Shield of Winter (Nalini Singh) (6 page)

“I thought we weren’t keeping secrets?” Lucas locked eyes with Hawke, alpha to alpha, dominant to dominant, his voice holding the edge of a growl.

Hawke folded his arms as Sascha put down her hot chocolate and patted her mate’s chest to get his attention, his dark green T-shirt soft under her palm. Left alone in this kind of an aggressive mood, two changeling alphas would stare at one another until it ended in violence. “No fighting,” she said to Lucas when he turned to scowl at her. “You know how cranky Hawke gets when his mate is out to lunch with a certain future leopard alpha.”

Lucas’s grin was very feline as he relaxed.

“Yeah,” Mercy murmured, shoulders shaking, “be kind to the poor wolfie.” She squeaked as her own wolf mate did something to her the rest of them couldn’t see.

Growling low in his throat, Hawke bared his teeth. “We passed on the data,” he said, “just not where it came from. Krychek’s been Judd’s connection for several operations—including the one that netted us Alice Eldridge.”

Sascha sucked in a breath at the mention of the human scientist who’d completed what was possibly the most detailed sociological and anthropological study on E-Psy ever done. That research had been meticulously wiped after Silence, with only a rare few copies of Alice’s seminal work—
The Mysterious E Designation: Empathic Gifts & Shadows—
surviving in the world of underground collectors. Alice herself had been put into a cryonic sleep, only to wake mere months ago with her memories in pieces.

“So,” Sascha murmured, “Krychek wants easy access not only to me, but to Alice.” Even with her problematic memory, the human scientist remained an invaluable resource. Alice’s surviving published work might not have focused on how empaths did what they did, but no one knew what knowledge she held in her brain.

“Yes.” Judd drank some of his coffee. “But he’s aware of the state of her memories, so I think he’s far more interested in you. Regardless, he won’t harm a single individual in either pack.”

Riley stretched his arm along the back of Mercy’s chair. “Why do you sound so certain?” he asked, cutting to the heart of the matter as always.

“DarkRiver considers SnowDancer family, and Sahara considers DarkRiver family.”

That much was inarguable. Not only had Kaleb’s mate sought the protection of the pack for a time after she’d first been rescued from a hellish captivity, but she had blood ties to another member of the pack, not to mention her growing friendship with Mercy.

“Kaleb is no different from any of the men in this room,” Judd said. “Hurting the packs would hurt his mate, and he’d never consciously do anything to distress her. DarkRiver and SnowDancer are safe. I’d go so far as to say that, in all probability, he’d actively stand with us against an enemy should we ever make the request.”

Sascha couldn’t imagine Kaleb Krychek, cold and powerful, loving anyone enough to sheathe his psychic claws. “I need to meet him,” she said into the somewhat dubious silence that followed Judd’s words. “While he’s with Sahara.” Not only so they could gauge if he could be trusted in pack territory, but to check on Sahara’s welfare; seeing the younger woman safe with their own eyes was a far different thing to hearing her say the same on the comm.

Lucas looked at Sascha, the panther prowling to life in his eyes. “Sahara
is
family,” he said, his tone that of the alpha he was. “I don’t like the fact I’ve never seen the two of them together.” A grim line to his jaw. “I want to make sure she’s still okay with him before we make any kind of a decision.”

“Say we accept Krychek’s bona fides”—Riley refilled Mercy’s mug with milk rather than coffee, to her unimpressed snarl—“that still leaves the others who’ll be in our territory if we say yes to his proposal.”

“The Es should be no problem.” Stretching out in his chair, Hawke grinned as Mercy gulped down the milk as if it was medicine. “Long as Sascha confirms they are Es. Your designation has a problem with violence.”

“The pain of the victim rebounds back on us.” Though there were more subtle, long-term ways an empath could attack another living being, things that had shocked Sascha the first time she’d read
Empathic Gifts & Shadows.

“Don’t, however, make the mistake of thinking all Es are trustworthy,” Lucas said on the heels of Sascha’s thoughts. “Kitten, tell them what it said in Alice’s book.”

