Sascha took a sip of tea and thought about what she was going to do. Returning home wasn’t an option. Ever. After the night she’d spent in Lucas’s arms, she could no longer keep up the pretence of being a normal Psy. Her shields were holding on the psychic plane but maintaining her mask in the real world had become impossible.
Then there was the fact that Lucas had marked her.
The second she’d walked into the kitchen, Tamsyn’s eyes had gone to the bite mark on her neck. She’d thought the healer would be angry given what she’d told Sascha the day before. Instead, the other woman had grinned and said, “I bet you’re starving.”
So far no one had mentioned the screams. Or the long scratch marks on Lucas’s arms. She’d nearly died when she’d come down to find him sitting at the table wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt. It was one thing to come apart in his embrace, quite another to have others bear witness to her utter surrender. At least he was putting on his black leather-synth jacket for the meeting with Hawke.
“Stay here,” he ordered, though she’d made no move to leave. “You’re not strong enough to hack the Net again even if we agree to your idiotic plan. Stay out of it. Rest.”
He was right. Ghosting Henry had drained her more than she’d guessed. It would take at least one more day for her to recover enough to implement the plan. “I can only last another few days.” The pressure inside her was intensifying minute by minute. “We have to act before then or they’re going to find out about me and attempt containment.”
Those cat-green eyes narrowed. “No one is going to contain you.” He walked around to her side of the table and bent down to kiss her right in front of his people. It was no peck on the cheek. She gripped onto his waist and held on as he kissed her in a way that was blatantly sexual and possessive without end.
A minute later he was gone, leaving her starving for him. When she glanced at the two sentinels, she saw no reaction on their faces. Vaughn scared her. He wasn’t cold and distant like Clay, but there was a prowling darkness behind his eyes that made her wonder just how close to the surface his beast was.
Mercy was a little more approachable but she couldn’t get rid of the feeling that the sentinels wanted her gone. She couldn’t blame them. She was part of a race guilty of helping the worst kind of scum. Who knew what she’d drag Lucas into?
“Are you here basically for my safety?” she asked, aware that there weren’t any other vulnerable people in the house.
They nodded.
“Thank you.” She put her hands on the table and made herself meet the male sentinel’s eyes. “I know I’m not what Lucas needs but let me have him for a few more days. After that I won’t be a problem.” She refused to allow self-pity to destroy the magnificence of what she was experiencing, but what she’d said was fact.
The changelings didn’t know the extent of the PsyNet. It had eyes and ears in every corner of the world, shadows within shadows. It was impossible to escape it physically even if her mind could somehow survive the mental separation.
Wherever she went, whatever she did, they’d hunt her down. They would’ve done so for any renegade because dissent undermined the Silence Protocol. However, her case would garner an extreme reaction—she was Nikita’s daughter. Not only did she know too much, her defection would strike at the heart of the Council’s image of invincibility.
Vaughn leaned forward, those strange almost gold-colored eyes focused completely on her. “If I’d thought you were going to harm Lucas, I would’ve ensured you never had the chance.”
“So the fact I’m still breathing is a vote of confidence?” Sascha would not let him intimidate her, no matter that he made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up in primordial warning.
His lip quirked. “No.”
Mercy put down her coffee cup. “Stop playing with her mind, Vaughn. I think she’s been through enough.”
“I think our Psy is a lot tougher than she looks, aren’t you, Sascha?” Dark-gold eyes searched her face for something she couldn’t even begin to guess at. She just knew that what was looking at her wasn’t wholly civilized.
“I had to be to survive.” Sascha held his gaze. “Even as a child, I knew that if they found out I was different, I’d be slated for rehabilitation—a kind of psychic brainwipe.” To this day, she could hear the shuffling feet and mumbled whispers of the rehabilitated as they traversed the halls in the inner sanctum of the Center.
She should never have heard those sounds or seen the nightmarish creatures who’d made them, but Nikita had taken her in one day when she’d been barely ten years old. She’d never forget her mother’s words—“Don’t ever be anything but perfect, Sascha. This is the result of failure.”
