by Nalini Singh
She ran her fingers over his chest, nuzzled at his pulse, and took the scent of him into her lungs. She already smelled of him, but from today, the scent would be inside her very pores. It made her feel possessed, protected, adored. It was good to belong to him, even if he did have a tendency toward dominance.
“Once more.”
She was sure she was having an aural hallucination. “You did not just say ‘once more.’”
“Before the Tk comes back.”
She shook her head. “You’re crazy.” After that loving, he’d be lucky if she moved anytime this century. “Good thing I like crazy.”
“One hour. Nap. Then again.”
Despite her exhaustion, she found the femaleness in her reacting to the determination in his tone. “You are so sexy.”
“I know.”
It made her smile. “Yeah?”
“This beautiful changeling keeps telling me.” His hand closed over the back of her nape. “Now sleep.”
She did. Exactly one hour later, she woke to the touch of male fingers and lips, her body relaxing in the most sensual way. They danced more languidly this time, and Judd let her cuddle and pet him as much as she wanted.
His muscles were hard and warm under her fingertips, his skin holding the flavor of salt and man. It made her deeply happy to be so intimately connected to him. “I want to do this every day for the rest of my life.”
His eyes were sparks of gold in the darkness. “Yes.”
But he had to leave her when the Tk regenerated. “Brenna—”
“Shh.” She shook her head, aching to cross the divide between them. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” It was obvious he didn’t want to go. Equally obvious to her heightened knowledge of him was the pain—the dissonance—he refused to betray. “Tomorrow morning, baby.”
He finally left after several more minutes of persuasion on her part. Only then did she lie back against the pillow and let the tears come. Was this all they’d ever have—stolen moments when Judd was stripped of a crucial part of his psyche? It seemed so hopeless. She might’ve cried into the night, but exhaustion took her under after a few minutes, and when she woke, hope reawakened with her.
“I made love to Judd Lauren,” she whispered, amazed. Even a month ago, that would have seemed a fool’s dream. “Then I guess I’m a fool.” Smiling, she pushed off the bed, showered, and grabbed a bite to eat. Afterward, knowing it wouldn’t do any good for Judd to be trapped in the confines of an apartment stamped with the psychic echoes of their loving, she headed toward one of the specialized tech chambers to do some work.
Judd found her halfway to her destination. “Don’t you need to be at DarkRiver?”
No words of romance, but his eyes held such dark fire that even as her body thrilled to life, she worried. “Judd, you have to pull back or the dissonance will punish you.”
“Never thought I’d hear you say that.” The intensity of his gaze didn’t change.
Shaking her head at his stubbornness, she answered his question. “I’ve done most of my bit in terms of programming—Dorian will give me a call if he needs anything.”
Her words cut through the sensual resonance still vibrating through Judd’s whole body, reminding him of something very important. “Why did you leave DarkRiver yesterday? Who called?”
Brenna paled. “It was an ambush. That bastard could’ve killed Drew! It was only because Riley gave chase and scared him off that he didn’t keep shooting.”
He wanted to hold her, but couldn’t chance bodily contact, not with the memory of their intimacy so fresh. His hand fisted. “Do you know the identity of the caller?”
“The message was passed on by DarkRiver’s main receptionist.” She thrust a hand through her hair. “It came in through their general line. We should have known something was wrong, but we weren’t thinking because the message said that there had been a Psy attack on the pups and several were dead.”
“Riley didn’t call back to confirm?” It was standard operating procedure in most tactical and military units.
She winced. “I think he was too angry…and the shooter counted on that.”
Emotion as a weakness—it was what he’d always been taught. “Considering the import of the message, why didn’t the cats know?” Clay, as a sentinel, would certainly have been informed by the receptionist.
“The message was in the code Pack soldiers use,” she revealed. “It said that this time there was incontrovertible proof of DarkRiver being involved. God, we were stupid!”
