Branded by Fire p-6

by Nalini Singh

  “I have to meet more of these Rats. Teijan wasn’t what I was expecting.”

  Mercy made the call before answering him. “They don’t like you wolves as much as us leopards,” she said, closing her phone. “Apparently, you’ve been known to threaten to skin any Rat you see sniffing around.”

  Riley gave a grim smile. “That was when they were spies with no allegiance to anyone. Now they’re valued associates.”

  Mercy snorted, but the cat was intrigued by his logic. As agile as it was, it needed a mate who could match it mentally as well as physically. “Getting back to the body—I can’t quite figure out how this guy fits into the recent slew of Psy going nuts. You heard of anything going down where the perpetrator wasn’t found?”

  “No.”

  “Me, either. But it’s not like Enforcement sends us memos.”

  “What about that cop?”

  “Who? Max?” Mercy frowned. “He went back up to New York.”

  “He might have contacts.”

  Mercy nodded. “I’ll ask Clay to tap him. But if the Psy decide to hush it up, no one will know anything.” She blew out a frustrated breath.

  “Mercy.” A tone so restrained, it spoke of the greatest emotion.

  “What is it?”

  “Am I out of the hole I dug myself with the last op?”

  “Maybe.” But she couldn’t help it—he was so serious. Reaching across, she brushed her fingertips over his jaw, tenderness tugging at her very soul. It would, she thought, be so very easy to hurt this man and never know she’d done it, he held everything so close. “You’re out of that hole.”

  He winced. “You found out.”

  “How long did you think the mating dance was going to escape my notice?” She folded her arms, though she wanted only to stroke him.

  “Can we talk about this later?”

  “Hmm.” She glanced at the kit he’d put on the backseat. “After we drop off the samples.”

  “I’ll get one of my men to take it up to Sierra Tech. Work for you?”

  Mercy nodded. Most of the respected R & D company was commercial, but a small area had been set aside to research things the packs needed to know. Since DarkRiver and SnowDancer paid for that section out of their own funds, the minority shareholders weren’t bothered. And both packs had a place where they could get work done in efficient privacy. “Let me call Ashaya and tell her about the samples. She’ll probably want to head up.”

  As she was finishing the conversation with the M-Psy, she remembered something else. “Did you manage to talk to Nash again?”

  “Yes, but he wouldn’t share any details of his research over the comm link,” Ashaya replied. “I’m sorry—I know you need more to evaluate his protection needs.”

  “Not your fault.” She leaned back against the seat. “Let me see if I can set up a face-to-face. Might get something that way.”

  “Good luck.”

  The NetMind came calling while Faith was sitting in the office Vaughn had rigged for her—an office she absolutely adored, because it was as wild as the man who was her mate, being situated in a hollow cavern off the spectacular main cave that Vaughn had made into a home. The walls in this cavern glittered with embedded minerals, setting off the glow in the thin tubes threaded through the walls of the entire “house.” Those tubes provided both heat and light in an eco-friendly way, leaving her cocooned in warmth.

  It was, she thought, just one element in the whole that added up to a feeling of total safety. No one would dare touch her now that she belonged to Vaughn, but it was nice to be able to work without any worry whatsoever—the route to her and Vaughn’s home was booby-trapped in every way you could imagine, and some most people never would.

  Lying back in her favorite easy chair, she began to go through the list of forecasts she’d been requested to make. She never made any business predictions alone, of course. There was always the potential for a Cassandra Spiral, the major mental cascade that could destroy her—the mating bond limited the danger, but neither she nor Vaughn wanted to take chances. Not when she was already so vulnerable to the dark visions, the ones that entered her mind without warning.

  But even there, she thought with pride, she’d learned to use the mating bond to anchor herself so the nightmare didn’t take her over. In comparison, this—playing with the list, “priming” her brain—was utterly safe.

  It was as she was going through the list for the third time that the NetMind “knocked.” She couldn’t really see it—had never been able to. She simply knew it was there, a vast, endless presence that was at once ageless and childish. Today she caught the tumble of roses it threw into her mind in its version of hello, and laughed.

