Caressed By Ice (23 page)

And if she decided later that she wanted out?

The darkness, the badness in him, bared its teeth. Tonight—maybe tonight—he could set her free. After that, she'd have to kill him to get away.

“Judd? Have you heard a word I've said?”

Forcing his mind back into rational patterns, he turned to her. “There's no doubt of it being a wolf now.”

“What?” she asked, as she pulled out of the driveway and set the car on automatic hover-navigation, possible because the roads in this area were embedded with guidance chips. Hands freed, she slid the steering wheel away into its compartment and faced him. “Who are you talking about?”

“Timothy's murderer.”

“What's that got to do with the attack on you?” She shook her head. “Anyway, both you and Indigo could be wrong. The Psy could have got in somehow.”

He knew she needed a place of safety, needed to trust implicitly in her people. But she couldn't, not if she was to be on her guard. “You're reaching, Brenna. The body was found in the den, in an out-of-the-way location no Psy could know about.”

“You guys can teleport over long distances,” she insisted.

“Yes, but we have to have a solid mental image of our destination.” He tapped a finger on the edge of his seat, a gesture that he caught almost as soon as it happened, but which he shouldn't have made in the first place. Psy did not fidget. “Even if one of my race
had
obtained that data, teleportation tends to leave us drained—the energy used is directly related to distance traveled. No evidence of a Psy presence was found within miles of the den.”

“And”—a soft acceptance—“what was done to Tim had to involve a lot of power and strength. He didn't lie down and take it—there were bruises.”

“I'd suggest it was a very physical struggle. Most Psy would have used mental means against a stronger changeling opponent.” He made himself say the next words, though he knew it would only forge another point of similarity between him and Enrique. “Of course, using Tk to throw someone against a wall would also cause bruises.”

Brenna's hand lifted to her neck and then dropped away, her eyes losing focus. “He didn't do that by Tk,” she whispered. “He used his hands to strangle me while he kept me immobile with his powers.”

Another piece of the nightmare. “Brenna.” It was a single word wrenched out of the most primitive part of him. The part that wanted to bathe in the dead Councilor's blood, unconcerned about the cost of such an extreme emotional reaction.

Brenna's eyes widened. Raising a hand, she brushed his hair gently off his forehead. “Why do I keep telling you things I swore I'd take to my grave?”

The contact shot electricity through his nerves. “Because you know I'll always be your shield against the nightmares.”

Her face brightened. “Yes. You're tough enough to handle my demons.” She took a shuddering breath and trailed her fingers down his cheek and along his jaw, but he felt the touch in far hungrier places. “So why are we talking about Tim instead of your attacker?”

Leashing his need was becoming harder and harder. “I think,” he said even as his body urged him to do something other than talk, “Tim's death is why someone is trying to isolate you—statistically, it's the strongest reason for why you would become the target of another wolf. And I'm certain you were the target.”

Her stroking fingers went motionless. “What possible reason could—The dreams.” It was a gasp. “But how could he know I'd seen the kill in a dream?”

“It's not
a secret that you saw something. You screamed, ‘I saw this!' when the body was found.”

“Oh, my God.” She slumped back in her seat. “The killer thinks I'm a witness and that I'll figure out who he is.”

“Which means we have to track him down before he makes another attempt.” Judd had promised Brenna safety and he would ensure it. Failure was not an option.

Brenna's expression shifted. “What will you do to him?”

“The same thing any other man would do.” He dared her to stop him.

“I don't want you to go further into the darkness because of me.”

“There's a difference between acting to protect someone and—” He cut himself off, suddenly realizing where he was headed.

“And what, Judd?”

He shook his head. “It's not relevant to the present situation.”

“You're lying.” A flat, angry accusation. “I can't believe you'd sit there and lie to my face after—” Jaw clenched, she turned away and pulled up the steering wheel, going manual again. “Fine. You keep your secrets.”

