Caressed by Ice

CHAPTER 18

The guileless question knocked all the air out of Brenna. Collapsing into a cross-legged position on the floor, she felt her face pale. Had Judd been right? Was she really such a bigot? “I think you’re very sweet, Marlee.”

“Then how come you don’t like me? How come?” The stubbornness of her jawline was achingly familiar, apparently a Lauren family trait.

Brenna couldn’t lie, not with Marlee’s face demanding honesty. “You know how you can move the ball without touching it?”

Her pigtails bounced as Marlee nodded. “I’m a Tk. Only a little bit, though. I can’t do it so good, not like Uncle Judd.”

The reminder of Judd and what he’d kept from her was another punch to the chest. He’d had no right to do that. Lying was not what should be between them. And for that certainty, too, she had no concrete reason. “Yeah.” She forced her fingers to uncurl. “A bad man who could do the same thing, a very strong telekinetic, he hurt me once. A lot. That’s why sometimes, I get scared by other Tks.”

“That’s silly. Some of the wolves aren’t nice to me, but I still like the others.”

“Who’s not nice to you?” She frowned, hackles rising. Wolf pups could get rough in play, but bullying wasn’t tolerated under any circumstances.

“Some stupids.” Marlee shrugged. “Uncle Hawke said since I’m little, I can hurt them if they try to hurt me.”

Brenna knew that Judd, Walker, and Sienna had been banned from using their powers on SnowDancers. “Have you?”

“I used Tk to push Kiki down when she tried to bite me,” Marlee volunteered, face mischievous. “She cried and tattled, but the teacher said it served her right.”

Since wolf teeth could do considerable damage to weaker Psy physiology, Brenna had to agree. “I think so, too.”

“I won’t push you.” Marlee dropped her ball and came to stand right in front of Brenna. “Don’t be scared of me.”

She nodded, tears thick in her throat. “Okay.”

Smiling, Marlee leaned in and wrapped her arms tight around Brenna’s neck. Shaking, Brenna held that small body to her own and let the tears roll down her face.

“It’s okay, the bad man won’t get you.” Small pats on her back. “My daddy and Uncle Judd and even Sienna can scare him away.”

It only made her cry harder. How could she have been afraid of this sweet, tenderhearted child for even a second? How? Was she that twisted, that badly damaged?

A movement.

She jerked up her head to discover Walker Lauren standing a few feet away. Unlike his daughter, Walker was quintessentially Psy, impassive, unemotional, cold. Yet there was a fierce protectiveness to him when he looked at Marlee.

Breaking the eye contact, Brenna hugged Marlee for several more seconds, soaking up her generous childish empathy. “Thank you,” she said after they parted.

Small fingers began to wipe away her tears. “Want to play ball with me?”

Brenna looked at Walker. “If it’s okay with your dad.”

“Ten minutes,” Walker said. “It’s way past your bedtime.”

Marlee heaved out a sigh so put-upon that Brenna found herself smiling. “Tell you what—I’ll come by to play with you again sometime.”

That satisfied Marlee and ten minutes later to the second, Brenna said good-bye and went to find Hawke. She ran into Riley instead. Her brother was happy to confirm that Judd hadn’t returned to the den. “You shouldn’t be sniffing around after him in the first place.”

“Don’t start. And I’m not sniffing at him.” She was still mad over the way he’d abandoned her. Now he’d rubbed salt into the wound by not bothering to come back so she could flay the skin off his bones. That was how you fought. Disappearing was a sign of aggression and disinterest.

Fine. If that was how he wanted it, there were plenty more male fish in the sea.

She went prowling. It was time to get back in the game.

Judd woke to the smell of flowers and the sound of a soprano choir. He lay in bed and listened for several minutes as he checked his senses. All the mental and psychic channels were open and running at full strength. Satisfied, he swung his legs over the side and stood to begin going through a stretch routine designed to test every one of his muscle groups. The verdict was clear—he was fully functional.

Stripping off his briefs, he ducked into the tiny shower cubicle to his left. Once clean, he pulled on the pants and sweater he’d shucked before crashing yesterday. His jacket was in the car where he’d left it. When he opened the door and walked out into the hallway at the back of the church, he was struck by the crystal clarity of the choir.

The Psy had lost the ability to produce such tones after Silence, their voices too flat, too dead. But as his race didn’t listen to music, that was considered no loss. Today, Judd knew that to be a lie—it was a loss, a great one. The fact he could understand both that truth and the beauty of what he heard was another warning sign, one he chose to ignore.

Father Perez emerged from another room down the hall. “Ah, you’re awake.” His expression was pensive. “You okay? Looked beat when you came in.”

Judd had managed to make it behind the locked door of the spare room by the slimmest of margins. “I’m fine. Thank you for the bed.” And for asking no questions.

“What are friends for?” Perez smiled. “How about a bite to eat? You’ve been out for”—he glanced at his watch—“close to twenty hours.”