“Not necessarily. If it was in code, then Riley was correct to assume it came from a legitimate source. Even if he had called back, the shooter may have been prepared to intercept.” Smart. But in his cleverness, Timothy’s killer might have made a fatal mistake. “How many people know that code?”
“I have no idea.”
“I’ll ask Riley. Can you trace the call itself?”
“I’ll see if Dorian can hook into DarkRiver’s comm system, but if the shooter used one of the public phones in the den…” She shrugged. “How can we have bred such evil? I can’t imagine it, and yet it’s true.” She sounded angry and sad at the same time. “Here’s my stop—I’ll probably be inside the chamber for hours. See you for dinner?”
He knew she was deliberately putting distance between them, too perceptive not to understand the devastating impact it had had on him to experience the fury of their intimacy after feeling nothing for most of his life. “Yes. How secure is this room?”
She showed him the security system. “All sorts of tech work goes on in these rooms so they’re close to impregnable, more to protect the public than us, but once I go in and lock the door, no one can override the lock. Don’t worry—I have no intention of making this easy for that piece of scum.”
Satisfied, he left to find Riley. “How many men and women know that code?” he asked the lieutenant.
“About a hundred.” Riley’s voice was a growl. “Forty of them were on scheduled watches in other areas at the time of the shooting. That gives me sixty to work through.”
It was still a large number. “We need to detail their movements over the period of the attack.”
“Yeah, except most of the soldiers are single and wolf-independent. It’s going to take time and this psycho’s starting to lose it—using that code was stupidity on his part.” Riley didn’t have to add that stupid or not, the killer was hunting Brenna in earnest now.
Judd continued to have the feeling he was missing something, but no matter how long he thought about it, he couldn’t fathom an answer. “Do you want my assistance?”
Riley paused. “No. I can’t justify you trying to break open loyal men’s and women’s minds over one bastard.” But he looked as though he wanted to consent. “You keep Bren safe and I’ll track him down.”
Judd had no intention of following that order—not when their quarry was a threat to Brenna—but he simply nodded. Leaving Riley, he made another call. “I can’t come down today,” he told Sascha. “I apologize.”
“Don’t worry—I was thinking of suggesting that anyway,” she said, to his surprise. “We did so much yesterday—the deer need time to recover. This kind of healing is slow going.”
Hanging up after discussing when she might need him again, Judd returned to his room. Though the hunt for the killer occupied a considerable portion of his brain—as he purposefully approached the problem from a different angle from Riley so as not to duplicate their efforts—there was something else he had to think about.
Reaching up, he began using the exercise bar to do chin-ups. The repetitive act helped focus his mind as it multitasked. One thing was certain—he refused to never again experience the intimacy of being with Brenna. It wasn’t the sex, though that had been the most amazing experience of his life. It was the way he’d made her laugh, made her smile, made her complain and then cuddle. All because she’d felt safe, reassured by the strength of their emotional connection.
He would not
steal that feeling from her. And he most definitely was not going to surrender her to another male who could give her what she needed. The idea made him want to break something. However, regardless of what he’d considered in the heat of passion, he couldn’t keep forcing flameouts in order to protect her from his Tk-Cell. Which left him with a choice and a question he’d rejected earlier—how to disable the Silence Protocol, in particular the dissonance, without unleashing the killing rage of his gift.
His phone beeped. Dropping down from the bar, he picked it up. “Judd.”
“It’s Hawke. Can you meet me by the waterfall?”
He realized the alpha probably wanted to ask him about the deprogramming he’d done with the PineWood hyenas. “I’m on my way.” The walk to the exit brought him into contact with several changelings. That wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was the response his presence elicited. Smiles, waves, shouted hellos and even slaps on the back when he didn’t move away fast enough.
He’d almost reached his goal when Indigo stopped him. “I’ve got something you’ll want to hear.”
