Hostage to Pleasure

CHAPTER 45

Psy Councilor Anthony Kyriakus had been part of the rebellion for longer than most people had known it even existed. But now Ashaya Aleine had taken it public.

He could understand her actions—a life in hiding was nothing he’d choose for his own child either. He glanced reflexively at the holo-image he kept in a highly secure file in his computer: Faith, laughing. He could almost hear the sound. His daughter had grown into a beautiful, gifted woman. Anthony, too, had broken rules for his child. He’d let Faith know that she mattered. As her sister had mattered. As her brother mattered.

However, the goalposts had shifted again. He was a Councilor now, under intense scrutiny from every quarter. His contact with Faith wouldn’t have to cease, but he’d have to be very, very careful. As he would have to be with this new contact. He touched the screen, pulling up the untraceable e-mail that had come in a week ago.

It was signed by the Ghost, the most notorious rebel in the Net.

Anthony wanted very much to know how and where the Ghost got his information. Only a select few knew Anthony’s true loyalties. And no one in his tight circle would’ve betrayed him. Zie Zen had never even told Ashaya.

But the Ghost had a way of unearthing secrets—in this, the other rebel could prove an invaluable asset. Anthony didn’t agree with everything the Ghost had done, but their basic vision aligned. Still, he hadn’t risen to the Council by being stupid. This would be a very slow and careful process.

As he closed the message, he recalled the conversation he’d had with Zie Zen yesterday—they’d agreed that Ashaya needed to make a follow-up broadcast. Otherwise, she’d lose all the support she’d gained to date. And, since the Council had decided to focus on damage control rather than disruption, her message would get out far easier this time.

But, he thought, snapping upright, it would also leave Council resources free to trace any broadcast back to the originating location. When added to the fact that all his fellow Councilors knew Ashaya was in the greater San Francisco area… “It could be done.” He picked up the secure line immediately and put through a call to his daughter. “Faith, you have to warn Ashaya,” he said as soon as she answered. “Ming will be waiting to trace back any new broadcast signal. He could recapture—”

“It’s too late,” Faith whispered, her voice echoing the way it sometimes did in the midst of a vision. “There’s blood, so much blood. Oh, my God, Dorian! Dorian!”

Dorian knew he’d made a fatal mistake the second he saw Ashaya walk out in front of the camera and begin to speak. She was bathed in light, the area around her in shadow. The perfect target.

Perhaps it was simply a leopard sentinel’s honed instincts that had him moving before anyone else even realized what was happening… or perhaps he’d received a message he couldn’t consciously hear, a scream from a cardinal F-Psy connected to him through the Web of Stars. It didn’t matter why he did what he did. It just mattered that when the Tk-Psy blinked into place before Ashaya and fired the gun, it was Dorian who took the hit… straight through his carotid artery.

Ashaya screamed as she slammed to the ground, carried there by Dorian’s momentum as he pushed her out of the way. But it wasn’t physical hurt that had her screaming. She could feel Dorian’s life slipping away, the fledgling bond that tied her to him retreating at the speed of light. “No, no, no.”

Twisting out from under his unconscious body and into a sitting position, she cradled his head in her lap and tore off her jacket, using it in a futile attempt to stanch the bleeding. Blood soaked through the wadded material to drench her fingers. She knew what that meant—the wound was fatal. “No.” A steely denial that hid her shattered heart. Forgetting about shields, about protection, she opened her psychic eye and searched for the bond she could feel sliding out into nowhere.

He was hers. He couldn’t leave her.

But she couldn’t find the bond, couldn’t use it to hold him to her. It was still invisible, still piggybacking on her emotions for this man who lay dying in her lap. She felt hands on her shoulders, a familiar female voice telling her the paramedics were on their way. Shut up, she thought, just shut up.

In the chaos, a moment of silence inside her mind, of clarity.

She couldn’t see the bond because she was locked into the PsyNet.

She didn’t know how to cut that link, but she continued to feel the pull of the mating bond. So she gave in to it. A choice made in an instant. A choice she’d made the first time she’d heard his voice.

The bond spiraled through her like wild lightning, ripping her from the PsyNet with such fury that she felt fine blood vessels burst behind her eyelids. As her mind screamed, she was aware of Amara screaming with her, struggling to follow. Ashaya held out a psychic hand.

She had been born first. Amara was her responsibility.

Amara grabbed that hand and left the Net with the same violence, falling into unconsciousness an instant later. Ashaya refused to go into the void with her sister. Shoving away her own pain as unimportant, she searched for and found the new bond that had snapped into place with such raw force. It was dying, fading in front of her.

She gripped it with psychic hands, holding on with every ounce of strength in her. You can’t leave me!

Under her physical hands, his blood continued to gush with every beat of his heart, dripping past her fingers and onto the floor. Forcing herself to think past the terror, she scrambled for some way to fix this. But she was an M-Psy who worked on the level of DNA. She had no ability to heal the artery, close the wound.

