Mine to Possess

CHAPTER 11

Even at rest, leaning against the wall, the male—tall, dark, startlingly handsome—exuded a sense of lethal danger. Once you added in the savage clawlike markings on the right side of his face, well, it made her want to take a wary step back and hide behind Clay. Except she had a feeling that her long-ago playmate posed far more of a threat to her than this watchful stranger with eyes a paler shade of green than Clay’s.

Still shaky, she turned her attention to the woman who stood in the loose circle formed by the male’s arms. Black hair in a braid, skin a deep honey, and eyes of midnight with pinpricks of white. “You’re Psy.” Not just any Psy. A cardinal. Those eyes…

“I’m Sascha.” Her expression was guarded. She turned slightly. “My mate, Lucas.”

She recognized both names. Lucas Hunter was DarkRiver’s alpha, Sascha Duncan the daughter of Councilor Nikita Duncan. Talin had heard reports of Sascha’s defection from the Psy, but hadn’t credited them. “Nice to meet you,” she said at last, very aware that neither Sascha nor Lucas had made any overtures of friendliness.

Clay shifted to lay his hand against her spine. She went stiff without meaning to and knew everyone had noticed. But he didn’t drop his hand, and for that, she was grateful. It was obvious his packmates didn’t approve of her. Usually she would’ve shrugged off their reaction, but this time it mattered. Because these people were important to Clay.

“Talin’s been told she’s sick,” he said to Sascha. “Can you check her out?”

Sascha’s eyes widened. It disconcerted Talin to see such open emotion on the face of a Psy, but not as much as when Sascha spoke and she heard the warmth and affection in it. “Clay, I’m not an M-Psy. I’m not sure—”

“Try.”

Lucas raised an eyebrow. “She gets mean when you give her orders.” Though his tone was amused, his eyes never moved off Talin.

She leaned more heavily into Clay’s hand.

“Please.”

Talin was still trying to swallow her shock at the word that had come out of Clay’s mouth when Sascha stepped out of her mate’s embrace. “Out. Both of you,” she said, imperious and clearly sure of her power. “I need to be alone with Talin.”

Lucas dropped a kiss in the curve of his mate’s neck, the action speaking of an intimacy that ran deep and true. Talin wondered what Clay’s lips would feel like against her own neck. She swallowed, inner muscles clenching. That was when Lucas raised his head, breaking the spell. “Come on,” he said to Clay. “I have to talk to you about something anyway.”

Clay scowled down at Talin before leaving. “Cooperate.”

“I take it you didn’t agree to let a strange Psy poke and prod at you?” Sascha’s tone was wry, but Talin didn’t drop her guard. This woman had no loyalty to her.

“No.”

“Would you like to tell me what he’s worried about?”

Since Clay already knew, she saw no harm in sharing the information. “An unknown disease is messing things up, maybe killing off cells, in my brain. I’ve had the diagnosis, such as it is, confirmed three times over.”

The cardinal’s face grew pensive. “Will you allow me to see if I can help?”

“He trusts you.” Another flood of jealousy. It made her feel small, petty, but she couldn’t stop it—she had never been rational where Clay was concerned. “You’re Pack.”

Sascha sensed Talin’s ambivalence, understood it. “Yes.” Clay was a leopard who chose the shadows even in the tight circle of the sentinels, but when it came down to it, they were tied together by a bond of deep, unflinching loyalty. “Yes,” she repeated.

The curvy brunette across from her bowed her head in a wary nod. “All right.”

But try as she might, Sascha found she could do less than nothing. “You have a shield.”

“What?” Talin frowned. “But I’m human.”

“True.” The lack of anything beyond the most basic shields was what made humans the weakest of the three races. That in mind, Sascha tried another push. “But not only do you have shields,” she said after being violently rebuffed, “they’re airtight.”

“I have no idea why that would be.”

Sascha raised her hand. “If you don’t mind…” The other woman didn’t pull away when Sascha went to touch her cheek. Often with changelings, contact made all the difference. But not with Talin. Breaking the connection, Sascha stepped back, her instincts telling her Talin didn’t like people too close. Yet it appeared she had already given Clay skin privileges. Intriguing.

