by Nalini Singh
Sascha nodded jerkily, but her words surprised him. “Nothing that stifles her, Lucas.” Her eyes had bled to pure obsidian when he first began to speak, and now they gleamed with midnight-blue lowlights as she fought her emotions. He didn’t know if all cardinal eyes did that, or if it was limited to the empaths, but the effect was hauntingly beautiful.
Panther and man, Lucas loved Sascha’s eyes in every one of her moods.
“Nothing that cages her,” she reiterated.
“I promise.” He knew Sascha was thinking of her own childhood, of how her abilities had been crushed and stuffed into a box. “The physical security around her won’t change much at all.” He’d called a meeting of his sentinels that afternoon, with those not in the city attending via the comm, asked their opinion on the most efficient way to protect the pack’s cubs without harming their wild spirits.
“We’re going to embed more warning sensors in and around our territory,” he told Sascha. “That’ll have an impact without affecting Naya’s independence or that of any other cub in DarkRiver.” In Naya’s case, the danger level had risen the instant she began to shift and became more mobile. “I’ve also asked Dorian and Emmett to liaise with our mechanics and make sure all the pack vehicles are as secure and as tough as they can be, and we’re going to quietly up the security presence anywhere our children congregate.”
“If they can’t get Naya, they might try for another cub,” Sascha whispered in realization. “Because of us and what we represent, because of the power DarkRiver has in Trinity.” But though white lines bracketed her mouth, she didn’t panic. “We need to let all our friends know, not just the Rats and SnowDancer. The more eyes looking out and ears that are listening, the better our chances of catching any attempt before it goes far.”
DarkRiver had long thrived in isolation, like the majority of changeling packs, but that time had passed. First had come the wolves, then friendships that slowly connected them to Psy, humans, more changelings. “The falcons have permission to overfly our territory and might spot suspicious movements.” Lucas frowned in thought, rubbing his thumb over the side of his mate’s neck as he cradled her nape. “Who else?”
Together, the two of them made up a list and decided which one of them would talk to which party. He knew it was possible they were both overreacting, but that was significantly better than taking no action when innocent lives were on the line.
Sascha made him coffee afterward, herself a hot chocolate. It was her comfort drink of choice, but what soothed her most was to go into the nursery and look in on Naya. Lucas went with her, his own panther needing to see their cub safe and snug and curled up happily in her crib. “Damn it,” he muttered. “She’s hugging that stupid wolf to her chest.”
Sascha’s shoulders shook, the stars returning to her eyes. Baring his teeth at her, he pretended to pounce. She jumped then ran out of the room. His panther immediately sat up in interest and the chase was on. Catching her in the next room, he threw her gently on the bed before coming down over her. “Mine,” he said, his lower body pressed to hers.
The smug statement was of the predator he was. But this predator loved the woman he held captive, would never harm her.
Stroking her fingers through his hair, Sascha said, “Something else happened, didn’t it?”
He dropped his head for a minute, allowed her to pet him. Then, as they lay tangled, he told her about the letter the boys had found, about the imprisoned, tortured water changeling. His hands fisted against the textured white sheets on their bed. “This is the first new piece of information we’ve had on BlackSea’s vanished members since the capture of the human CEO, and it’s a call for help from a woman who’s probably already dead.”
Sascha shook her head. “There’s always hope. No one thought Brenna would make it and look at her now.”
Lucas nodded; it was a good reminder. The SnowDancer had been psychically and mentally broken when rescued. Yet instead of drowning in the darkness that had threatened to suck her under, Brenna had said “fuck you” to the monster who’d hurt her, and she’d chosen to live. She’d not only wrenched back control of her own life, she’d taken on an Arrow and claimed him as her mate.
Lucas had a great deal of respect for Riley’s younger sister.
