Caressed by Ice

CHAPTER 29

“Hawke wouldn’t use you like that.” Wouldn’t demand that price for the sanctuary Judd had sought for the children’s sake.

“Hawke will do whatever it takes to keep the SnowDancers at the top of the food chain.” A blunt answer. “But you’re right—changelings don’t much like to use assassins.”

Attack from the front. It was a matter of pride. Of honor.

“But,” he continued, frost chilling his voice, “there are a lot of things I can do without killing—or even leaving a bruise—in order to get someone to speak.”

Brenna knew he expected that to send her running. But she’d grown up in a family of tough men. She wasn’t some wide-eyed miss who didn’t know the facts behind SnowDancer’s power. “That doesn’t scare me, Judd.” Though she’d be lying if she said it didn’t worry her—for him. What impact did it have on a man to be the darkest of enforcers?

“Good, because I told you—there’s no going back.” He turned toward the door.

“Bite me,” she snapped, frustrated at his stubborn will, his refusal to even consider a way out of Silence. In the tense pause that followed, she finally listened long enough to her own instincts to understand something she’d known subconsciously since the day he’d told her about his telekinetic abilities. Frustration transformed into anger and it flowed through her like fire. “You know what really pisses me off?”

He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “I don’t have time for games, Brenna.”

“What really pisses me off,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “is you daring to come across as so possessive and protective when you’ve been lying to me for months.”

He went very still. “That’s a dangerous insult.”

“You’re a Tk. Enrique was a Tk. You can throw men against walls and crush their bones. So could he. How am I doing so far?”

“Get to the point.”

Her blood boiled at his icy response. “If strong Tk are so damn lethal, how did SnowDancer and DarkRiver men manage to execute Enrique without a single changeling fatality or major injury?” Striding to where he stood, she went toe-to-toe with him. “You were there the night they rescued me and executed that monster.” She had complete faith in her pack’s ability to deal with a murderous Psy, but Santano Enrique had been a cardinal Tk fighting for his life. “Weren’t you?”

“What would it matter if I was?”

Her heart froze—she had wanted her sudden burst of insight to be nothing more than paranoia. “It matters because you didn’t tell me! Why the hell not?”

His phone beeped again. They both ignored it.

“Because you didn’t need to know.” His jaw was as unyielding as stone. “It has no bearing on anything.”

“The hell it doesn’t.” She thumped a fist against his chest, making him move back from the door. “It means you’ve been lying to me from day one! If you can lie about that, what else might you be lying about?”

He grabbed her wrist when she would’ve spun away. “You’re acting extremely irrationally. This has nothing to do with what we were talking about.”

She wrenched her hand from his hold, not wanting her defenses falling victim to the raw heat of his touch. She was so damn hungry for him she could easily become his sensual slave. One, just one teasing stroke and she’d melt. Good thing Judd wasn’t the stroking kind. “Guess what? Out of the PsyNet, this is called being furious. And, for your information, I’m planning on staying that way for a while.” Wrenching open the door, she walked out and headed toward an exit.

She didn’t give in to the shakes until she was hidden in the inner perimeter, surrounded by the thick dark of the forest. Placing a hand on the trunk of a tree, she tried to breathe evenly of the cold air, but it was all she could do to take in ragged gulps. Judd was right. Her reaction had been unreasonable on the surface, as if she were picking a meaningless fight. He didn’t understand.

The fact of his keeping something from her because it might upset her, treating her like an invalid, was enough to make her mad. But that wasn’t what devastated her—it was the realization that he’d seen her at her most broken, her most humiliated. She’d been tied spread-eagled on a bed in the butcher’s personal torture chamber. Naked. Bleeding.

She didn’t want Judd to have that image of her in his mind. He’d seen her during the healing sessions, but there, she’d been fighting back, proud of herself for surviving. But in Enrique’s lair, she’d been close to giving in, close to having her will crushed. In the final hours before she withdrew wholly into her mind, she’d begged. If the butcher had promised to set her free, she would have crawled, would have cooperated with his sick games, would have licked his feet…anything to make the pain stop.

Tears streamed down her face for the second time that day, but these weren’t quiet, silent tears. These hurt coming out and burned like acid on her skin. She bit her lips to keep from making loud noises. But the tears wouldn’t stop. She was humiliated and hurt and angry and lonely, the emotions a caustic brew that made it impossible for her to draw a clear breath.

Hands on her shoulders.

They startled her enough that she allowed him to turn her before lifting up her fists to keep distance between them. He hugged her to him anyway. “Shh. Don’t.”

