The Psy-Changeling Collection (100 page)

Ben’s weight hit his hands a split second later and the boy twisted to hold out his arms to the healer. “Do I gotta be clean?”

Taking him, Lara planted a smacking kiss on his cheek. “Yes, you do, my little escape artist.” In her embrace, Ben giggled and turned his head for another kiss.

“Lara,” Judd said when the healer turned to leave.

She raised an eyebrow.

“What would’ve happened if I’d moved and disrupted—” He didn’t want to say the words in case they had a negative impact on the child.

“Don’t worry.” Lara stroked one hand over Ben’s head as he laid it on her shoulder. “The process isn’t that easily messed up. Otherwise the Psy would’ve taken advantage of the weakness by now.” She seemed to have forgotten she was talking to one of the same race. “An extremely big disruption can cause errors in a shift. Most can be corrected—so long as it’s not a major part of the brain that’s compromised.”

“But to shift near someone implies a relationship of trust.”

Lara smiled. “I guess Marlee must like her uncle Judd a whole lot.”

“Only she likes her dad more,” Ben said in a stage whisper.

“Oh, well”—Lara winked—“second’s not so bad. ’Bye, Judd.”

Judd found himself raising his hand in response to the wave Ben gave him over her shoulder. He was still standing there trying to process the extraordinary encounter when D’Arn passed him.

The soldier stopped, then retraced his steps. “Let me guess—a woman or a pup.”

“How did you know?”

“Not much else puts that look on a man’s face.” He grinned. “Me and a few of the others are going out to play some training war games. Want to come? Release the tension, you know—everyone’s thinking about Tim. He was no prize, but he didn’t deserve to be murdered. And now this thing with the hyenas.”

“Any progress there?” If he’d thought the hyenas had targeted Brenna on purpose, he would’ve gone hunting himself. However—and though he could find no cogent reason for that suspicion—his instincts said that Timothy’s murderer was the real threat. Even revisiting the scene this morning after speaking with Sienna hadn’t clarified things. He had the unwelcome sense he was missing something.

“Some. We’ve got a bead on the bloody scavengers, but they don’t need all of us today.” D’Arn shook his head in a curiously canine gesture. “Anyway, you in?”

He nodded. Brenna was safe in the den and he had no surveillance work lined up. It might be that a hard physical workout was what he needed to clear up his brain so he could connect the dots he knew were there. “Rules?”

The other man began walking. “Human form. Drew’s going to hand out laser badges. A hit with a laser rifle will register from anywhere on your body and list itself as a slight injury, a debilitating one, loss of eyesight—you get the drill.” He pushed open a door.

“Teams?” Judd had played similar military games both in psychic and physical terms. An Arrow who wasn’t a shadow didn’t survive long.

“Two.” He pushed through an exit. “Psy and human/ changeling.”

“Psy?” Judd asked as they made their way out of the White Zone.

“If you’re not Psy, you have to hit the target in the back.” He scowled. “Against all the rules of normal fighting, but if a Psy sees you coming during the game, you’re automatically dead. No second chances.”

Judd agreed—because while Psy couldn’t manipulate changeling minds without massive effort, they could kill with a single focused blow. “You have human soldiers?” He had his Psy abilities to compensate for the changelings’ advantages in terms of speed, sensory input, and physical strength. Humans, by that reckoning, had nothing. “People who have mated in?”

D’Arn shook his head. “Not all. Saul’s ex-navy. He mated in. But Kieran was adopted as a child. Sing-Liu you’ve met.”

Judd had never guessed that the small female with the flat eyes of a fellow assassin was human. She moved more like the DarkRiver cats. “Martial arts?”

“Nope. Our little China Doll likes knives.” D’Arn had barely gotten the words out when a knife whistled incredibly close to his ear and thunked home in a tree. Instead of going on alert, D’Arn laughed and threw up his hands. “I was kidding, honey.”

Sing-Liu materialized from their right. “One of these days,” she threatened, striding over, “you’re going to push me too far. And then I’ll have to make you eat your words.”

