The Psy-Changeling Collection (105 page)

“How Bren mistook our scent.”

Judd nodded. “I agree. It has to be someone you trust enough to allow access to your belongings.”

“Where he could’ve picked up things that carry enough of our scent to use as a mask.” Andrew’s claws sliced out. “The bastard has to be a soldier. We sweat buckets during training.”

Lucas came to stand beside Riley. “Say the attacker had succeeded in killing you,” he said to Judd, “what would that have done?”

“Caused a small amount of confusion.” Judd had no illusions about his importance to the pack. “No large impact overall. We’re the enemy—allowed there on sufferance.”

Lucas looked thoughtful, his savagely marked face set in lines of concentration. “What if he’d targeted one of the Lauren children?”

Judd felt the black edge of his power gathering and had to force it back. “He’d be dead by now.” It wasn’t a threat, just fact.

“Damn straight.” Andrew’s voice was pure wolf. “Pups are pups, period. You go after one, you pin a big fat target on yourself. It would’ve set all the hunters on his trail.”

“So,” Riley picked up, “it looks like this probably wasn’t about causing trouble in the pack or attacking the Laurens as a family. It was about Judd.”

“That leaves a wide pool,” Judd pointed out.

“Hell yeah, since you seem to go out of your way to piss off everyone you meet.” Andrew was scowling. “But the hotheads would’ve gone for you up front. Sneak attack’s not what’s going to get them points in the den.”

Judd agreed. “And there would be no reason for the planted scent if—” Something clicked in his Psy brain, the jigsaw pieces falling together in the lines of a perfect trap. “He wanted to isolate Brenna. Remove me, cut her off from you, and she becomes vulnerable.”

Andrew’s color faded. “Easier to take out.”

Judd wrapped his arm around Brenna’s shoulders again. She acquiesced without hesitation. It was an indication of deep-rooted trust. But the darkness in him no longer found that surprising, accepting it as his right. An irrevocable line had been crossed between yesterday and today. Brenna was
his
.

She blew out a breath, making her bangs dance. “Seriously, can you guys think past the overprotectiveness?” A very unfeminine snort. “Why would anyone have it in for me?”

Judd knew the answer, but it wasn’t for public consumption.

“With the rain,” Riley said when nobody else spoke, “there’s no way to track him.”

Brenna made a small movement. “I can think of one.”

All five males looked at her.

“Okay, let’s pretend I buy into your ‘Brenna is the center of the universe’ conspiracy theory”—she rolled her eyes—“there’s one way to find out for sure.” She shifted in Judd’s embrace until his arm was around the front of her neck, while her back faced him, though she was very careful not to press against his injuries. “Act as though it worked—at least enough to separate me from you two.”

Distracted by the soft curves of her body, he almost missed the import of her words. His blood heated, his heartbeat raced . . . and a wave of excruciating pain crawled over his mind in a malignant flood. He could handle the physical effects but couldn’t control his Psy brain’s need to shut down sections to save itself. The countdown had begun.

“Leave me,” Brenna continued, “and go back to the den furious. Judd and I can camp out at the cabin—it’s still livable.”

“No.” Andrew folded his arms.

“No more cages, Drew,” she said quietly. “I love you, but no more. Until Enrique took me, you’d never have dreamed of trying to lock me up.”

Shoving back the tide of dissonance, Judd looked up. “I’m more than capable of keeping her out of harm’s way.” None of the critical components of his mind had yet been compromised.

Brenna glanced over her shoulder and her expression wasn’t happy. “I can keep myself safe. Just because a bastard got his hands on me once doesn’t mean I’m helpless.”

“The point is moot,” Riley said. “Everyone knows we’d never leave Bren alone in the cabin with you, even if that meant we had to drag her back screaming bloody murder.”

Judd nodded. “We can run the same op from the den. It’ll mean you three will have to act as if you’ve fallen out.”

“I’m already alone in the family quarters,” Brenna murmured, evidently seeing the truth in Riley’s assertion “Fine. But I swear”—she scowled at Andrew—“you try to poke your nose into my life one more time and I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

Her brother grinned. “I knew you loved me.”

