The Psy-Changeling Series, Books 6-10 (54 page)

She’d tried to do that once before, but then she’d been physically weak, her mind in chaos. It was possible she’d missed something. Today, she took every step with slow deliberation . . . and she found it. The psychic doorway was hidden behind several layers of barbed wire. Swallowing, she thrust her hands through the viciousness of the coils and cracked it open the barest millimeter.

Black.

Not the black of the Net, but the black of a shield. She knew the shield had been created by her torturer, that it linked back to him on some level. But . . . “It’s not mind control,” she said out loud. “It’s not an open link. That would take too much energy.” So he’d immured her in her mind, given her instructions, and set her free. “He doesn’t know what I know, doesn’t see what I see.” The fist around her heart fell open.

“You’re probably programmed to contact him if you discover something important.” Dev’s tone was flat as he came to a stop in a small clearing pierced by a ray of sunlight. “Could be as simple as a phone call.”

Closing the psychic door, she backed down the path and returned completely to the world. It was an effort to keep her feet on the glittering white of the snow, to tell herself she wasn’t truly bleeding. “I don’t think I was ever meant to come out of this alive.”

The tendons of Dev’s jaw pulled white over bone. “What did you see?”

“The roots of
his
control, they’re buried deep. I can’t see a way to pull them out—even if I could figure out how—without killing myself in the process.”

“He must have the psychic key to unlock it safely.”

“Not like he’s going to give it to me.” She slid her hands into the pockets of her coat, chilled to her very soul. “So since I’m dead either way, do you know what I want to do?”

Dev simply watched her with those amazing, amber-flecked eyes.

“I want to follow the only thing I have left—my gut.”

“What’s it telling you to do?”

She met his gaze, hoping for understanding, for freedom. “To go north.”

But it was ice that met her. Cold, blank . . . metallic.

 

 

 

Dev had
every intention of continuing their conversation, but returned home to find a situation in progress. “We’ll talk about this later,” he told Katya.

“There’s not much to talk about. Will you let me go?”

“You know the answer.”

“Say it.” Her body trembled, her hands fisted at her sides.

Angry at her for demanding something he could never give her, he answered with a curt “No.”

Still feeling the impact of her flinch several minutes later, he switched the clear screen of his computer to comm mode, dialing through to Aubry. “Maggie says we’ve got an uprising in progress.”

The other man nodded, face grim. “It’s the young ones, twenty-year-olds who think they know everything there is to know.”

“Are they with Jack?” His cousin stood on the opposite side of the fence to Dev on the most critical issue facing their people, but he’d never gone behind Dev’s back before.

Aubry shook his head. “Looks like some kind of ‘radical’ college group. Snot-nosed punks aren’t as radical as they think.”

“Give me the short version.”

“They think, and I quote, that ‘there’s no need for their families to be tied to Shine.’ According to Beck, the pretty-boy academic leading the charge, we’re an ‘anachronism’ that serves no purpose in today’s society.” A snort. “I think it’s time we showed them the fucking reality—those tortured kids last—”

“No.” Rage infused Dev’s blood at the reminder of the children Shine had lost to the Council’s coolly logical evil, children who’d been murdered simply for being who they were.

Aubry’s scowl was pure thunder. “Why the hell not?”

“I won’t use those children again.” It was a line he’d drawn in the sand. He’d had to use them once, to save the ones who were still alive. It had scarred him. One more time and he’d be so far on the wrong side of the line there would be no redemption for him.

“Yeah, okay.” Aubry rubbed a hand over his face, having had the nightmare branded into his memories, too. “What do we do with Beck’s group, then?”

“Give them what they want. Take them off the Shine register, let them know we no longer expect them to come to our assistance if called.” Those with money contributed to the coffers, but the basic requirement was for service.

“Dev.” Aubry looked troubled. “They’re just stupid kids—they don’t know how much we do, how badly they might need us in the future. What about their own children? Some of the recessive genes can express out of nowhere.”

“I know. But we can’t afford to baby them.” It was a ruthless decision, but he had to focus on the ones he
could
help, could save. “They’re old enough—if they want out, give them out.”

Aubry met his eyes. “Tough love?”

“You don’t agree?”

“As a matter of fact, in this case, I do.” A sharp grin. “Let’s see how long they hold out without the Shine information line.”

“Yeah, yeah, crow all about it.” Aubry was the one who’d come up with the idea of setting up an information line manned by older members of the Forgotten, people who—between them, and with recourse to Dev and the board—could answer pretty much any question the descendants might have.

“I will, thanks.” Aubry’s eyes gleamed. “I did a shift on the phones the other night and had this anonymous kid call in. He wanted to know if it was normal to be seeing everything in triplicate.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“To get his eyes checked and call me back.”

Dev laughed, but it was a hollow sound. Nothing could ease the vise around his heart—because no matter how hard he tried to keep Katya at a distance, the metal still melted for her, still burned for her . . . for the one woman he could never have. “Anything else I need to know about?”

