The Psy-Changeling Collection (329 page)
“I’ve heard rumors it’s some kind of psychic entity that organizes the Net.”
“Yes. The thing is, there’s a DarkMind, too.” She’d
searched, dug deep to find confirmation of her suspicions. “It’s made up of all the emotions my race has rejected, and it’s so angry, so scared, and so very, very lonely. I think . . . it’s also a little insane.”
Max didn’t ask what others might have. He asked only the critical question. “This DarkMind is protecting you?”
“They both are in a sense.” She took a shaky breath, swallowed. “At first I thought my shields were a psychic extension of the Net, that for some reason, the Twin-Minds had decided to look after me, but while that made sense with my Net shields, it didn’t explain my telepathic protections—those
have
to come from within. Then I realized it’s me.” She hesitated.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.” A kiss on her forehead, arms that held her close. “No matter what, you’re still my Sophie, still my J.”
Her heart settled, quiet, content. “
I
am a living, breathing extension of the Net, Max.” The tendrils snaked through her mind, fine threads, and not the dark alone. The light was there, too, simply less obvious to the casual eye. “I’m not just an anchor any longer—I’ve become some kind of a focus.”
Two hours later, she shared the truth about her shields with Sascha Duncan over a secure comm link. The empath’s face held no rejection, only concern. “But Sophie, the Net is going mad. If it’s inside you on that level . . .”
“There’s hope, Sascha.” A blinding, beautiful hope. “As the Net passes through my anchor point, the light and the dark come together if only for a fraction of a second.”
Comprehension dawned in a fracture of color in Sascha’s cardinal eyes. “And for that instant, they’re sane?”
“Yes.” Her throat locked. “I may be the sole anchor who can give them that peace. And that’s not right.” Because outside of the tiny oasis of her mind, the Net
was
going inexorably mad, a dark rot seeping through its very fabric—parts of the PsyNet were already dead, places where neither the DarkMind nor the NetMind could go.
Sascha’s own eyes shone wet. “No, they should’ve never
been split in two, but their sentience is formed and shaped by the Net. They can’t, won’t merge until Silence falls.”
And that, they both knew, might take an eternity . . . and a war that could devastate their world. “Things are changing,” Sophia whispered, holding the empath’s gaze. The NetMind loved Sascha. The DarkMind knew the empath could give them something, but it didn’t know how to shape its request, how to even convey its painful need. “You’ve felt it.”
“Yes.” A solemn gaze, but it held hope, the determination of a Psy willing to fight for her people. “Are you sure you’re safe, Sophia?” So much care, the empath’s huge heart there in the timbre of her voice, in every part of her.
At that moment, Sophia understood some of what the crippled, voiceless DarkMind was trying to tell her, understood that the Es
had
to be reawakened if the Net was to survive.
“I understand why it does what it does,” Sascha continued, sorrow erasing the stars in her eyes, “but the Dark-Mind’s need for vengeance has pushed it to spawn terrible crimes.”
Sophia wrapped her arms around Max’s waist, laying her ear against the solid pulse of his heartbeat, the warmth of him her own personal anchor. “In my mind, they’re one.” They were whole. As she was finally whole.
“They balance each other.” Sascha’s voice turned soft, thoughtful. “Yes, of course.”
“And . . . I accept the DarkMind,” Sophia said, hiding nothing of who she was, the darkness that had shaped her. “It has no need to scream, no need to fight to be known, to be remembered.” She would never shut it away, never force it to be Silent.
Just like her cop had never asked her to be anything but what she was—a flawed, scarred J. Lifting her head, she reached up and pressed a kiss over that scar on his cheek, uncaring of their audience. Thanking him. Adoring him.
“I know,” he whispered, his arms holding her tight. “I know, baby.”
It was all she needed to hear.
EPILOGUE
I’m sorry, Max. Please don’t be mad. I just can’t be here anymore.
—
Handwritten note from River Shannon to Max Shannon
Sophia had never
felt more content than she did at that moment, lying in the loose circle of Max’s arms as they sat in bed watching the entertainment screen. The show wasn’t important—it was background. But the warmth of Max, the scent of him, the knowledge that no one could ever steal this from her now . . . it was an almost vicious happiness.
Max rubbed his chin on her hair. “I can tell when you’re thinking.”
“Are you sure you’re not Psy?” A kiss pressed to the golden-brown skin under her cheek. He was only wearing a pair of boxers, while she’d pulled on a tank top and a pair of pajama bottoms with dancing penguins on them.
Max’s fingers massaged the back of her neck in an absent caress. “One hundred percent primitive human.”
Tapping her fist against the hardness of his bare abdomen, she reached up to press a kiss against his jaw. “I like you primitive.”
He took her mouth, stole her breath. And when he released her, he said, “I knew you wanted me for my body.”
“That and your salary.” Smiling, she tumbled him onto the sheets until she straddled him, her elbows braced on either side of his head. “Are you going to take the job Nikita offered?”
“It gives me hives to think about working for a Councilor.” He scowled, his hands shaping over her hips. Lower. “But then I think about all the secrets I could learn, all the other cops I could help with the contacts I’d make, the access I’d have.”
