“Yet you brought her in?” Lucas’s voice was a whip. “You took a juvenile into almost certain death?”
If Sascha didn’t know better, she’d have thought that Judd’s jaw set in anger. “We had no choice,” the younger male said. “Sienna would rather have died than be rehabilitated. If we hadn’t taken her, she would’ve followed us on her own.”
Sascha stroked Lucas with the secret part of her mind, which she was finally learning to understand. “They’re right,” she said. “Rehabilitation is worse than death, worse than anything you can imagine.”
Lucas allowed her to soothe him, allowed her to surround him in affection. “Why didn’t you kill them?” he asked Hawke.
“We’re not idiots—it was obvious they’d come expecting death-by-changeling.” His hand was a fist on the table. “We captured them with the intention of collecting a ransom.”
“Then we told him it was the Council that would pay the ransom and why,” Judd said. “It left him in a bad position. He couldn’t have five Net-linked Psy in his territory and since he has a conscience, he couldn’t simply execute us or hand us over to be rehabilitated. He told us to cut the link.”
“We’d always known that any of us who survived the SnowDancers would have to do that in any case to ensure our safety,” Walker added. “Once the Council figured out we’d escaped, they would’ve used the Net link to exterminate us. No one defects from the Psy.”
Judd looked straight at Sascha and she realized that he was quite unbelievably handsome in the perfect way of the Psy. “Sienna was the one who thought of it.” His bearing was as formal as his brother’s.
“Of what?” Sascha was fascinated by the Laurens. It was clear that the two youngest were indeed starting to adapt, their minds able to integrate with the changeling way of life. Equally, Judd and Walker remained locked in their Psy world, having lived the lie for too long.
Unlike her, the two males didn’t have the very nature of their powers forcing them to face up to their emotions. Then there was Sienna, caught in the middle. At sixteen she would’ve been almost fully conditioned, ready to function as a cog in the Psy machine.
“Of a familial PsyNet,” Walker said, meeting her gaze. “She proposed that we start to drop out of the Net one after the other, with only milliseconds between each drop.”
“As if we were butchering them.” Hawke’s eyes were the chill blue of Arctic ice. Sascha fought the urge to reach out to him—he’d likely bite her hand off. The woman who took on this wolf would have to be either very brave or very stupid.
“Exactly.” Walker nodded. “It also made it impossible for anyone to get a lock on us. The second we dropped out, we linked our mind to another member of the family. The first to drop out had to be someone powerful enough to anchor the link, someone who could survive the initial separation and isolation.”
“Sienna?” Sascha asked.
“No. She’s cardinal but she didn’t have enough control over her powers. Judd did it.” Walker looked at his brother. “I was the last to drop out—I had to guide the kids out.”
Sascha guessed that Judd had to be just below cardinal level to have taken on the job as anchor. “It worked?” Her heart was in her throat.
“Yes. We created a closed circle that constantly feeds upon the energy generated inside the loop.”
Excitement and hope burst inside her. “Can . . .”
Walker started to speak before she could get the desperate question out. “No, Sascha. I’m sorry.” The words were gentler than she’d expected from one of the Psy. “For the loop to function, we had to lock it shut. With three immature minds, it takes everything Judd and I have to keep it going. Until Sienna is old enough to help, we’re the ones controlling Marlee’s and Toby’s instinctive attempts to rejoin the PsyNet.”
“The second you open the loop,” she whispered, “they’re going to try to relink.”
Walker nodded. “They can’t help it. It’s something we’re born with—this need to be part of the Net. The two of us are old and powerful enough to control the instinct but even Sienna continues to have trouble. We can’t take the risk of opening the loop to let you in and losing them.”
“I understand.”
Lucas shifted beside her. “Protecting your young comes first.” There was no accusation in his voice and she knew he’d have made the same choice. But she could also feel his frustration, his need to protect
her
. If it ever came down to it, she understood that her mate would have no trouble sacrificing every single one of the Laurens to save her. It was almost terrifying to be adored that much. Almost.
The other two Psy looked at him. “Yes.”
“But,” Judd said, “we
can
provide the distraction you need. Sienna and I are both telepaths with a number of . . . unusual abilities. We’ve figured out a way to sneak back into the Net through the mind of a weak Psy.
