“Did anyone ever figure out that you helped Noor and Jon escape Larsen’s experiments?”
“I told them the children were dead. That’s why I said both the boy and Noor had to disappear when they left the lab. I don’t suppose it matters now.”
It mattered, Dorian thought, though he didn’t say it out loud. Both children had been given new lives, a new start. They’d never have had that chance if this enigma of a woman hadn’t put her life on the line. “Why did you do it? Help the kids?”
“I told you that the first time you asked me—politics.”
He’d been lying along the solid branch of a heavily leafed tree at the time, eye to the scope of his rifle. Ashaya’s tangled sheets and blue ice of a voice had hit him so low and hard, he’d been ready to take her then and there. “It didn’t mean anything that they were innocent children?”
A long silence. “It meant something.” So quiet it was less than a whisper.
The possessive, protective nature of the cat uncurled in a lazy movement. It pushed at him to reach out, to show her she wasn’t alone. But that was the way of Pack. And Ashaya was nowhere close to Pack. “Another fracture in Silence?”
Putting away the slide, she leaned her head against the window. “To kill your young is a sign of true evil.” There was something in that tone, a hidden secret that set his senses searching. “I prefer not to think of my entire race as evil.”
“Evil, an interesting concept for a Psy.”
“Is it?” She looked at him. “It’s an intellectual idea as much as an emotional one, the dividing line between being human and being monstrous.”
He was about to answer when she snapped upright and grabbed his arm. “No! Take the next exit.”
“This is our one.”
“No.”
Given that she was Psy, he wondered if she’d picked up something. “We being trailed?” Even as he spoke, a strange sense of dread whispered into his mind.
“Please, just go that way.”
He went with gut instinct and listened. “Where are we going?”
She didn’t answer, but she was doing something very un-Psy-like
and leaning forward, her hands braced on the dash. He couldn’t see her eyes but he had a feeling they’d gone the pure black of a Psy utilizing a lot of power. But Ashaya was an M-Psy and, as she’d told him herself, didn’t have any powers that were useful outside the lab. So either she’d lied or something else was going on.
She didn’t say anything for a very long time. He’d have worried that she’d gone into some kind of a trance except that he could feel her alertness, her absolute focus. “Ashaya, we keep going this way, we miss our meeting.” His own urgent sense of something being seriously wrong kept him driving.
“Don’t turn back.” It was an order.
Leopards, as a rule, didn’t listen to anyone outside their hierarchy. In Dorian’s case, the list of men and women he’d obey was very, very short. Ashaya wasn’t on it. “Give me a reason.”
“Get off here.” She was leaning so far forward, her head almost touched the sloped windshield of the bullet-shaped car. “Get off.” The strain increased when he didn’t change lanes.
Intrigued despite himself, he moved with cat-swiftness and took the exit. “Now wha—”
“Straight through the intersection.”
The directions kept coming, though when he asked Ashaya where they were going, she remained silent. He might’ve kept questioning her except that fifteen minutes from their destination, he realized where it was that she was taking them. His mouth tightened, even as he wondered how she could’ve possibly found out.
Twisting the wheel, he pulled to a stop on one side of a wide street, shocking Ashaya into a cry as her body slammed back in the seat. “Why are you stopping?” Her eyes were liquid night when she looked at him, so black that he could see his reflection in the mirror smoothness of them.
He turned to brace one hand against her headrest. “The only way you could know is if someone’s feeding you information via the PsyNet, or through telepathic contact.”
“What?” She seemed to have to force herself to think. “No one’s feeding me anything.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Know what?!” Her voice rose. Again, it wasn’t particularly Psy. “Drive, Dorian.”
He thought he heard a plea in those words, told himself he was imagining it. This woman would never unbend enough to beg anyone for anything. “Not until you tell me why we’re going where we are.”
“I don’t know where we’re going,” she said, eyes wild. “I’m just following his voice.”
His cat stilled. “Whose?”
“Keenan’s.” Her own voice was a fierce whisper as she touched her fingertips to the windshield. “My son is screaming for me. If you won’t drive me, I’ll walk.” Her hand went to the door.
He hit the child lock. “You aren’t going anywhere in this condition.” She wasn’t acting like herself. The ice had well and truly cracked, but it hadn’t cracked right. She was unbalanced, not thinking straight, not functioning on all levels.