The bond wavered, began to flicker.

She was going to lose him. “No!” It was an instinctive act to reach out with her soul, to pour her life energy into the bond, and force him to stay alive.

It worked.

For a single, shining second, the bond grew stronger. Then blood spurted harder from his neck and it flickered again.

Ashaya was a scientist. She understood cause and effect. And in that instant, she understood that she could hold Dorian here—hold him here long enough that maybe the paramedics could transfuse enough fluids into him to keep him alive, until a surgeon could fix the wound. She could hold him here as long as her life existed. And then she would go with him.

Keenan, my baby.

Her heart cried and broke in two. It wasn’t a fair choice, she thought deep in her very soul. How could she possibly let her mate die? How could she leave her son? Perhaps if she’d had longer, the choice would’ve tormented her into madness, but she had only the barest fraction of an instant.

And Dorian’s blood pulsed over her fingers like an endless river.

Don’t leave me, please, Dorian.

Keenan would be safe, she thought, tears blinding her. He would be loved. She’d caught a fleeting glimpse of the small web she now inhabited. Her little man was linked to Dorian, but already, other minds were reaching out, preparing to hold him in the web if Dorian died. Because he was a child and these leopards didn’t kill children.

Her sister would die with her, of that she had no doubt. It would end. She could accept her death, accept Amara’s death, but she would not accept Dorian’s.

So she poured her life energy down the bond, knowing it would only last minutes at most—the psychic transfusion was directly related to how fast he was bleeding out. But it would double his chances of surviving till help came. Her hands were so wet, the jacket so heavy that she couldn’t hold it in place any longer.

Then slender fingers were closing over her own, helping her apply the pressure. Somebody was at her back, holding her upright because she was losing the strength to do that herself. And suddenly, someone was shoving psychic energy at her in desperation.

You can’t die. Please, Ashaya. Don’t die.

Ashaya didn’t have the strength to answer her twin. Her eyes fluttered shut, but on the psychic plane, she held on to the mating bond with gritted teeth, held Dorian to the world. As things started to go gray at the edges, she thought it was strange, but it felt as if Dorian was sending energy back to her. Odd.

Then it ended.

Mercy was crying and trying not to fucking break apart when two men appeared on Dorian’s other side. She had her gun out and pointed at them in the blink of an eye. It flew out of her hand in a telekinetic blast.

One of them knelt, saying a single word, “Foreseer.”

She stared at him, dull with sorrow but with a second weapon already in hand. However, neither he nor the Tk who’d brought him here had any visible weapons. The one on the ground pushed aside her bloody hand and Ashaya’s limp one. Dorian’s blood had slowed to a trickle.

“His heart’s still beating,” the stranger said.

She didn’t know why she let him put his hands on her best friend’s neck, didn’t know why she didn’t put the gun to his temple and pull the trigger. “Too slow.”

“Enough. It’s enough.” He placed his fingers over the wound.

She could see nothing, but heat radiated out from that spot to where her bloody fingers lay against her knee. It made her glance up at Ashaya in hope. The M-Psy remained slumped against the cameraman, Eamon, her normally glowing skin lifeless and dull.

Eamon was crying, too. So was the director. The slender woman—Yelena—stood there shaking, her cell phone in hand.

She’d screamed at the paramedics, told them to hurry, all of them knowing it wouldn’t be in time. The fucking Psy Council had got this one right. They’d timed it, used a gun instead of relying on a psychic strike that might’ve been deflected by tough mental shields, done everything with clockwork precision.

And now two people lay dying. Mercy reached out and gripped Ashaya’s hand. “You hold on.” To think she’d once wondered if the other woman felt anything for Dorian, she always looked so damn unaffected. “Hold on.” Her other hand she closed around Dorian’s. Linking them both. “Don’t you dare die on me, either of you. I plan to be godmother to your goddamn brats.”

The stranger kept touching Dorian. Heat kept radiating. When Mercy’s cell phone rang, she ignored it. Then Eamon’s rang. Then Yelena’s. The other woman stared at it as if it was a snake.

“Answer it,” Mercy said, starting to come out of the shock. The man working on Dorian, he reminded her a little of Judd. Not in looks. No, this guy’s ancestors had come straight from some part of the Chinese subcontinent. He was all sharp bones, olive skin, and slanted eyes lashed with ridiculously long lashes. His hair was cut short but it was oil-slick black, straight as a ruler. No, he looked nothing like Judd. But there was an air about him, the air of an assassin.

The one standing looked even more the type. His eyes were gray, his hair black, but he was the same. And Faith had sent them to Dorian. No, Mercy thought, not Faith. Of course not Faith. She swallowed, looked down. “He’s still bleeding.”