“None of us will give up on Leila,” he promised. “Unless and until we have a body, we act as if she’s alive.” A woman who’d fought so hard even when alone, far from the sea that was her home, deserved nothing less. “It would help if Miane would allow wider dissemination of the information, but she’s caught between a rock and a hard place.”
Sascha’s eyebrows drew together, even as she continued to run her fingers through his hair. “There’s no way to weed out the Consortium spies in Trinity, is there?”
Nipping at her lower lip just because he could, Lucas said, “Can empaths sense deception?”
“Possibly.” Sascha nipped back, making him grin. “But even if the Empathic Collective suddenly abandoned its code of ethics and started scanning everyone, the most dangerous spies will have dense shields. An E might pick up surface emotions, but everything else will be locked down.”
Running his hand down her side, Lucas pushed up her lightweight top to touch skin, purring deep in his chest at the contact. At the lush feel of her warmth against his rougher skin. Shivering, Sascha wrapped her legs around him. “Why did you ask anyway?” she murmured, her breath kissing his. “You know no empath would ever be so dishonorable. Scans are only allowed with permission—like in business negotiations where both sides have an E at the table.”
Eyes going panther as his feline nature rose to the surface of his mind, Lucas took his time kissing his mate, licking his tongue over hers as he lazily explored her body. “Because,” he murmured against her lips several minutes later, “your own research has shown that not all Es are good.” The vast majority, yes, but like any being on the planet, even an E had loyalties. “What if the Consortium has an E in its ranks? What if that E truly believes that racial peace and the resulting comingling is bad for the Psy race?”
Sascha blinked, then pushed at his chest until he rolled over onto his back on the bed. Kneeling beside him, her knees brushing his side as he slid his hand under the back of her top to find skin again, she stared down at him. “You’re right,” she whispered. “‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are relative terms. An E, who, for whatever reason, is virulently anti-human or anti-changeling or simply pro the purity of the Psy, could justify all kinds of things.”
She rubbed both hands over her face. “I don’t know what the impact would be on the E—if the harm they did would rebound back on them, or if they’d be protected by their own belief.” Lines formed on her forehead. “We still don’t know enough about the E designation, not after the Council spent a hundred years erasing all evidence of our existence.”
“Alice’s memories still scattershot?” he asked, referring to the brilliant researcher who’d spent a century in forced cryonic suspension, and who now lived among the SnowDancers.
Sascha nodded, her frustration a palpable thing. “She has so much critical knowledge, but it’s locked deep inside her.” Compassion thickened her voice. “I’m guessing it’s a combination of lingering shock and the organic damage done by the amount of time she spent suspended that’s behind the gaps in her memory.”
“She’s tough to have come as far as she has.” Lucas couldn’t imagine going to sleep one day only to wake in a distant future where Sascha was dead, Naya was dead, his closest friends were all dead. “I think I’d go mad.”
“She’s stronger than she knows.” Sascha’s eyes were dark with poignant emotion. “But her heart’s broken, shattered into splinters.” Shaking her head, she touched her fingers to the hunter marks on his face. “It hurts me to even imagine the depth of her loss.”
Taking her hand with his free one, he pressed a kiss to it. He didn’t have to say
what they both knew: If one of them died while Naya was young, the other one would fight and survive no matter their own shattered heart. “What if an E decided to hide his or her ability?” he asked, taking them back to a less emotive topic.
“That person could be a brilliant spy,” Sascha said slowly. “He or she could damage Trinity from the inside by doing things as simple as encouraging dissent or quietly upping people’s levels of aggression.”
“Your designation is far more dangerous than anyone realizes.”
Sascha’s expression held a sudden, taut sadness. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t figured out the other side of my ability,” she whispered, swallowing hard. “But today, when you told me what some nasty people are saying about Naya, I knew I’d use the dark side without hesitation to protect her. Regardless of any resulting psychic backlash.”