She slammed a fist against the door without warning. “I have to get to him.”
He scented blood and he realized she’d broken skin with that single hit. Swearing, he reached over and grabbed her hands. “I’ll take you.”
She stared, as if she didn’t believe him. “Then drive.” Another order.
Releasing her hands, he did as directed. He didn’t need her to tell him where to go anymore but she did so anyway, as if she couldn’t control herself. The second they pulled up in front of the ranch-style house, she began to try to open her door. He hit the unlock button and she was out a second later. Even with his changeling speed, she was on the porch by the time he caught up.
He wrapped an arm around her waist. “Wait.”
She twisted. “I need to—”
“You go into a leopard home without invitation, be prepared to get your face torn off.” He forced her to look at him. “There might be cubs in there—their mother will rip you to shreds first and ask questions later.”
Something of his words seemed to get through. “I … see.” A battle for rational thought that made her cheekbones cut sharply against her skin. “I need to get inside.”
Continuing to hold her, he pushed open the door, knowing it wouldn’t be locked. Tamsyn wasn’t stupid, but she also knew this home was guarded around the clock by changeling soldiers. They hadn’t challenged Ashaya, but only because he was with her.
The instant they stepped foot inside the house, she elbowed him in the ribs, brought a booted foot down on his own, and took off up the steps. Too late, he remembered that Ashaya Aleine was very good at faking calm.
“Son of a—” Growl building inside his chest, he went after her.
He caught her in his arms in front of an open upstairs bedroom. He could scent Pack, but he could also scent Keenan Aleine. When he glanced inside, it was to meet Tamsyn’s surprised expression as she looked up from her kneeling position beside the boy’s bed. The child was lying on his side in the fetal position, apparently asleep. Tammy’s cubs were nowhere to be seen so they were probably still at their grandparents’ but Kit, one of the older juveniles, knelt on the other side of the bed, a frown on his face.
“Dorian?” Tammy said, her eyes flicking to Ashaya.
The sound seemed to snap her out of her shock. “Let me go!” Another elbow jab but he was already releasing her. Because there was something seriously wrong with Keenan. Dorian could feel it in his chest, a dark knot of dread, a psychic cry for help his changeling brain hadn’t been able to translate into words.
But Ashaya had known.
Now, she ignored everyone to crawl into the bed and take Keenan in her arms. As Dorian watched, stunned by her transformation from logical scientist to this … this leopardess with her cub, she gathered the boy into her lap and spoke. “Keenan, stop it.” Her voice was an unsheathed blade, ruthless and cutting.
Tammy sucked in a breath, disapproval apparent in every line of her face. “He’s a child. Tone it down.”
Ashaya didn’t seem to hear her. “Snap out of it right this second. Do it!” Another order, this one frosted over with Psy ice.
When it looked like Tammy was going to physically intervene, Dorian stepped between her and the pair on the bed. “No,” he said, not sure why he was supporting Ashaya, not sure what the hell was happening. All he knew was that Keenan was in deep trouble. “Kit,” he said, when the juvenile moved, “don’t touch her.” Kit froze, caught between a sentinel and a healer, in a situation where rank was unclear.
Aggression rose, filling the air with the promise of violence.
Tammy glared at
Dorian. “She’s whipping the boy with that voice.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Dorian asked, his eyes on Ashaya as she rocked back and forth, her son held fiercely tight. “I thought Sascha was staying here.”
“I don’t know.” Tammy shoved a hand through her hair. “Sascha was here—she just popped out to deal with another situation. I was about to call her back.”
“I came by for breakfast a few minutes ago,” Kit picked up. “And Tammy sent me up to wake this little guy. I found him like this—he’s alive, but it’s like he’s in a coma.”
“Keenan,” Ashaya said again, in that same strict voice, “if you don’t stop this, you’ll die.”
The words were grenades thrown into the hush of the room.
“What’s she talking about?” Kit whispered.
Dorian had no answers for him, but he recognized the apparent heartlessness in Ashaya’s voice for what it was—sheer, maternal terror. Whatever this was, it was deadly serious. He found himself moving to put his hand on the boy’s soft hair. “Keenan, wake up.” A command given in the tone he usually reserved for misbehaving juveniles.
