Caressed By Ice by Nalini Singh
Page 2
"That makes no sense. " Sascha had the rare gift of being able to speak as easily to changeling minds as to Psy. "You don't have the capacity to block her. "
"I do now - something's changed. "
Tai coughed to full wakefulness and they both turned to watch him as he used the wall to drag himself upright. Blinking several times after getting vertical, he lifted a hand to his cheek. "Christ, my face feels like a truck ran into it. "
Brenna's eyes narrowed. "What the hell did you think you were doing?"
"I - "
"Save it. Why did you come after Judd?"
"Brenna, this is none of your concern. " Judd could feel blood drying on his skin, the cells already clotting. "Tai and I have come to an understanding. " He looked the other male in the eye.
Tai's jaw set, but he nodded. "We're square. "
And their relative status in the pack's hierarchy had been clarified beyond any shadow of a doubt - if Judd's rank hadn't already been higher, he'd now be dominant to the wolf.
Shoving a hand through his hair, Tai turned to Brenna. "Can I talk to you about - "
"No. " She cut him off with a wave of her hand. "I don't want to go with you to your college dance. You're too young and too idiotic. "
Tai swallowed. "How did you know what I was going to say?"
"Maybe I'm Psy. " A dark answer. "That's the rumor going around, isn't it?"
Streaks of red appeared on Tai's cheekbones. "I told them they were talking shit. "
This was the first that Judd had heard of the clearly malicious attempt to cause Brenna emotional pain and it was the last thing he would have predicted. The wolves might make vicious enemies, but they were also fiercely protective of their own and had closed ranks around Brenna as soon as she'd been rescued.
He looked at Tai. "I think you should go. "
The young wolf didn't argue, sliding past them as quickly as his legs would carry him.
"Do you know what makes it worse?" Brenna's question shifted his attention from the boy's retreating footsteps.
"What?"
"It's true. " She turned the full power of that shattered blue-brown gaze on him. "I'm different. I see things with these damn eyes he gave me. Terrible things. "
"They're simply echoes of what happened to you. " A powerful sociopath had ripped open her mind, raped her on the most intimate of levels. That the experience had left her with psychic scars was unsurprising.
"That's what Sascha said. But the deaths I see - "
A scream ripped the moment into two.
They were both running before it ended. A hundred feet down a second tunnel, they were joined by Indigo and a couple of others. As they turned a corner, Andrew came tearing around it and clamped his hand on Brenna's upper arm, jerking his sister to a halt and raising his free hand at the same time. Everyone stopped.
"Indigo - there's a body. " Andrew snapped out the words like bullets. "Northeast tunnel number six, alcove forty. "
Brenna wrenched out of her brother's hold the second he finished and took off without warning. Having caught the unhidden blaze of her anger before she'd quickly masked it, Judd was the first to move after her. Indigo and a furious Andrew followed at his back. Most Psy would have been overtaken by now, but he was different, a difference that had predestined his life in the PsyNet.
Brenna was a streak in front of him, moving with impressive speed for someone who had been confined to a bed only months ago. She'd almost reached the number six tunnel when he caught up. "Stop," he ordered, his breathing not as ragged as it should have been. "You don't need to see this. "
"Yes, I do," she said on a gasping breath.
Putting on a burst of speed, Andrew grabbed her from the back, linking his arms around her waist to lift her off her feet. "Bren, calm down. "
Indigo raced past, a flash of long legs, dark hair streaming behind her.
In Andrew's grip, Brenna began to twist furiously enough to cause herself harm. Judd couldn't allow that. "She'll calm down if you set her free. "
Brenna jerked to a stop, chest heaving and eyes surprised. Andrew wasn't so silent. "I'll take care of my sister, Psy. " The last word was a curse.
"What, by locking me up?" Brenna asked in a razor-sharp tone. "I'm never going to be put in a box again, Drew, and I swear if you try, I'll claw my hands bloody getting out. " It was a mercilessly graphic image, especially for anyone who had seen the condition she'd been in after they had first found her.
Behind her, Andrew paled, but his jaw remained set. "This is what's best for you. "
"Perhaps it's not," Judd said, meeting Andrew's angry eyes without flinching. The SnowDancer soldier blamed all Psy for his sister's pain and Judd could guess at the line of emotion-driven logic that had led him to that conclusion. But those same emotions also blinded him. "She can't spend the rest of her life in chains. "
"What the fuck would you know about anything?" Andrew snarled. "You don't even care about your own!"