“I’m no expert on human mental processes,” she said, “but your shields are, without a doubt, unusual. For some reason, your mind has learned to protect itself.” Her heart tripped a beat as her own words penetrated. She had heard of these kinds of shields before. They had been noted in an addendum to an old Psy-Med Journal article.

Conclusion: Low incidence in human population. No genetic components.

The latter finding was probably why the Council hadn’t gone about eliminating the bearers of such shields. That and the fact that regardless of what the Psy did or didn’t do, these particular shields would always occur in a certain percentage of the human population. “The shields,” she continued, keeping her tone very gentle, “are so strong, you must’ve begun constructing them during childhood.”

“Why—” Talin froze.

Sascha could no more ignore the waves of emotion coming off her than she could stop breathing. Being an E-Psy meant she had the capacity to sense and neutralize hurtful emotion. It also meant she couldn’t just stand by when someone was in that much pain. Now she gathered up Talin’s self-hatred, revulsion, and anger—such incredible anger—in her psychic arms and absorbed it inside of herself. She had the gift to turn those destructive emotions harmless, but it hurt.

A few seconds later, Talin gave her a startled look. “What are you?” Not an accusation but the kind of innocent question a child might ask.

It surprised Sascha, given what she suspected this woman had endured. “An empath.” She explained what that meant. “I’m sorry if I intruded—I forget to ask sometimes.” The gift was too powerful, too instinctive.

“What a pure gift.” Talin’s face filled with something close to wonder. “Does that mean you’ll never be evil?”

“I’m as vulnerable to negative emotions as anyone,” Sascha admitted, “but the empathy won’t let them fester inside me.”

“Like I have?” Talin’s gaze was direct. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”

Sascha felt a moment’s disorientation at the blunt clarity of that question. A sense of shame followed—after everything she had learned in the past year, it was criminal that she’d automatically equated human with weak. Talin was nothing if not strong. “It’s not a case of disliking you. I don’t know you—how can I judge you?”

“But?” Talin pushed, holding her body in a way that reminded Sascha of the vulnerable pride of the young males in the pack. However, Talin was no child—her emotions were too aged, too flavored with time.

“Clay is one of mine.” Even Sascha was surprised at the depth of protectiveness in her tone, an echo of what she so often heard in Lucas’s voice when he spoke of Pack. “He’s been choosing to walk alone more and more, and it worries me. I was hoping his growing friendship with Faith would change things, bring him back to us.”

Talin swallowed, at once resentful of Sascha’s right to care about Clay and almost violently glad that he had friends who loved him with such fierce determination. “But now I’m pulling him under.”

“Clay leads, rarely follows.” The cardinal’s words were light, her eyes solemn. “But whatever you are to him, whatever demons you waken, they’re already blackening his emotions.”

Talin wanted to defend herself but knew Sascha was right—the things she brought with her were the very things Clay had left in the past. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.” Sascha’s gaze was piercing.

Talin felt her jaw tighten. “Don’t spy on my emotions.”

“I don’t have to.” The other woman tilted her head a fraction to the side. “You should see the way you watch him. Such hunger, Talin.”

Color threatened to fill her cheeks. “Whatever is between us is our business. You have no right to interfere.”

Instead of being furious, Sascha smiled, a smile filled with withheld laughter. “Pack is One. Pack is family. Interference is a fact of life. Get used to it.”

Talin’s anger flatlined into a column of pure guilt. “I really am sorry,” she said, shoulders slumping. “I should have stayed away.” Clay had made it. She hadn’t. End of story. “I had no right to come back into his life.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” was the enigmatic response. “But, Talin, those shields of yours? They’re the kinds of shields traumatized children develop.”

Talin took a physical step back from that gentle, so gentle, voice. It was a voice that made her want to cry and scream and trust. “Don’t try to manipulate me.”

“I’m not.” There was only truth in those eerie night-sky eyes. “I’m a mind-healer. If you ever decide you deserve to be forgiven for whatever it is you think you’ve done, I’ll be there for you.”

“It’s no use,” she said, tone flat. “I’m dying.” Time ran faster with every second.

The cardinal shook her head in quiet reproof. “Some wounds should be healed, no matter how much time has passed or how much time is left.”