Lucas nudged her over to straddle him, then he tugged her down so he could pet her, kiss her. He’d been there the day she’d worked out the brutal flip side to her ability to heal minds, had felt her terrible sorrow. “Nothing is ever black and white, kitten,” he reminded her, allowing his claws to slice out to touch her skin. “I can use my claws to protect, but I can use the same claws to rip out an enemy’s throat.”
A slow nod from his mate, though her expression remained troubled. “Trinity brings with it the potential for a dazzling future . . . but we have to accept that it also provides a forum for those who want to seed chaos and destruction.”
“Right now,” Lucas admitted, “the Consortium is beating Trinity in the cooperation stakes.” Driven by self-interest, the members of the enemy group were willing to work together against everyone else.
Those who’d signed the Trinity Accord, on the other hand, were becoming lost in the rivalries that had divided the world for so long. Psy against changeling. Human against Psy. Big businesses against small, the list was endless.
“The United Earth Federation is a distant dream, isn’t it?” Sascha’s eyes had once more lost their starlight.
“At least the dream now exists.” By the time Naya grew up, maybe the UEF would be a functioning entity.
“Who knows?” Sascha murmured. “It could be our cub who one day leads that federation.” Her spine grew stiff under his caressing hand.
Aware exactly where her mind had gone, Lucas gripped her jaw, held her gaze. “We’ll keep Naya safe.” It was a growling promise.
“Yes.” Sascha’s tone was resolute. “We will.”
Releasing her jaw to run her gorgeously badly behaving hair through his fingers, he tugged lightly on the thick curls, released them, fascinated by the texture and by the way the strands clung to his skin.
“You are such a cat.” It was a husky statement.
He leaned up on his elbows to flick his tongue over her lips, teasing her into a kiss that ended up with her pinned under him, tall and curvy in all the right places. Setting aside politics and the outside world, he played with the woman who’d begun the wave of change with her very public defection, this empath with her gentle heart and her wild courage.
The scent of her arousal made his cock throb.
“Lucas.” A demanding touch on the back of his neck as Sascha locked her legs around his hips once again, her mouth moving to his throat.
Yes, his mate knew exactly how he liked to be touched.
Just as he knew her every sensual weakness.
Pressing her more heavily into the bed, he slid one hand under her top to cup the lush heaviness of her breast. His panther growled in his chest, full of primal pride that she was his.
A tiny answering growl sounded from the nursery.
Breaking the kiss, they both turned to look that way. The growl came again.
Sascha’s body began to shake as her face filled with laughter. “Someone is not sleeping.”
They waited in hopeful quiet. Five seconds later, just as Lucas was bending his mouth to Sascha’s once more, Naya made an adorable sound that might have been her attempt at a grown panther’s more guttural vocalization. It held impatience and excitement and zero drowsiness.
Dropping his head forward, Lucas nipped at Sascha’s collarbone. “Why did we think having a cub was a good idea?”
Sascha laughed again. “She’s probably hungry. Even if she isn’t, I don’t think we should be strict about bedtime. Not today.”
“No,” Lucas agreed with a nuzzle of his nose against hers. “Not today.” Today, their baby needed a little extra care and attention.
Getting up, the two of them went into the nursery to discover a small black panther trying to shove her head through the bars of her crib. Shaking his head when Naya froze and gave him a look of wide-eyed innocence, Lucas picked up their child and held her black-furred body against his bare chest.
His growl was echoed by an excited one from her.
Lucas nipped her on the nose, the affectionate act of a panther with his misbehaving cub. “Want some food, princess?”
Butting her head against his chin, Naya made sounds of impatience.
“I get it. You want to go for a run in the forest first.” He knew Naya couldn’t really run. She could barely walk without falling over. But tonight, she wanted to be a panther.
Naya scrabbled at him at the pronouncement, her claws making fine furrows on his skin.
He didn’t correct her this time; predatory changeling parents had to tread a careful line between teaching their children not to use claws against their playmates and to use them ferociously if defending against an enemy. In his current protective mood, Lucas decided his cub should learn the ferocious part first.
