by Nalini Singh
“Give it to me.” Dorian took the device with impatient hands and put in the password.
Files began scrolling across the screen at an unreadable speed. Ashaya’s legs threatened to turn to jelly.
“Hot damn.” Dorian whistled. “Guess you know what you’re doing after all. Brains and curves.”
The admiring whistle snapped her upright. “I had the distinct impression you wanted to kill me, not appreciate my curves.”
His teeth glinted as he gave her a grin that held a distinctly savage edge. “They’re not mutually exclusive.”
Flawless logic. Incomprehensible logic. She decided to return her attention to something she had a hope of understanding. “I need to get some of this information out into the media.” It would break her promise to Zie Zen, but her loyalty to Keenan came first. To keep him safe, she’d lie, cheat, even kill.
Turning off the organizer, Dorian gave her a lazy kind of look that did nothing to dull the steel in his tone. “Well, now, according to the intel I got while you were napping, you’re supposed to go under.”
She maintained eye contact, reaching into the same icy reservoir of calm that had helped her fool Councilors. “I try not to make a habit of doing what others expect.”
“So you want to put a bull’s-eye on your back instead?” He gave her the organizer, lazy tone disappearing to expose the predator within. “You really don’t give a shit about your son, do you?”
A sharp stroke of pain, deep, so deep within that secret part where Keenan had lived and where there was now a gaping wound. The brutal strength of it caught her unawares, annihilating her hard-won calm. “It’s the only way I know to protect him.” He was her baby, her precious little man.
Dorian’s leopard pounced on the weakness in her armor. She’d made a mistake at fucking last. “You told me he didn’t matter. That he was a commodity.”
A slow blink and he could almost see her scrambling to regroup. “No,” he said, gripping her forearms and forcing her to look up. “You don’t get to do that.” Not with him. If he was going to be held hostage to this unwanted compulsion, then she was damn well coming along for the ride. “You don’t get to hide behind Silence.”
“How do you plan to enforce that dictate?” she shot back, unflinching. “I’ve been threatened by Councilors. What do you think you can do to me that they couldn’t? That they didn’t?”
The verbal volley took him by surprise. “Don’t you dare compare me to those murdering bastards!”
“There’s violence in your eyes when you look at me,” came the quiet but pitiless response. “Even when you turn on the charm, the violence remains, simmering beneath the surface. Something about me antagonizes you.”
He gritted his teeth. “I had you in my sights two months ago. I could’ve shot you then. I didn’t.” And it had been a choice. The part of him that needed her to live had overruled the cold calculation of the sniper who saw her as a threat. “Unless and until you betray DarkRiver, I won’t ever lay a hand on you in anger.”
Her eyes went to the hands he had on her right then.
“Am I hurting you?” he asked when she stayed silent. “You brought it up, now answer the fucking question.” Knowing he was crossing a line, but unable to pull back, he stepped so close that her breasts brushed against his chest with every indrawn breath. “Am. I. Hurting. You?”
“No.” A toneless response. “But it wouldn’t take much to push you into a killing rage.”
He let go, so furious with her that his leopard tried to growl through his human vocal cords. It made his voice half-animal when he said, “One of your people, one of your Councilors, killed my baby sister. Santano Enrique was the perfect Psy, Silent to the max.” A mocking laugh. “So yeah, your presence, your Silence—how did you put it?—antagonizes me.”
She went preternaturally quiet, prey in the direct path of a predator.
That just enraged the leopard further. Shaking with the brutality of his emotions, he strode out of the bathroom and to the living room. He had to get away from her before he did something unforgivable. Because that woman in there, the one who for some uncomprehensible reason drew him like a moth to a flame, she didn’t have the first clue about how to deal with the trapped leopard inside of him. Contact, be it good or bad, physical or emotional, was the lifeblood of changelings.
Dorian knew he needed such contact more than most. He’d healed from the torture of his sister’s murder, but Kylie’s death and the blood-soaked aftermath had forever changed him. There was a darkness inside him now, an angry, vicious thing that he kept under control only by sheer force of will.
Now that darkness had become tangled up in his savage hunger for Ashaya. And this desire—this violent hunger shot through with the rage he felt at being attracted to one of the enemy, to a woman who had worked for the very Council he’d vowed to destroy—was nothing he welcomed.
He’d never hurt a woman in a sexual way in his life, but there, in that bathroom, he’d come perilously close. He hated that he couldn’t control his body around her, hated the man he became when with her, hated that her presence alone was enough to strip away the veneer of civilization that was all most people ever saw.
“Dorian.”
Her voice was sandpaper over his skin. Keeping his back to her, he drew back from the blood-hazed darkness and tried to find some hint of the man he’d been before the night he’d first seen Ashaya Aleine. “I’ll organize a meeting with our communications people. They’ll set up a broadcast—hell, we live to irritate the Psy Council.”
“Thank you.”
Hidden behind the familiar chill of her voice, there was a whisper of fear, of terror. It threatened to push him back into the darkness, but he fought to remain human, remain civilized. “You’re afraid,” he said, turning around at last. “Terrified. Of me?” He waited to hear her lie to him, to pretend that she was a perfect inmate of Silence.