“I’ll get—” He was about to say something else when a sense of urgency suddenly exploded to life in his brain. He had to get back—to Brenna. Before it was too late. “I have to go.” With that, he ran past the priest and out.

The car was waiting in the attached indoor garage, fuel cells having recharged during his recovery. It was tempting to get in and take off without delay, but he spent ten careful minutes checking the car for tracking equipment. The SnowDancers were fanatical about keeping their den a secret—their tech arm had even perfected satellite-deflecting technology before the first spy satellite ever achieved stable orbit.

Judd agreed with their stance. Enemies couldn’t target what they couldn’t see. He’d do nothing to jeopardize the wolves’ safety because that would jeopardize Brenna’s safety. And that was unacceptable.

By the time he parked the car in the underground garage beneath the den, the warning in Judd’s brain had gone critical. He began running full-tilt the second he hit the ground and made it to the Kincaid family quarters in less than a minute.

The door was open.

He entered to find Riley, Andrew, Hawke, and Greg—a wolf Judd knew to be both vicious and bigoted—standing in the living room. Greg was bleeding from several lacerations on his face and Andrew bore a number of cuts on his left forearm.

“Where is she?”

All four men looked up. Andrew bared his teeth. “Get the hell out! Your kind is the reason she’s like this!”

Judd looked at Greg’s face. “What did you do to her?” Ice spread through his veins, bringing the dark heart of him, the part that could kill without compunction, to the surface.

“Nothing!” Greg yelled. “That’s what I keep trying to tell you all. I fucking did nothing to your little princess.”

“Watch your mouth or I’ll clock you myself,” Hawke growled.

Greg raised his hands palms out. “Look, she isn’t part of our regular crowd, but she spent the night hanging with me, Madeline, Quentin, Tilau, and Laine. We threw together some dinner and then chilled at my place. When the others left, she stuck around.”

Judd was focusing very hard in an attempt to keep himself from killing Greg. He’d figured out that Brenna was behind the closed door at Riley’s back. And she was in trouble. Despite the dissonance hammering at him, he could teleport himself across the space without problem. However, his instincts—that word again—told him to wait, that he needed the facts, needed to know what damage Greg had done.

“I thought she wanted to…you know.” Greg shrugged. “But she left after an hour of talk and I gave it up.”

“Just like that?” Andrew growled. “You’re not known for your forgiving nature.”

“I’m also not a moron. You and Riley would’ve eaten me alive if I’d done anything.” The admission fit his personality. “And I thought she might be teasing to build up to the main event, like the females sometimes like to do.”

The wolves didn’t interrupt so Judd gathered that to be a truthful assertion. But he did not want to think about the “main event” and what might have taken place in that room less than fifteen feet from him.

“Then,” Greg continued, “I got a call today inviting me here. I wasn’t keen—I mean until she said you two were going to be out for hours.”

“So you hurt her.” Riley moved to grip Greg’s neck in a bruising hold, his tone quiet. Deadly. “What did you do?”

Greg shoved at Riley’s arm but couldn’t break away. “She was wearing a robe, for crissakes!” he choked out. “What else was I supposed to think when she crooked a finger and told me to close the door?”

The image did something inside of Judd, broke one of the vital chains of control. He could suddenly feel Greg’s heart as if it lay in his hand, the beat rapid and panicked. One hard squeeze and—

Hawke put an arm on Riley’s, breaking Judd’s line of sight. “He’s telling the truth about the robe at least. Let him talk.”

Riley didn’t budge. “Did she say no? And don’t you lie to me.”

The chain slipped again. “Tell us or I smash your brain.” He made the words matter-of-fact because they were. “You’ll be lucky if you can feed yourself afterward.” Moving up from the heart, he wrapped power around Greg’s skull. And began to apply pressure.

Utter terror rolled through the other male’s eyes. “Hawke, stop him!”

The alpha’s gaze met Judd’s. “Don’t kill him yet. We need to know what happened.”

Greg started speaking on the heels of that pronouncement. “I swear she didn’t say no! I kissed her and went to put my hand on her shoulder. That was when she freaked. Clawed me before I could move. I didn’t even push her, I was so busy trying to get out before she punctured my eyeballs or something.”

Riley released Greg. He dropped to the floor, coughing. At the same instant, Hawke looked at Judd, the pale silver-blue of his eyes more wolf than human. “She won’t let anyone near her, including Lara. Lara’s gone to try and track down Sascha.” White lines bracketed his mouth. “We’d force our way in but every time we try, she screams so damn hard we’re afraid of damaging her.”

Any more than she’s already been damaged. Judd saw the unspoken judgment on all their agonized faces. His resolve firmed into granite. “I can pull her out.”

Andrew made an angry move toward him, but Hawke pushed him back before Judd could. He wasn’t going to play stupid games when Brenna’s sanity was at stake. But he couldn’t teleport in—seeing him use telekinesis would only enrage her.

