Shield of Winter (Nalini Singh) (19 page)

“I put in the request earlier.”

“Was that what you were discussing with Judd Lauren and the wolf alpha?”

Vasic nodded, eating the nutrition bar in methodical bites.

“Stop that.” A narrow-eyed look as she held up the drink he hadn’t touched. “I didn’t make this hot so you could let it go cold.”

Unpredictable, she was more unpredictable than a rogue missile. “Temperature doesn’t alter the nutritional value of it,” he said, drinking half a glass.

“I know that. It’s to warm you up.”

He thought about pointing out that his combat uniform insulated him against the temperature, but decided to keep his mouth shut for reasons he couldn’t articulate. Perhaps it was because of the way she looked at him . . . as if concerned.

“I wonder what it’s like for Judd”—her gaze shifted to the trees through which the other male had walked away—“living in a changeling pack.”

“I can’t hope to understand,” he said, when he realized Ivy was waiting for an answer, though she hadn’t asked a question.

“Of course you do. You’re part of one yourself.”

“The squad functions differently from a pack.”

“No, it doesn’t.” She broke off a bit of his last bar to nibble on before giving him the rest. “They’re as tasteless as I remember.” Swallowing the bite with a shudder, she turned to face him, one foot on the ground, the other leg folded up on the porch, her hands on her calf.

“I admit I don’t know too much about changeling packs,” she said, the sun at her back, “but from what I understand, loyalty is the glue that holds a pack together. Isn’t it the same with the squad?”

“Yes.” It was often the only loyalty an Arrow had or would ever know. “Changelings, however, live in close proximity, bonded on a physical as well as emotional level.” Two packmates near one another would touch sooner or later—a handshake, a hug, a kiss, it depended on the relationships involved—but touch was a constant in every changeling interaction Vasic had ever witnessed.

Which was why he had trouble comprehending Judd’s life. Because unlike those in a pack—“Arrows are designed to function alone.”

Ivy’s sweater slipped off her left shoulder when she leaned forward, baring skin of golden cream to the morning sunlight. “Okay, I get that.” She didn’t notice when he nudged the sweater back in place with Tk, the temperature too cold for her to be so exposed. “But while you may be designed to function alone, that doesn’t mean you’re not as tight a family.” Passionate words, with no echo of a Silence that had always been an ill-fitting coat. “Like Aden and you, you said you’re brothers.”

Vasic didn’t talk about his childhood, but then he didn’t normally say this many words in a day or eat breakfast with a woman who kept reaching out as if to touch him before she caught herself, her fingers curling into her palm.

Today was not a normal day.

“We grew up together,” he said at last. “While I wasn’t placed into full Arrow training till I was four, I had military-level instructors almost from the cradle.” He sometimes considered how his unprotected mind might have been molded. What saved his sanity was the memory of his later childhood, when he’d been no model pupil. “Designation Tk-V is rare enough that the Council was notified at once of my birth.”

Ivy leaned farther toward him, one hand pressed to the wood of the porch and her eyes dark with an emotion he couldn’t identify. “How did they know your subdesignation so fast?” Her sweater slipped again and he nudged it back. “It usually takes time to be certain, even with genetic markers.”

“I teleported out of the womb.”

Ivy’s mouth dropped open. “No, really?”

“That’s what I was told when I was old enough to understand. The records I accessed as an adult bear out the story. According to the notes of the attending M-Psy, she almost dropped me.”

Ivy shifted close enough that her knee brushed his thigh, the soft scent of her whispering across his senses. “How did you know where to ’port?”

“It was put down to the telepathic connection I had with the woman who gave birth to me.” After which she’d severed all ties as per her conception and fertilization agreement with his biological father. “That’s probably the correct answer.”

Ivy looked at him for long minutes, and he had the sense he’d said something that distressed her, but he couldn’t identify what when he backtracked through his words.

