Hostage to Pleasure

His lips twitched. “Yes. So you be good, too.”

Feeling the quicksand shifting under her feet, she took a step back. “You didn’t tell me who this meeting was with.”

He made a sound of disappointment at her retreat. “Kiss me and I’ll talk.”

She knew he was trying to annoy her on purpose. “Do cats take pleasure in being inscrutable?”

“Maybe. How’s the DNA voodoo going?” Amusement, not mockery.

She didn’t blame him for his disbelief—to him, her avowed ability had to stretch the bounds of impossibility. But to her, it made perfect sense, being the extreme end of the M-Psy spectrum. “It’s a slow process. Do you think I could get a control sample from one of your packmates for comparison?”

“Sure.” He shrugged. “It’s not like the Psy haven’t got our DNA already.”

“I was never in that field of research.”

“Field?”

“Biological weapons designed specifically to target your populations.”

Dorian’s hands clenched on the manual controls. “We guessed, but no one’s ever been able to confirm.”

“That outbreak of virulent flu in Nova Scotia three years ago? It was meant to be limited to the changelings in the area.” She finally felt as if she was giving DarkRiver something of value in return for the priceless gift they’d given her in protecting Keenan.

Dorian whistled. “It spread—to humans and then the Psy. Damn, I was right.”

“About what?”

“You first.”

Curious, she decided to cooperate. “What the scientists working on these projects don’t seem to accept—and I don’t know if it’s willful blindness, or an inability to see the obvious because of bias—is that despite our racial differences, we are one species. It’s why we can interbreed. Our genes are simply expressed in different forms.”

“You can’t engineer a virus to affect one without affecting the others?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I thought about Omega,” Dorian said. “It was never about controlling the Psy, but the world.” He glanced at her, smiling in a way that made her stomach feel all tight and hot. “Bet you didn’t think us nonscientist types could figure that out.”

Again, the words came out without thought, born in that cluster of neurons that sparked for him alone. “Bet you didn’t know anything about Omega before my broadcast.”

“You win… this time.” He smiled, but his next question was serious. “Is there any chance that you’re wrong and a completed virus exists?”

Ashaya lied without a pause. “No.” On this one subject, he’d have to earn her utter, unflinching loyalty before she trusted him. And it wasn’t exactly a lie. Because there was no Omega virus. There was something worse.

Dorian didn’t say anything for several minutes. “You’re lying, Shaya.”

Her palms dampened. “Excuse me?”

“Stop freaking out.” Reaching over, he slid his hand behind her nape, tugged her to him, and nipped at her lower lip, startling her into a gasp. “I’ve decided not to kill you, whatever happens.” He released her. “I’ll just keep you in my personal dungeon instead.”

Ashaya swallowed, her wires completely scrambled by the raw hunger of that kiss—and the teasing amusement in his voice.

“Whatever it is you’re hiding,” he said, turning into a busy street in Chinatown, “I’ll figure it out.”

The warning was enough to snap her brain back into action. “There’s nothing to figure out.” People crossed in front of them, paying no heed to the traffic signals. “This area of the city is notoriously chaotic. Why here for the meeting?”

“Because”—he beeped the horn and the wave of humanity parted—“Psy don’t like chaos.” He rolled down the window as they passed and called out a greeting in what she thought might be Cantonese.

It felt like several thousand people responded. But only one lanky boy ran up to them. “Hey, Dorian.” The youngster’s face was bright with mischief, his eyes sparkling obsidian in a face that spoke of eastern shores and California sun all in one fine-boned package. “We had some folk”—his eyes flicked to Ashaya—“come around asking about her. They showed her picture around.”

CHAPTER 24

We wait. We can’t yet afford to openly challenge the Psy Council. But be ready to take advantage of any mistakes. As for the changelings, they’re focused on the Council. They won’t expect us. We’re no threat, after all.

– Encrypted e-mail sent from the sunken city of Venice to unknown number of recipients in San Francisco

“Human?” Dorian asked, recalling the Rats’ tip about humans asking after Ashaya.

“No. Like her.”

“They get anything?”

The boy looked insulted. “Hell, no.”

“Watch the language, Jimmy. I know your mother.”

The teenager rolled his eyes. “They asked about your sexy girlfriend”—a mischievous grin—“but it’s amazing how many people are shortsighted around here. Man, it’s like an epidemic or something.”

“Maybe we should hire an optometrist,” Dorian said dryly.

“If you do, tell the doc the shortsightedness comes on without warning, and seems to affect dozens of people at a time.” Grinning, Jimmy glanced down the street. “Some traffic coming up. Anyway, we’ll let you know if they come back.” He slipped away, merging expertly into the energetic bustle of Chinatown.

Dorian rolled up his window and continued through the intersection. “No surprise they’re hunting you.”

“No.” She wrapped her arms around herself. A betraying gesture if he hadn’t already known her Silence for a sham. “You didn’t pay the boy for his information,” she said. “Isn’t that how it works?”

“Not here.” He turned down a narrow street lined with tea merchants on either side. “We’re part of Chinatown. We take care of them, they take of us.”

“They can’t be bought?”

“The relationship’s had over a decade to mature—the people round here know they can count on us when the shit hits the fan. We’ve busted heads for them, tracked down missing children, dragged others back to face judgment.” He shrugged. “So no, they can’t be bought. We’re family.”

“But only Pack is family for you.”

He reached over and ran his knuckles down the curve of her neck. A fleeting touch, but it took the edge off the escalating depth of his need. “Pack is family,” he said, knowing it was no longer a question of if, but when he’d have Ashaya in his bed. “But we can widen the net if we choose. And we stand by those who stand by us.

“Plus, some of them are Pack.” Dorian had first met Ria on these streets. Fully human, the vivacious brunette was now Lucas’s personal assistant and mated to a DarkRiver leopard. But the night Dorian had first seen her, she’d been crawling backward on her hands and feet in a dark alleyway, face bloodied and shirt ripped.

Her parents had fallen foul of some would-be shakedown artist and he’d decided to use her to teach them a lesson. A few years older at the time than Kit was now, Dorian had taken one look, picked the creep up, and thrown him against the nearest wall. It happened to be old-fashioned brick. The bastard had had twenty broken bones when they peeled him off the ground. “Who do you stand by, Shaya?”