It was almost a compulsion to push her, to demand she return her attention to him. And that was why he fought it. Because she didn't understand what she was asking for, what it would cost her. That thought stayed his hand as nothing else. But there was one thing he did need to know the answer to. He waited until they were almost to the den before bringing it up. “How did you know where I was last night?”

She threw him a glancing look. It was obvious she was still furious. “Driving that Psy brain crazy, isn't it?” Her smugness couldn't have been clearer.

“There was no tracker on the vehicle.”

“Not when you checked.” She maneuvered the car over the rough terrain with angry female confidence, having disengaged the hover-drive and shifted to tires. “I followed you out of the den and slapped a tracker under the chassis after you got in.”

He remembered that shadow he'd seen. “I did a telepathic scan.”

She shrugged. “Don't know how that works, but I didn't move out from under until you'd driven off. That reminds me—we'll have to send someone to pick up my car.”

Judd knew why the scan hadn't located her. He'd made an elementary mistake and scanned the perimeter alone, rather than pushing outward in ever-increasing circles. To add insult to injury, he'd been so distracted last night that he'd allowed not one, but
two
pursuits. The wolf had to have followed him to the church, then lain in wait for his return.

Either he was getting careless or the more subtle effects of the dissonance—and of the battle between Silence and emotion in his brain—were already beginning to show. But that wasn't what concerned him the most. “I could've crushed you with the car.”

“Not really.” She sounded unworried. “You could only drive it in one direction.”

“Brenna.”

“You're just pissed because I managed to trail you out of the den.” She gave him a piercing look. “I knew something was up as soon as you got that call during dinner.”

“How?” He didn't tell her to change direction when she headed for the underground garage. This vehicle had been seen by too many people in relation to him. He'd have to get a new one for his covert activities.

She brought the all-wheel drive to a halt inside the garage. “Not from your Ice Man expression. Somehow I…” Biting her lower lip, she shrugged. “I can't explain it. I just knew.” Opening the car door, she came around as if to open his, but he'd already gotten out. She began to walk across the otherwise empty garage with him at her back. “If you rip open those stitches, don't come crying to me for sympathy.”

“Noted.” His eyes kept going to the sway of her hips, his control shot to hell. “You shouldn't have followed me.”

“Why not?” She threw him an uncomplimentary look over her shoulder. “It's not like you're Mr. Communication.”

“There are some things you don't need to know.”

“Like what in the hell you were doing in a deserted park in the middle of the night?” She spun around to face him, arms folded. “You keep telling me you're an assassin and then you sneak out. Pretty easy equation, don't you think?”

He refused to listen to the voice that wanted to correct her. “Yes.”

“Bull. Shit.” With that very precise statement, she spun on her heel and toward the ramp leading up to the main den area. “If you'd been in a killing frame of mind,” she threw back as she opened the door, “you'd have executed that wolf on sight.”

He stood in the garage for several minutes after she'd gone, trying to think of an answer that would satisfy her. He couldn't, wouldn't, draw her into the gray world of the rebellion he had to fight. Stopping Protocol I was his attempt at finding redemption, if such a thing even existed for a man like him, but she had no need to pay for his crimes. He was her shield. Against the evil…and against his own nightmares.

Finally ready, he walked up and made his way to her rooms. She'd left the door open and he closed it behind himself. “Brenna.”

She looked up from making coffee. “Don't lie to me, Judd. Keep your secrets, but don't lie to me.” Quiet words but so passionate they felt like blows.

So he gave her no false answers. “I'd like some coffee, too.”

She held his gaze for a long time, as if waiting for him to say something else. When he didn't, her spine went stiff and she turned her back to him. He had the violent urge to force her to face him, but fought it. Finally—and just in time—she was keeping her distance. Any longer and he knew he wouldn't have allowed her her freedom…even if she'd pleaded with him to let her go.

Even if she'd screamed.

