Tangle of Need

Chapter 43

CHEST TIGHT WITH the realization, Adria crossed over to Pierce and peered inside the glass case beside which he stood. The sculpture displayed within was frankly bizarre—it looked like someone had smashed up a hunk of puke-colored glass, then put it back together. Badly.

“Isn’t it magnificent?” Pierce touched the case with reverent fingertips.

Not wanting to hurt his feelings, she scrambled for a response. “I can see it speaks to you.”

“Oh, yes. The artistic flow is indescribable.”

Adria wasn’t sure quite what to say to that, but he was waiting for her to respond with such an expectant expression on his face that she knew she had to speak. “Yes, it’s … ah … imaginative.”

Pierce began to talk about the absorbing ambiguity of the shapes and how the power of the piece was a subtle fusion of light and darkness. It was almost two minutes later, just when she was plotting her escape, that she caught the glint in his eye and realized she’d been had. Intense, passionate, and intelligent Pierce was a playful wolf at heart.

“Yes, yes,” she said when he paused, “you’re so right. In fact, I think it’d be the perfect gift.” Biting the inside of her cheek to keep from bursting out laughing, she took one of his hands in between her own. “I’m going to buy it for you—no, no, I insist. You’ve been so great today, so patient.”

Distinct alarm. “No, there’s no need. I already have—”

“I insist.” Turning, she quick-stepped it to where Riaz was standing at the counter, the bag containing her souvenirs in hand. “Riaz, I found the best gift for Pierce.”

“If you give me that monstrosity,” Pierce growled from behind her, “I will regift it to you on your birthday.”

A snort escaped Adria. Pierce’s eyes narrowed. And then she was laughing so hard, she had to walk outside and collapse against the wall. Following her out, Riaz tugged on her braid. “Pierce is not amused.” Deep gold, his eyes told her his wolf most definitely was.

Pierce’s snarl made tears come out of her eyes. “Serves you right,” she managed to get out to the glowering male.

“Hey! I was—” An abrupt pause. “I think that’s my cell.”

Adria hadn’t heard anything, but perhaps he had it on vibrate. As he walked a few steps away to answer the call, she turned to Riaz. “Do we have time to sneak into the glass museum I saw?”

Riaz wrapped his arm around her shoulders, tucking her close. “Come on.”

Wanting to nuzzle at his throat, she gave in a little and pressed a kiss to the hollow. His response was a teasing snap of his teeth by her ear.

We’ll be okay.

The bud greened with health, but deep inside, she knew it would never be so simple.

TRAVELING under an assumed name, and with his features disguised to avoid attention, Judd stepped off an airjet at Marco Polo Airport late that afternoon, then caught a water bus to Venice. He could’ve teleported in and negated the need for the subterfuge, but there was no point in using up his telekinetic reserves without cause.

When he reached the island, he found a corner out of sight of passersby—and of security cameras, concentrated on the images Aden had given him, and teleported to the location where he was to meet the rebels. It proved to be a small indoor courtyard, the walls creamy with age and covered with some type of a dark green vine.

There was no need to make a cell phone call.

“I was told I was expected,” he said to the armed man who watched him with the flat eyes of an Arrow, though he was dressed in faded denim jeans and a blue T-shirt.

The slightest hesitation, the man’s eyes flicking to his hair. It was currently dirty blond, his eyes a pale gray. “Who sent you?” The other man didn’t lower his weapon.

Instead of answering, Judd—having built up the correct focus—bent the muzzle of the gun downward, rendering it ineffective. The rebel Arrow threw it aside, hitting Judd with a telepathic blow at the same time … but Judd had his psychic hands in the cells of the male’s heart. He shifted things enough to pinch a blood vessel.

The man paled at the warning. “Tk-Cell.” It was a gasp, his hand up, palm out.

Judd released him, fixing the damage as he left. “I assume no further introductions are necessary.”