“You were telling me about Aden,” she said at last, so close that he could’ve easily reached out and gripped the vulnerable arch of her neck.

Looking away, he stared at the hands that had ended more than one life. “He was assigned as my telepathic sparring partner.” He and Aden had bonded as only scared children could do, long before their capacity to bond had been tortured out of them. “We’ve known one another for most of our lifetimes.”

Ivy’s fingers brushed his arm before she jerked her hand guiltily back. “See? You’re family,” she said, her pulse a rapid flutter in her throat. “And what’s a pack but a great big family?”

Vasic glanced at her shoulder, nudged the sweater back up. This time, she noticed, color on her cheeks as her hand went up to the spot. “How many times?”

“Five.” He got to his feet before he could make it six. “I need to rest.”

Frown dark, she rose, too. “I’ve been keeping you. You should’ve said.” Folding her arms, she angled her head toward her cabin. “You can use my bed. It’s much more comfortable than one of those cots.”

That bed would smell of green apples, taking the scent from her hair and skin courtesy of the changeling-stocked bath items in the cabins meant for the empaths. And . . . it would smell of Ivy. “No.”

Her eyebrows drew together over her eyes. “We’ll argue about that later,” she told him. “After you’ve rested.”

Walking to the Arrow cabin where two others lay sleeping, he’d opened up a cot and was removing his thin but effective chest armor when Ivy’s iridescent secret of a voice kissed his mind.
Don’t forget to take off your boots
.

All at once, he realized he didn’t have to process her words. He understood that mental tone now, knew she was teasing him again. This time, he had an answer for her.
Arrows sleep in full uniform,
he said, setting the armor aside.

A pause.
Are you teasing me?

Tugging off his boots, he put them under the cot. They were designed to allow him to slam his feet into them in two seconds flat in an emergency.
Where would an Arrow learn to tease?
he responded as he removed his belt and placed it with the armor.

From me,
came the suspicious response.
You’re very smart. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.

Having decided to strip off his long-sleeved black uniform top since it wouldn’t protect his upper half from attack anyway, and needed to be washed, he rolled it up to use as a pillow as he lay down dressed only in his uniform pants. He should’ve showered, but giving his body time to restore itself was a higher priority.
I’m going to sleep now, Ivy.

Have a good rest.

Her voice was the last thing he heard before he shut himself down like the lethal living machine that he was.

Chapter 18

What gives Kaleb Krychek the right to decide the future of our entire race? What of those of us who do not wish to live in his new world? Will he now eliminate our voices as he is rumored to have eliminated his rivals?Opinion piece from Ida Mill,
PsyNet Beacon
KALEB STOOD IN
the living room of his and Sahara’s home, his eyes on the wall-mounted comm-screen. The feed was of placard-waving protestors walking in a circle below his Moscow HQ chanting pro-Silence slogans into the early evening foot traffic in the square directly adjacent.

“Do they not realize I could crush their skulls with a single thought?”

Glancing up from where she was curled up on the couch, translating a document for him, Sahara looked at the screen. “The protestors and Ms. Mill feel passionately enough to die for their cause.”

“More would-be martyrs.” Kaleb slid his hands into the pockets of his slate gray suit pants, the cuffs of his white shirt rolled up to bare his forearms. “I’m considering giving them their wish.” He had to focus on rebuilding the very foundations of the Net after eradicating the infection, not on people who couldn’t embrace change.

“Stop being big, bad Kaleb Krychek and come sit with me.”

He only took orders from one person. Sitting down to her left, he wrapped an arm around the front of her shoulders as she leaned back against him. “They call themselves Silent Voices,” she told him, tapping the laser pen she’d been using against her lip. “And they’ve made it a point to say they are nonviolent and unassociated with Pure Psy.”

“A small sign of intelligence.” Kaleb had promised to execute anyone who attempted to revive the genocidal group of fanatics. “They’re disruptive.”

Sahara patted his arm. “A common occurrence in a normal political system.”

