Caressed by Ice

Net, we learned that changeling packs aren’t as isolated as previously believed—I’m now investigating how far that goes. Any indication your wolves might be linked to the SnowDancers?”

Kaleb shook his head. “BlackEdge has no connections outside the immediate region. They’re too busy with petty local matters to think big.”

“Let’s hope they remain that way.” Nikita started toward the door.

He fell into step beside her. “Leaving so soon?”

“I have a meeting in San Francisco in a few hours.”

“The airjet should get you there in plenty of time.” It was one of his, designed and built by a corporation of which he had majority control. “I’ll keep you updated. I’m sure you have enough to handle in relation to the execution of the plan targeting DarkRiver and the SnowDancers.” It was a very deliberate comment on his part.

As Nikita had made clear, she didn’t support the Council’s plan. However, she’d been placed in charge of it because Shoshanna had made a point of saying that as the mess was in Nikita’s backyard, she should be the one to clean it up. Especially since her daughter was part of the problem.

Nikita gave him a chilly Psy smile. It meant nothing, of course. “If stage one of the plan works as expected, we should see a number of changeling fatalities within the next few hours.”

CHAPTER 15

The morning after she’d witnessed Judd’s dream, Brenna left the cabin for a walk. The air was fresh and crisp under the snow-heavy trees. Judd had already gone to check things at the boundary line, leaving her plenty of time to think.

You aren’t seeing what I’m telling you.

Judd believed she was viewing him through rose-colored lenses, but he was wrong. She understood what he’d done, realized the darkness inside of him. But she’d also looked true evil in the face, had had the sliminess of it invade her mind. She knew categorically that Judd was not cut from the same cloth.

Not that his confession had come as a surprise. She’d sensed from the start that he was no angel. Still, he’d attracted her, the changeling heart of her sensing a strength in him that would complement and nurture her own. It had never scared her that—

Something made a sound to her left.

Freezing, she sniffed the air and felt her eyes widen. Her first instinct was to call out to Judd, but she had no idea of his exact location. Neither could she backtrack to the cabin—she’d walked a long way and was now cut off from both it and the weapons hidden inside. She couldn’t even defend herself by going wolf.

Her stomach twisted, but she forced herself to think past the bitter taste of rage. If the intruders scented her, she was dead. Right then, she was downwind, a small advantage—she could probably take out two or three of them before they realized they were under attack. The trouble was, there were a lot more than three hyenas out there. And while hyena changelings were often cowards one-on-one, they wouldn’t hesitate to go for a more dominant target if a pack of them found you alone and unprotected. She’d be torn to pieces in minutes.

Moving carefully to avoid betraying her position, she thanked the heavens for the firs that provided cover. Ordinarily, she would’ve gone up into those same trees, but that would trigger snowfall from the branches.

Snow!

Brenna, you idiot! It was a mental curse as she looked behind her and saw the solitary trail of footprints. She didn’t have time to go back and erase them, but she made sure to cover her tracks from that point onward. Too late. Too slow. She was far too slow. She considered breaking out into a full run, but with so many of them, they would run her to ground before she reached safe harbor.

Brenna.

It wasn’t exactly a sound in her head, not a spoken word in any way. She couldn’t explain how she heard it, but she knew it was Judd. It “smelled” like him.

Still. Be still.

An illogical request, but she trusted him—and his abilities—too much not to realize he had to have a plan. She froze, even though the hyenas were getting perilously close.

Open.

She felt a push on her mind. Her mouth dried, her heart closed into a tight shell, and fear bloomed on her tongue. No! She didn’t want anyone in her mind ever again.

Alright. But don’t move. Trust me.

The hyenas were going to see her at any moment, but she obeyed his order. And when her skin seemed to shift over her skeleton, she tried not to panic. Then she felt her bones change shape in a way that wasn’t anything similar to how they transformed during the shift from human to animal. It was too much. Her reactions were born from instinct, hard to control under normal conditions, impossible in a situation where she was already hovering an inch from panic. She would’ve fought then, disturbed the quiet and given herself away, but he set her free.

She hit the ground hard despite the thick layer of snow. Blinking away the strange disorientation that made it hard to focus, she got up, shook her head, and prepared to run…but found the landscape startlingly unfamiliar. She was no longer anywhere near the hyenas. Safe, she was safe. But Judd was nowhere to be seen.

“Where are you?” She scanned the area around her, but the snow lay unbroken. He hadn’t passed through here. It took real effort for her to think past the wolf’s need to go to Judd’s aid, to help defend their territory, but she hunkered down to wait.

As things stood, Judd knew where she was and could find her more easily if she didn’t move. It was common sense. That didn’t make her any less scared for him. He was out there alone against a pack of hyenas—hyenas who should’ve been too terrified to come anywhere near SnowDancer land. Their boldness told her they were packing weapons more dangerous than simply claws and teeth. “Come on, Judd,” she whispered. “Where are you?”

Judd was on the verge of flaming out—what he’d done with Brenna had taken a massive amount of energy. He briefly considered teleporting a gun from the cabin using what power remained, but realized the act would wipe him out and leave him a sitting duck. In human terms, he was running on fumes. An hour at most and he’d collapse on the psychic plane, his abilities useless for the next twenty-four hours or more. The physical collapse would hit a few hours after the psychic one.

If this had happened while he’d been uplinked to the PsyNet, his psychic star would’ve flamed red for a few seconds just before he crashed, long enough for others to notice and use to their advantage. That was why Psy went to great lengths to avoid flameouts. It left them vulnerable—while their basic shields would hold, the more sophisticated protections tended to collapse, giving enemies a near defenseless victim.

Out here, however, even his family might not notice his condition. Because of the difficulty of keeping three immature minds from inadvertently dropping out of the LaurenNet and attempting to rejoin the PsyNet, they had been training Sienna, Marlee, and Toby to stay out of the LaurenNet as much as possible. It was a hard task—living on the psychic plane as well as the physical was natural for them. But their safety had to come first.

Having circled close to the intruders, he allowed his body to lean against a tree. While the physical collapse could be held off, it would sap his energy bit by bit, so he had to conserve it where he could. That collapse itself was nothing normal. Most Psy only flamed out on the psychic level. It was the nature of his abilities that altered things for him.

It makes you vulnerable. Ming LeBon’s mental voice, the voice that had shaped so much of who Judd had become. However, as it appears to be an unavoidable side effect of your abilities, I suggest you train your body to survive on the bare minimum of energy.

Judd had been fourteen at the time and in thrall to his mentor. Ming possessed one of the strongest minds he had ever seen. The senior Arrow’s ability in mental combat was unparalleled, but what set Ming apart from his peers was that he’d trained his body, too. He had a deadly facility in several human disciplines, including karate and the rare form known as katana.

The Way of the Sword.

Except that it used no blades but those created by skillful use of the body, honing men to a lethal edge. Judd