"He knows a hell of a lot more than you!"
"Bren. " Andrew's voice was a warning.
"Shut up, Drew. I'm not a baby anymore. " Her voice held echoes of darker things, of evil witnessed and innocence lost. "Did you ever stop to wonder what Judd did for me during the healing? Did you ever bother to find out what it cost him? No, of course not, because you know everything. "
She took a jerky breath. "Well, guess what, you know nothing! You haven't been where I've been. You haven't even been close. Let. Me. Go. " The words were no longer enraged but calm. Normal for a Psy. Not for a wolf changeling. Especially not for Brenna. Judd's senses went on high alert.
Andrew shook his head. "I don't care what the hell you say, little sister, you don't need to see that. "
"Then I'm sorry, Drew. " Brenna slashed her claws across his arms a split second later, shocking her brother into letting her go. She was moving almost before her feet hit the ground.
"Jesus," Andrew whispered, staring after her. "I can't believe. . . " He looked down at his bloody forearms. "Brenna never hurts anyone. "
"She's not the Brenna you knew anymore," Judd told the other male. "What Enrique did to her altered her on a fundamental level, in ways she herself doesn't understand. " He took off after Brenna before Andrew could reply - he had to be beside her to deflect the fallout from this death. What he couldn't understand was why she was so determined to see it.
He caught up with her as she raced past a startled guard and into the small room off tunnel number six. She came to such a sudden halt that he almost slammed into her. Following her gaze, he saw the sprawled body of an unknown SnowDancer male on the floor. The victim's face and naked body bore considerable bruising, the skin splotched different colors by the damage. But Judd knew that that wasn't what held Brenna frozen.
It was the cuts.
The changeling had been sliced very carefully with a knife, none of the cuts fatal but the last. That one had severed the carotid artery. Which meant there was something wrong with this scene. "Where's the blood?" he asked Indigo, who was crouching on the other side of the body, a couple of her soldiers beside her.
The lieutenant scowled at seeing Brenna in the room but answered, "It's not a fresh kill. He was dumped here. "
"Out-of-the-way room. " One of the soldiers, a lanky male named Dieter, spoke up. "Easy to get to without being spotted if you know what you're doing - whoever did this was smart, probably chose the location beforehand. "
Brenna sucked in a breath but didn't speak.
Indigo's scowl grew. "Get her the hell out of here. "
Judd didn't follow orders well, but he agreed with this one. "Let's go," he said to the woman standing with her back to him.
"I saw this. " A faint whisper.
Indigo stood, an odd look on her face. "What?"
Brenna began to tremble. "I saw this. " The same reedy whisper. "I saw this. " Louder. "I saw this!"
A scream.
Judd had spent enough time with her to know that she would hate having lost control in front of everyone. She was a very proud wolf. So he did the only thing he could to slice through her hysteria. He moved to block her view of the body and then he used her emotions against her. It was a weapon the Psy had honed to perfection. "You're making a fool of yourself. "
The icy cold words hit Brenna like a slap. "Excuse me?" She dropped the hand she'd raised to push him aside.
"Look behind you. "
She remained stubbornly still. Hell would freeze over before she obeyed an order from him.
"Half the den is sniffing around," he told her. Pitiless. Psy. "Listening to you break down. "
"I am not breaking down. " She flushed at the realization of so many eyes on her. "Get out of my way. " She didn't want to look at the body anymore - a body that had been mutilated with the same eerie precision Enrique had used on his victims - but pride wouldn't let her back down.
"You're being irrational. " Judd didn't move. "This place is obviously having a negative impact on your emotional stability. Step back out. " It was a definite command, his tone so close to alpha it set her teeth on edge.
"And if I don't?" She gladly embraced the anger he'd awakened - it gave her a new focus, a way to escape the nightmare memories triggered by this room.
Cool Psy eyes met hers, the male arrogance in them breathtaking. "Then I'll pick you up and move you myself. "
At the response, exhilaration burst to life in her bloodstream, chasing away the last acrid tang of fear. Months of frustration - of watching her independence being buried under a wall of protection, of being told what was best for her, of having her rationality questioned at every turn, all that and more snowballed into this single instant. "Try it. " A dare.