Conscious that a lack of awareness as to the threat posed by Es could be as dangerous as placing blind trust in Kaleb Krychek, Sascha shared the repugnant truth. “In the past, a minority of empaths were known to have consciously manipulated the emotions of others.” Her skin crawled at the act that went against everything she stood for as an E. “One E wanted everyone to be ‘good,’ while others did it for money, revenge, power . . .”

Judd’s mug hit the wood of the table with a dull sound. “A truly gifted and subtle empath wouldn’t need mind control,” he said, clearly seeing the weaponized potential of such an ability.

“There’d also be no painful rebound effect”—Hawke’s hand curled into a fist on the tabletop—“because the victim wouldn’t even know it was happening.”

That was the most evil aspect of it; an empath could effectively take away an individual’s right to choose. “The good news,” Sascha said, fighting her nausea, “is that such manipulation apparently requires prolonged contact with the intended victim and a high level of skill.” Newly awakened empaths would be stumbling in the dark in comparison.

Mercy tapped her fingers on the table. “So it’s not a danger we have to worry about immediately, but it needs to be part of the briefing given to any member of either DarkRiver or SnowDancer who might come in contact with an E.”

No one had any arguments with that suggestion.

“That leaves the guards.” Riley angled his head toward Judd. “You have a line on who they’re likely to be?”

“Arrows. I’ll vouch for them, though I don’t think that’ll be necessary—Vasic’s heading the security team.”

Mercy’s gaze sharpened. “He’s the one who brought in the medic when Dorian was shot,” she said, naming a fellow DarkRiver sentinel.

“Yes. He also helped Ashaya”—Dorian’s mate—“escape the Net. He’s not interested in picking a fight.” Tone altering on those last words, Judd said, “He’s a man I trust to the bone—if he says this is a straight-up op, then it is.”

Hawke and Lucas both nodded, Judd having long ago earned the trust of both alphas.

“Location’s going to be critical if we agree to this.” Rising, Mercy found a map of the area and spread it out on the table, the slight outward curve of her belly the only sign of her pregnancy. “Anyone have suggestions?”

Hawke used his finger to circle a low-lying section. “This was the site of the hyena attack awhile back. It’s on the edges of both our territories, bracketed by DarkRiver on one side, SnowDancer on the other.”

“It can be isolated within a secure perimeter without problem,” Lucas murmured, eyes on the map. “And the area’s open enough that satellite surveillance is a viable security option.”

For the next hour, the others discussed exactly how the site could be secured, while Sascha sat and listened, the ebb and flow of their voices a rough, familiar music. It had taken her only a short time after her defection to understand that an empath was as social a creature as a pack-minded changeling—it had hurt her to be deprived of that sense of community, of family in the Net, though she hadn’t understood the dull gnawing pain at the time.

Because it had been constant, a second heartbeat.

“Sascha.” Lucas’s voice, pitched for her ears alone as he lifted their clasped hands to his mouth to brush a kiss over her knuckles. “Whatever happens, we won’t abandon the other Es.”

Adoring him beyond reason for understanding the forces tearing her apart, she leaned her head against his shoulder. “I want them to have this life,” she whispered. “I want them to know what it is to live without being suffocated every minute of every day. I want them to know freedom.”

Chapter 5

Loyalty is not a trait limited to the E designation, but over the course of this study, it has become clear that once an empath chooses to give his or her loyalty, the bond is not one the E will ever easily sever—even when that bond threatens to cause the E in question mortal harm.Excerpted from
The Mysterious E Designation: Empathic Gifts & Shadows
by Alice Eldridge
IVY TURNED TO
head back to her cabin as soon as Vasic left, the teleport so fast she had the breath-stealing realization that he wasn’t an ordinary telekinetic, but a Tk-V. A Traveler, someone for whom teleporting was as easy as breathing, and who could go from one end of the world to the other in a heartbeat.

That wasn’t the scary part.

It was that there were no distinctive structures or natural formations in the part of the orchard to which he’d teleported. Which meant he’d done so by using her face as a lock . . . but he’d come in a little distance from her. So either he could ’port to within a certain radius of the target, or there
was
something in the orchard he’d been able to use as a focus. How then would he have obtained the image of the specific area in the first place?