“Patience. I’m a surgeon, not a miracle worker.” Quiet, clipped words.

Strangely, they soothed her. Surgeons were always up themselves. And if this one saved Dorian’s—and by association, Ashaya’s—life, then he had a right to the arrogance. The man reached into his back pocket with one hand and brought out a flat box filled with lots of small tubes. Lifting his hand off Dorian’s skin for only the instant it took to angle himself so he could get a better look at the wound, he flipped open a tube and began to pour white gunk on Dorian’s bloody skin.

“It should work,” he muttered. “I’ve repaired the artery temporarily.”

Dorian’s neck was still seeping blood. “Why can’t you finish it?” She lifted her backup gun and, holding it deathly tight, pressed it to his temple. “Do it.”

He looked at her without any hint of fear. “I’m a field surgeon, an M-Psy with the capacity to seal certain injuries, hold others until the microsurgeons get there. In this case, the sealant will do a better job than I can.”

She pressed the barrel harder into him. “You’re a hack?”

“I’m the man who just saved your packmate’s life. Look.”

She glanced down and the Tk used the chance to try to shove her gun out of her hand. Her arm flew back but the gun remained in her grip. She didn’t care. Because the M-Psy had been telling the truth. Dorian wasn’t bleeding anymore. But that didn’t mean he was out of harm’s way. Ashaya’s heartbeat was as sluggish as Dorian’s. Mercy knew if one died, so would the other.

“He’s lost too much blood,” the surgeon said, his kit disappearing back into a pocket. “He needs his fluids replaced fast. I don’t know what’s wrong with the woman. I do physical injuries and she’s undamaged.”

“Can you do anything about the blood?” Mercy asked.

“Possibly.” He looked over his shoulder. “Emergency saline kit. Storage unit 1B, left-hand side. Telepathing the image.”

The supplies appeared in the Tk’s hand almost before the M-Psy finished speaking. He handed them over. “We have thirty seconds before our absence is noted.”

The M-Psy worked in furious silence. “This is field surgery at its roughest. The paramedics shouldn’t be long.” He shoved a strange-looking needle into Dorian’s vein with dexterity that spoke of experience, then pulled it out, leaving behind some kind of a small port. Attaching the saline line directly to that port, he told Mercy to hold up the bag of liquid, twisted a valve to release it, and said, “Go.”

Both men blinked out, taking their tools with them. Mercy looked down and saw the rough IV was functioning exactly as it should. “Thank God for arrogant surgeons.” She knew it was still touch-and-go, but at least now these two had a shot. God, please, they had to have a shot. “Don’t you fucking die on me, Blondie.”

“Mercy.” It was Yelena, her voice wobbly. “The call, it was Faith. She said she asked for help, wanted to tell me to tell you not to shoot them.”

Mercy looked at the gun in her hand, then up at Yelena. “Our little secret?”

Giving a tearful laugh, Yelena went to take the saline bag.

“I’ve got it.”

“No.” A gentle hand on her arm. “You have to stay on guard… in case they come back.”

But, as things fell out, the enemy didn’t come back. The next to arrive were the paramedics, followed by a swarm of DarkRiver men and women led by a cold-eyed jaguar who rode guard on the two critically injured, then proceeded to lock down security in an entire wing of the hospital.

Vaughn bit out order after order until no one but Pack could get in. An oddly groggy Faith—her vision the reason Vaughn had arrived on the scene so quickly—took a seat in the corridor and told them she was scanning for psychic threats. Clay arrived over an hour later, having had to make the drive from Dorian’s cabin. He brought a comatose Amara Aleine with him. “I left Jamie and Desiree in charge of the perimeter,” he said, as he put Amara on a gurney and shoved a hand through his hair. “Sascha and Luc are on their way up. Sascha looks like hell.” He frowned, eyes on Faith. “Like you.”

Faith rubbed at her temples. “When Sascha realized what was happening, she shoved energy down Lucas’s blood bond to Dorian. She took it from herself, Lucas, and me. Lucas probably doesn’t look as bad because he’s alpha—he’s just stronger.”

“Why not use the rest of us, too?” Mercy scowled.

“She had to take it from the people she knew would lower their shields in an instant. Even with her ability to get through changeling shields, it would’ve taken too long otherwise.”

“Faith’s right.” Sascha’s tired voice, as she came through the doors with Lucas’s arm around her waist. “It only worked with Dorian because he was desperate to save Ashaya. When I shoved at his shields, he didn’t hesitate to let me in.”

Faith got up. “You saved their lives.”

Sascha shook her head as they walked into the room where all three—Dorian, Ashaya, and Amara—lay. “It would’ve been too little too late if Ashaya hadn’t held on for those first critical moments.” She broke away to go to Dorian’s side. Her fingers trembled as she brushed his hair off his forehead. “He came within a second of dying.”