leopard changeling in any known pack.
"I recognized you," the alpha said, keeping his hands on his hips rather than extending one. It was either a courtesy because Psy were known to be uncomfortable with the kind of touch the other races took for granted or a sign of reticence because he didn't yet trust Aden enough to shake his hand. "You're with RainFire, in the Smokies."
The pack name didn't raise a red flag, but neither did it come with knowledge. He did, however, now have a general location. Since the Great Smoky Mountains sprawled across a large area of land, he'd have to gather additional data to figure out the specific location. "This weather is unusual for the region."
Finn rolled his eyes. "You win the prize for understatement of the century. There was a tornado warning not long before the comm blackout, so yeah, this isn't usual. Not unheard-of, though--just rare."
The extreme weather had given Aden and Zaira a critical advantage, one their captors couldn't have anticipated. Injured as they'd been, with the implants in their heads and their captors in a jet-chopper, they wouldn't have made it far without the rain hampering the chase by washing away their trail.