Mine to Possess (29 page)

The coldness of such a plan shook Talin to the core. “They'd kill their own?”

“Without a pause,” Clay and Dorian said in concert.

People like that, she thought, wouldn't hesitate to destroy a teenage boy if they didn't get what they wanted. “Will they be able to track it back to us if I reply to this e-mail?” She copied the address, opened a new window.

“No,” Dorian reassured her. “I've set it up to encrypt all outgoing messages.” He tapped in a quick code. “This will feed an encryption worm into their system, too.”

Nodding, she typed in a single line:

Neither of the men said anything as she pushed Send.

They waited in silence. Dorian shoved a hand through his hair and began stalking up and down the makeshift runway. Clay, though he remained unmoving, was a vibrating column of rage.

She reached up to massage his temples with gentle strokes. “Maybe this person isn't evil. He's prepared to help Jon.”

“Why now? Why not the other children?” His arms held her firm against him, though he bent his head so she didn't have to stand on tiptoe. “Whatever it is he wants, we'll give it to him. DarkRiver has more than enough funds.”

“Thank you.”

He growled at her. “Thank me again for taking care of my mate and I'll have to get mean.”

Mate.

There was that word again, that incredible, impossible word. She knew it had been nothing more than a slip of the tongue on his part, but she hugged the mistake to her heart.

A second later, something flashed in the corner of her eye and she twisted to look at the screen. Striding back to them, Dorian opened the e-mail.

“Hell,” Clay muttered.

“Yeah,” she said. “Not the mercenary demand we expected.” Reaching forward, she sent back a reply.

The response was close to instantaneous.

There was something deeply poignant in those words. Whoever this Psy was, whatever he wanted, he wasn't evil.

“Say yes,” Clay told her. “I'll answer the damn IOU.”

She angled her body so he couldn't see her next message until it was too late.

“Damn it, Tally!” Clay gripped her upper arms. “Why the hell did you do that?”

“Because you're mine to protect, too,” she snapped. She wouldn't barter Clay's life for Jon's. Losing Jon would break her, but, Lord help her, she couldn't give up Clay. Not even if it meant betraying her deepest principles. Not even if it meant killing. The realization should have nauseated her. It didn't. Truth never did. “I'm not having you sacrifice yourself again!”

“God damn it.” He gripped her nape, spun her around to face him. Then he kissed her. Hard. “After this is over, I'm giving you a spanking.”

She felt her face go bright red, though she knew he was simply blowing off steam. “Men,” she muttered, then glanced at Dorian. He was attempting to look uninterested but she saw the grin in those bright blue eyes. “Dorian, I swear to God, if you laugh, I'm going to peel your flesh from your bones.”

He picked up her hand and kissed the underside of one wrist. “I like you, too.”

“Stop flirting with Tally.” Clay wrapped an arm around her waist. “Okay, this falls through, we still have the original plan—we go in through that supply chute. Let's start double-checking our calculations on its probable location.”

And that was how they passed the minutes as they waited for the answer to a question that might cost a child his life and shatter something deep inside Talin. When it came, it was so unexpected, it stunned all three of them.

Detailed instructions followed.

Talin didn't hesitate, knowing Clay would get her there in time.

The reply was immediate.

With those last three words, this unknown Psy won Talin's loyalty.

The Ghost walked
into an upscale bar in downtown New York and was immediately shown to the table where his acquaintance awaited. She was a minor official, this meeting a front. But the public location would serve as the perfect alibi.

The bomb exploded
to life exactly sixty-five minutes later.

The majority of
the Psy Council convened in an emergency session eleven minutes after that. Two Councilors were nominated to do a physical investigation, while another took on the task of analyzing the bomb debris. The remaining members focused on damage control.

For a crucial window of time, the Implant lab was no longer under a Councilor's direct supervision. During that same window, its security forces fell to below fifty percent of capacity, the majority of Ming LeBon's army being pulled up into the PsyNet to strangle the spread of information. Their bodies remained in the lab, in a form of natural suspended animation, but their minds were working with furious speed.

In the chaos, no one noticed the surveillance satellites blink.

At three minutes
past nine, in the black of true night, Talin maneuvered a seemingly ancient truck over a deserted piece of land several miles from where the lab was supposed to be. The Psy's terse message had come precisely one hundred and eighty seconds earlier:
Now.

Another minute of dangerously fast driving later, she brought the truck to a stop near a small ramshackle cottage. Hidden as it was by the slope of the land and the overgrown vegetation, it was no wonder it had remained undisturbed. Or maybe it was the deadly laser fence a ways back, a fence that had been disabled at nine p.m. on the dot.

Leaving the engine running, she got out of the truck alone. The plan had been for the others to hide in the truck bed, in case their uncertain ally had failed to turn the satellites. The Psy already knew about Talin's involvement in the investigation, so her being seen was no tactical disadvantage. The opposite applied to Clay and Dorian.

However, to their surprise, they had discovered the area to be heavy with concealing vegetation, including huge trees that had to have been transplanted here. It was as though someone had
wanted
to hide something.

