The Psy-Changeling Series, Books 6-10 (103 page)

The logical query calmed him, gave him an anchor. “He looked—looks exactly like our mother.” River had been her shadow and her mirror. And in the end that knowledge had broken his brother. “We had different fathers. His was as blond as our mother.” While Max’s was an unknown, a man who’d given him only the genetic heritage of another culture. “No one ever believed we were brothers.” But they were. They’d come from the same womb, grown up in the same hell.

“Is he—” A pause, a long breath. “You wanted to use the past tense.”

Another stab of pain, but he didn’t tell her to drop the subject. It had been so long since he’d spoken of River to someone who’d known him—and somehow, he knew his J did. “River disappeared when I was almost fourteen and he was eleven. He was so lost in the drugs by then that I know he can’t have survived long . . . but part of me wakes up every morning hoping that when I open the door, I’ll see him on the other side.”

Sophia shifted position, her gloved hand rising to curve hesitantly over the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Max. I didn’t mean to invade your memories.”

“I thought my shield—”

She shook her head. “Most telepaths who are born with the ability to be Js often also have some latent or weak F abilities.”

Max frowned. “Foreseers see the future.”

“Usually, yes. But there is a small subgroup that sees the past. It’s termed backsight.”

He knew she was talking so factually because she’d read his pain, was trying to distance him from it the only way she knew how, his vulnerable J with a heart that understood how much memories could hurt. “You saw River in a flash of backsight.”

“Yes. It’s the first incident I’ve ever had.” Eyes haunted, she placed her hand on his shoulder. “If statistics hold true, that’s probably the single one I’ll ever experience.”

“You sound glad.”

“I’ve never felt so helpless,” she whispered.

“What did you see?” His heart twisted—there’d been no horror in her eyes, so perhaps she’d seen a slice of happiness.

“You and your brother in an alley. You were trying to talk him out of doing drugs.”

“I tried so many times.” Max dropped his head against her. “He was the one person I loved, the one person who mattered. But I couldn’t save him.”

“He was so young,” Sophia said.

“And damaged—so much that he couldn’t see any other way out.” Max wished he could go back in time, convince River that none of it was his fault. “He blamed himself for things over which he had no control.”

Her hand stroked his nape, soft, hesitant, but gaining in confidence. “He said . . . he said . . .”

And he knew she hadn’t missed out on the horror. “Tell me.”

“He said she didn’t protect you.”

The pain of the child he’d been speared through him. “It was as if my mother had two personalities.” One for each son. “As an adult, I know I could’ve done nothing to bring on the kind of hatred she felt toward me—but part of me still believes that I did something to make her treat me the way she did.” His voice broke.

Sophia’s breath whispered over his hair as she held him, as she, a woman born of a race with no emotion, gave him more affection than the woman who’d given birth to him.

Sascha lay curled up in bed around six that evening, tired though she’d done very little. But she didn’t feel the need to move—it was nice to lie surrounded by the warm, masculine scent of the panther who was her mate. Snuggling into his pillow, she opened up the text that was her own personal guidebook—and an endless source of frustration.

However, she felt more hopeful of deciphering the oblique nature of some of the chapters today, after having spoken to a Forgotten empath, an elderly lady named Maya.

“Only cardinals could stop riots,” Maya had said in response to Sascha’s question, her trim figure active as she paced in front of her comm screen. “So I wasn’t taught how, but I have a vague memory of my grandmother talking about a ‘terminal field.’ ”

Maya hadn’t been able to dig up any memories of what the term might actually mean, but it was a start. With that in mind, Sascha was about to reread the section on riot control when she heard Lucas moving about in the living area. “Lucas.” She kept her tone soft, knowing he’d hear.

He filled the doorway, all green eyes and dark hair. Such a beautiful man, was her mate. Such a dangerous one, too, especially when the protective streak that had been honed in blood was riding him. “Do you have time to discuss something?”

His expression gentled. “Two minutes? I want to send this note off to Zara.”

“I’ll be here.” Watching as he left, she played with the spine of the Eldridge book.