The SnowDancer male retrieved the knife he’d dodged and held it to his side. “Promise? Will it involve kinky things with rope and knives? Please?”

Judd wondered if D’Arn had a death wish. But then Sing-Liu laughed and kissed the soldier, eyes turning from assassin to pure seductive woman. Unexpected was not the word for it.

“Mated pair.” The words came from Drew, who’d just walked up. “China Doll’s a nickname. She doesn’t mind—use it if you like.”

“And get a knife in my back,” Judd said, his Psy brain comparing D’Arn’s behavior with Sing-Liu to his own with Brenna. It didn’t take a genius to tell him he wasn’t giving his wolf anything close to what she needed. “I think I’ll pass.”

“I had to try.” Drew shrugged. “On to the games.” His smile was distinctly savage.

Judd was more than ready, the tension in him wound to a fever pitch. “Let’s play.”

Brenna
had been looking for Judd for twenty minutes without success. Sascha had just left after several hours of talk. The empath hadn’t been able to give Brenna any answers but had convinced her that she didn’t “smell” insane. Now she wanted to share her relief with Judd, wanted to tell him that the violent woman who’d shredded his skin yesterday had been an aberration . . . even if she didn’t quite believe it herself.

“Lucy”—she stopped her friend in the corridor near Hawke’s office—“you seen tall, dark, and silent?”

“Which one?” the other woman deadpanned. “Your one’s playing war games with Andrew and some others.”

Bren felt her face pale. “What?”

“Don’t worry,” Lucy called out as she headed off. “He’s a big boy.”

But Drew was
bloodthirsty
, especially with men who dared be involved with his baby sister. And after the way Judd had faced him down yesterday . . . “Calm, be calm,” she told herself. “He’s Psy. A very strong Psy.” Oh, God. What if Judd killed Drew?

She thrust a hand through her hair. Inspiration struck. She could either go mad worrying or . . . Turning on her heel, she ran after Lucy. Her friend smiled and opened her mouth to speak.

Something crashed in Hawke’s office. They both looked up as the door was wrenched open and Sienna Lauren came striding out. The door slammed shut after her, as if it had been kicked. The seventeen-year-old didn’t see them—she was heading in the opposite direction, head down, fists clenched.

Lucy raised an eyebrow. “That one doesn’t act Psy, does she?”

“No.” Brenna thought about going after the clearly upset girl, but Sienna didn’t know her and would probably not welcome the interference.

“Not like your one. That man is pure ice. Sexy ice but still ice.”

Brenna had a moment’s pause. “How do you know we’re involved?”

Lucy’s laugh was open and honest. “Did you hit your head or something, Bren? You smell like him, silly.”

“Oh.” But she shouldn’t, not that deep. A scent layer only grew ingrained—unable to be washed off—between lovers. Something she’d never become with Judd if he got himself executed for killi—
Stop!
“Lucy, I need a favor. Can you get access to a vehicle?”

“Sure. So can you.”

“Not without Riley finding out. Um, I’m kind of under den arrest.” She was going to break the rules, but she wasn’t going to be stupid about it.

“Riley’s got some burr under his bonnet,” Lucy muttered. “He chewed me out yesterday for nothing. I’ll sneak you out and it’ll be my pleasure. Where are we going?”

“Miss Leozandra’s Beauty Parlor.” Smack bang in the middle of Chinatown.

He was going
to take care of unfinished business this morning. The den grapevine had confirmed that the bitch was finally alone and unprotected. All he had to do was lure her to one of the dim corners of the garage.

She’d come. If she had remembered his face, she would have squealed by now. It didn’t matter. She had to die
—
he couldn’t take the chance of her memory returning. They’d rip open his stomach and pull out his guts while he was still alive if they learned what he’d done. The drugs and Timothy’s murder were nothing compared to his first crime.

He bit down the fear. She’d come. She trusted him. He was one of the good guys.