It only made her cry harder. When his body curled protectively over hers and he rubbed his cheek against her hair, her heart almost broke. She knew the payment Silence must be demanding from him. And still he held her.

“Why?” She tried to push off his chest but he wouldn’t let her. “Why?”

One of his hands rose to close over her nape in that dominant way she’d come to expect, a hold she allowed because she trusted. “I know how proud you are, how strong. That’s how I see you and that’s all that matters.”

Her throat felt scraped raw. “Did you see me?” Splayed out on that bed, reduced to a thing, mind and body no longer connected.

“No.”

“Don’t lie to me again. I can’t bear it.”

“I didn’t see you. Your brothers refused to let anyone near.” But he’d gone into the room afterward. He’d seen where she’d been held, seen the restraints she’d bloodied in her attempts to get out, the instruments of torture Enrique had preferred over his Psy abilities.

Her tears had lessened, but she didn’t stop crying altogether until several minutes later. If he never heard those broken cries again, it would be too soon. Her ensuing silence cut parts of him no one should have been able to reach. He wanted to force her to speak.

The blue flare around her eyes seemed to glow when she finally raised her head. “I made Drew and Sascha tell me the details of the rescue. They didn’t mention you, aside from saying you’d provided a psychic distraction at a certain point in the trap.”

“Sascha never knew about my involvement,” he told her. “I was a last-minute addition when Hawke realized who they were dealing with. He figured it wouldn’t hurt to have a Psy on board, especially a trained soldier. My job was to deal with any psychic offensive.”

“Hawke trusted you?”

“No.” Judd had no illusions about that. “But he knew I wouldn’t do anything, not with the kids still back in the den.” When she didn’t respond, he continued. “I’m guessing Andrew didn’t mention it because his memories of that day are confused at best. He was driven by pure anger. He might not even have seen me. I went in with the team to execute Enrique, while he and Riley peeled off to rescue you.”

She’d been held in a large soundproofed room in Enrique’s apartment, only meters from where her abductor slept. “Enrique was tired from the PsyNet battle with Sascha”—the other Psy had managed to weaken the former Councilor as well as confirm his identity as Brenna’s abductor—“but he wasn’t wiped out.”

Judd had blocked Enrique’s volley of objects as the wolves and cats swarmed in, unable to use his Tk-Cell abilities to stop Enrique’s heart because his opponent had been too good at deflecting back Tk power. But then, so was Judd. While Enrique was focusing his efforts on Judd, erroneously judging him the biggest threat, the DarkRiver leopards and SnowDancer wolves had surrounded him.

The second they were in position, Judd had thrown everything he had at the other Tk, punching a hole in Enrique’s physical shields. It was all the changelings needed. They’d torn him to pieces in a matter of minutes. Blood had sprayed the walls in a spurt of arterial red, a fitting coda to a killer’s life. In the melee, no one had realized exactly what it was they had seen Judd do, leaving the secret of his Tk abilities intact.

Brenna’s hand opened against his shirt. “You didn’t see me.”

“No.” At least he could tell her that truth.

She nodded, as if accepting his explanation. “I’m glad.”

He kissed the shell of her ear. “No more tears. Ever.”

“Sorry, honeypie, but I’m wolf. We’re temperamental—get used to it.”

“Not that one. I’ll accept darling and even baby,” he said, feeling something unclench in his chest at hearing her sound like herself again, “but never honeypie.”

“Babycakes?” She rubbed her face against his chest.

He took a page from Andrew’s book. “Now you’re just being mean.”

She laughed and it was the best sound he’d heard in eternity.

He was late to the meeting with Indigo—further delayed by a call to let Riley know Brenna was alone—but he truly didn’t give a damn. The only thing he cared about was that the captured hyena had once posed a danger to Brenna—his death warrant was already signed.

Indigo was waiting outside the undamaged section of the cabin, her breath frosting the past-midnight air. “Thought you’d never get here.”

“Where is he?”

“Inside. Male from the PineWood pack—they control a tiny slice of Arizona.” The high tail of her black hair swung as she jerked her head to indicate the door. “He’s not talking. That’s why I called you. Hyenas usually crack under pressure. They’re scavengers, not predators.”

Scavengers—those who preyed on the weak and helpless. If Brenna had fallen, the hyenas would have savaged her. His eyes flicked to the windows of the wooden structure behind Indigo, his senses searching for and finding the unfamiliar mental scent of the captive. The urge to crush his skull was overpowering, bad enough for the dissonance to warn him to pull back. He listened because the captive couldn’t die. Not yet. “If they’re cowards, what’s given this one a spine?”

“He’s more scared of someone else.” Indigo’s voice was not pleased. “And people usually start praying when they see me.”