“No. I’m… afraid that I’ll lose my grip on the conditioning,” she said, holding his gaze, “that this outside world will make me slip, make me feel.”
It was an answer he hadn’t expected, one that poured the cold water of surprise over his anger. “You’re an M-Psy. It’s not like your abilities need to be contained. Unless you’re hiding a nonpassive ability?”
“No.”
“Then that leaves choice—you don’t want to break Silence?”
“That’s an illogical question.” Her lips formed the rational words but the leopard sensed something else in the air, the finest of emotional tremors. “To admit to a need for change is to admit that I feel enough to know the difference between what I am and what I could be.”
He crooked an eyebrow, calmed by the fact that she’d come to him, was now tangling with him, if only on an intellectual level. “Trying to snow me with words? Won’t work. I’m a stubborn bastard, and you’ve already admitted fear. You feel.” But how much? And would it ever be enough to placate the increasingly violent cravings of his leopard?
She stayed on the other side of the room, as if she knew how fine a line he walked. “You’re very intelligent.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere, except out of this conversation.” He didn’t like the distance, so he closed it, until he could’ve reached out and touched her if he wanted. “You know the difference between Silence and sensation, don’t you, Ashaya? Not only that, but you want to step out of the cage.”
If she walked away from Silence, perhaps his guilt would fade. Perhaps he’d be able to look at himself in the mirror again. “Do it,” he whispered. “Break Silence. Love your son.” It was a low blow and he saw the impact of it in her eyes.
“You’re right,” she said, voice husky. “I know the difference between what is and what could be. I also know that my conditioning is imperfect.” A confession without lies or half-truths. “But none of that matters. Because even now, when I have a choice, I choose to embrace Silence… of my own free will.”
CHAPTER 13
; Councilor Henry Scott pulled up a computer screen and began to input data.
Names.
Entire families.
It was a list of flawed Psy, a list he’d been compiling for years. Several of the people on the list had already been rehabilitated, but far too many mistakes continued to slip through the cracks. Like this boy.
He read the report again—the eight-year-old was showing signs of increasing rebellion. In response, his trainer had put him on a harsher regimen. Henry believed the boy should have been eliminated at the first hint of trouble. There was no cogent reason to perpetuate the cultivation of defective genes.
But he didn’t have carte blanche over such decisions—the other Councilors had vetoed his suggestions. Too many childhood rehabilitations, they’d said, and the populace would begin to grow uneasy.
“Another flaw,” he noted, inputting more data. Silence should’ve made them impervious to such concerns. But too many of his brethren—no, not his brethren; they were nothing more than dull primates to his mind of absolute Silence—were still driven by the primitive instinct to protect the young, even when those young proved defective.
Entering two more names, he closed down the encrypted file and sent it to its hiding place deep within his computer archives. He didn’t keep as much on the PsyNet as he once had. His wife, Shoshanna, had long overstepped her bounds, prying into things that were none of her concern.
But she didn’t know everything.
His eyes slid to the left corner of his desk, to the heavy white envelope edged with gilt. A gaudy, flashy thing, stamped Private and Confidential. It was, he had to admit, the perfect disguise. Even his normally astute assistant had put it in the in-box reserved for human media invitations and the like.
Picking it up, he opened the flap and removed the card. It was heavy white board, the lettering dark gold.
It would be our honor to have you join us. The password has been e-mailed to the Councilor’s private address.
PURE PSY
A numerical URL followed.
This was no petty group—only a few, very important people had his private e-mail address. Like most Psy, he rarely used that form of communication, but it did come in useful now and then. As it had today. The password had come in under the subject line “Purity.”
Making a decision, he turned to his computer and accessed the Internet. The pathways of this network were extremely slow in comparison to the microsecond fluidity of the PsyNet, but that also meant it was disregarded by the majority of his race. The numerical URL would also assist in keeping this under the radar.
However, the biggest advantage of the Internet was that it was completely outside the purview of the NetMind, the neosentient entity that was both the librarian and the guardian of the PsyNet. Henry considered the NetMind nonpartisan, but as a cardinal Tk, Kaleb Krychek had considerable control over it, which meant his fellow Councilor was likely privy to information others would prefer stayed secret. Such as the existence of this group.
With a discreet beep, the browser deposited him at the site. The entire page was black, except for one line of text in white and an empty box.
ENTER PASSWORD
Henry didn’t need to check his e-mail. The password was easy to remember.
F_GALTON1822
CHAPTER 14
The inevitable future is fast approaching, but there’s time. Time enough to convince you of what you must do if they ever discover the truth. Run and hide. It’s the only way to survive. But even as I try to convince you, I know I’ll fail. She might appear stronger, but you’ve always been the brave one, with more courage than I could ever imagine. But courage won’t stop a Council assassin. Run.
