The Psy-Changeling Collection (305 page)

The woman didn’t pretend not to understand. “I knew Vale didn’t commit suicide—it was simply not in his psychological profile.” A pause. “I can’t give you names or any concrete details, but there have been ongoing . . . ripples from Sascha’s defection.”

Tapping Max’s foot beneath the table in a silent signal, Sophia put down her organizer. “Surely no one holds the Councilor responsible for her daughter’s so-called flaw? In any case, I thought it was common knowledge that Nikita severed all familial ties with Sascha.”

Marsha responded directly to Sophia. “There were questions after Sascha left the Net, but they calmed once it became clear the Councilor was going about her business as normal. Eventually, Nikita’s business association with the changelings began to be considered an asset because they are an unusually difficult market to capture.”

Max sat back—it was clear Sophia knew precisely the right questions to ask. But he couldn’t resist tapping at her foot in playful response. She put the high heel of her pump over the front of his leather shoe in silent reproof.

“What’s changed?” In sharp contrast to her foot, Sophia’s fingers lay unmoving on the glass-topped table.

He remembered those same fingers weaving through Morpheus’s fur, remembered, too, the expression of discovery on her face, as if she’d never before petted a living creature. He wanted to share a thousand other pieces of his world with her—but to do so, he’d have to plumb her secrets, discover everything the Justice Corps kept hidden. Because he wasn’t letting this J disappear into the dark.

“The Councilor hasn’t changed her business practices.” Marsha Langholm’s voice broke into his thoughts. “However, there have been certain subtle changes in the PsyNet.”

“The political winds are shifting,” Sophia murmured.

“No,” Marsha Langholm said to Max’s surprise. “I’d say it’s more of a split. The lines are very, very fine, but the division is starting to take form. Nikita stands on one side, those who support Pure Psy on the other.”

Max decided to reenter the conversation. “Explain Pure Psy to me.” Sophia had told him what she knew about the group—including the extra intelligence Nikita had sent her, but this was an opportunity to get the perspective of another powerful Psy.

“Of course you wouldn’t have heard of it,” Marsha said, and it was—no doubt about it—condescending. “Pure Psy’s guiding aim is to strengthen and preserve the integrity of Silence, a concept they term Purity. They’ve come to believe that contact with the other races is contaminating us—and that that contamination is a direct cause of the rise in defections and whispers of rebellion.”

“So Nikita is considered a problem—because of her increasingly strong ties with the changelings.” Sophia’s tone was as pragmatic as Marsha’s. “How about other businesses? Are they pulling back from their non-Psy connections?”

“Some are considering it—while Nikita has recently entered into another construction deal in partnership with DarkRiver and SnowDancer.”

“If it is Pure Psy,” Max said, telling himself to behave when he got the urge to ruffle Sophia, sneak under that prim composure of hers by tap-dancing his fingers along her thigh, “why single out Nikita? She’s one of seven Councilors.”

Marsha Langholm touched the screen of her organizer where it lay on the table in front of her, not a restless motion—fully conditioned Psy never made those—but an indication. “I looked you up, Detective Shannon. For a man with such a high solve rate, you’re a rare presence in the news media.”

Max shrugged, let it rest at that.

“It makes me willing to share this information. I’ve heard murmurs that Henry Scott has aligned himself fully
with Pure Psy, and that Shoshanna, as his wife, is aligned with him.”

Max made a mental note to ask Sophie how that worked—the Scotts couldn’t truly be husband and wife, not in the emotional sense. “That still leaves Anthony Kyriakus, Tatiana Rika-Smythe, Ming LeBon, and Kaleb Krychek.”

“All four have undeclared political loyalties,” Marsha Langholm said. “Pure Psy might be suspicious that Anthony doesn’t stand on their side of the line, but then again, his action in subcontracting foreseeing work to his daughter is an understandable business decision, given Faith NightStar’s sheer value. And, the NightStar clan has little contact with changelings beyond that subcontracting arrangement.”

Sophia spoke again, her voice a stroke against Max’s senses. “Do you have any idea where the other Councilors might stand?”

“Tatiana Rika-Smythe recently bought significant amounts of shares in human companies. If she continues on that track, it will by default put her on the other side of the line from Pure Psy. Ming LeBon and Kaleb Krychek are unknowns. They’ve done nothing that could be considered either for or against the group.”

“I don’t get one thing,” Max said, tipping back his chair. “Psy are all about logic, right?”

“Correct, Detective.”

“Then Pure Psy makes no rational sense.” A pointed tap on his foot. Hiding his grin, he put his chair back down on all four legs. “If they succeed, they’ll isolate the Psy, cut off huge sources of revenue.”

Marsha Langholm didn’t answer. Sophia did. “It is logical, in a way,” she said. “Pure Psy believes that if the Net is ‘closed’ again, then Psy power will grow to the extent that our race will eventually be able to exterminate the changelings and humans both.”

“Even if such an act means a loss of power—of personnel,” Marsha Langholm added, “in the short term.”

It was the most cold-blooded description of murder Max had ever heard.

Dorian looked up
from the computer where he was doing something that disappeared the instant Sascha and Lucas walked into the second subbasement of the DarkRiver building.

“He knows,” Sascha whispered to her co-conspirator.

Dorian grinned at Lucas. “So how mad are you?”