Her older playmates would teach her the rules of play soon enough.
Putting her on the floor, he pulled off his jeans—to his mate’s sigh and his grin—and shifted. Then, before Naya could escape, he used his teeth to grip her by the ruff of her neck. Her tiny body went instinctively limp in his hold as he padded to the front door.
Sascha had already unlocked it, so he went straight out onto the balcony that had a railing only along one side. Glancing back to see his mate had squeezed her eyes tightly shut, he huffed in laughter and jumped off. He landed on the forest floor with the grace of the cat he was, his cub safe. Putting Naya down, he looked up and growled at Sascha to let her know they were unharmed.
She peeked over the edge, one hand on her heart and her hair tumbling around her face. “I’m coming down,” she said in a breathless voice. “Don’t go too far.”
He and Naya had barely gone three feet before Sascha scrambled down the rope ladder to join them. All wobbly limbs and wild curiosity, Naya was distracted by a thousand things at once. He watched her with a father’s patience, giving her praise when she did something clever, helping her get upright when she fell.
The night was cool and calm around their small family, the stars overhead a glittering quilt, and when Sascha came to her knees beside him, her hand on his back as they watched Naya try to chase fireflies, his heart felt too huge to stay inside his chest.
For this woman, for this child, for his pack, he’d do anything.
Trinity would not defeat him.
Neither would the Consortium.
Chapter 11
KALEB WAS UNSURPRISED when, late that night, Ivy Jane Zen requested he show her the dangerously subtle new damage in the PsyNet. The president of the Empathic Collective had proven to have a steel will beneath her soft exterior. He was surprised that she turned up on the Net without an Arrow escort.
“Where’s Vasic?” The teleporter was Ivy’s husband and second in command of the squad.
Ivy answered his unspoken question instead of the one he’d asked. “I’m an empath, Kaleb. I know exactly how much you love Sahara.”
And Sahara called the Es her friends. Thus, Kaleb would never touch a hair on their heads unless they turned into a threat to the woman who was his heart.
Then, of course, he would annihilate them to bloody pieces.
Kaleb didn’t enjoy being so transparent. The twisted darkness in him reared up in an aggressive stance, too long used to fighting the enemy to ever trust easily. “Breaching shields, Madam President?”
Laughter in Ivy’s reply. “No need. I’ve seen you two together, remember? You look at her like . . . like she’s a rare, beautiful gift.” Her mental voice grew softer. “To cherish, to protect. I know, because I see the same in Vasic’s eyes when he looks at me.”
In the physical world, standing on the deck of his home, Kaleb raised an eyebrow. “Does Vasic know you’re here alone?”
“Does Sahara know she’s mated to an overprotective Neanderthal?”
Kaleb’s lips curved. Ivy’s sharp response was so close to what Sahara might’ve said in similar circumstances. “You’re ready? Heavy shields?” He might not appreciate the way certain Es were so good at seeing through a man’s skin, but he’d permit no harm to come to them.
Without the Es, the Net was dead and Sahara needed the Net to breathe, to live.
“Yes.”
“Meet me at these PsyNet coordinates.” He was already in that dark, diseased location devoid of other Psy minds, his shields so effective that he had to alert Ivy to his presence before she could spot him.
Her own psychic presence held sparks of color unseen in any minds except for those of Designation E.
Kaleb had experienced the harsh viciousness of Silence firsthand, but even he had difficulty imagining the brutal extent of the conditioning each E must’ve undergone to have been so completely smothered.
To Kaleb, the fact that the Es had survived at all proved a mental resilience unseen in any other designation in the Net. “Have you considered working for a corporate?” he asked Ivy as she moved to examine the dead and disintegrating section.
“Why? Looking for a new hire?”
Kaleb already had two Es on his staff. As such, he was far ahead of the curve—the Es were so stretched that even those more suited for corporate work were being asked to take up heavy lifting in the Honeycomb.