  Talking to the NetMind was difficult—it seemed to understand images better than words, and yet it was the librarian of the PsyNet, holding on to and organizing the billions of words that passed through the Net. And it was a sentience, one that changed with the Net. Now its roses were followed by torrent of images Faith could barely process.

  Violence. Blood. Suicide. Over and over.

  She showed the NetMind a hand, palm-out, their by-now familiar signal for “slow down.” It obeyed, though its version of slow was still almost too fast for her brain to process. But it was better than before. Catching the avalanche of images, she put them aside for later review, sensing the NetMind’s distress. Worried, she sent it an image of a woman colored in darkness.

  The DarkMind.

  It was the twin of the NetMind, created out of all the horror, the hurt, the badness that the Psy had Silenced. Faith knew from painful experience that the DarkMind was mute—but it had found a way to scream, to vent its rage through acts of violence committed by those fragile minds already predisposed toward darkness.

  Now she asked the NetMind if its twin was behind the wave of violence.

  The answer came within a split second, less.

  The image she’d sent was returned to her, but with the DarkMind scrubbed out. So this wasn’t the DarkMind trying to speak in whatever limited, tortured way it could. But then the NetMind sent her another image—of the PsyNet, with tendrils of darkness creeping through it. Except this darkness wasn’t normal, wasn’t healthy. It was putrid in a way Faith couldn’t explain—she just felt it deep in her soul.

  An image of a thousand tears overlaid the snapshot of the PsyNet.

  The PsyNet was dying, Faith thought, and the NetMind was the PsyNet in many ways. Her heart stuttered. But this sending also had another message—the DarkMind might not be driving these acts, but its influence had subtly corrupted another, or others. However, though it was tempting to think of the DarkMind as evil, Faith knew that was wrong. It was also a sentience, and the blame for its insanity lay in Silence.

  She sent the NetMind an image of arms outstretched, an offer of help.

  The response was of a globe, but a globe colored in the shades of the Net—white stars against a background of black velvet. Around that globe was a shimmering shield that repelled her hands.

  The Net wasn’t ready for help.

  But there were cracks in the shield. She touched a finger to one crack, and knew that was Judd. The one next to it, Walker. And not far from them, Sascha. So many fine, fine cracks. The most isolated one, the newest . . . no, this was the very first, but it was hidden, hidden deep. And it was male, powerful, so very powerful. When this ghost . . . “Oh,” she whispered, realizing who it was she touched. “The Ghost.” When the most notorious rebel in the Net broke his Silence, the shield would well and truly shatter.

  What the NetMind couldn’t tell her, and her foreseeing gift refused to see, was if the PsyNet would survive . . . or drown.

  CHAPTER 40

  “It’s later.”

  Riley looked around Mercy’s office, curious. It was neat, but with an indefinable flair that was indisputably her. “Where’d you get this?” He gestured at the striking wall hanging behind her desk.

  To his surprise, she didn’t push him. “Peru.
I went roaming down south after I decided medicine wasn’t for me.” Coming to stand beside him, she smiled. “That was a hell of a lot of fun. I hung out with my grandmother’s pack for a while—even went to Carnaval in my leopard form.”

  He could see her in the wild color of Rio de Janeiro. “With Eduardo and Joaquin?”

  She laughed at his tone. “No, they were doing some roaming of their own.”

  “Why did you choose to study medicine?”

  “You know how we double up—I talked to Tammy and we decided it’d be nice to have someone else medically trained. But it didn’t fit.” She shrugged. “So I took some time off, went back and majored in communications instead. Much better fit.”

  Riley nodded. “I didn’t study beyond high school.”

  Mercy was surprised to hear the hint of hesitation. “Riley, you’ve been working in the pack since forever. You did an apprenticeship—I bet you’re the go-to guy for everything and then some.”

  He gave her a slow smile that rocked her heart. Ah, damn. Pretty soon this wolf was going to become indispensable to her happiness. And the leopard both craved and feared that.

