by Nalini Singh
“Brenna, you will come back. If you don’t, Enrique wins.” He could feel the blood beginning to trickle down his sides, but it was Brenna’s teeth that posed the real danger. He could disable her—if he was prepared to hurt her. He wasn’t.
“He’s winning right now,” he told her. “Making you a whimpering, clawing mess everyone thinks is insane.” Cruel words, but the only ones that would provoke her enough to snap her awake. “Is that who you are? A broken wolf? What he made you?”
Snarling, she released his carotid. “Shut up.” Blind rage.
“Why? Everything I’ve said is true.” He kept pushing where others would’ve stopped. “You have bloody claws, your face is feral and your clothes torn. You look like a woman who’s jumped the ledge into madness.”
She stamped on his boot with her bare foot. “I bet you learned your bedside manner the same place you learned your charm—the Council gulag.”
He released her arms, able to hear the real Brenna in that biting statement. But she remained in place, face pressed to his chest. Chancing aggression, he put one hand on the back of her head in a gesture that was as instinctive as his knowledge of what to do and say to this changeling female. Another breach of the Protocol, another ice pick of pain through his cerebral cortex, but nothing dangerous enough to set off his murderous abilities. Not yet.
Brenna put a palm over his heartbeat. “I bled you.”
“Surface lacerations. They’ll heal.”
“Too bad. You deserve to be clawed hard enough to bear scars.” Callous words, but she was still tucked against his body.
The complexities of emotional interaction often eluded him but not with Brenna. Not here. Not now. “That would be a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face—you seem to have a distinct liking for my body as it is.”
Her free arm went around his waist, the satin of her robe passing over his cuts like a cool breeze. “Maybe I like my men scratched up. Maybe I like to scratch them up.”
“Is that why you chose Greg? Because he likes violence?” he asked, and suddenly realized that the chain that had broken inside him was nowhere close to being repaired.
“I figured if I was going to go bad, it might as well be in style.” Her fingers dug slightly into his chest. “I wanted to make you notice.”
Her honesty was unexpected. “You succeeded—I did.”
“But you care about as much as you did before. Zilch.” Liquid anger in every breath. “You strung me out to dry at the cabin!”
Now he understood exactly how powerful a rule he’d broken. “I almost killed Greg,” he said. “In fact, I still have a connection to him. One thought and pieces of his skull will implode into his brain.”
CHAPTER 19
Brenna went very, very quiet against him. “Pull back,” she whispered. “Pull back.”
“Does he matter so much to you?” He could taste the structural strength of Greg’s skull, knew precisely how much pressure it would take to collapse it.
She snapped up her head, eyes frightened. “No. You’re the only one who matters. You kill Greg and Hawke might have to execute you!”
He considered it. “He kissed you.”
“He tried. Damn it, Judd. Pull back!” Giving a frustrated cry when he didn’t reply, she stood on tiptoe and pressed a row of kisses along his jaw.
Soft. So unbearably soft. He’d never felt anything like it. “Now you’ve had ten times what he didn’t come close to getting.” Another kiss on his throat. “He matters nothing. So pull back or you’re going back in my bad book.”
“Was I out?” He broke the psychic thread that had kept him aware of Greg’s physical status and position.
“Maybe.” She nuzzled at his throat. “Did you let Greg go?”
“Yes.” He slid his hand down to her nape. “He was in your family’s living area when I came in, but I’m guessing your brothers have gotten rid of him by now.”
She dropped her forehead to his chest, letting him grip her nape in a hold most Psy would’ve read as threatening. “How do I face them?” There was deep humiliation in her voice. “Greg won’t keep his mouth shut—everyone will know.”
“He won’t say a word. Trust me.”
“But my brothers and Hawke. They know. I remember their faces when they came in before. They think I’m crazy.”
“Then prove them wrong.”
“What if they’re not?” She sounded shaken, shocked. “I lost it, Judd. I really lost it.”