The answer came from behind him, where he’d sensed a familiar presence. “I apologize, Judd,” said the melodic female voice. “Alejandro has orders to incapacitate all unknowns who enter the courtyard.”

Keeping Alejandro in his line of sight, he turned to see a petite woman in her late twenties with a face that was all soft curves, her lips lush. But it was her eyes that told the truth of her nature—the color of coal, they were like chips of ice. “Zaira.” Born in Jordan and raised in an Arrow training facility in Turkey, she’d been lost in action five years ago.

Zaira’s gaze shifted. A second later, Alejandro gave a sharp nod and left. Only then did Zaira turn and invite him to join her for a walk around the courtyard. “We did not expect you until this evening. That’s why one of us wasn’t on watch.”

“Alejandro is damaged.”

“His neural functions are fine, but he was given an overdose of Jax while on a mission. It’s left him unable to veer from an order. Alejandro no longer understands subtleties.”

“Is he safe?”

“So long as I don’t give him a direct order, he won’t kill.” Zaira paused for a long second before continuing the walk. “I saved his life, and he … imprinted on me. It concerns me, but according to Aden, there’s nothing to be done. His mental pathways are locked.”

Judd picked up the nuances of deep emotion, wondered how much of it was truth and how much a mask created to blend into the human world. Arrows did not easily break Silence. He knew that better than anyone. “Why did you want to see me?”

“From what I’ve gleaned from the media reports, you appear to have carved out a stable life for yourself and your family. We want to know how you did it.”

Judd glanced around the courtyard, aware he was being watched by more eyes than Zaira’s. “You all live here, in this compound?”

“Yes.”

“What do you do for income?”

“Diversified investments made over a number of years, including properties in various cities and localities.” Zaira turned the corner of the courtyard, coming to a stop beside a curved archway. “Money is not what concerns us.”

Judd asked one final question before giving the other Arrow the answer she sought. “Do you intermingle with the outside population?”

“Only as much as necessary. The rest of us aren’t like Alejandro, who simply can’t handle the stimulation, but we continue to grapple with being outside Silence.” She looked at him with a directness that would disconcert most non-Psy. “I defected before you, as did a number of the others, but we are nowhere as integrated into the world.”

Judd thought of the kiss Brenna had given him as he left the den, the hug Marlee had run after him to claim, the punch on the shoulder that had been Drew’s way of saying “stay safe.” “You have to accept,” he said, “that you need the humans and the changelings, as they need you.” His race had abilities that had once been greatly respected, not merely feared.

“Isolating yourself will simply further what they began in the Net.” He’d had a family, had known that Walker, Sienna, Toby, and Marlee all cared if he lived or died, and still he’d been brutally close to the edge. The Arrows who lived here had only each other for family—and most Arrows didn’t understand what a family was, much less how to create one.

Zaira looked up at a sky gone that hazy blue that preceded sunset. “We can’t take the chance with any outsiders. Not yet.”

“No,” Judd agreed, because their task was to be a hidden escape hatch. “But change is coming.”

Zaira’s eyes reflected only the steel will that had made her an assassin without compare. “We are ready.”

We are Arrows.

“COME on. Judd’ll be here in a couple of minutes,” Adria said, having showered and changed after their day out.

Riaz, his hair damp from the same shower, followed her out into the corridor, shutting the door behind them. “Pierce just sent me a message to say he’s going to get you for that stunt.”

“It was his own fault,” she said with a laugh, feeling a warm affection for the handsome wolf who was Riaz’s friend.

Riaz’s response was unexpectedly serious. “Shower or not, you carry my scent in your skin.” Watchful eyes. “That bother you?”

Adria waited until they were inside the elevator cage to answer, the frothy happiness of the day suddenly a lump in her chest. “The last time I had a man’s scent in my skin, it nearly destroyed me,” she said, tearing open a barely healed wound.

Knuckles brushing her cheek, the dark wood and citrus tang of his scent in her every breath. “We’re not all bastards, Adria.”