After a hasty conference, both changelings had jumped out of the moving vehicle. Clay had gone cat. Meanwhile, Dorian had taken to the trees, rifle in hand. Right now, she knew his sniper's eye was located on the door to the cabin. The predators were ready to pull her out if this proved to be a trap.

Half-sick with hope and fear, she stood in place, in spite of her need to get inside, waiting for the signal that would tell her no danger had been scented or sighted. When she glanced to the side, it was to glimpse a pair of night-glow eyes hidden in the forest. They blinked once.
Go.

Vividly conscious of time ticking down, she ran to the door and pushed it open. She was prepared to find anything…except what she did find.

Jon and a little girl lay on their backs on the dirt floor.

With a soft cry, she dropped to her knees and checked their pulses. Both beat strong. It calmed her as she waited for Clay to come. But the seconds ticked past without any sign of him. Something had to have gone wrong. Her instinctive urge was to run out to help.

Clay watched Talin
walk in, his senses on high alert. A shift in the wind brought him Dorian's scent…and that of another. The leopard listened to what the wind told it and knew he could leave that scent to Dorian. The other sentinel was already moving.

He kept his eyes on the cottage into which Talin had disappeared only a second ago. But he wasn't blinded by focus—he heard the crack of a twig several meters away as someone stalked toward his mate. Fighting the protective urge shoving at him to move and get Tally out of there, he stayed in place, listening, watching.

The ugly metallic/dead/cold scent of Psy mingled with the more astringent odor of gun-cleaning fluid. His predator's mind immediately understood that they had either missed a sentry or triggered sensors their ally had not known to disable. He lowered himself into a crouch, hidden in the vegetation. He'd told Tally to stay inside the cottage until he or Dorian came for her. Trusting her to stick to the plan, he turned his attention to the intruder.

The man came into sight seconds later. Dressed in black, he moved with the careful gait of a trained soldier. But that wasn't what interested Clay. It was the emblem on his shoulder. Two snakes locked in combat. The leopard bit back a growl. That was the same uniform as those that had been worn by the men who had butchered the DawnSky deer clan in an unprovoked attack.

The Psy male's eyes glinted pure black, no whites, no stars. He could be telepathing.

Clay had to make a split-second decision. If this was their contact, killing him would gain them nothing. But if it wasn't, he had to take the man out. An instant later, the male made up his mind for him by going down into a shooting stance and taking aim at the door of the cottage.

Clay didn't bother with finesse. If the Psy felt him coming, he was dead. So he attacked in a heavy, silent rage. The Psy managed to turn slightly before Clay's claws hit his chest, smashing him to the forest floor. A burst of pain slammed into his brain but he was already ripping out the other man's throat.

However, even with that thousandth-of-a-second warning, the Psy had managed to get in enough of a psychic blow that Clay's nose bled as he shifted into human form and picked up the body, wiping away the blood with his hand. The body had to be disposed of and in a way that didn't give away changeling involvement.

He spent precious seconds wrapping the body up in a tarp from the back of the truck and dumping it in the bed. It was a good thing Tally and Jon weren't changeling; otherwise, they would have detected the scent of death. Aware of time counting down, he nonetheless returned to the site of the kill and covered his tracks. The Psy soldier would appear to have vanished into thin air.

“Oh, God,” Talin
whispered, gritting her teeth and staying in place as the clock ticked over to ten minutes past nine. Clay was a sentinel, she told herself. He would defeat whatever enemy roamed the woods. Trying to distract herself, she brushed the hair off Jon's and the little girl's faces. The little one was clearly of Persian origin, her skin a dusky brown, her bone structure fine enough for a princess.

Her hand moved to settle the little girl's shirt and that was when she found it. The note was short and to the point.

Clay ran in as her watch clicked over another minute. “We only have four minutes to get out of the surveillance zone.” She stuffed the note into her pocket, picked up the girl.

Clay was already out the door, Jon thrown over one shoulder. “It'll be enough.” He dumped Jon onto the truck's single benchseat and pulled on his clothes at lightning speed. Going around to the passenger side door, she was inside with her own precious cargo by the time he turned the wheel. “Go!” Strapping in Jon beside Clay, she held the girl tight and pulled the remaining strap over them both as Clay started driving at a breakneck pace no human could have managed, his reaction time close to zero.

He didn't slow when Dorian wasn't waiting for them at the arranged spot. “He'll be fine.”

Talin said a quick prayer for the other sentinel. With Clay's insane driving, they were on the road away from the cottage in the nick of time, just another outwardly beat-up farm truck among others. “How are the kids doing?” he asked once they were clear.

“Good,” she whispered. She sat with one arm around Jon's shoulders, the other crushing the girl to her. Releasing her white-knuckled grip, she flexed her fingers, touched their cheeks to reassure herself they were okay. “Good.” Jon was bruised and both children had dark circles under their eyes, but they were alive. “We'll talk to him after…about what happened.”

“He'll be okay, Tally.” His tone was rough, tender. “We made it, didn't we?”

She gave him a startled glance. “Yeah, we did, didn't we?” But she wasn't quite sure they had.

“I had to eliminate a threat,” he said a few minutes later. “We'll be taking a short detour to dispose of it.”

Her throat dried up. “In the truck bed?”