“We’ll talk about that later.” They did have a problem to deal with and it had to be dealt with, not swept under the rug. “But first you’re going to shower and get dressed so you can reassure your family.” He spoke to her as he might to a new recruit, giving firm, short instructions. “Go on. I’ll hold the fort.” Releasing his grasp on her neck, he slid his hand down the curve of her back before lifting it away. A small indulgence. Worth the red-hot skewer of dissonance shoving through his spinal column.
She took a deep breath, then broke away. “You’ll be here when I come out?”
He knew how much that question had to have cost this proud changeling. “Even Andrew couldn’t move me.”
Her lips quirked a little. “He’s okay, you know. Just over-protective.”
“I know.” More than that, he understood.
Nodding, she turned and disappeared behind a door he assumed led to the bathroom. He leaned his back on the bedroom door—no one was getting through. He had made a promise and he would carry it through. Even as he thought that, vibrations traveled down his spine as someone banged on the door. “Brenna?”
“She’ll be out soon.” Judd shored up the barrier with Tk.
The bathroom door opened approximately ten minutes later. Brenna stood there wrapped in a fluffy blue towel that only just reached her upper thighs and seemed in precarious danger of falling off the rise of her breasts. “I forgot to take in a change of clothes.” She blushed. “Didn’t want to put that robe back on.”
Since he found he had trouble enunciating words, Judd simply nodded. She walked shyly into the room and began to gather her clothing from the bureau. He caught a glimpse of pale yellow lace as she took things from a top drawer and ordered himself to look away. There was no reason for him to invade her privacy. “Would you like me to step outside?”
Brenna glanced over her shoulder, eyes huge. “Stay. You make me feel safe.”
“Not what people usually feel around me.”
She shrugged and he had to fight the urge to throw out some Tk and catch the towel he was sure was on the verge of being dislodged. “You don’t usually cuddle people who are hysterical after a major freak-out.”
Cuddle? It took considerable effort to force his mind back on track. “I said we’ll talk about that later. Get dressed before your brothers decide to break down the door.”
She turned back to her dresser and grabbed a pair of jeans and a blue sweater. Her legs were bare nearly all the way up and no matter how hard he tried not to look, he couldn’t drag his attention from her. Her skin appeared as soft as her lips had felt, smooth and flushed pink from the heat of the shower.
A lightning bolt of dissonance shot through his spine, strong enough to cause spots in front of his eyes. Ironically, he managed it using the same tools he’d been given to handle interrogation under torture. He knew he was treading on thin ice—he’d come close to killing mindlessly today. That lack of discipline indicated severe degradation in critical components of his conditioning. Even knowing that, he couldn’t stop his eyes from drinking in the sight of her, his body tightening in unfamiliar need.
Brenna spun around without warning, clothes clutched to her chest. Her breasts plumped over the top, drawing his eye. “I can feel you watching me.”
“Impossible.” That towel was going to unravel. If she moved her hands, it would fall. He decided he wouldn’t use Tk to stop its descent after all.
She scowled. “Are you saying I’m not worth looking at?”
; “I didn’t mean to imply that.” Was her skin that soft all over? That…biteable.
A second bolt shot through his spine, originating from his brain stem and traveling down. Designed to cripple an ordinary Psy. But he was an Arrow.
“You have that male look in your eyes.”
In spite of the battle he was fighting to segregate the pain, it suddenly struck him that this might be distressing to her after her recent relapse. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
Brenna wanted to laugh. “Why not?” She walked back to the bathroom, an extra sway to her hips. Damn but the man had some timing. There she’d been feeling about as attractive as a psychotic rat and then he’d looked at her like that.
As if he wanted to lick her straight up.
She shivered. Pure male heat, that’s what she’d seen in those Psy eyes, raw and hungry and dominant. She pressed her thighs together at the images that assaulted her brain. He’d try to take over in bed, of that she had no doubt. He wouldn’t let her pet him till…after. The man liked to be in control. Good thing she was no wilting violet.