Ashaya’s head jerked up. Those eerie midnight eyes held a fear so deep, he wondered how he could’ve possibly not seen it at the very start. She looked back down an instant later. “Keenan,” she said once more, but this time it was a whisper … a welcome.
The boy’s lids lifted. “You came.” It was that old-man tone in a child’s voice.
He saw Ashaya’s arms clench. “I told you to never do that.
Never
, Keenan. You promised me.” Again, that barely concealed thread of terror. It was the voice of a mother who’d been to the edge of desperation and who still shook with it.
“I wanted you to come,” Keenan said in response, staring up at his mother, but making no move to touch her.
Ashaya said nothing, but the way she looked at that boy’s face … it wasn’t anything Dorian could’ve imagined. “Go,” he said to Kit. This was a private moment, a moment he had to protect for Ashaya because she was too shattered to do it herself.
The boy left without a word. Tamsyn shot him a worried glance, but followed Kit out. Closing the door behind them, Dorian walked to stand at the side of the bed.
The boy’s eyes flicked to him, then away.
Dorian didn’t know much about Psy children, but he’d seen that same expression on too many changeling kids to count. Relief sang through his veins—Keenan truly was okay. “He broke the rules, didn’t he?” He folded his arms, trying to maintain a stern expression when all he wanted to do was pick the damn cub up and make sure he hadn’t harmed himself doing whatever it was he’d done.
Ashaya looked up. “Yes. What he did, it’s highly dangerous.” Her tone was beginning to lose that edge of panic, but she continued to crush Keenan to her. “He promised me he’d never do it again.”
Dorian met Keenan’s eyes. “You make a promise, you don’t break it.”
Keenan was only four and a half. He swallowed under the force of Dorian’s quiet disapproval. “I wanted her to come.”
Dorian felt for the kid. But Keenan had put himself into lethal danger. “No excuses,” Dorian said, enunciating a rule taught to all cubs in DarkRiver. “If you can’t keep a promise, you don’t make it.”
Keenan struggled to sit up in his mother’s arms. After a pause
when Ashaya seemed unable to let him go, she allowed him to perch in her lap. But the boy’s attention was on Dorian. “I’m sorry.”
Dorian raised a brow. “Sorry doesn’t wipe the slate clean. You can only do that by keeping your promise from now on.” Perhaps he was being harsh but if this was life-and-death, Keenan needed to have that drummed into him. “Can you do that? Can we trust you?”
A quick nod. “Yes. I won’t do it again.”
“Promise,” Ashaya demanded, her voice husky. “Promise me.”
Keenan turned to her. “I promise.” Then he laid his head against her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her neck. “I knew you’d come.”
After a fragile, frozen moment, Ashaya seemed to crumble. Her hand rose trembling to his head, her body softening and curving in a protective curl. “Oh, Keenan.” It was a whisper that held such abiding love that Dorian couldn’t believe she’d managed to hide it for so long.
What had it cost her to bury that depth of emotion?
Ashaya knew she’d
made what could be a fatal mistake, but she’d stopped thinking like a rational being the instant she’d felt Keenan’s withdrawal. She hadn’t cared that Amara could exploit the weakness of emotion to burrow into her mind. But now, the fear that Amara had done exactly that, and discovered the fact of Keenan’s continued existence, had her checking desperately for any hint of a breach. What she found was something else altogether—a wall of powerful new shields between her and Amara, shields full of color … and chaos. Beautiful and
wild
, reminding her strangely of Dorian.
A movement in her arms, as Keenan wriggled to a sitting position.
A child, she thought, he was only a child. No one should have to carry the burden that Keenan carried, a burden she’d never been able to shield him from. Because he had to know why there were some secrets he could never whisper, some truths he could never tell.
“Can I go play?” he asked … but not of her.
“Go on.” Dorian nodded, pushing back that silky hair of his when it slid onto his forehead. “But stay in the house for now.”
“Okay.” Scrambling off the bed, he scampered across the floor.
Dorian picked him up before he could reach the door. Keenan made a startled sound, but threw his arms around the changeling male and whispered something Ashaya couldn’t catch. It didn’t matter. The sharp grin that cut across Dorian’s face said everything—her baby boy trusted him. She could almost see the bond between the lethal sniper and the tiny boy he held tight in his arms. It was as solid as rock.