The bitch
had ruined his plans again. He'd been about to tear out the assassin's throat when she'd come racing out. He'd considered chancing it, but the fucking Psy had damaged something in his jaw with that single punch—he hadn't been certain he could maintain the killing hold. And if Brenna had seen him, she'd have known him. Now he had to lie low until the jaw healed. At least that wouldn't take long.

It hadn't been a total loss, he consoled himself. Andrew and Riley were pissed. And he'd heard Brenna and the Psy fighting. It was obvious that the shine was wearing off whatever weird relationship they had. Forget about trying to isolate Brenna, all he had to do was wait until Judd Lauren left and she was alone in that big apartment.

She wouldn't put up much of a fight—Santano Enrique had fucked her over good. He decided he wouldn't kill her with an overdose after all. His fingers curled, imagining the slender width of her neck under his palms. He wanted to watch the life drain out of those witchy eyes of hers. Maybe, in the instant before she died, she'd remember the last time he'd had his hands around her throat.

After a day
full of silences and stilted conversation, Brenna came to stand beside him where he sat going over the files that had been in the data crystal the Ghost had given him. Hidden in his back pants pocket, it had somehow survived the ambush undamaged.

“Why are you still here?” she asked. “It's nine at night.”

He closed the file and put down his organizer. “With your brothers being forced to keep their distance, your safety is in my hands.”

He watched her face in the light thrown by the glow of the lamps she'd dimmed. Deceptively delicate-looking bones covered by creamy skin. Hair that shone gold and lashes that were a shade lighter, so long they appeared unreal.

She caught him staring. “Kiss me.”

His undamaged hand fisted. “I told you—you can't get what you need from me.”

“Liar.” She leaned against the wall in front of him, small and curvy and determined. “You want me so much you're burning up with it.”

“I don't feel lust.”

If Brenna hadn't been so terrified of losing him to his own demons, she might have been put off by his seemingly intractable will. “That's a flat-out lie and you know it.” He had so many secrets he wouldn't share, but she was determined to have this out at least. “You were practically eating me up with your eyes that day after my shower. I swear, if you deny it, I won't be responsible for my actions.” And he'd break her heart.

He stood, the movement smooth, dangerous. “You don't understand what you're asking.” Steely Psy focus, but she was certain she saw the gold flecks in his eyes spark.

Excitement licked along her skin. “I know there are pain controls in the conditioning,” she began. “I called Faith today—”

“You think I'm scared of a little
pain
?” His voice had dropped a decibel, gone eerily darker. “You think I wouldn't risk my life to break the chains on my mind?”

She'd never seen him like this, his icy control morphing into what her animal senses told her was the most finely honed rage, so pure it dyed the air crimson. “Then what?” she dared to ask, walking until she stood only a few small footsteps away. “What has such a hold over you that you're willing to walk away from us?” From something more powerful and more real than anything she'd ever before felt

“I'm not anything like Faith,” he said, a wall of stone in front of her. “My ability is nothing good.” He thrust his hand into her hair with not the slightest warning, tugging back her head and exposing her throat. “My subdesignation doesn't exist on any chart but the one kept by the Arrow Squad.”

Fear coated her tongue as she realized she had somehow succeeded in shattering a crucial part of his defensive shields—the question was, could she handle what she'd unleashed? “Tell me, Judd. I need to know.” Because he was hers. Even here and now, her body hungered for him, his very darkness an aphrodisiac—because she was convinced he'd never harm her. Then he spoke and shattered every one of her cozy preconceptions.

“I could kill you during sex,” he said, letting her straighten her head but not releasing her. “Stop your heartbeat, crush your windpipe, cut off the blood flow to your brain.” The cold words hit her like gunshots at close range. “If not that, then perhaps I'd crack open your skull or your chest cavity. There are so many ways to kill with even a stray thought—of course it'd be less refined than when I've planned it out, but the end result would be the same. You in a body bag.”

Everything chilled inside her. At that moment, she was almost ready to run. This man wasn't the Judd she knew. This man terrified her. “You can't manipulate changeling minds that way,” she whispered, desperate to find a way out.