“You think it’s the Council.” They were the nightmare, the thing under the bed, the deepest darkness. And they knew how to wait. Much as a spider knows how to wait.

“Yeah—it can’t be another pack.” She rubbed her gloveless hands together. “If it were, he’d have sung like a canary by now.”

“Is he blindfolded?” If, for no reason that he could foresee right now, Judd let the man live, he could not be allowed to become a threat to the family. Of course, given that Judd knew he wasn’t rational where Brenna was concerned, the hyena’s chances of walking out alive were close to nil.

Indigo nodded. “I put it on when I heard your vehicle.”

“I’ll make him talk.”

Another nod and then Indigo led him into the cabin. The hyena sat on a chair in the center of the room, fear a damp sheen over his face. Seeing it, Judd glanced at Indigo. “You’re right.” No one that petrified would have held out for long otherwise, not with four wolves in the room—Indigo, D’Arn, Elias, and the knife thrower, Sing-Liu.

The hyena was thin with sallow skin. Black hair. A pathetic goatee in the same shade. The latter was a straggling attempt to hide a chin so weak, it was a wonder he hadn’t wet himself. His eyes were covered by a strip of dark brown fabric but Judd didn’t need to see them to know the panic skittering through the captive’s bones.

Walking to stand behind the hyena, Judd placed a single finger against his temple. “Which part of your brain do you like the least?” He didn’t need touch to work, but the theatrics helped. As did the mental push he applied, the one that must’ve felt like a slow-moving pincer around the man’s head.

The hyena gasped but didn’t speak.

“I’ll destroy the part I choose, then,” Judd said, making his voice metallically Psy. Despite his earlier thoughts about the threat to Brenna, he wasn’t enjoying this. It was simply something to be done. Predators and scavengers respected only brute strength. The changelings weren’t so different from the Psy in that regard.

The hyena’s reaction was surprising. Tears leaked out from under the blindfold. “You weren’t there!” he screamed. “You fucking weren’t there!”

Judd stopped touching the man, his telepathic abilities sensing something odd. Backing up into the shadows at the edges of the room, he began working on the psychic level, aware of the physical conversation with the section of his mind functioning on that plane.

Indigo glanced at him. At his nod, she tugged down the blindfold. “Don’t look behind you” was her first order. “We weren’t where, Kevin?” she prompted when the male didn’t speak again. “You talk or I let him do what he’s good at. I think you can guess what the result will be.”

Yes, Judd thought, threaten him with the Psy bogeyman. But he was far more interested in something else he’d found in the hyena.

Indigo growled low in her throat. “Talk. Last warning.”

“Parrish, our pack leader”—Kevin almost stumbled over his words in his effort to obey—“he said we had to do what the Psy said and they wouldn’t touch us.”

“Why?” Indigo folded her arms, looking down on the male. Judd recognized the move as a display of dominance. “Kevin, I asked you a question.”

The hyena’s swallow was audible. “Because otherwise they would wipe us out. They killed eight of our pups as a warning.”

Indigo swore, arms unfolding. “Why the hell didn’t you come to us?”

Judd knew that while the wolves wouldn’t hesitate to destroy trespassers in their territory, they’d also help a weaker changeling group against an enemy that didn’t follow the rules of engagement. One of the most important rules was: No targeting minors.

“We did!” Kevin’s scream faded off to a whimper. “You wouldn’t come.”

“Who told you we wouldn’t come?” Indigo had softened her voice and crouched down in front of Kevin. Not submission but a signal that he might come out of this alive.

Kevin took a deep, shaky breath. “Parrish. He went to Hawke and your alpha laughed in his face. Said the loss of our pups was good riddance to bad rubbish. Then the leopards said they wouldn’t help us unless the wolves did!”

This time, Indigo’s oath was considerably more blue. “That, I can tell you, is a complete lie. Hawke has a thing about pups, and the cats make their own decisions.”

Kevin reacted violently to Indigo’s statement, going so far as to make aggressive sounds in his throat. “It’s not a lie!”

“Your pack leader sold you out.” Indigo rose to her feet, rage a cold mask over her sharply defined features.

“No! He had no reason to.”

“Yeah? Try delusions of grandeur. Maybe he thinks he’s going to replace Hawke and Lucas.”

Kevin stopped struggling. The silence lasted for several long seconds. “He said that that would be our revenge—to take your place.”

“What were Parrish’s orders?” Judd asked, near certain of the answer.

Kevin’s whole body twitched, as if he’d forgotten the danger at his back. “To do what the Psy said.”

“And what did the Psy say?” Indigo prompted.