“We’re not in a normal political system. This is a dictatorship.” Nothing else would work with the Net on the brink of cataclysm.

Sahara turned her head to press a kiss to his upper arm through the fine cotton of his shirt, long strands of silken hair sliding over his forearm. “The Council would’ve shut them down, ended their lives for daring to challenge the status quo.”

It was a gentle reminder that Kaleb had spent
his
life bringing down that corrupt structure. Considering the protestors for another minute, he turned off the screen. “They can protest so long as they don’t threaten the stability of the Net.”

“I think we need disparate voices.” Sahara sat up and twisted to face him after putting her datapad and pen on the carpet, expression thoughtful. “Attempting to create a homogenous society is what got us into this situation in the first place.”

Kaleb didn’t see the world as Sahara did; his priority was to give her a safe, stable life. No matter what it took. “Ms. Mill and her merry band may get their Silent enclave if I’m forced to excise sections of the Net to stem the tide of infection.”

Dark blue eyes locking with his own. “Is it worse?”

“Yes, and increasing in virulence by the day.” While the empaths remained locked in their dormant state.

Chapter 19

Please reupload all technical data about the performance of the gauntlet for the previous thirty-four days. Our current data is leading to conclusions well outside the anticipated and may have been corrupted during one of the weekly uploads.
Message from Dr. Edgard Bashir to Vasic
SASCHA DIDN’T ARGUE
with the security measures Lucas put in place for her visit to the E compound early afternoon on the second day of the empaths’ residence in the area. The other Es might not be able to do her direct harm without it rebounding back on them, but there were Arrows in that compound, and regardless of how much she trusted Judd, the squad wasn’t homogenous.

“Neither are empaths,” Lucas reminded her when she vocalized her thoughts after they stepped out of the car on the edge of the yellow zone.

Cupping her face in strong, warm hands, he bent his knees slightly to meet her eyes. “Don’t forget that. They’ve already had an internal security breach.”

“I won’t,” she promised, and cuddled into the wild heat of his body, drawing in his scent until her own cells were drunk with it. “I feel like such a fraud, pretending to have expertise in the E designation.” When all she had was a store of cobbled-together knowledge that might or might not help.

Lucas tugged on her braid. “An expert is simply someone who knows more than those she’s teaching. That’s you.” A feline kiss, licks and flicks and persuasion that melted her bones. “As for the rest”—he wrapped her scarf around her neck—“you’ll learn with them.”

Centered by his touch, his faith in her, she petted his chest through the fine merino wool of his charcoal sweater. Like most changelings, he didn’t feel the cold the same way as a human or Psy, but he was a cat, too, enjoyed such textures against his skin. Not that he’d ever bother to take the time to buy things like this for himself.

But he loved it when she did—and the small, domestic act gave her intense pleasure. As feeding her chocolate habit gave him. It wasn’t only emotion, raw and real, that Silence had stolen from her race, she thought, but the myriad quiet intimacies that colored the intricate tapestry of life. “Okay,” she said, after another nuzzling kiss from her panther. “I’m ready.”

Having decided to walk in the rest of the way, other pack soldiers spreading out behind them, they stepped through the trees of the compound a half hour later. Vasic was waiting for them, a petite but curvy woman with softly curling black hair by his side. She wore a thick cowl-neck sweater in white and jeans tucked into snow boots, her stunning eyes lit from within.

“Ivy.” Sascha felt her lips curve, recognizing the empath from their comm conversation. “It’s lovely to meet you in person.”

Ivy’s returning smile was infectious. “I’ve been so excited since Vasic said you were coming.” She made to step forward and embrace Sascha, caught herself midstep to glance at Vasic, as if she’d received a telepathic warning.

Conscious the Arrow was playing by the known rules when it came to approaching a predatory changeling’s mate, Sascha completed the hug herself, then introduced Lucas to Ivy, Vasic and Lucas having already acknowledged each other.