“Yeah.”

He had killed for her. Again. The hairs on the back of her neck rose at the thought of her proximity to the result. But she was no hypocrite. Neither was she a child any longer. “It had to be done.” Her arms tightened on the children's bodies. “Let's clean it up before they wake.”

Clay's gaze met hers again and those forest-in-shadow eyes were incandescent with a fierce kind of joy. It shook her.

Had he expected her to run from him again?

The kids were
awake by the time Dorian made it back. Dawn was edging the horizon and Talin was so happy to see him unhurt, she gave him a huge hug.

His smile was startled, less charming and more open. “Hey, hey, I'm good. No one saw anything but a pissed-off student hitching a ride after his girlfriend dumped him in the middle of nowhere.”

She drew back and looked him up and down. “Where did you get those clothes?” He was wearing a T-shirt bearing the logo of a death metal band over his own black jeans. He'd also found a disreputable headscarf, which effectively hid his distinctive hair. She looked closer. “Did you put mud in your hair?”

“All part of being resourceful.” Draping an arm around her neck, he walked them back to the plane. Clay was standing outside with little Noor in his arms. The girl had wrapped herself around him upon waking and hadn't let go since. Talin hadn't been the least surprised when Clay handled the attachment without a blink.

“Ready?” Dorian asked.

Clay nodded. “Later.”

For once, Talin understood perfectly. Dorian had stayed behind for a reason and it had to have been something important. Giving him another hug, she climbed into the plane to settle in beside Jon. The boy was no longer drugged but there were emotional bruises in those striking eyes of his.

“Hey.” She put her hand on his. He wouldn't look at her. Reaching over, she cupped his cheek. “What's the matter, Johnny D?”

This time, he did glance up and his gaze was wet with tears he refused to shed. “They fucking made me scream.”

Male pride, such a fragile, precious thing. She nodded at Noor, now entering the cockpit with Clay. “She hasn't got a mark on her. Did you protect her?”

He shrugged. “They said if I cooperated, they'd lay off her for a bit, but that was a lie.” His eyes went to Dorian as the sentinel slid into the pilot's seat. “Who's that?”

“Dorian,” she told him. “He's Clay's packmate.”

“Like a gang, huh?”

She didn't quite know how to answer that but Clay turned around and did it for her. “The ultimate gang,” he said, his hand rubbing gently over Noor's back as she lay curled up against his chest. “We mean it when we say Pack is One. And you did good, kid. Screaming is a fact of life—hell, Dorian here would never shut up when he was your age.”

Dorian threw Clay an unfriendly look, then glanced at Jon. “Don't listen to a word he says. He's scared of needles.” He turned back to the gauges. “Ready for lift off, boys and girls?”

Jon relaxed, apparently happier now that he'd had some male feedback. Fighting the urge to roll her eyes, she dared put an arm around him. To her surprise, he let her hold him. When she pressed a kiss to his brow, he didn't even fidget.

Smiling, she met Clay's eyes. Her kids were home.

Turning back to face the windshield, Clay caught Dorian's tense expression. The other man was worried for the same reason as him, a reason Tally had forgotten in her happiness. This wasn't over. And the next target was most likely going to be Talin herself. Not that the fuckers would get anywhere near her.

Mind on their next move, he leaned back and closed his eyes against the glare. This was one mean bitch of a headache. It felt like red-hot pokers driving into his brain. He'd have worried the Psy soldier had caused permanent damage if he hadn't been in pain since waking up that morning. Reassuring Noor when she shifted restlessly, he decided he'd have to talk Tally into petting him tonight.

They all ended
up crashing at Nate and Tamsyn's upon their return late in the afternoon. Not only did she have a big house, the kids needed to be looked at, and together, Tammy and Sascha made a pretty good medical/healing team. By the time everyone had bathed, eaten, and been checked out, it was too late to talk, so they scheduled a meeting for midmorning the next day.

Noor fell asleep without trouble, but Talin had to coax Jon into a herbal sleeping remedy that Tamsyn had made up.

“I don't want any more drugs in my fuck—” He bit off the curse. “No drugs.”

“It's natural, won't mess up your body or cause addiction.” When he remained stubborn, she dared touch him, stroking her fingers over his face. “They hurt you, Jon. Your body needs to rest so it can heal. This'll help. Please.”

It took ten more minutes, but she finally won. With both children asleep, she was free to tackle Clay. “Lie down,” she ordered, careful to keep her voice lower than a whisper. “Do you want me to ask Tamsyn for headache meds?”

His answer was predictable and, unlike with Jon, she knew she wouldn't be able to wear him down. “Hate drugs.” But he did stretch out on his back on the bed.

Having already spoken to Tamsyn about what worked best on changeling physiology, she poured out drops of an un-scented natural oil onto her fingers and began to rub them in slow, gentle circles around the general region of his temples.

Groaning, he closed his eyes. It made her throat lock, he looked so vulnerable. It wasn't a word she associated with Clay, wasn't a face he often showed. But tonight, he had trusted her with it. Swallowing her tears, she continued the gentle massage. Some time later, she realized he'd fallen asleep. She sat there and watched him for the longest time.