Hostage to Pleasure

He’d dreamed about her.

Always the same dream. Night after night.

He was in the branches of that tree again, Ashaya’s face in his sights. A slight squeeze of the trigger and she would cease to exist, to complicate his life. But then she laughed, eyes sparkling, and he knew it was just a game.

He was standing in front of her now, pulling her braids apart so he could thrust his hands into her hair and crush the electric coils of it in his palms. She was still laughing when he took her lips, such luscious, soft lips.

Such cold, cold lips.

The leopard grew angry, thrust her from him. She stood there, unmoved. Then she raised her hands and began to undress. She was beautiful in the moonlight, her skin gleaming with the night’s erotic caress. Entranced, he walked to her. She put her arms around his neck, pressing her lips to his pulse.

As his hands cupped her breasts, the warmth leached out of her. Her eyes filmed over with frost… and he realized she was turning to ice in his arms.

What a fucked-up dream, he thought, staring at the back of Ashaya’s head. What was worse was that despite the screaming horror of it, he always woke with a pulsing hard-on, his body beaded with sweat, his heart racing a hundred miles an hour. Hungry, he was so damn hungry after two months of those dreams—with no relief in sight.

And that pissed him off, too, that he couldn’t go near another woman without his mind sending out sinuous reminders of the woman who haunted him nightly. If he hadn’t been utterly certain that no Psy could manipulate a changeling for that long and with that much subtlety, he’d have suspected some sort of a telepathic suggestion.

The compulsion to touch her, take her, was a constant beat in his blood by now. It staggered him, the brutality of it. He didn’t know this woman, definitely didn’t like her, didn’t particularly like himself around her. But the leopard’s craving for her threatened to turn him traitor to not only his people, but to his own sense of honor, a cipher led around by the cock.

Like hell.

He’d become a sentinel despite his latency—stubborn, unflinching will was his trademark. If Ashaya Aleine tried to use the sexual pull between them to bring him to heel, she’d find herself face-to-face with the cold-blooded sniper at his core.

CHAPTER 8

Councilor Kaleb Krychek looked out the window of his Moscow office and saw the trail of an approaching airjet. “Lenik,” he said, using the intercom rather than telepathy. His administrative assistant paid more attention when he wasn’t trying to protect himself against the rumored twist in Kaleb’s secondary talent—the ability to induce madness. “Do I have any appointments this morning?”

“No, Councilor. You’re free until the four o’clock with the BlackEdge pack.”

He turned off the intercom and considered the possibilities. It couldn’t be Nikita, the Councilor with whom he had a quasi-alliance. She was in Nara, Japan, having an afternoon meeting with a man who made his living stealing information from secure PsyNet databases.

Information like Kaleb’s training history.

He hadn’t eliminated the leak at the source. There were some things he wanted Nikita to know. A small light lit up under the smooth black surface of his desk as the airjet landed on the roof. He passed a hand across another section, bringing up the images from the surveillance cameras that surrounded the landing pad.

His visitor was no one he’d have expected.

However, by the time Henry Scott walked into his office, Kaleb was prepared for anything the other Councilor might throw his way. “Councilor Scott.” He turned from the window and nodded a greeting.

“Krychek.” Henry waited until Lenik had closed the door behind himself before advancing farther inside. His ebony skin, stretched smooth over the oval of his skull, seemed to soak in the light, rather than reflect it, but it was the aristocratic lines of his face that held the eye.

According to the human media, Henry Scott was considered both handsome and distinguished. That was why he was the face of the Council, along with his “wife,” Shoshanna—what the public didn’t know was that the marriage was an empty husk, a coldly calculated act designed to “humanize” the Council to the emotional races. In keeping with the fiction, the Scotts were rarely seen separately, and inside the Council, Henry was considered the beta member of the Henry-Shoshanna pairing.

“Would you like a seat?” Kaleb offered, remaining by the window.

Henry shook his head, closing the distance until they were separated only by a short stretch of carpet. “I’ll come right to the point.”

“Please do.” He had no idea why Henry was here. The Scotts made it a point to disagree with any proposal but their own. Shoshanna wanted Kaleb dead, of that he had no doubt. But that was nothing unusual—all the Councilors, but one, were ruthless in their ambition. Anthony Kyriakus was the enigma who proved the rule. “A personal visit is rather unusual.”

“I didn’t want to chance being trailed on the PsyNet.” The other man put his hands behind his back, his stance that of an ancient general. A practiced movement, designed to set the populace at ease, subtly reinforcing the image of Henry as a benevolent ruler. “With Marshall dead, I’ve become aware that I’m being portrayed as the chair of the Council.”

“We have no chair.”

“We both know that Marshall controlled things to a certain extent.”

Kaleb bowed his head in acknowledgment. “You don’t wish to take over the crown?”

“I don’t wish to be used as a stalking horse.”

When had Henry become this shrewd? The instant after the thought passed through his head, Kaleb realized he’d done the unthinkable. He’d judged Henry on his surface persona, never looking beneath. The man was a Councilor. No one became Council without having considerable blood on their hands. Kaleb knew that better than anyone. “You’re the most visible member,” he responded smoothly, even as he wondered how much Henry knew. If it was too much, he’d have to be taken out of the equation—Kaleb had crossed too many lines in the past two decades to balk at one more. “You and Shoshanna chose that role.”

“We both know Shoshanna chose it.” Henry’s stare was somehow… off, but Kaleb couldn’t put his finger on why. Perhaps it was simply a case of the man showing his true colors. “I’m giving you warning that that is about to change.”

Kaleb realized Henry was talking about far more than media appearances. “Why warn me at all?”

As he waited for a response, Henry’s eyes shifted to pure black. The other Councilor was receiving a telepathic message. So was Kaleb. But his psychic control was better than Henry’s and he knew his eyes had remained the night-sky of a cardinal.

Ashaya Aleine’s body is missing. She may have staged her own death.

Ming, came Nikita’s distinctive mental voice, that’s a problem but not urgent enough to interrupt us all without notice. She’s a scientist, devoid of the skills necessary to survive on the run for long, even if you are correct about her being alive. I’m more apt to believe that her body has been taken.

Ming responded on the heels of Nikita’s statement. Her organizer was set to wipe all data if anyone attempted to hack in—

How is that possible? Tatiana interrupted. According to my information, Aleine didn’t have that level of computing expertise.

The organizer is at least seven years old. I suspect someone else set up the encryption. But the point is moot—the chip from her organizer is a dummy. Ming didn’t bother to wait for the ripples to fade from that bombshell. We’ve searched her rooms and lab, as well as Keenan Aleine’s room, and