Tamsyn wasn’t happy
about Judd taking off, but he wanted to return to
his
territory, land he knew with Arrow thoroughness after months of isolated exploring. Brenna wasn’t convinced either, but she muttered something about stubborn, pigheaded males and pushed him into the passenger seat when he made a move to drive. Andrew and Riley had left several minutes earlier to lend weight to the idea that they had had a disagreement with their sister.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at your HQ?” Brenna called out to Tamsyn from beside the car.

“I won’t be there.” Tamsyn made a face. “Computerspeak might as well be gibberish to me.”

“I’ll be dropping in,” Nate added from the doorway, his eyes never leaving Judd. “See you there.”

Judd gave a small nod, wondering if the cats would ever accept his presence as anything other than a threat. Likely not. That showed their intelligence—because he was a threat, a big one.

They’d begun to back down the long drive when he saw two little boys run out from behind Nate and Tamsyn. The DarkRiver male picked up the children and said something that made both his mate and the boys laugh. Judd looked away. That wasn’t his life and it never would be. Yet even knowing that, Brenna had made her choice very clear.

And if she decided later that she wanted out?

The darkness, the badness in him, bared its teeth. Tonight—maybe tonight—he could set her free. After that, she’d have to kill him to get away.

“Judd? Have you heard a word I’ve said?”

Forcing his mind back into rational patterns, he turned to her. “There’s no doubt of it being a wolf now.”

“What?” she asked, as she pulled out of the driveway and set the car on automatic hover-navigation, possible because the roads in this area were embedded with guidance chips. Hands freed, she slid the steering wheel away into its compartment and faced him. “Who are you talking about?”

“Timothy’s murderer.”

“What’s that got to do with the attack on you?” She shook her head. “Anyway, both you and Indigo could be wrong. The Psy could have got in somehow.”

He knew she needed a place of safety, needed to trust implicitly in her people. But she couldn’t, not if she was to be on her guard. “You’re reaching, Brenna. The body was found in the den, in an out-of-the-way location no Psy could know about.”

“You guys can teleport over long distances,” she insisted.

“Yes, but we have to have a solid mental image of our destination.” He tapped a finger on the edge of his seat, a gesture that he caught almost as soon as it happened, but which he shouldn’t have made in the first place. Psy did not fidget. “Even if one of my race
had
obtained that data, teleportation tends to leave us drained—the energy used is directly related to distance traveled. No evidence of a Psy presence was found within miles of the den.”

“And”—a soft acceptance—“what was done to Tim had to involve a lot of power and strength. He didn’t lie down and take it—there were bruises.”

“I’d suggest it was a very physical struggle. Most Psy would have used mental means against a stronger changeling opponent.” He made himself say the next words, though he knew it would only forge another point of similarity between him and Enrique. “Of course, using Tk to throw someone against a wall would also cause bruises.”

Brenna’s hand lifted to her neck and then dropped away, her eyes losing focus. “He didn’t do that by Tk,” she whispered. “He used his hands to strangle me while he kept me immobile with his powers.”

Another piece of the nightmare. “Brenna.” It was a single word wrenched out of the most primitive part of him. The part that wanted to bathe in the dead Councilor’s blood, unconcerned about the cost of such an extreme emotional reaction.

Brenna’s eyes widened. Raising a hand, she brushed his hair gently off his forehead. “Why do I keep telling you things I swore I’d take to my grave?”

The contact shot electricity through his nerves. “Because you know I’ll always be your shield against the nightmares.”

Her face brightened. “Yes. You’re tough enough to handle my demons.” She took a shuddering breath and trailed her fingers down his cheek and along his jaw, but he felt the touch in far hungrier places. “So why are we talking about Tim instead of your attacker?”

Leashing his need was becoming harder and harder. “I think,” he said even as his body urged him to do something other than talk, “Tim’s death is why someone is trying to isolate you—statistically, it’s the strongest reason for why you would become the target of another wolf. And I’m certain you were the target.”

Her stroking fingers went motionless. “What possible reason could—The dreams.” It was a gasp. “But how could he know I’d seen the kill in a dream?”