Sascha had been a teenager before she’d understood why Nikita had gone that far. She had to have been aware of her child’s flaw, had to have seen inside her mind before she was old enough to protect herself.
The harsh gesture had worked—to the outside world, Sascha had never been anything less than perfect. She’d even convinced Nikita that her flawed daughter had become a Psy to the absolute core. Until she’d started cracking apart.
“I can’t believe they do that to their own people,” Mercy muttered in disgust. “How can anyone choose to live like that? I’d prefer death.”
Mercy’s words had Sascha’s throat closing up. “I need to ask you both a favor.”
Vaughn raised a brow. He might have let her live but she knew he was withholding final judgment.
“If I get taken in when we put the plan into effect, if I get sent to the Center instead of being executed,” she began, “I want you to kill me. I won’t be able to do it myself because they’ll lock my mind.” A mental straitjacket that she knew would propel her into the final madness.
“That’s Lucas’s call,” Mercy said, her tone pure steel. It was an indication that for all her beauty, she was a soldier first and a woman second.
“I don’t want him to do it.” Not anymore, not when she knew what it would cost him. “He shouldn’t have to watch someone he cares for die.” In Vaughn’s eyes, she saw awareness of Lucas’s past. “Even if you feel nothing for me, do it for him. He deserves better than to witness me being turned into a vegetable.”
Vaughn stood and she thought he was rejecting her plea. But instead of leaving the room, he walked around to the back of her chair. Putting his hands on the wood, he leaned down until his lips touched her neck. She froze, feeling the power contained in that dangerous male body. He could snap her neck with one hand.
CHAPTER 19
“You have skin
privileges,” he said against her pulse, biting down very gently. “You’re Pack.”
It was the last thing she’d ever expected to hear.
Mercy closed her hand over Sascha’s clenched fist. “We don’t let Pack members die without a damn good fight.”
Sascha felt tears burn at her eyes. “You don’t understand!”
Vaughn nuzzled his way up her neck and bit her lightly on the ear before standing to his full height, his hands on her shoulders. “We understand you think the PsyNet is omnipotent. That’s because it’s all you’ve ever been taught.” He moved around to lean against the table by her side. “But the rules have changed.”
“What rules?” she said, feeling defeated by their refusal to see the truth. “They’re just as powerful, just as deadly.”
“But you aren’t anything they’ve ever seen,” Mercy said.
Sascha looked up into the other woman’s face. “I’m only a broken Psy.”
“Are you?” Vaughn ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek. Startled once again, she didn’t know how to react. She’d seen the way the leopards touched each other but had never expected to be on the receiving end of such casual affection. Especially from the deadly sentinels. “Or are you something else entirely?”
A retort was on the tip of Sascha’s tongue when she frowned and remembered those secret family files she’d retrieved but never examined. “I need to think,” she muttered, already withdrawing into her mind.
Neither of the sentinels said a word. They simply ensured her protection while she sat there thumbing through pages and pages of mental data. Somewhere during that time, Tamsyn came into the kitchen and started baking cookies. With one corner of her mind, Sascha felt the healer’s sorrow at having had to send Julian and Roman away. Lucas had shared the truth of their absence last night, trusting her more than she trusted herself. Tamsyn couldn’t, wouldn’t, go with her children—she was the healer and if blood was spilled, they’d need her.
Barely even thinking about it, Sascha gathered in Tamsyn’s sharp sadness and took it inside her. As always, the emotions of others settled like rocks against her heart but she knew she could deal with it. Somehow, she had the power to neutralize those negative feelings.
She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there when she was startled out of her trancelike state by a kiss on the back of her neck. Only one male had the power to shatter her so completely. She blinked and turned to find Lucas behind her. He pulled her to her feet, his face set in harsh lines.
“What were you doing?” The simmering edge of his temper was visible in his eyes.
“Looking at some information I stole when I hacked the Net.” Why was he angry?
His Hunter marks became vividly delineated. “I told you to stay put.”
“I’m right here.” Her own temper spiked. “What’s the matter with you?”
His answer was a low growl that made every tiny hair on her body stand up.