"That makes no sense. " Sascha had the rare gift of being able to speak as easily to changeling minds as to Psy. "You don't have the capacity to block her. "
"I do now - something's changed. "
Tai coughed to full wakefulness and they both turned to watch him as he used the wall to drag himself upright. Blinking several times after getting vertical, he lifted a hand to his cheek. "Christ, my face feels like a truck ran into it. "
Brenna's eyes narrowed. "What the hell did you think you were doing?"
"I - "
"Save it. Why did you come after Judd?"
"Brenna, this is none of your concern. " Judd could feel blood drying on his skin, the cells already clotting. "Tai and I have come to an understanding. " He looked the other male in the eye.
Tai's jaw set, but he nodded. "We're square. "
And their relative status in the pack's hierarchy had been clarified beyond any shadow of a doubt - if Judd's rank hadn't already been higher, he'd now be dominant to the wolf.
Shoving a hand through his hair, Tai turned to Brenna. "Can I talk to you about - "
"No. " She cut him off with a wave of her hand. "I don't want to go with you to your college dance. You're too young and too idiotic. "
Tai swallowed. "How did you know what I was going to say?"
"Maybe I'm Psy. " A dark answer. "That's the rumor going around, isn't it?"
Streaks of red appeared on Tai's cheekbones. "I told them they were talking shit. "
This was the first that Judd had heard of the clearly malicious attempt to cause Brenna emotional pain and it was the last thing he would have predicted. The wolves might make vicious enemies, but they were also fiercely protective of their own and had closed ranks around Brenna as soon as she'd been rescued.
He looked at Tai. "I think you should go. "
The young wolf didn't argue, sliding past them as quickly as his legs would carry him.
"Do you know what makes it worse?" Brenna's question shifted his attention from the boy's retreating footsteps.
"What?"
"It's true. " She turned the full power of that shattered blue-brown gaze on him. "I'm different. I see things with these damn eyes he gave me. Terrible things. "
"They're simply echoes of what happened to you. " A powerful sociopath had ripped open her mind, raped her on the most intimate of levels. That the experience had left her with psychic scars was unsurprising.
"That's what Sascha said. But the deaths I see - "
A scream ripped the moment into two.
They were both running before it ended. A hundred feet down a second tunnel, they were joined by Indigo and a couple of others. As they turned a corner, Andrew came tearing around it and clamped his hand on Brenna's upper arm, jerking his sister to a halt and raising his free hand at the same time. Everyone stopped.
"Indigo - there's a body. " Andrew snapped out the words like bullets. "Northeast tunnel number six, alcove forty. "
Brenna wrenched out of her brother's hold the second he finished and took off without warning. Having caught the unhidden blaze of her anger before she'd quickly masked it, Judd was the first to move after her. Indigo and a furious Andrew followed at his back. Most Psy would have been overtaken by now, but he was different, a difference that had predestined his life in the PsyNet.
Brenna was a streak in front of him, moving with impressive speed for someone who had been confined to a bed only months ago. She'd almost reached the number six tunnel when he caught up. "Stop," he ordered, his breathing not as ragged as it should have been. "You don't need to see this. "
"Yes, I do," she said on a gasping breath.
Putting on a burst of speed, Andrew grabbed her from the back, linking his arms around her waist to lift her off her feet. "Bren, calm down. "
Indigo raced past, a flash of long legs, dark hair streaming behind her.
In Andrew's grip, Brenna began to twist furiously enough to cause herself harm. Judd couldn't allow that. "She'll calm down if you set her free. "
Brenna jerked to a stop, chest heaving and eyes surprised. Andrew wasn't so silent. "I'll take care of my sister, Psy. " The last word was a curse.
"What, by locking me up?" Brenna asked in a razor-sharp tone. "I'm never going to be put in a box again, Drew, and I swear if you try, I'll claw my hands bloody getting out. " It was a mercilessly graphic image, especially for anyone who had seen the condition she'd been in after they had first found her.
Behind her, Andrew paled, but his jaw remained set. "This is what's best for you. "
"Perhaps it's not," Judd said, meeting Andrew's angry eyes without flinching. The SnowDancer soldier blamed all Psy for his sister's pain and Judd could guess at the line of emotion-driven logic that had led him to that conclusion. But those same emotions also blinded him. "She can't spend the rest of her life in chains. "
"What the fuck would you know about anything?" Andrew snarled. "You don't even care about your own!"