CHAPTER 25

“It’s not
a secret that you saw something. You screamed, ‘I saw this!’ when the body was found.”

“Oh, my God.” She slumped back in her seat. “The killer thinks I’m a witness and that I’ll figure out who he is.”

“Which means we have to track him down before he makes another attempt.” Judd had promised Brenna safety and he would ensure it. Failure was not an option.

Brenna’s expression shifted. “What will you do to him?”

“The same thing any other man would do.” He dared her to stop him.

“I don’t want you to go further into the darkness because of me.”

“There’s a difference between acting to protect someone and—” He cut himself off, suddenly realizing where he was headed.

“And what, Judd?”

He shook his head. “It’s not relevant to the present situation.”

“You’re lying.” A flat, angry accusation. “I can’t believe you’d sit there and lie to my face after—” Jaw clenched, she turned away and pulled up the steering wheel, going manual again. “Fine. You keep your secrets.”

It was almost a compulsion to push her, to demand she return her attention to him. And that was why he fought it. Because she didn’t understand what she was asking for, what it would cost her. That thought stayed his hand as nothing else. But there was one thing he did need to know the answer to. He waited until they were almost to the den before bringing it up. “How did you know where I was last night?”

She threw him a glancing look. It was obvious she was still furious. “Driving that Psy brain crazy, isn’t it?” Her smugness couldn’t have been clearer.

“There was no tracker on the vehicle.”

“Not when you checked.” She maneuvered the car over the rough terrain with angry female confidence, having disengaged the hover-drive and shifted to tires. “I followed you out of the den and slapped a tracker under the chassis after you got in.”

He remembered that shadow he’d seen. “I did a telepathic scan.”

She shrugged. “Don’t know how that works, but I didn’t move out from under until you’d driven off. That reminds me—we’ll have to send someone to pick up my car.”

Judd knew why the scan hadn’t located her. He’d made an elementary mistake and scanned the perimeter alone, rather than pushing outward in ever-increasing circles. To add insult to injury, he’d been so distracted last night that he’d allowed not one, but
two
pursuits. The wolf had to have followed him to the church, then lain in wait for his return.

Either he was getting careless or the more subtle effects of the dissonance—and of the battle between Silence and emotion in his brain—were already beginning to show. But that wasn’t what concerned him the most. “I could’ve crushed you with the car.”

“Not really.” She sounded unworried. “You could only drive it in one direction.”

“Brenna.”

“You’re just pissed because I managed to trail you out of the den.” She gave him a piercing look. “I knew something was up as soon as you got that call during dinner.”

“How?” He didn’t tell her to change direction when she headed for the underground garage. This vehicle had been seen by too many people in relation to him. He’d have to get a new one for his covert activities.

She brought the all-wheel drive to a halt inside the garage. “Not from your Ice Man expression. Somehow I . . .” Biting her lower lip, she shrugged. “I can’t explain it. I just knew.” Opening the car door, she came around as if to open his, but he’d already gotten out. She began to walk across the otherwise empty garage with him at her back. “If you rip open those stitches, don’t come crying to me for sympathy.”

“Noted.” His eyes kept going to the sway of her hips, his control shot to hell. “You shouldn’t have followed me.”

“Why not?” She threw him an uncomplimentary look over her shoulder. “It’s not like you’re Mr. Communication.”

“There are some things you don’t need to know.”

“Like what in the hell you were doing in a deserted park in the middle of the night?” She spun around to face him, arms folded. “You keep telling me you’re an assassin and then you sneak out. Pretty easy equation, don’t you think?”

He refused to listen to the voice that wanted to correct her. “Yes.”

“Bull. Shit.” With that very precise statement, she spun on her heel and toward the ramp leading up to the main den area. “If you’d been in a killing frame of mind,” she threw back as she opened the door, “you’d have executed that wolf on sight.”

He stood in the garage for several minutes after she’d gone, trying to think of an answer that would satisfy her. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, draw her into the gray world of the rebellion he had to fight. Stopping Protocol I was his attempt at finding redemption, if such a thing even existed for a man like him, but she had no need to pay for his crimes. He was her shield. Against the evil . . . and against his own nightmares.