CHAPTER 35
She drew him into the shadow of a nearby alcove. “One of Tim’s friends got back from out of town today and found a message on his home comm—left the night Tim died. Tim said he had some info he wanted to pass on to Hawke through a trusted source. Confirms he was about to rat the dealer out.”
It wasn’t much, but it was another piece of data to feed into the continuously running psychic program in Judd’s head. “Did you manage to track down any other confirmed users?”
“Yeah,” she said. “But they know shit—this guy is smart, never showed them his face. Coward. If not for you, we’d be mourning Drew today. I’m going to enjoy ripping out the killer’s throat when we find him.” A grim smile later, she was gone.
Judd appreciated Indigo keeping him updated, but he wondered at her motives. Notwithstanding anything he’d done, he remained outside the SnowDancer hierarchy and the wolves trusted no one who wasn’t their own. But there wasn’t any room in his head for that unimportant issue right now.
Exiting the den, he made his way through the icy cold of the piercing winter’s day to the frozen edge of the waterfall. Hawke was already standing there, arms folded. At his feet sat two wolves. From their size and attitude, Judd could tell they weren’t changelings. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen the SnowDancer alpha surrounded by the wild wolves who roamed some of the same range as the changelings. He’d even heard it rumored that the creatures considered Hawke their alpha, too—something more likely to be true than not. Hawke was so close to his animal that at times, it wasn’t clear who or what was looking out of those pale eyes.
The wolves watched Judd approach, but didn’t make any aggressive sounds or movements. “You’re late,” Hawke said.
“I was delayed by a number of the pack.”
Hawke nodded. “After what you did for Drew, I think they want to throw a damn parade in your honor.”
“I hope you put a stop to that idea.”
“I don’t know—maybe it would finally put your niece into a good mood.”
So that was what this meeting was about. “What’s Sienna done now?”
His late sister’s seventeen-year-old was walking a very thin line. She’d been almost fully conditioned when they’d defected, which had left her in a difficult position, even more so because of the problems that came with age in relation to her abilities. But overshadowing that was the fact that she seemed to have made it her new purpose in life to annoy Hawke in as many and as varied ways as possible.
“She’s convinced some of the juveniles she can read their thoughts and that I’m paying her to do exactly that.” Hawke was scowling, but there was amusement in his eyes. “I’ve got confessions coming out my ears.”
“I’ll talk to her.” Walker had taken charge of the two younger kids—his daughter, Marlee, of course, and their nephew, Toby. It had been natural for Judd to do the same with Sienna—he could help her in ways Walker couldn’t. Of course, his niece didn’t think she needed an adult keeper.
Hawke waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll deal with her.”
In the first few months following their defection, Judd would’ve nixed that idea. But after having witnessed the way Hawke handled the wolf juveniles, he knew that while Sienna might get her hide stripped on the sharp edge of his tongue, she wouldn’t come to any real harm. “Then why did you ask to meet?”
“You.” A harsh response that made the wolves growl. “You’re a problem.”
“So much for the parade.” He paused. “Does the pack know the details of what I did?”
Hawke shook his head in an immediate negative. “They think you somehow deflected the bullet. We’ve been helping that rumor along.”
“Good.” That meant his newfound skill remained a tactical advantage. “Then what’s the problem?” If the alpha tried to separate him from Brenna, he’d have a fight on his hands. A bloody one.
“You’re causing havoc in the pack. What’s your fight count to date?”
“Do you want the exact number?” Judd had been facing off challengers since the day he walked into the den.
Hawke snorted. “I know the number. I also know you’ve won every single one of those fights.” He went down on his haunches to pet the wolves. They growled and butted their heads against his touch before loping off into the woods. Hawke stood back up. “Which leaves me with a powerful male in my pack who stands outside the pack structure.”
He recalled Indigo’s recent behavior as well as certain other acts. “Some of your people have already begun treating me as if I have status.”
“Yeah. They figure they’ll just wear you down.”
“Wear me down to what?”