“You're not listening.” His lips brushed her ear, but it was nothing erotic. “I don't have to influence your mind to kill. No telekinetic does. And I'm a very, very specialized Tk, subdesignation Cell. I can influence the physical structures of human, Psy, and changeling bodies,” he said in her ear, the frost of death in his tone. “My control is fine enough that I can rearrange skin cells if I want to. You could say I'm the scalpel to Enrique's blunt object.”

She would not cry—he had used the word
scalpel
on purpose. That had been Enrique's favorite weapon, the one he'd used to carve up his victims. The thought of Enrique nudged at a deeply hidden piece of knowledge in her brain, but she was concentrating too hard on Judd to pay attention.

“It's why you don't have scars,” she blurted out, searching for something with which to ground herself. All soldiers had scars. But from the glimpses she'd had of Judd's body, she'd seen not the smallest mark, not counting the new injuries he'd suffered the previous night.

He drew back, his eyes going to her lower lip, which she'd caught between her teeth. It felt like he'd touched her…stroked her. Suddenly the fear transformed—into a passion that was so strong, it made her tremble. “The scars,” she prompted, breathless.

“Getting rid of them was a training exercise to help foster control.” His tone hadn't warmed up, but there was an inferno in his eyes. “Over time, my body seemed to learn the trick and now they disappear without conscious effort on my part.” Releasing her as precipitously as he'd grabbed her, he put several feet of distance between them.

She had so many questions buzzing around in her head but only one was important. “There has to be a way out.” She wasn't going to lose him, her recent shock of terror be damned. “Stop trying to scare me and tell me how we get past this.”

The gold flecks disappeared from Judd's eyes, the irises going pure black and merging into the pupils. She sucked in a breath but held her ground.

“When I was ten and not yet fully conditioned,” he told her, “I had a spike of temper. It was directed at a boy who had taken the ball I was using to practice my Tk skills. He was dead before he hit the ground. The autopsy found that his brain had exploded from the inside out. His name was Paul, his ability was Medical, and he was eight years old.”

“Oh, God, Judd.” She went to embrace him, but he held up a hand to stop her.

“Your proximity tests my control and right now, it wouldn't take much to push me over the edge. One mistake and they'll be burying you tomorrow.” A stark warning.

She could feel the unacknowledged pain in him as if it was her own. “You were a child, with a child's lack of control.”

“And now I'm an adult with total control, but Silence is at the core of that control.” The pure black of his eyes met hers, wouldn't let her look away.
“I will never choose to fully breach it.”

“I won't accept that.” The trapped wolf in her bared its teeth at the very idea. “What did your subdesignation do before Silence?” Hope took root in her heart.

“They were either hermits, in jail, or dead.” His blunt statement held the destructive force of hard truth, stifling all hope. “I've done my homework, Brenna.” A cold Psy reprimand but those eyes…they spoke of passion and need. “Those who realized what they were early enough separated themselves from society and spent their lives ensuring they never came into contact with other sentient beings.”

The inhuman loneliness of such a life shook her.

“The ones who weren't so lucky ended up killing by accident. However, because the nature of their abilities meant that all such killings took place during childhood, Tk-Cells weren't incarcerated but given training and a second chance.” His eyes went even more black, something she wouldn't have believed possible a second ago.

“Some chose the hermit's way,” he continued. “The remainder tried to lead normal lives but inevitably ended up taking another life in a flash of thoughtless rage—wife, neighbor,
child
. At which point, most of them chose to stop their own hearts. Those who didn't were locked into isolation cells for the rest of their natural lives, their minds chained so even the PsyNet was closed to them.”

Brenna understood responsibility and punishment, but what Judd was describing was a kind of vicious cruelty. “How could they do that to—”

“We felt then, Brenna. The Psy felt everything. The imprisoned Tk-Cells
wanted
to suffer, wanted to spend eternity reliving the nightmare of killing what they most loved.” Moving closer, he continued his relentless barrage. “There have never been very many of us—the scientists' favorite theory is that we occur by spontaneous mutation. That's the only explanation for our continued existence, given the fact that our genes are rarely passed on, especially under Silence. We don't make reproduction agreements. We don't father children. We don't
mate
.”