– From a handwritten letter signed “Iliana” circa July 2069
Things happened faster than Dorian had anticipated—he found himself playing bodyguard in the first subbasement of DarkRiver’s San Francisco HQ at nine the next morning. While the pack held shares in CTX, a major communications company, this basement was set up for guerrilla broadcasts. Ashaya’s segment would go out on the Internet and all of CTX’s stations at the same time.
A makeup girl dared approach Ashaya, fluffy brush brandished like a peace offering. Dorian glared. The nineteen-year-old—a packmate like every other person in this room, bar one—swiveled on her heel, and went in the opposite direction.
“Very effective.”
He turned to the woman who’d spoken. He was still pissed off with her.
I choose to embrace Silence of my own free will.
He wasn’t stupid enough to believe that Silence could be easily shrugged off—it had taken Judd Lauren more than a year, and the catalyst had been finding his mate. But Ashaya had a child. A child she’d refused to see again this morning. Disbelieving, Dorian had left her with Mercy for a couple of hours while he went to speak to Keenan.
The boy had been quiet, but he’d allowed Dorian to hug him.
“He trusts you,” Sascha had said, having spent the night at Tammy’s.
“I promised him I’d be there for him.” And he kept his promises. As Ashaya should have been keeping the promises she’d made simply by giving birth. He knew Keenan mattered to her—she’d given herself away there too many times—so what possible justification could she have for depriving her son of the love and affection he deserved? It was an abandonment neither man nor leopard could accept. “What?” It was a growl.
Her spine went rigid. “The way you got rid of the makeup artist. Efficient.”
Instead of increasing as it had till this point, Dorian’s temper receded at the ice in her voice, his instincts shifting in a different direction. Challenge. Let’s see how long Ashaya Aleine could hold out against a cat determined to charm her out of the cold world she clung to. He wasn’t some green juvenile. No matter how bad things got, he could control his cock. But he wouldn’t have to if he could thaw her enough to shatter her Silence, get her into bed… and work this clawing sexual need out of his system.
His conscience gave a twinge at the ruthless way he was planning to pursue, then take her, but he figured Ashaya could look after herself. The woman was no pushover. She’d make him work for it, he thought, his aggression turning into a lethal kind of focus. “I got rid of her because you don’t need makeup,” he said after a long pause. With her hair pulled off her face in a tight bun that irritated him, and her eyes naturally wolf blue, she looked like a perfectly cut diamond.
“You’re correct,” she replied in that perfect diction of hers, devoid of any hint of personality. “While good grooming and makeup are considered useful tools among the Psy, I need to appear professional to the utmost. A more ascetic approach is the better choice.”
Dorian wondered if she really was as calm as she seemed. He couldn’t scent deceit, but he was beginning to see that Ashaya was an expert at faking Silence. She was also good at stonewalling—he hadn’t been able to get her to tell him why she was so intent on doing this broadcast. But he’d find out. “That’s not what I meant.” He kept his hands behind his back, though his fingers itched to trace the warm silk of her skin. Her voice might’ve been ice, but her skin… her skin called to him with a seductive whisper. Maybe he wasn’t as in control of his cock as he’d thought.
“No?”
“No,” he said. “Your skin is flawless.” It was a deliberate attempt to make her uncomfortable, to push her into betraying the humanity he’d glimpsed mere hours ago. “If you lay naked under the sun, would you glow that same luscious shade all over?”
Her face remained expressionless, but he saw her hands curl. “That is an inappropriate question.”
He smiled, and it was a smile designed to get under her skin. “Why? You’re a woman of science—it’s a simple biological query.” Mocking her to see how she would react. Testing her. The leopard inside him wanted to gauge her strength, find out what its prey was made of. The man was testing her for other reasons—learning her beyond the savage, sexual instincts of the beast.
He didn’t respond, just waited. She was a scientist. He was a predator used to hunting with stealthy patience. He couldn’t go leopard, but it was a wild, integral part of him, filled with the same hungers and needs as that of any other cat in DarkRiver. As a child, he’d sometimes thought he’d go mad with the craving to run, to hunt, to feel his teeth and claws sink into the living flesh of prey.
Then, one freezing winter’s night, he’d gotten up and gone running in human form, breaking all his parents’ rules. He’d stayed out the entire night. The soles of his feet had ended up shredded, but his soul had been at peace for the first time in his life. It was then that he’d decided he would never again consider himself crippled. He would simply become so tough that no one would dare question his changeling identity.
He had been six years old.
Perhaps that was why he’d connected so easily with Keenan Aleine. There was something about the boy that spoke to the child Dorian had once been. Though clearly of high intelligence and young enough that Silence hadn’t yet got its hooks into him, there was a weight in Keenan’s eyes, a knowledge that shouldn’t have been there.
The same knowledge rested in Ashaya’s eyes, magnified a thousand times over.
Ashaya had played mind games with Councilors. But she’d never felt as in danger as she did at this moment. Because while she looked into a face that held all the hallmarks of humanity, she knew the man she spoke to was something other, his leopard instincts evident in every facet of him. Even now, he stood so still, a cat waiting for his prey to make a mistake.