“Joining the pack fully or getting the hell out.” A blunt choice. “I can’t have a strong lone wolf in my territory.”
“You want to give me an official rank.” Everyone in the pack had one. Status could be changed in one of two ways—through a physical fight or by the utilization of a complex system of skill sets and respect he didn’t completely understand. However, he’d been in SnowDancer long enough to guess at some of it—Lara’s status was apparently the same as Indigo’s, while the elderly librarian, Dalton, had Hawke’s ear anytime he cared to speak.
“Yes.”
“I had rank once.” As an Arrow. One of the elite. “What I realized is that blind trust in any hierarchy is idiocy.” He’d been nineteen when he’d understood how ruthlessly he’d been betrayed and used.
“We’re not Psy.” Hawke scowled. “Do you see Indigo or Riley bowing and scraping to me?”
That was also true—the predatory changelings held their leaders to tough standards. He’d seen a grim example of that in Parrish’s execution. Not one of the hyena pack had asked for mercy for their leader. The ritual death had, in fact, been administered by the incoming alpha. Bloody justice but justice nonetheless.
It was a system of checks and balances that had been denied to the Psy populace for over a century. “Even if you make me a soldier, I’m unlikely to obey your every order.”
“If I’d wanted mute obedience, I’d have found a pack of sheep.” Hawke’s response was almost a snarl. “You in or not?”
He would never walk away from Brenna. Or from his loyalty to his family. “Yes.” He was prepared to accept a lower rank than he had held in the PsyNet, though it chafed. Pride. An emotional weakness, but he’d never claimed to be perfect. It was his race’s goal of icy perfection that had stolen their humanity.
Hawke grinned. “You should’ve asked what rank you’d be assigned before you accepted. Too late now.”
“I assumed low-to midlevel soldier.” And Psy did not make baseless assumptions.
“I go through this whole song and dance telling you you’re too fucking strong to be left to roam and you think I’m going to give you a rank that’ll confuse the hell out of the pack?” Walking forward, the alpha slashed ou
t with his claws, the move so fast that Judd didn’t have time to react. It would’ve been logical to blast out with Tk power, but his martially trained mind processed Hawke’s body language and came to the conclusion that he wasn’t under attack. Reaching up, he felt four thin lines on his neck. Surface cuts but enough to color his fingers.
Hawke slashed his own palm and let it drip to the snow. Acting on instinct, Judd spread his bloody hand and caught a drop of Hawke’s blood. It burned hot, as if it carried fire. Something snapped tight inside of him, but when he looked into the psychic plane of the LaurenNet, he found no new connection.
The burning sensation lingered even after he dropped his hand. “What was that?”
“The completion of a blood bond.” Hawke closed his hand into a fist, stemming the flow of blood. “You’re now a SnowDancer lieutenant.”
Judd looked down at the snow stained pink and then back to those pale eyes. “You despise the Psy.” He didn’t know the reason for that hatred, but he knew it existed.
“To hate you all without reason would make me a bigot.” Hawke’s mouth twisted. “And I prefer not to think of myself that way.” There was something deeper in the alpha’s voice, layers of emotion Judd couldn’t read.
“Is it Sascha?” Hawke had a distinct liking for Lucas’s mate.
A smile wiped the grim expression off his face. “She did kind of throw my opinions about Psy sideways, but—” He shook his head, as if halting himself before he said too much. “I trust those who’ve proven their loyalty. You’ve done that over and over—being warm and cuddly isn’t a requirement. Welcome to the pack.”
Judd went down to clean off the blood with snow, somehow knowing the result could not be so easily wiped out. Hawke was doing the same. The wolf’s cut had already clotted. While Judd’s healing was a result of his Tk-Cell abilities, Hawke’s was thanks to changeling strength. Alpha changeling strength.
“So,” Judd said, “what do lieutenants do?”
“A hell of a lot of work.” Hawke’s grin was a touch evil.