Talin stared at the floor, barely able to see through the swirling darkness of memory, pain, and a savage need that threatened to destroy her world. “After,” she whispered, not knowing why she made even that concession. “After.” After they found Jon. “Maybe.”

Clay followed Lucas enough of a distance that the women had privacy, but the lair remained in their line of sight. “Thanks for coming so quickly.” He’d made the call after sending Talin upstairs when they had first arrived home.

“You would’ve done the same.” Lucas took a seat on the forest floor, bracing his back against a nearby tree trunk.

Clay took the same position forty-five degrees to the left, a position that allowed him to watch the lair as they talked. But neither of them said anything for several minutes. Leaves rustled, smaller animals went about their business, the sky hung a heavy gray crisscrossed with forest green.

“She’s the one,” Lucas said into the whispering quiet.

“You see the future now? You going to tell me she’s my one true love next?” Flippant words but they cut like shards of glass.

Lucas snorted. “No. I meant she’s the one you said Faith reminded you of back when you two first met. I’m right, aren’t I?”

Clay had snarled at Faith that day, almost gotten into a fight with Vaughn because of it. “Yeah. There’s not much resemblance aside from the height.” Faith was a redhead to Talin’s brunette, Psy to her human. “But they’re both stubborn and—” He shook his head. “They’re nothing alike. Maybe I just wanted to see what I saw.”

“Maybe,” Lucas agreed. “You’ve been hung up on this Talin for a long time. Thing like that can drive a man a little crazy.”

Clay had never spoken to Lucas about Talin. He stayed silent now, too.

Lucas stretched out one leg, braced his arm on the one that remained bent at the knee. “I don’t know her, but I know you. And I know when a man’s got demons chasing him.”

Clay waited.

“The pack women like you, actively seek you out. I don’t know why the hell they bother.” He grinned. “It’s not as if you’re pretty like Dorian.”

Clay growled but his mood lightened. Ribbing Dorian about his surfer-dude looks was a familiar pastime. “What’s your point?”

“That you’ve never been in a single stable partnership.”

“Luc, you’re a fucking gossip.”

A bark of laughter. “I’d be a bad alpha if I missed the fact that one of my best men, one of my sentinels, had never gone possessive over a female, not even a little bit.”

“You never did either until Sascha.”

“Exactly.” Lucas’s tone hid nothing of what he felt for his mate. “You were all over Talin.”

“What’s between us isn’t anything simple.” Too much history, too much pain, too many secrets. Zeke got desperate when I still wouldn’t talk… He bet Zeke had never figured out the real truth of why Tally had stopped talking. Clay knew. And it tore him apart all over again. “She fucking turns me inside out.”

“Women who matter have a way of doing that.” Lucas scowled. “We sound like a couple of women, talking about feelings. I think Sascha’s having a bad influence on me.”

“You started it.” But the discussion had given him the time he needed to wipe away the crap clogging up his mind. “She’s asked my help on something.” He laid out the facts about the disappearances. “I’ll need time off my regular duties.” He didn’t ask permission because that wasn’t how their pack worked. Lucas had chosen his sentinels because of their strength. They were all perfectly capable of running the show if things went wrong.

It said something about Luc that not one of those other dominant cats had ever challenged his rule. Clay had never even considered it—he was too used to walking alone, and an alpha was the physical and emotional center of his pack. “You want me to talk to Cian about the roster?”

“I’ll organize it,” Lucas offered. “Kit can do some of the easy stuff—it’ll be good for his training.” He was referring to the tall, auburn-haired juvenile who held the scent of a future alpha. “I’d pair him up with Rina, but he might see having his big sister around as a sign that we don’t trust him.”

Clay thought about it for a while. “If you switch my watch routes so the experienced soldiers do the outlying territory, Cian can run with Kit, show him the ropes.” The older man was both strong and patient. “He’d still be a sentinel if he hadn’t decided he preferred being a trainer and advisor.”

Lucas made a sound of agreement. “Should work. Kit knows Cian’s the one who trained me, so there can’t be any cries of babying him.” Another silence as they listened to the rhythms of the forest, their animal halves content. “Your Talin, she’s human. Fragile.”