She felt as if he'd slapped her. But instead of pain, her dominant emotion was anger. “So you're going to let fear drive you? You're choosing the isolation of Silence as your own personal cage! How can you do that to us?”

Those unearthly eyes were so close, she could see the reflection of her own furious expression in their depths. “I'd rather watch you take a lover than die at my hands.”

She knew how much those words must've tortured him. Even now, the air was staining bloodred with anger. “And would you let that man live?” she whispered.

No response. That gave her hope even when hope seemed impossible. “Then we fight, Judd.” She dared to place her hand gently on his chest. He flinched but didn't move away. “We fight until every avenue is closed and then we dig under the roadblocks. Because I am not walking away from us.” Strong words, but she was shaking. He could destroy her with a few careless comments.

“You're the strongest, most determined woman I know.” He played his fingers along the strands of her hair. “You'd make mincemeat out of a lesser man. It's a good thing you belong to me.”

Relief almost collapsed her knees. “Not funny.”

“I'm serious.” Something very male moved over his face. “If you say yes now, I won't let you go if you decide I'm not what you want later on down the road. You say yes, you say yes forever. Be sure.”

For a single taut second, she was afraid of the possession in that voice, the implacability in his eyes. Judd was no tame wolf who would do whatever she wanted. He was complicated and dominant and more than a little bad.

And he was hers, no matter that the mating bond didn't exist between them. She didn't need that validation. Not with her dark angel. “If I ever want freedom, I'll get it.” Men like Judd needed to know their women had claws.

“Is that a threat?” Cool Psy arrogance as he drew close enough that her breasts brushed against him with each indrawn breath. His eyes faded back to normal.

She wanted to moan, having been deprived of his touch for too long. “How's your control?”

“Not good enough.” The words were pure ice.

Most people would've read that as rejection, but Brenna knew it was a sign of exactly how much he felt for her. Heart in her throat, she pushed up his shirt to bare the ridged lines of an abdomen that made her mouth water. “I want to check your wounds.”

“They're fine—I can move things inside my own body, shift blood, fix damage.” But he unbuttoned the shirt and let it drop to the floor. The bandages joined it a second later.

Easy, so easy. Because he wanted this, too.

“You're healed.” With her eyes, she traced every muscular line, every inch of golden male skin. “Beautiful.” It came out on a heated breath.

His chest muscles tightened. “Yes. No scars.”

“Yes.” But that wasn't why she'd called him beautiful. “Your body makes me want to do sweaty and hot and athletic things in bed. I want to kiss and lick and taste.”

His biceps bulged as he fisted his hands. “Enough.” Bending, he picked up his shirt. “I can't chance hurting you through an inadvertent activation of my abilities.”

She reached out and tore it out of his hands. “I like looking at you half-naked. And if you can give me orders, you're still in control.”

Heat flared in Judd's abdomen, accompanied by knife cuts of pain. She was pushing him on purpose and she knew just what to say to do it.
“Brenna.”
A warning.

Her answer was a kiss pressed to the center of his chest. “Don't go all male on me. I might have an idea about how to get around your ability.” She trailed her fingers over his bare skin, skin that was suddenly the most sensitive part of his body.

“I can't help being male.” His erection was a pounding reminder of his sex. Of course the reaction was a breach of the Protocol, but he wanted more rather than less. Her body brushed his as she rubbed her lips over his skin and he had to bite off the harsh command for her to go lower.

Flicking out her tongue, she tasted him. “And what a sexy male you are. I could pet you all day.” A sigh.

“Petting is a changeling desire.” Except that he'd often wondered what it would be like to stroke her until she—Razors slicing across his brain. White stars in front of his eyes.