“You sure?” Hawke shoved Andrew back a second time. “She was pissed with you to begin with.”

Which was why she’d gone after this useless excuse for a male sniveling at their feet. But, a still clearheaded part of him pointed out, such an act of betrayal wasn’t in Brenna’s nature. It simply did not fit. “I have a better chance than any of you.”

“Why? Because you’re one of the psychopathic race that did this to her?” Andrew again, anger and frustrated protectiveness combined.

“I’ve walked in her darkness.” It had been an unavoidable side effect of the healing process. He’d fed power to Sascha through a telepathic link, but that link had in turn fed him the horrifying agony of Brenna’s memories. He’d thought the experience had had no impact. He’d been wrong. “I know what to say to bring her back.”

No one got in his way after that. Before opening Brenna’s door, he halted and turned to Greg. “You say a single word about any of this, you die.” No room for negotiation.

Greg’s eyes bulged. “I won’t tell, I swear.”

Turning, Judd put his hand on the knob, pushed it open, and stepped inside. She came at him in a silent hail of teeth and claws, slamming his body against the door and causing it to shut with a violent bang. He grabbed her wrists barely in time to save his eyes.

His hold made her fury go from red to molten. Restraints, he realized at once. Santano Enrique had used restraints on her. “Retract your claws and I’ll let you go.” He made his tone adamantine, so hard it was pure unbreakable metal.

Still eerily silent, she tried to use her legs to trip him up, but he was too fast, shifting his stance before she could get a lever. It made her shove forward in a rush of angry energy, the razor-sharp blades of her claws coming an inch closer before he stopped her. There was nothing sane looking back at him from the wild blue-brown of her fractured eyes. The Brenna he knew had retreated to a safe haven in her mind, the same place that had allowed her to survive Enrique. The rest of her was trapped in memories of brutalization.

Sascha could’ve taken those memories from her, but Brenna had been resolute—she wanted her scars. And as if to prove that those scars didn’t weaken her, she’d recovered with such spirit that she’d turned herself into a miracle. But the very speed of her recovery had worried both Sascha and Lara. The two healers had been concerned about a possible relapse—but no one could’ve predicted this.

When she bared her teeth at him and began to twist and struggle, he knew she was going to hurt herself if he didn’t stop her. Taking a chance, he released her wrists at the same time as he pinned her arms in a tight hug. Her claws scraped his sides, tearing his sweater and cutting through the upper layers of skin before he got her immobilized against his body. Her teeth clamped over his carotid artery. But she didn’t bite through.

“Brenna, you will come back. If you don’t, Enrique wins.” He could feel the blood beginning to trickle down his sides, but it was Brenna’s teeth that posed the real danger. He could disable her—if he was prepared to hurt her. He wasn’t.

“He’s winning right now,” he told her. “Making you a whimpering, clawing mess everyone thinks is insane.” Cruel words, but the only ones that would provoke her enough to snap her awake. “Is that who you are? A broken wolf? What he made you?”

Snarling, she released his carotid. “Shut up.” Blind rage.

“Why? Everything I’ve said is true.” He kept pushing where others would’ve stopped. “You have bloody claws, your face is feral and your clothes torn. You look like a woman who’s jumped the ledge into madness.”

She stamped on his boot with her bare foot. “I bet you learned your bedside manner the same place you learned your charm—the Council gulag.”

He released her arms, able to hear the real Brenna in that biting statement. But she remained in place, face pressed to his chest. Chancing aggression, he put one hand on the back of her head in a gesture that was as instinctive as his knowledge of what to do and say to this changeling female. Another breach of the Protocol, another ice pick of pain through his cerebral cortex, but nothing dangerous enough to set off his murderous abilities. Not yet.

Brenna put a palm over his heartbeat. “I bled you.”

“Surface lacerations. They’ll heal.”

“Too bad. You deserve to be clawed hard enough to bear scars.” Callous words, but she was still tucked against his body.

The complexities of emotional interaction often eluded him but not with Brenna. Not here. Not now. “That would be a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face—you seem to have a distinct liking for my body as it is.”

Her free arm went around his waist, the satin of her robe passing over his cuts like a cool breeze. “Maybe I like my men scratched up. Maybe I like to scratch them up.”

“Is that why you chose Greg? Because he likes violence?” he asked, and suddenly realized that the chain that had broken inside him was nowhere close to being repaired.

“I figured if I was going to go bad, it might as well be in style.” Her fingers dug slightly into his chest. “I wanted to make you notice.”

Her honesty was unexpected. “You succeeded—I did.”

“But you care about as much as you did before. Zilch.” Liquid anger in every breath. “You strung me out to dry at the cabin!”

Now he understood exactly how powerful a rule he’d broken. “I almost killed Greg,” he said. “In fact, I still have a connection to him. One thought and pieces of his skull will implode into his brain.”