The doors opened, saving her from having to continue the conversation. Not that she didn’t agree with his words. But the memories, they were raw, painful things that clawed and bit and threatened to steal her rational mind without warning … because it had started out tender with Martin, too.

Gut churning at the conscious acceptance of a dread that had been a noxious whisper at the back of her mind throughout the day, she almost walked past Judd where he stood against a column in the busy hotel lobby. It was his scent that cued her, that touch of ice that was a cool kiss. “You make a good blond.”

“Brenna doesn’t like it,” he said as they headed out into the early evening light, Riaz on her left and Judd on her right. “She’s already bought the neutralizer to get rid of the color once I’m back home.”

If Adria had met him on the street, she’d have thought Judd sophisticated and aloof, but there was no missing the love in his tone when he spoke of his mate. “I have to admit,” she murmured, “if I had a choice of you with chocolate brown hair or blond, I’d go with the brown every time.”

“Chocolate brown?” Riaz muttered. “Why don’t you just go ahead and call him a stud?”

Adria blinked at the edgy comment, belatedly realizing the lone wolf by her side was irritated by the attention she was paying Judd. She’d never been a woman who got off on making a man jealous, and that hadn’t changed. Which was why she said, “Because I’m partial to pretty gold eyes.”

Color streaked his cheekbones. “Judd, you’re not listening.”

“Listening to what?” The other male shot them a quietly amused look. “We have a tail.”

“Alliance,” Riaz said. “I think it’s more of an escort.”

Adria had picked up the three men as well. “Bo,” she explained to Judd, “is acutely paranoid, but in his shoes, I would be, too.” She explained his abduction, as well as the brainwashing of the comm technician, the suspected fate of the former chairman.

Judd didn’t sound surprised. “Rumor is, Tatiana reached her position on the Council by killing her mentor. I know for a fact that she used psychic coercion to get certain contracts—she’s one of the most dangerous and unscrupulous women in the Net. Bowen is right to be paranoid.”

Further conversation stopped as they reached the Alliance building and were ushered inside to where a scowling Bo was waiting by the elevators. “We had all the routes into Venice tagged,” he said, eyes on Judd, “full surveillance with facial recognition software, and yet you got through.”

Judd’s response was pragmatic. “There’s not much you can do to stop someone with my training coming into your city.”

Expression still dark, Bowen led them down to the same room they’d used yesterday. This time, the water was an invisible, inky blackness beyond the glass—it created the unsettling illusion of being cocooned in nothingness. Hiding her shiver, Adria glanced at the four people who sat waiting for them around the conference table: a slender woman Bo introduced as his sister, Lily, along with three other males ranging in age from midtwenties to early forties.

“I figured five test subjects,” Bo said to Judd after they’d all settled in, “would give you enough of a range to cross natural shields off the list.”

Not necessarily, Judd thought, not given the breadth of the Alliance. If the conglomerate that represented human interests was playing some kind of a high-stakes game, it had enough of a membership that it could have gathered five individuals with the rare type of shield. However, all he said to Bo was, “Ready?”

The male nodded.

The instant he touched Bowen’s mind—or attempted to—he knew without a doubt that what stopped his intrusion was no natural shield. Such shields had always felt like solid walls to his psychic senses, but a wall that could bounce things back, repelling any psychic probe. This was a storm of electricity. His probes got through … but were destroyed before ever reaching their destination.

Riveted, he tried the most subtle telepathic tricks he knew, including ones Walker had taught him during his clandestine ’ports to his brother when Judd was a half-broken teenager in an Arrow training facility. They failed, all of them. The shield was a masterpiece, powered by the electrical charge of the brain itself, and calibrated to provide maximum protection.

As with a changeling, the only way to disrupt it without having long-term access to the victim would be to blast in with brute power, which would likely result in severe brain damage. Futile if data extraction was the target. The solitary other option was the surgical removal of the chip. Unless—“Is the chip fused to your brain stem?”