“You’re all talk, Brenna Shane,” she muttered, dropping the towel and pulling on her panties over flesh sensitized from her thoughts alone. What would happen if he actually touched her there? She sucked in a breath, breasts rising. “A mess, that’s what I am.”
As today had made clear, she could flirt with the best of them, but getting down to business made her shatter into a thousand pieces. What she couldn’t understand was why she’d gone after Greg in the first place—it was more bizarre behavior on her part. Sure, she’d been mad at Judd, but it wasn’t like her to try to inspire jealousy by using another man. And Greg was in no way her type. Still, he hadn’t deserved what she’d done.
Wincing, she wondered how bad a mess she’d made of his face. He’d hardly even touched his lips to hers when she’d felt the dark wave of violent insanity pour over her, thick and choking. The first few minutes after that were blacked out. All she could remember was seeing Greg backing off, hands pressed to a bleeding face. Just like her attempt at wreaking revenge, the disproportionate response made no sense.
Enrique had never kissed her. She’d been an animal to him, to be tortured and experimented on. A lab rat. It revolted her that the last time she’d been in wolf form, it had been in front of him. He’d somehow learned to force the change on her, humiliating her by taking what she most treasured and turning it into pain and a kind of psychic rape she had never imagined might exist. In the end, he’d torn her changeling heart right out of her.
“Brenna.”
She started. “I’m coming.” Shaking off the memories, she finished getting ready, then checked that her hair was okay. The short strands were another mark he’d left, one she hated seeing in the mirror.
Judd was standing almost on the doorstep and she nearly walked into him. It was all she could do not to hide in his arms. “I’m ready.” She directed a bright smile his way.
He looked at her with the pure focus of a hunter. “You don’t have to pretend for me.”
She swallowed and let the smile fade. “For my brothers then. For Hawke. I broke their hearts once. I won’t do it again.” Seeing that angry pain in their eyes—the pain of men who hadn’t been able to protect what they loved—devastated her. “Lie if you have to,” she told Judd, “but don’t let on how serious this was.” She knew it had been very serious, a nightmare that had crushed her hope of normality.
“Alright. But you can’t try to pretend that nothing happened.” A command. “That’ll only make them more concerned.”
She decided to listen to him. “Okay.” When he moved to open the bedroom door, she saw the jagged tears in the black wool of his sweater. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ve told you, they’re surface cuts. It’ll likely calm your brothers to see that you drew Psy blood.”
She laughed and that was when he opened the door. Andrew was arguing with Riley but froze the instant she exited the room, Judd’s silent darkness at her back. Hawke was the first to move forward. “You look good, Bren.”
“I feel good.” She pressed her skin against his hand when he cupped her cheek.
Hawke’s ice blue eyes looked over her head. “You brought her back.”
“She had nothing to come back from.” Absolute Psy calm as he lied for her. “You mistook a small setback for a complete degeneration.”
Hawke scowled. “That was a hell of a lot more than a small setback.”
“Bren,” Drew interrupted, breaking Hawke’s touch to pull her into his arms. His hug was crushing. “Greg swore he didn’t touch you. Did he?”
She knew that if she said yes, Greg’s life was forfeit. As it would have already been had she not stayed Judd’s hand. Her Psy’s reaction, on the other hand, was a different story altogether. That had been no act of emotionless Silence.
“Greg did nothing,” she said. “He merely had the bad luck to be the first male I tried anything sexual with since the abduction.”
Her brother released her. “I’ve never seen you like that.”
“And you won’t again.” She didn’t have any other explanation to give him and was hoping he wouldn’t push. Then he opened his mouth.
But Judd beat him to it. “Sascha and I have been preparing for such a lapse, though we didn’t believe it would occur so abruptly.”
“What?” Walking closer, Riley tugged Brenna into the curve of his arm, turning her so she was no longer standing with her back to Judd.