  “I think,” he said, “I’d like you to take me to Carnaval one year.”

  It was the last thing she’d expected him to say, but it succeeded in making her heart melt. For her, with her, Riley was willing to play. “You didn’t roam, did you?”

  A shrug. “I chose that—the pack wouldn’t have minded if I’d taken off for a while. But I couldn’t.”

  Because that wasn’t who he was, Mercy thought. The predator’s need to protect had overcome its need to roam free. “I’ll take you to Carnaval,” she said, stepping up to stand in front of him, hands braced against her desk, “if you stop avoiding the reason we’re in here.”

  He thrust a hand through his hair, and when he looked at her again, any hint of vulnerability was gone, replaced by steely determination. “I’m keeping you.”

  Mercy blinked, so startled the leopard wasn’t sure whether to snarl or stare. “Isn’t that up to me to decide?” Females always had the last say in the mating bond.

  He stepped closer, every inch the SnowDancer lieutenant. “You’re my mate. End of story.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You can’t dictate that.”

  “Mercy, we’re in the mating dance—just being around you turns my wolf crazy.” Making a sound of sheer frustration, he did something she’d never have expected from staid Riley Kincaid before he showed her his wild creative streak. He reached forward, curled one hand around her neck, put the thumb of his free hand on her chin, and had her mouth open before she realized what he was about.

  The kiss was long, deep, breathtakingly sensual.

  And his hold, it was proprietary in the extreme.

  It was, she had to admit, some kind of wonderful to be kissed so deliciously by the only man who’d dared play with her cat with the intention of winning.

  He bit her lower lip.

  Her eyes snapped open. “Kiss it better.”

  “No.” He nipped her again. Sharp. Sexy. “You make me so fucking insane, I want to mark you all over. So everyone knows you’re mine.”

  The leopard growled in her throat. “Not yours.” She was her own person, a predator same as him.

  “We’ll see about that.” This time, he dipped his head . . . and bit her neck in a suckling kiss that made her moan and thrust her hand into his hair, tugging him back.

  “Stop that.”

  Instead of obeying, he reached up to squeeze her breast through her T-shirt, as if he had every right to be fondling her in her own office. And maybe glancing down to see that big, tanned hand on her body was mind-blowingly erotic, but . . . “Oh.” He’d stopped nibbling at her neck and now nipped at her ear.

  Mercy was astounded at the discovery that her earlobes were exquisitely sensitive. “Again,” she ordered, one hand in his hair, the other on his shoulder.

  “No.” He raised his head, eyes glittering. “You can’t have everything you want unless you give me what I want.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t play games with a cat.”

  “Who else am I going to play them with?” A squeeze of her breast, a kiss pressed to her parted lips. “Play with me.”

  It was the one invitation he could’ve made that soothed the cat, made her want to relax, maybe tease him a little. But first—“You said you were going to try last night. Are you going to take this, take us, for granted because of the mating dance?”

  “No.” His hand was still around her throat, his fingers stroking in a possessive caress. “It’s not just about having a mate.”

  “Then what is it about?” She pushed off the hand on her breast and stood upright. That free hand immediately settled on her butt. Pushy. But she liked him that way.

  Leaning down, he locked eyes with her. “It’s about having a mate who adores you.”

  She didn’t know which one of them he was talking about, whether it was a promise or a declaration, but she did know that no woman could’ve resisted him at that moment. “Then we dance, wolf.” A slow, teasing smile as she raised her arms to wrap around his neck, even as something deep in her screamed in warning—there was a danger she wasn’t seeing, a shock she’d never be able to bear. But Mercy was too caught up in the lush hunger of the mating dance to listen. “Let’s see if you can catch me.”

  He skated his hand from her neck and down her body to close over her hip. “I already did, remember?”

  “New game.” She pressed a kiss to the base of his neck, a spot she was becoming very fond of. Especially since he always blew out a breath when she licked her tongue over it. Like now. “New rules.”