Suddenly, she became aware of the others in the room. Vaughn, Mercy, and Tamsyn had now been joined by Dorian and Clay. Silent as the predators they were, the sentinels and the healer continued about their business, but she knew they were listening.
“Lucas,” she said, intending on asking him to take this somewhere private.
“I specifically told you to stay out of the PsyNet.” Fury coated every quiet word.
“I didn’t go into it! I’m not completely brainless.” She’d had enough. “Did you expect me to sit here . . . baking cookies while you were gone?” A twinge of amusement from somewhere in the room made her turn and say, “No offense intended, Tamsyn.”
“I know, honey. You’re not the cookie-baking type.” The healer put some chocolate chips into a bowl.
“You were supposed to rest your mind. And don’t tell me that whatever it was you were doing wasn’t using up mental energy you don’t have.” Lucas gripped the back of her neck, pulling her toward him.
He was very careful with his strength but the dominance of the gesture wasn’t lost on her. “Stop it.” He might be alpha but she was a cardinal.
He didn’t bother to answer, speaking to his sentinels instead. “Why the hell did you let her disobey my orders?”
She kicked out with her boot, catching Lucas on the shin. He didn’t wince. “You’ll pay for that.” It was a silky warning.
And it made her explode. She might have been a failure as a cardinal, but she had a little specialty not many people knew about. Reaching out with her mind, she
pushed
Lucas Hunter so hard, he was two feet from her before he could blink.
Everyone froze.
Sascha realized she’d just attacked the alpha of DarkRiver. Too bad. He’d been acting like a complete Neanderthal. Meeting those eyes, which had gone more panther than human, she put her hands on her hips and tried to pretend the telekinetic effort hadn’t worn her out.
“Still want to play?” It was a taunt she’d never have made before she’d started to spend so much time with changelings.
“Oh, yeah, kitten, I want to play.” Lucas moved toward her in that lightning-fast way of his, his emotions a mix of exhilaration and challenge.
She was ready. Using her remaining strength, she jumped backward onto the table, the action almost catlike. Her Psy mind had watched the way the leopards moved and now it mimicked the beautifully smooth motion. Lucas’s eyes widened as he found her halfway across the table. “You’ve been keeping secrets.”
“Poor baby,” she taunted.
He started to smile. “Come here.”
“Are you going to behave?”
“No.”
Her lips twitched. Feeling silly crouching on the table now that he was no longer chasing her, she jumped off to stand in front of him. His hand went to her neck again, holding her in a possessive grasp. Except this time, there was sensuality instead of anger in his touch. His kiss burned her through to her toes.
When he lifted his head, she took a few moments to catch her breath. “Have you heard of privacy?” she asked, aware of her skin turning scarlet. She could no longer curb the physical reactions of her body. That shield had burned out last night.
Tamsyn laughed. “Sorry, couldn’t help overhearing.”
Sascha batted at Lucas’s hold until he let her go, content to prowl behind her as she walked to stand on the other side of the counter from Tamsyn. “What?”
The woman rolled her eyes. “DarkRiver males are damn possessive and complete exhibitionists during the mating dance.”
Sascha ran through her dictionary of changeling terminology and could find no fit. “Mating dance?”
Mercy whistled. Dorian winced. Tamsyn suddenly got interested in her dough. Clay and Vaughn mysteriously disappeared. Behind her, Lucas’s body was a hard wall of heat. “I think we need to discuss this upstairs.”
“Oh,
now
you want to be alone?” she muttered.
He picked her up in his arms, shocking her into immobility. Before she could find the breath to complain, he was running up the stairs. A minute later, he dumped her on the bed and lay down beside her.
“Nuh-uh.” She shook her head and tried to move away.
He threw a leg over hers. “Don’t try any more tricks, kitten.”
Just for that, she found another spurt of power and pushed his leg off her. A second later it was back.
“We’re going to have to talk about this trick of yours,” he said, sounding more amused than worried.
She narrowed her eyes. “I could turn your mind into mush if I wanted.”
“But then who’d lick you to orgasm?”
Her entire body turned into a flame. “You can’t say things like that!”