“We intend to feed our powers through that individual’s uplink and scramble a couple of the major lines of communication. It’s going to be fairly rough—secondhand sabotage depends upon the Gradient of the mind being used, and our guy’s scarcely 4.5.”
Sascha knew they were talking about mind control, something that was both illegal and immoral. “If you do that, we’re no better than them.”
Judd looked across at Hawke and back to her. “We’re only going to use the link to the Net. Neither of us has any interest in scanning the drug-addled mind of our volunteer. It’s your choice.”
Sascha struggled with the ethics of breaking one rule to uphold another; Brenna’s life against the invasion of a mind. What decided her were the painful shadows she glimpsed around Hawke. He was dying each second his packmate was held in enemy hands, the alpha heart of him shredded by the twin talons of guilt and grief.
“Volunteer?”
“Money talks. He doesn’t even care what he’s volunteering for.” Hawke nodded at Judd to continue.
“The break will be minute—we can’t risk anyone tracing us through the other’s mind. It’s the same reason none of us can play your role. The instant they even suspect we’re alive, they’ll hunt us down.”
“A minute break should be enough. The flow-on effects will ripple through the Net for some time,” Sascha said, frowning in thought. “The killer should detect the changeling nature of my psychic scent before everyone else calms down and starts to wonder what’s wrong with me.
“Even then, they probably won’t immediately understand—most Psy have never seen inside a changeling mind. There’s no reason it shouldn’t work.” Unless everything went to hell and the first ones to become aware of her were the Councilors.
Her hand tightened on Lucas’s, fear a tight knot in her stomach. She didn’t want to die, didn’t want to leave this man she’d discovered after twenty-six years of loneliness. But neither could she steal an extra few days to love him with Brenna’s death weighing down her conscience. Her mother was part of the horror and she had to save at least one life.
Even if no one could save her own.
The unfairness of it threatened to make her shatter—how dare she be shown this glory only to have it snatched from her grasp? Except, of course, the glory had never been meant to be hers. Fed by the poison of Silence, her mind’s collapse had begun long before she’d met her panther.
“Kitten.” Lucas’s voice was a purr against her ear. “Stop hurting.” Before she could comment, he did something that mere days ago would’ve shocked her utterly. Pushing back his chair, he lifted her into his lap. The casual display of strength reminded her of the differences between them, the surprises, the things she’d never get a chance to fully explore.
Having no desire to fight the embrace, she put her head against his shoulder and breathed in his scent. Lucas might try to stop her but she knew she was going to go through with this. Death was certain—it was just a case of how she’d make her final exit. So for now she’d live her life to the emotional zenith. She’d touch and laugh and be publicly held.
“Though we’re the wrong gender to appeal to the killer, Walker and I have both tried to think of a way we could implement your plan, since we’re already out of the Net,” Judd said, watching the way she lay trustingly in Lucas’s arms. “Unfortunately, it’d involve letting them know that at least one of us is alive.”
“Which would make them suspicious about the deaths of the others,” Sascha completed. “I understand, Judd. Don’t feel guilty about putting the lives of the children first. I’d do the same.”
“The Psy don’t feel guilt.” Judd’s eyes were cool.
Despite the urgency of the situation, she wanted to smile. “Of course not.”
Lucas kissed the tip of her nose and the gesture was so playful, she could do nothing to hide her smile any longer.
“My Psy does.” Laughter flickered in his eyes but his arms held her tight.
Hawke looked at the two of them. “And we’re not going to lose her.”
Lucas locked gazes with the wolf. Sascha didn’t understand the depths to which predatory changelings would go to protect their mates, didn’t understand that she
owned
him in a way no one else ever would. “No, we’re not.”
“They refuse to believe I can’t survive outside the PsyNet.” Sascha shook her head. “Tell them.”
“She’s correct,” Walker said. “She needs to have another psychic net in place to link to when she drops out. If she doesn’t, she’ll die of a kind of psychic starvation in a matter of minutes.”
“Even if we could somehow figure out a way to get her out of the Net, she’d be a prisoner like Toby and Sienna.” Judd pointed to her eyes. “We can alter our appearance and go out into the world, but you can’t hide cardinal eyes.”