  “Tell me the rules.” He didn’t seem to realize he was holding her head against him.

  Hmm, she thought, Riley really liked having his neck kissed. She was so going to take him necking out in the woods. Smiling, she began to nibble on that strong column, feeling her cat purr as he shuddered and angled his head to give her better access. “The rules,” she whispered, drawing the warm, masculine scent of him into her lungs, “are that there aren’t any rules.”

  He froze for an instant, then groaned. “You’re going to drive me to the asylum.”

  She smiled. “That’s the point.” Riley liked rules. She didn’t. Let’s see if her wolf could drop his guard enough to tantalize a cat.

  Sascha sat in her home “office”—the balcony outside the aerie—and stared at the book her mother had sent her. She kept hoping for a distraction so she wouldn’t have to open the pages, wouldn’t have to consider why Nikita had done this, whether it was a trap or a peace offering.

  As if on cue, the comm panel chimed. Relief washing through her like a rainstorm, she answered using the handset she’d placed on the balcony table. “Sascha speaking.”

  “Sascha, it’s Nicki.”

  “Hiya, kitten.” Looking away from the book, she stared out at the trees. “What’s up?” Nicki was only eighteen, but had recently become apprenticed to the pack’s historian, Keely, after it became obvious she’d been born for the role.

  “Keely asked me to do some research—she said you were interested in Alice Eldridge?”

  The feeling of buoyancy deflated. “You found something already?”

  “I got super lucky with the first person I spoke to—one of Keely’s contacts.” The sound of rustling, as if she was settling papers. “Sorry,” Nicki said. “I never expected to be given something this cool so soon—it’s exciting.”

  Sascha made a murmur of agreement and waited.

  “Okay, so the deal is, Alice Eldridge was a Ph.D. student who was doing this big study on different kinds of Psy around 1968.”

  Nineteen sixty-eight—the year before the concept of Silence was first floated. “She got permission?”

  “Yeah, looks like it from the info I was able to hunt up. All the stuff about her is buried deep—I got most of my intel from a rare books dealer slash conspiracy theorist after I turned u
p in person this morning and convinced him I wasn’t Psy. I actually had to show him my claws, if you can believe it.”

  “He was that hesitant?”

  “Oh yeah, and once he told me the history behind Eldridge, I understood why.” A long inhale. “Okay, so it seems that midway through her study, Alice Eldridge decided to focus only on E-Psy, and her results were considered ground-breaking, the best work on E-Psy ever done.”

  “Her work was well-known?”

  “In academic circles, yes. The original 1972 print run—done through a university press—was small, around two thousand, but there were rumors she’d been approached by a bigger publisher. Her style was apparently one that would’ve translated well to the popular market.” Nicki paused to take a breath. “Unfortunately, Alice Eldridge died in a mountain-climbing accident in 1975, and that deal never eventuated.”

  A chill rippled down Sascha’s spine. So close to the implementation of total Silence, had it truly been an accident? “Why isn’t there any mention of her online?”

  “That’s the thing—the rare books guy told me that her work was destroyed in a massive purge around a hundred years ago.”

  Sascha’s hand fisted. Silence had been fully implemented in 1979, a hundred and one years ago. And that was when E-Psy had become a liability . . . so they’d been buried, broken, erased. Somehow, she found the voice to say, “That’s great work, Nicki.”

  “Thanks.” The girl sounded so pleased that the chill melted a little. “I found a few bits and pieces on her other book—do you want that information, too?”

  “Sure.” Anything to delay the return to her “gift.”

  “Actually,” Nicki corrected herself, “it wasn’t a book but a manuscript. It seems Eldridge had begun to research another group of Psy after she finished her thesis.”

  Sascha frowned. “If it was a manuscript, how did you find out about it?”

  “Well, it’s sort of the Holy Grail to Eldridge scholars,” the girl said. “The woman I spoke to—after the rare books dealer introduced us—told me that Eldridge was openly working on a new project before she died. Helene—my source—said there’s a reference to it in the book on E-Psy.”