She rubbed her forehead. Not that it mattered. If an Arrow wanted to find her, she’d be found. The fact Vasic was most probably a teleporter who could lock onto people only hammered home that inescapable truth.

“Ivy!”

Almost to the cabin, she saw her mother running toward her. Having thrown on a jacket over the simple khaki cargo pants and old sweatshirt that was her usual work wear when she wasn’t handling her honeybees, Gwen Jane had longer legs than her daughter and made it to her side in seconds.

“I’m fine,” Ivy said at once, kicking herself for not having telepathed that the instant it became clear Vasic didn’t intend to do her harm. Her only excuse was stunned shock. “He only came to deliver a message.” Her fingers pressed into the thick paper of the envelope he’d given her before he left.

“The settlement went into lockdown the instant we received your telepathic alarm.” Gwen’s chest rose and fell as she caught her breath, her pale skin flushed. “I couldn’t stop your father from heading out to cover you with a weapon, however.”

“I know.” She’d felt her father’s telepathic touch. And while she couldn’t prove it, her gut told her Vasic, too, had been aware of her father the entire time.

Gwen’s eyes shifted over Ivy’s left shoulder just as Rabbit “woofed” and ran to greet Ivy’s father. Turning her attention back to Ivy, her mother said, “I assume we need to talk?”

Ivy wasn’t the least disconcerted by her mother’s lack of an emotive response. Gwen wasn’t maternal in any obvious way, but that said nothing; Ivy’s mother had changed her entire life so that her child could heal, and she’d done it without ever making that child feel at fault.

As had her father.

Where Gwen was taller than many men, her hair the soft black she’d bequeathed Ivy, Carter Hirsch was a stocky man of medium height, his eyes a clear copper ringed with gold. Ivy had always loved the fact she was so clearly an amalgam of the two most important people in her life. Though the genetics had worked out to leave her the shortest in the family, she had not only Gwen’s hair, but the fineness of her mother’s bones, while her golden skin tone echoed her father’s part-Algerian heritage.

Right this instant, Carter held his weapon at his side, his elbows and the front of his clothing wet, dirty. He must’ve been flat on the ground with a bead on Vasic the entire time, this man who had always been there for her, though she’d been meant to be nothing more than the completion of a simple fertilization contract.

The love and respect she felt for her parents was a hugeness in her heart she could never properly explain. “The settlement can come out of lockdown,” she said, voice husky, and led them toward the cabin that had become her own the day she took responsibility for the fruit orchard that supplied the families who lived here, the majority of their crops far more prosaic grains.

Rabbit padded along in front, and it was such a familiar sight that the knots in her stomach began to unravel a fraction. “The Arrow—Vasic—came specifically for me.”

“They don’t send Arrows after fractured Psy,” her father said, always the more phlegmatic of her parents, despite the fact her mother appeared the more practical at first glance. “Especially Gradient 3.2 telepaths.”

“No.” Ivy pushed through the door to her home. “I’ll get you a blanket, Father. You really shouldn’t stay in those wet clothes.”

“I’m fine.” He took off his jacket to reveal that his heavy work shirt was dry.

Seeing that he’d made up his mind, but aware his pants remained wet, she turned up the heat, then handed him the letter wrinkled from her grip. “According to Vasic”—she tugged off her gloves to put them on the counter, shrugged off her jacket—“I’m not a telepath. Or rather, that’s not my main designation.”

Her parents sat down at her small kitchen table and read the letter together.

It was her mother who broke the silence. “Well, it makes sense.” Gwen stared down at the floor, her eyes crinkled at the corners and her arms wrapped around herself. “When you were a fetus,” she murmured, “I had a serious problem maintaining Silence. The obstetrician sent me to a specialized M-Psy who did a complete workup, then told me it was simply an unusually severe but known side effect of pregnancy.” Her shoulders grew stiff. “He must’ve known, kept me in the dark.”

“I’ve never heard of an E designation. How can we be certain it’s as the Arrow says?” her father said with his usual practicality.