Sophia shivered at the way he stroked her, decided she’d have to get him in front of a mirror today. The fantasy was driving her to delirium. “I’ve already sold my soul”—that got her a grin, and she had to kiss his dimple then—“so I have little credibility, but Nikita seems to be better than some.”
“Not saying much.”
“No.” She ran one hand down over his chest, loving the fact that she could adore him at her leisure, without worry, without fear. As long as nothing leaked out into the Net, no one would come hunting—not in Nikita’s territory. “Max, do you mind that we have to continue to be careful?” Whatever change was happening, it was a slow, secret thing.
“I almost lost you to total rehabilitation,” he said, his tone somber. “Compared to that, a little discretion is nothing. And”—a
Max
smile—“you know it turns me on when you’re all prim and proper in public. I just want to take you home and strip you naked, teach you wicked, wicked things.” Possessive hands shaping her flesh with sensual intent.
“Oh yeah?” She began to slide her hand south. “Maybe—”
The doorbell chimed, interrupting Max’s groan of anticipation.
He scowled when she looked up. “Ignore it. It’s probably Nikita’s henchmen come to make sure I’m giving ‘due consideration’ to her offer.”
“As if you’ll make any decision but the one you want.” She pushed him. “Go answer the door. They won’t go away until you do.”
A black look on his face, Max got up and pulled on his jeans, the tattoo on his back stunning. And, Sophia thought, it wasn’t only because he’d had her name written on the blade. “I love you, Cop.”
He turned to nip at her lower lip. “Good ’cause you’ve got life with no possibility whatsoever of parole.” Then, barefoot and with sleep-tumbled hair, he walked out. She knew he’d done it on purpose—to irritate any assistants Nikita had sent.
Getting out herself, she pulled on a thick terrycloth robe and began to brush her hair. “Shall we go see who it is?” she asked Morpheus, who was snaking around her ankles.
As if he understood, he padded over, with her following.
Her hand stopped in midstroke when she saw the man in the doorway.
Max gripped the
doorjamb, his knuckles going white. “How did you get past security?” It was the first question that came out, the last thing he cared about.
The blond man in the corridor clasped the wrist of one hand with the other. “I told them who I was at the desk, and they said I was on the list. So . . . I . . .” He swallowed. “Did you know? I mean, should I go? I thought—”
Reaching out, Max grabbed his younger brother in a bone-crushing embrace. “You fucking idiot. If you try to run off this time, I’m dumping your ass in jail.”
River’s arms locked around him. Max felt dampness against his skin, had to blink his own eyes, swallow the knot in his throat. Raising a hand after a long, long time, he messed up the hair on the back of River’s head. “Where have you been, kid?”
River gave a sheepish grin as they drew apart. “Getting my shit together.”
“You couldn’t do that without disappearing?”
River dropped his head, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. It made Max grin, his heart full to overflowing. He knew this man, grown though he might be.
“Max?” Sophia’s gentle voice. “Are you going to invite him in or interrogate him on the doorstep?”
River’s eyes widened as he laid them on Sophia. “Wow, Max, what did you tell her to get her to let you in the door?”
Max cuffed his brother good-naturedly on the ear as River slid in past him and bent to kiss Sophia on the cheek. “Hello, are you sure you’re with the right brother?”
Sophia had never had a younger sibling. But this man with his laughing eyes and bright smile . . . “Are you making me an offer?”
“I would”—a whisper—“but Max always was a little possessive.”
Max’s arm came around her waist, heavy, warm, real. “Don’t you forget it.”
River looked up at Max as her cop turned to press his lips to Sophia’s temple, and for an instant, Sophia saw the truth of River’s emotions laid bare. So much love, so much need, so much pain. Max’s brother, she thought,
needed
them. “Welcome home, River.”
His expression shifted into a wary kind of hope. “Yeah?” But he was looking at Max.
Max reached out to thump a fist on River’s shoulder. “You’re staying if I have to tie you to the furniture.”
“No need,” River said, dipping his head but not before Sophia saw the sheen in his eyes, “just tie me to your Sophia.”
“I think,” Sophia said as Max mock-scowled, “I’m going to like having a younger brother.” Reaching out, she slipped her arm into the crook of River’s elbow. “So, tell me all of Max’s secrets.”
Max curled his hand around her nape. “Hey now, no ganging up on me.”
River laughed, said something. So did Max, the heat of his hold burning through to warm every part of her as she listened to the joy beneath their words.
Home
.
Finally, they were all home.
Five things happened
later that month. All of them momentous in very different ways.
One: Max decided there were medicines he could take for hives.
Two: Councilor Nikita Duncan met Councilor Anthony Kyriakus to draw up a plan to protect their territory against incursions by others on the Council.
Three: Sascha Duncan managed to stop a fight between ten six-year-old changeling leopards using her ability—though she couldn’t figure out how she’d done it.
Four: Councilor Kaleb Krychek found the beginnings of a trail that could one day lead him to his quarry.
And five . . . Max bought Sophia some
very
naughty lingerie for their honeymoon.
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