“She won’t be hiding.” Lucas had no intention of burying Sascha in any way—she’d spent too much of her life buried already. “My mate is going to stand by my side.”
“The Council will find a way to kill her.” Walker’s tone was matter-of-fact.
“Leave them to us,” Hawke said. It was clear he was talking about both DarkRiver and the SnowDancers. “Your job is to help us figure out how to keep Sascha alive outside the PsyNet.”
A deep silence spread over the room. Lucas stroked Sascha’s back and thought about how to scare the Council so badly that no one would ever dare touch her. They might not feel emotion but everyone was afraid to die.
Judd’s eyes unfocused in front of him. A moment later, Walker’s did the same. Lucas felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise and knew the two were telepathing intensely. As if aware of his discomfort, Sascha snuggled closer, wrapping her arms around his neck. He let his body feel her soft weight, her heat, her
life
, and gloried in having found his mate. No way in hell was he going to lose her.
“There’s a possibility,” Walker said.
Everyone looked at the eldest Psy.
“Sienna’s been trying to convince us that our minds simply need feedback, not necessarily Psy feedback.”
“The problem is, there’s no way to test that without dropping out of the Net.” Judd looked like he was continuing to argue with Sienna even as he spoke to them.
Sascha’s forehead wrinkled. “How would I get the feedback without linking with Psy minds?”
“You’d link with changeling minds. For reasons we’ll explain, we don’t think human minds would work.”
Lucas squeezed Sascha so tight that she protested. “Sorry, kitten,” he muttered, his concentration on Walker Lauren. “Can that be done?”
“No, of course not.” Sascha sat up, tucking behind her ear a strand of hair that had come loose from her plait. “How could a link be held without Tp power on both sides? All Psy are born with telepathy to a minimal level.”
Lucas’s beast scented a kind of raw desperation in her that told him she was hiding something. “Let them talk, Sascha.”
“Why?” she cried. “So they can sell us lies?”
“Shh.” He ran the knuckles of his hand down her cheek. “Are you so eager to leave me?” How could she not want to fight for every day they could have together?
Pain fractured the beauty of her eyes. With a ragged sob, she dropped her face into her hands. “I can’t handle being given hope only to lose it.”
He wished he could take the hurt from her, wished he were the empath, not his vulnerable mate.
“Sienna is convinced it’ll work.” Walker’s pale green eyes followed the motion of Lucas’s hand as he rubbed the back of Sascha’s neck. “She thinks the way two mates bond equals a kind of psychic link. That mating link should keep Sascha alive when she drops out of the PsyNet.”
Sascha’s head jerked up. “Don’t you think I haven’t thought of that?”
“What?” Lucas growled. “Why didn’t you tell me?” The panther wanted to bare its fangs in fury.
“Ask them why.” She was more furious than he’d ever seen her. “Because a single mind can’t supply the feedback I need without killing itself. To use a link with you in any way is sentencing you to a slow death with me.”
“Yes,” Walker said. “Our familial net functions the same way as the PsyNet but on a smaller scale—the feedback somehow accumulates. However, we’re all Psy and we all supply the Net as well as feeding from it, which we believe creates the multiplication effect.
“In your case, there would be no such effect. To make up the deficit, you’d have to link with others in your mate’s pack. With three or four minds, there’d be a pool of background feedback—spare energy every mind produces. You wouldn’t be actively draining anyone.”
“Impossible.” Sascha was leaning forward, palms braced on the table. “I agree the connection between mates is almost psychic, but that bond doesn’t exist for me with anyone else. How do I mate with more than one leopard?”
“You don’t,” Lucas snapped before he could stop himself. “You belong to me. End of story.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I know that, your highness, but I was pointing out the impossibility of what Walker is suggesting. There’s no way for me to link with anyone outside of you.”
Lucas’s beast hated the thought of her linked to anyone other than him, but he realized that if it would keep her alive, he’d share her. It would tear him to pieces but he’d do it. It was the first time he’d understood the depth of his own feelings.
“Any other ideas?” Hawke asked.
Silence.
The wolf stood. “Prepare for war.”