And Clay, despite his control—control great enough that it was all most people ever saw—was brutally physical, even for a changeling. “I won’t hurt her.”

“She thinks you will.”

It didn’t surprise him that Lucas had picked up on Talin’s skittishness. “I’m no Prince Charming. She knows that better than most.” Twenty years apart had done nothing to diminish the blood-soaked bond between them, warped though it might have become. “She’ll get over it.” No other option was acceptable.

“Our animals starve without touch, Clay.” Lucas’s tone was a reminder of the consequences of such starvation. “It’s not healthy for you to be in a relationship with a woman who isn’t willing to give it to you. Ask Vaughn if you want to know how badly that kind of thing can screw up a man.”

“You and Vaughn both courted Psy,” he said. “At least Tally doesn’t try to hide her emotions.” She might make him furious but there was no doubt in his mind that her feelings for him were just as strong. “So back off.”

“Good point.” Lucas shrugged. “Your woman, your call.”

Yes, Tally was his. His to protect. His to possess. Of that the leopard was as certain now as it had been the day they’d first met. That didn’t blind him to the second vicious truth—that she had run from him and into the arms of other men.

She was his. But Clay wasn’t sure he could ever forgive her.

Talin looked at Clay over the top of her coffee. Though they were in Joe’s Bar again, Clay, too, had stuck to coffee as they waited for Max to arrive.

“How long have you known Max?” he asked.

The question was like all the ones he’d asked since Sascha and Lucas’s departure from his lair earlier that day. Crisp, unemotional, to the point. That hadn’t changed even when he’d ferried her around the city—in an untraceable vehicle—after she had told him she needed to check in with some other Shine children.

Since she had been steadily decreasing her workload in preparation for giving notice, none of those children were actually under her direct care. Jon had been the final one she’d had to place into a stable situation. The San Francisco Shine Guardian was Rangi, but due to a major family emergency back home in New Zealand, he’d had to leave his charges, and the hunt for the childrens’ killer, in her hands. She’d told Clay all that as he’d driven her around, but his responses had been monosyllabic—when he’d replied at all. The cool distance was easier on her nerves than that smoldering temper of his, but she felt shut out.

If she had been an unselfish woman, she would have left it. Clay would take her eventual demise far better if he hated her. But Talin discovered she wasn’t that good a person. She was horribly selfish when it came to Clay. “What’s put a burr up your butt?” she said instead of answering his question.

Those beautiful forest-in-shadow eyes fixed on her with a predator’s unblinking stare. “Be careful, Talin. You don’t want to wake this sleeping leopard.”

“Maybe I do.” She pushed aside her coffee cup, adrenaline spiking through her bloodstream. “Maybe I want to see the real Clay.”

His laughter was derisive. “You saw him, remember? The sight of claws and blood made you run.”

“I was a child,” she said, unwilling to be silenced this time. “I was eight years old and I had my foster father’s brains splattered across my face. And that was after what he’d already done to me. Excuse me if the whole thing left a few scars.”

He blinked and it was a lazy, quintessentially feline move. “Where did you find your spine all of a sudden?”

“You make me so mad!” She blew out a frustrated breath. “I wish I did have claws. I’d use them to scratch out your eyes.” Never in all these years had she been as close to violence as she was now.

Clay got up.

Her heart stuttered.

With a dark smile that said he knew exactly what she was feeling, he came around and got into her side of the booth, trapping her between the wall and the muscular stone of his body. “Keep talking.” It was a dare.

Fear threatened to swamp her, especially when he moved one hand behind her and closed his fingers over her nape. “Lost your voice, Tally?”

The taunt snapped through the vicious haze of memory. Putting her hand on his thigh, she dug down with her nails. Her intent had been to teach him not to goad her. Except that his muscles proved about as pliable as rock. “Shit.”

“Such language.” He crowded her even more, big, dangerous, and more than a little pissed with her. “But keep petting my thigh and maybe I’ll let you use your little human claws on other parts of my anatomy.”

Red filled her cheeks as she snatched her hand from the heavy warmth of him. “Stop it.” His fingers tightened on her nape and it was such a possessive, territorial act, the feminine independence in her rebelled. “You don’t want me. I’m used goods, remember?”