"He knows a hell of a lot more than you!"
"Bren. " Andrew's voice was a warning.
"Shut up, Drew. I'm not a baby anymore. " Her voice held echoes of darker things, of evil witnessed and innocence lost. "Did you ever stop to wonder what Judd did for me during the healing? Did you ever bother to find out what it cost him? No, of course not, because you know everything. "
She took a jerky breath. "Well, guess what, you know nothing! You haven't been where I've been. You haven't even been close. Let. Me. Go. " The words were no longer enraged but calm. Normal for a Psy. Not for a wolf changeling. Especially not for Brenna. Judd's senses went on high alert.
Andrew shook his head. "I don't care what the hell you say, little sister, you don't need to see that. "
"Then I'm sorry, Drew. " Brenna slashed her claws across his arms a split second later, shocking her brother into letting her go. She was moving almost before her feet hit the ground.
"Jesus," Andrew whispered, staring after her. "I can't believe. . . " He looked down at his bloody forearms. "Brenna never hurts anyone. "
"She's not the Brenna you knew anymore," Judd told the other male. "What Enrique did to her altered her on a fundamental level, in ways she herself doesn't understand. " He took off after Brenna before Andrew could reply - he had to be beside her to deflect the fallout from this death. What he couldn't understand was why she was so determined to see it.
He caught up with her as she raced past a startled guard and into the small room off tunnel number six. She came to such a sudden halt that he almost slammed into her. Following her gaze, he saw the sprawled body of an unknown SnowDancer male on the floor. The victim's face and naked body bore considerable bruising, the skin splotched different colors by the damage. But Judd knew that that wasn't what held Brenna frozen.
It was the cuts.
The changeling had been sliced very carefully with a knife, none of the cuts fatal but the last. That one had severed the carotid artery. Which meant there was something wrong with this scene. "Where's the blood?" he asked Indigo, who was crouching on the other side of the body, a couple of her soldiers beside her.
The lieutenant scowled at seeing Brenna in the room but answered, "It's not a fresh kill. He was dumped here. "
"Out-of-the-way room. " One of the soldiers, a lanky male named Dieter, spoke up. "Easy to get to without being spotted if you know what you're doing - whoever did this was smart, probably chose the location beforehand. "
Brenna sucked in a breath but didn't speak.
Indigo's scowl grew. "Get her the hell out of here. "
Judd didn't follow orders well, but he agreed with this one. "Let's go," he said to the woman standing with her back to him.
"I saw this. " A faint whisper.
Indigo stood, an odd look on her face. "What?"
Brenna began to tremble. "I saw this. " The same reedy whisper. "I saw this. " Louder. "I saw this!"
Judd had spent enough time with her to know that she would hate having lost control in front of everyone. She was a very proud wolf. So he did the only thing he could to slice through her hysteria. He moved to block her view of the body and then he used her emotions against her. It was a weapon the Psy had honed to perfection. "You're making a fool of yourself. "
The icy cold words hit Brenna like a slap. "Excuse me?" She dropped the hand she'd raised to push him aside.
"Look behind you. "
She remained stubbornly still. Hell would freeze over before she obeyed an order from him.
"Half the den is sniffing around," he told her. Pitiless. Psy. "Listening to you break down. "
"I am not breaking down. " She flushed at the realization of so many eyes on her. "Get out of my way. " She didn't want to look at the body anymore - a body that had been mutilated with the same eerie precision Enrique had used on his victims - but pride wouldn't let her back down.
"You're being irrational. " Judd didn't move. "This place is obviously having a negative impact on your emotional stability. Step back out. " It was a definite command, his tone so close to alpha it set her teeth on edge.
"And if I don't?" She gladly embraced the anger he'd awakened - it gave her a new focus, a way to escape the nightmare memories triggered by this room.
Cool Psy eyes met hers, the male arrogance in them breathtaking. "Then I'll pick you up and move you myself. "
At the response, exhilaration burst to life in her bloodstream, chasing away the last acrid tang of fear. Months of frustration - of watching her independence being buried under a wall of protection, of being told what was best for her, of having her rationality questioned at every turn, all that and more snowballed into this single instant. "Try it. " A dare.