“Jack’s quiet—don’t know if that’ll last.”

That vise twisted, powered by another layer of emotion. “I understand what drives him,” Dev said, staring out at the snow-covered landscape that spread beyond the windows. “Makes it a hell of a lot tougher to play hardball.”

“The fact that he’s your cousin doesn’t help.”

“No.” Dev thrust a hand through his hair. “If he’s quiet, let it be for now. It’s not exactly an issue we have an answer for.”

“We’re going to have to think of something soon. Or there’s a chance the Forgotten will splinter again.”

“I know.” Leaning back in his chair, he caught a glint of pale gold on his desk . . . a strand of Katya’s hair. It could’ve been transferred to the study on his body, but there was a chance she’d been in here. She’d have gotten nothing, but Dev was well aware she shouldn’t be this free to move, to sabotage.

Looking away from the golden strand, he made himself return his attention to the matter at hand. “You okay to keep an eye on these college kids?”

“Yeah. I’ll tag them in the files—if they do decide to go lone wolf, we need to be able to step in if they have children with active Psy genes.”

“That’s what Shine’s always been about.” Protecting the children. And if that meant the death of a Psy scientist . . . Dev’s hand clenched on a paperweight hard enough to crack it.

Katya jumped
when Dev walked into the sunroom, where she was viewing archived news footage in the hope of triggering new memories. His eyes went to the trail mix in her hand.

Heat burned across her cheekbones. She’d all but thrown it back at him when he’d handed it to her after that flat-out “no” about going north. Now frustration, anger,
need
, it all tangled inside her, stealing her voice. The only thing she could do was watch the contained strength of him as he walked around to sit on the sofa beside her. “NewsNet,” he said, taking the remote. “That’s the Council’s propaganda machine.”

Her paralysis snapped in the face of his arrogance. “It is not.” She tried to get the remote back, but he held it out of reach. “What’re you doing?”

“Here.” His body a line of heat against her side, he switched to an unfamiliar channel. “CTX is what you want to be watching—they’re the ones who broke Ashaya’s story, and they’re currently running a series on the recent surge of public violence by Psy.”

Unwilling, unable, to pull away from him in spite of her simmering anger, she watched. “It’s very energetic.” No NewsNet reporter would ever gesticulate as wildly, much less use such emotive language.

“Hmm.” Reaching over, Dev stole some of her trail mix, popping it into his mouth in a smooth gesture that hijacked her interest from a report on what appeared to be some kind of political turmoil in Sri Lanka.

Drawing in a deep breath, she tried to focus. But the scent of Dev—rich and wild, with an edge that tasted of steel—settled over her senses, holding her in thrall. He glanced over at that very moment and for the space of a single frozen second, everything stopped. Dev broke the electric contact by putting his arm around her.

She resisted. Because in that fleeting instant, she’d glimpsed a thousand shadows in his eyes. “What’s going to happen when we get back to New York?”

“Later, Katya.”

Shaking her head, she turned to push at his chest. “The pretense ended last night.” With the painful honesty of that kiss.

He closed his hand over hers, holding her palm against those pectorals she ached to have the right to stroke. “A few more hours,” he said, his expression stark with things unsaid. “Do you want this to end so soon?”

No,
she thought,
no.
Even if their relationship was a fragile construct formed of hopes that would never survive in the harsh light of day, she wanted to cling to it with all the strength in her. Giving in, she settled herself back by his side, curling her fingers lightly into his chest, her knees scraping against his thigh as she sat with her legs bent, feet pointing away from him.

His chin brushed her hair as he said, “Watch this.”

It took her emotion-torn mind several seconds to realize the import of what the reporter was saying about trouble in Sri Lanka’s legislative capital. “She’s talking about Psy.” Her mouth fell open. “The reporter’s saying Psy attacked a government building!”

Dev’s free hand came to rest on her knee. “Only four people,” he murmured, “but that’s four more than should exist under Silence.”

“That’s Shoshanna Scott!” Blasted by memory, by reams of connected knowledge, she would’ve jerked upright had Dev not been holding her.

On-screen, the slim brunette waited until the reporters had quieted to make her statement, her pale blue eyes striking against the darkness of her hair, the creamy white of her skin. Shoshanna Scott was the Council’s public face for a reason—she had an appearance of such delicate beauty that people forgot the Psy ruled with their minds, not their bodies.

“This was,” she began in a clear voice, “an incident provoked by Jax.”

Katya couldn’t believe it—her memories, shaky as they were, told her the Council liked to consign the Psy drug problem to the darkest of corners.

“The psychological weakness,” Councilor Scott continued, “inherent in those who succumb to Jax is unfortunately not a genetic abnormality we can screen against.”

“Councilor!” A short man with stiff black hair stood up, his eyes that of a rottweiler. “There are rumors this incident was caused by Psy who’ve given in to their emotions. What’s your answer to that?”