“You need a better bedtime story.” Lucas prowled in to sprawl on his back beside her.

She raised her head instinctively, and he slid one arm beneath before turning to curve his big body around hers. It had become their favorite sleeping position.

“I’m not sleepy,” she said. “Just wanted to rest my feet.”

“I’ll give you a foot rub.”

Joy shimmered through her, an incandescent light. “Lucas, you do realize you’re spoiling me beyond redemption?”

“Don’t worry—I plan to ignore you once you give me my baby princess.”

She laughed, secure in the knowledge of his love. “Did you manage to talk to Sienna?” The teenager, part of a family of Psy defectors that had found sanctuary with the SnowDancer wolves, had been staying with DarkRiver on and off for the past few months.

“She got up to the SnowDancer den safe and sound.” A kiss pressed to the sensitive skin below her ear. “She’s a very good driver.”

“And Kit?” The DarkRiver male was a young soldier, a future alpha—and appeared to be forming an attachment to Sienna.

“He’s still down here.” Lucas sounded as if he was frowning in thought. “I don’t know if we have any right to say anything. They’re both adults.”

“I’m not sure if Sienna is thinking straight.” The Psy teenager had been close to the breaking point when she first came to stay with DarkRiver. She’d stabilized since then, but . . . “How’s Hawke?”

Lucas didn’t curse at the mention of the SnowDancer alpha, an indication of just how seriously he was taking this. “Seems fine, but it’s hard to read another alpha—we get pretty good at keeping our thoughts to ourselves when necessary.”

“Hawke and Sienna—there’s something there.” A raw, almost angry fury. “With Kit, it’s harder to pinpoint. I can sense something between them, but what, I can’t yet tell.”

“Kit would be the better choice for her,” Lucas said in a quiet tone that did nothing to hide the depth of his concern for everyone involved. “Hawke isn’t going to be easy on any woman he takes as his own. And the fact is, he lost the girl who would’ve been his mate as a child. I don’t know if his wolf will allow him to accept another female on that level.”

Sascha had no answer to that. Like changeling leopards, wolves mated for life. She’d sensed Hawke’s anger, his wolf’s tormented rage, but she’d also sensed Sienna’s anguish at her response to the SnowDancer alpha. And then there was Kit—gorgeous, loyal, strong Kit.

“Is that what you wanted to discuss?” Lucas took the book from her hand and put it on the bedside table before returning to hold her close again.

The imp of mischief that had awakened after she mated with Lucas made a sudden appearance. “No—did you hear the wolves are calling Mercy ‘their’ sentinel?”

A growl that made every hair on her body rise in primal response. “She might’ve had the bad taste to mate with a wolf, but she’s ours. They try to co-opt her, I’ll be giving you a nice, new Hawke-fur coat for your birthday.”

Unable to withhold her laughter, she patted his arm. “You’re so easy.”

“Brat.” But the panther was laughing with her. “You okay?”

She knew he was talking about Nikita, about the confused emotions in Sascha’s heart. “I’m getting there.”

Max walked out of the shower an hour later to find Morpheus glaring at him from the bed. “What?” he asked, pulling on a pair of jeans and a dark green T-shirt.

The cat continued to glare.

“I fed you,” Max muttered, glad for the prosaic reality of life for giving him a way out of the memories that had haunted him for over a decade. “Don’t scowl at me because you snarfed it in one minute and now have a stomachache.”

Morpheus licked his paw. He was
not amused
.

Deciding not to pet the damn cat right then in case it decided to bite off his hand, he ran a comb through his hair and walked out to the kitchen. Thanks to the grocery shopping he’d done the day he arrived, he had all the ingredients for the dinner he planned to cook for Sophia.

“Shouldn’t we focus on the case?” she’d asked before she left his apartment, her eyes huge. “My incident has already taken time we could’ve spent going over the evidence.”

He’d realized, with a strange warmth in his chest, that she was once again trying to help him in her own way—that smart mind had figured out he’d feel better if he buried himself in work. “We can discuss as we eat,” he’d said. “And, I think we’ve got time.”