Once in the garage, he’d overdose her with the Rush already loaded into the pressure injector, shove her into the trunk of one of the Pack cars, and drive out. No one would ever figure out where she’d gone. Or they’d blame Judd Lauren. Yes, that would work. He’d make it look like Judd had killed her, maybe leave a knife coated with her blood in the Psy’s room.

He smirked, fear buried under sick excitement.

His first surprise came when he got to her apartment. The door was covered with the cool, dangerous scent of the Psy she was undoubtedly fucking. He backed off without touching anything. The scent could be there because Judd had spent time inside, but he was certain the Psy had done something, set up some kind of weird psychic trap.

“Hey, you looking for Bren?” A smiling face, a packmate. “She’s gone off with Lucy. Saw them leave.”

“No.” He couldn’t have her finding out he’d been looking for her. It might serve to trigger her memory. “Drew actually.”

“I heard something about war games.”

“Thanks.” His gut churned as he walked away. He could do nothing now, would have to wait until the grinning fool who’d interrupted him forgot he’d ever seen him outside that door. But he couldn’t wait forever. Brenna might remember.

CHAPTER 21

To Brenna’s surprise,
they made it out of den territory without a problem. She crawled out of the backseat and asked Lucy to stop once they were no longer in any danger of being spotted by scouts. “I can take it from here.”

“Sure?” A friendly question, nothing more.

“I need to
drive
.”

“Have at it. I’ll run back and pretend ignorance if Riley grills me.”

Brenna returned her mischievous smile. “Thanks, Lucy.”

“Anytime.” She got out and Brenna moved into the driver’s seat. Waving, she watched her friend disappear into the woods. Then she took a deep breath and the wheel. Her lips stretched into a huge smile. This felt like freedom.

The drive from the snow of the Sierra to the cold but dry bustle of San Francisco was spookily smooth. No traffic jams, no wolf sentries racing to stop her, no red lights. Perfection. She should’ve known it was too easy. After finding a vertical street park—her car being slotted up into the third level—she began the trek to the beauty parlor. Trouble struck less than a minute later.

A tall male with amber-gold hair materialized out of nowhere to lean on the wall in front of her. “I thought you were supposed to remain at the den.”

“I don’t believe this!” Folding her arms, she stared at the DarkRiver sentinel. “They snitched me out to the cats?” Who might be their allies, but were not yet friends. However, she trusted Vaughn. He’d come for her—she might’ve been unconscious at the time, but her wolf remembered. Vaughn was safe.

Of course, at this moment he didn’t look particularly happy to see her. “The situation’s volatile. Some of our people aren’t feeling friendly.”

“Oh.” She’d failed to take that into account, an inexcusable mistake with what was going on. All she had wanted was to get out and fix this one thing she
could
fix, even if her mind was splintering into a thousand pieces. “I should go back, huh?” She couldn’t hide her disappointment.

“What the hell—I’m around to provide personal body-guard service.” He gave her a look that could’ve come from either one of her brothers. “Where to?”

Wanting to hug him, she grinned. “Miss Leozandra’s.”

Brenna left
close to sunset, after having been fed both a late lunch and an afternoon snack by Miss Leozandra’s personal chef. She couldn’t remember what she’d eaten, she was so excited with her shoulder-length look. The gen-synth extensions were flawless—even she couldn’t tell where her hair ended and they began. And she had bangs!

Nothing could put a damper on her happiness, not even the knowledge that she’d been spotted returning by several sentries. Riley would know in minutes. She didn’t care. Her joy increased with each exclamation that met her on the way to her quarters—the reaction was unanimously positive.

She didn’t know who was more surprised when she turned the corner and found Judd leaning outside the door to her rooms. His face, of course, didn’t betray anything, but she saw a flicker in his eyes, somehow knew she’d caught him unawares. As had he.

“You look fine.” Disbelieving, she gave him the once-over. It was plain he’d showered and put on a fresh pair of black jeans and a black T-shirt. But the skin she could see was clear of bruises.