“Your sister has a backbone of steel.” Dark chocolate eyes met hers. “She refused to cry or release her emotions in any but the most restrained fashion during the healing.”
“Building up the pressure,” Brenna completed, moving from Riley’s hold to stand beside Judd again. “I should’ve listened to Sascha.” The healer had urged her to embrace and accept that she’d been hurt, raped in the most sadistic of fashions, her mind stripped and then filled with things that were not her own, her body tortured. But Brenna had simply wanted to move past it, to pick up the threads of her life as if they had never been snapped.
“You can listen to Sascha when she arrives,” Hawke ordered. “She’ll be here soon.”
“No.” It came out without thought. At the wary looks on their faces, she tempered her tone. “I need time to sort this out in my own head. Judd can help me if necessary.”
“He’s an assassin, not a healer.” Riley’s voice dropped close to a growl.
It wounded her that because of her, her generous, forgiving brothers had become so inflexible in their hatred of the Psy as a race. “Riley—”
“You’ll see Sascha,” he ordered.
“Enough.” Judd’s voice held an unmistakable tone of command. “Bullying her into seeing anyone won’t help the situation.”
Riley took an aggressive step forward. “We call this taking care of our own. You’ve done your bit, so get lost. No one wants you here.”
Brenna felt her stomach drop. If Judd had been a changeling, those words would’ve been reason enough for a fight. A big one. And after having seen the look in his eyes when he’d spoken of executing Greg, she wasn’t so sure about his control. Stepping back in what she hoped was an unobtrusive manner, she let the fingers of one hand brush over his thigh. The muscles were bunched, ready to attack.
“Brenna is perfectly capable of taking care of herself,” he said. “If you want to help her, stop making her feel incapable at every turn.”
She winced inwardly at that freezing tone. Oh, he was pissed, but covering it with a layer of Psy arrogance. “He’s right.” She looked at Riley, her hand flattening on Judd’s thigh. Strong warm muscle. It hadn’t relaxed even a fraction. “You two need to back off before you suffocate me. You, too,” she said to Hawke.
White lines bracketed his mouth. “Until we figure out what the hyenas were up to, the rules still apply. You’ve become a symbol of changeling strength—if anyone succeeds in taking you out, it’ll lea
d to blood. So stay in the den or within the inner perimeter.”
It chafed but she nodded, deciding to fight one battle at a time. Right now, that involved keeping her brothers and Judd from tearing into each other. “But you have to send Drew back to San Diego and reassign Riley so he’s not in the den so much.”
Her brothers growled. Hawke raised a hand to cut them off. “That’s family business. I need them here.”
“Then I want a room at the other end of the den,” she insisted, deriving strength from the dark angel at her back. “Or I swear I’m moving back to the city.”
Andrew swore a blue streak. “Now you’re being—”
“Don’t.” Judd’s quiet menace.
Her middle sibling went motionless. “How do I know you’re not…” His voice trailed off as she let out a choked cry, able to feel her face twisting into a mask of shock.
“That he’s not what? Controlling me?” she asked, throat thick with hurt. “Is that what you think of me—that I have no spine unless a Psy is forcing it on me?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Then you shouldn’t have said it!” She chose to turn the heartbreaking pain into anger. “I need you to stand by me, not chip away at my confidence. Do you know the only person in this room who’s never made me feel inadequate? Judd.”
Andrew sucked in a breath, as if he’d been punched. Riley was the one who answered. “You take these rooms. They’re the most secure in terms of their location. We’ll find bunks in the soldiers’ section.” He left without giving her a chance to respond, forcing Drew to go with him.
Hawke shot Judd a measuring glance. “I’m sending someone else to cover the cabin region for now.”
“Understood.”
Hawke left the next second.
Finally, she was alone. Except for the assassin at her back. “I need you to go, too.”
The muscled thigh under her palm bunched. “I know what they don’t.”