“Why do you sound so certain?”

“You know the pattern we talked about?”

“With the victims all being murdered on the verge of a major deal?” An intent look. “Edward Chan’s murder doesn’t fit.”

“I did some digging on that.” He’d set his cell phone to run a number of Internet searches, glanced at the results as they finished up the final interview today. “Chan was scheduled to speak before a group of changeling alphas in South America later this week. No Psy has ever before been acceded that right.”

Sophia had gone very quiet. “Did they kill him because he was about to get Nikita access to a major untapped market—”

“—or because the contact would’ve violated a belief in Purity?” From what he’d learned of Pure Psy, he was convinced they wouldn’t shy away from murder. “No way to tell. But I’m going to call Nikita, alert her to the possibility.”

When he did contact Nikita, she’d not only agreed with his theory, she’d confirmed that no other project was at a stage which might trigger a kill. “I’ve also got twenty-four-hour surveillance on all my high-level people. They won’t be easy targets—and if one of them is behind this, it should give him pause.”

Now, as Max began to prepare dinner, he considered the possible impact of his and Sophia’s investigation on the conspiracy. Not significant, he decided. Whoever was behind this—the kingpin—was running things with a cool, clear head. He or she wouldn’t be put off their game by a mere human and a J at the end of her useful life.

His jaw went tight just as the doorbell chimed. Putting down the knife he’d been using to chop up some herbs, he went to the door and pulled it open. The woman at the center of his thoughts stood on the other side dressed in jeans and a cardigan in a delicate cream shade that made him want to peel it open—to expose skin of an even richer cream.

“Max?” Her voice was tentative when he continued to block the doorway.

He stepped back, waiting until she was inside and away from the cameras before he gave in to the urge to touch her. Lifting away her hair, he pressed a single kiss to the soft skin of her nape.

Her shiver was violent, but she didn’t pull away. “I wasn’t sure if I was meant to contribute anything to the meal.” A breathy voice, her head angled slightly to the side, as if she was welcoming another kiss.

Unable to resist the exquisite temptation, he moved behind her, put his hands on her hips, and said, “You’ll be dessert.”

Sophia felt her throat lock, her skin stretch painfully taut over her body. “Are you playing?” she finally managed to say. “Like with the notes?”

Max’s breath against her neck. “No.”

She balled her fingers into fists. An emotional reaction. One that would’ve concerned her before she’d decided to
live
. . . to love. She wasn’t sure she knew how, wasn’t sure the capacity hadn’t been cut out of her with brutal efficiency. But Max was
important
. She’d kill for him, she thought, this man who saw in her a woman worth trusting . . . a woman worth teasing. “This cardigan has pearl buttons, too,” she whispered.

His body seemed to relax a fraction at her reference to the note he’d dropped into her bag earlier, and she hoped she’d brought some light into his heart. “Witch.”

Releasing her clenched fingers one by one, she lifted her hands and then, very deliberately, stripped off her gloves. Dropping them to the floor, she reached for his hand.

His palm met hers, his fingers twining with her own to curl into her palm.

For an instant, everything went black. When she could see again, she found herself leaning against Max’s chest, his free hand curved over her abdomen as he held her against the masculine heat of his body. “I’m here.” A rough murmur.

She clung to the strength of him, the lean muscle of his body a solid wall in a shifting universe. It was difficult to breathe—he was in the air, too, an invisible caress. Dark, potent, male, Max surrounded her.

“Your shields,” he said against her ear, his lips touching her skin in small, erotic bites. “Are you safe?”

Knowing he was right to be concerned, she opened her psychic eye and checked her protections against the PsyNet, ready to patch any fractures, hide any weaknesses. What she saw made her go motionless. “They’re holding, but not in a normal way.”

“Explain.”

“My shields have always been rock solid, but now . . . they’re moving. It’s as if I’m in the middle of a tornado.” The psychic wind blew back her hair as she stood shocked in the center of her mind. “Nothing can get in or out because the layers shift constantly, tearing apart anything that attempts to penetrate.”