“If you didn’t have a mate, I’d consider making you a eunuch,” Lucas said, watching Sascha walk over to stand on Dorian’s other side, her hand on the back of the sentinel’s chair.

Turning, Dorian angled his head, asking for permission. When Sascha smiled, he pressed his ear against her belly, touching his hand protectively to the swell. If any man outside the pack had dared to do that, Lucas would’ve torn him to shreds with his bare claws. But this was Dorian, Sascha’s favorite sentinel, and one of the best friends Lucas had ever had.

His panther sat up in inquisitive interest when Sascha laughed at something Dorian whispered to the baby. “Hey,” the sentinel said in a louder tone, “you never know. Kid could come out wanting to know all about advanced martial arts.”

Sascha messed up the sentinel’s distinctive white-blond hair. “According to Vaughn,
she’s
going to be a painter, he’s sure of it. According to Clay,
he’s
going to be a sentinel-born. According to Hawke—”

Lucas growled at the wolf alpha’s name.

Laughing, Sascha continued. “According to Hawke,
her
purpose in life is going to be to make Lucas insane. He’s already bought Lucas a woolen hat—for when he tears his hair out,” she explained at Dorian’s confused look.

Lucas felt his lips tug upward at her gentle teasing. “You know what I can’t wait for? That wolf to get his comeuppance. I’m going to throw a party when he gets
mated—then take a front-row seat while his mate makes mincemeat out of him.”

Sascha’s expression softened, and Lucas could guess the direction of her thoughts. Accepted knowledge said the wolf alpha would never mate, but things had shifted in the past year. It was beginning to look as if there
might
be a chance for the SnowDancer. And no matter how much they antagonized each other, Lucas would never wish anything but good luck to the other male on this one point. Because when it came to mating . . .

His eyes met those of the cardinal Psy who was his mate, his heartbeat. “Stop flirting with Dorian and come over here.”

Taking his hand, she moved to fit herself against his side. “I wouldn’t dare flirt with Dorian. Ashaya would turn me into chopped liver.”

Dorian gave a smug grin. “My mate thinks I’m the most gorgeous leopard she ever saw.”

“Show us the footage before your head explodes,” Lucas muttered, but his own cat was grinning to see Dorian so happy. The sentinel had been latent most of his life, unable to shift into leopard form. Now that he could, he did so at every opportunity. “Have you managed to catch a rabbit yet?”

A single eloquent finger. “Fuck you.”

Lucas snickered. “What about trying for a turtle?”

Dorian lunged out of the chair and went for Lucas’s throat.

Laughing, Sascha watched the two men fall to the floor. Neither had released claws, and it was obvious they weren’t doing anything much more than wrestling. Men, she thought with a fond shake of her head, turning to take Dorian’s chair.

Oooh, that felt so much better
.

Though her energy levels had increased over the past week or two, her ankles were persisting in their attempts to turn into miniature logs. A little bump in her stomach,
a reminder that it was all worth it.
Yes
, she thought to her child,
you’re worth everything
.

A sense of happiness, warmth, belonging
.

She stroked her hand over her belly, keeping one eye on the two boys still rolling around on the floor.
You’re incredibly loved, my sweet baby
. The entire pack was waiting for the birth, as they did for every birth in DarkRiver. Each child was treasured, celebrated.

None would ever be rejected as flawed.

Smiling, she tapped the screen to bring up the correct files. Dorian hadn’t actually listened in on her conversation with Marsha—instead, he’d monitored the tone of her voice with one of his gadgets, ready to break down the door the instant it indicated distress. However, he’d also kept an ear on what went on in the corridor, recording it as a matter of course.

Something thumped behind her as she opened the file. “Dorian?” she said. “Is this audio only?”

“What—
umfh
!” Another thump. “Yeah. Haven’t had a chance to—”

A loud crash.

Trying to keep a stern face, she turned. “If you mess up this lab, I’ll rat you out to Ria.” Lucas’s administrative assistant had ordered all the hard-to-find equipment Dorian had specified, helped put the place in order to the last rivet and bolt.

Lucas lifted up his face, his hair messy and so gorgeous, she wanted to tumble him to the floor herself. “Aw, come on.”

“Yeah,” Dorian muttered, pushing himself up into a sitting position, his T-shirt rucked up to bare part of his muscled abdomen. “That’s just mean, siccing Ria on us.”

“She’s five feet and zero inches,” Sascha said, noting that between them, Lucas and Dorian probably outweighed and out-muscled Ria four times over. “Why are you all so scared of her?”

“You don’t know ’cause she likes you.” Getting up,
Lucas held his hand down to Dorian, who took it and bounced up to his feet.

Neither looked anything but a little rumpled. Cute, she thought, they looked cute. And they’d snarl if she even dared utter the word. “I’d like to listen to this audio now.” Her joy dimmed. “Someone’s trying to hurt my mother.”

Lucas squeezed the back of her neck in silent reassurance, his love a protective shield around her. When Dorian queried her words, Lucas gave him a short précis of events—the sentinel touched his fingers to her cheek before turning to fix something in the audio file. “I was monitoring the live feed the whole time and heard nothing suspicious, but I was only listening out for threats to Sascha. Here we go.”

There was a whole lot of nothing, and more nothing on the tape.

“New plan,” Dorian said after several minutes, “I’m going to skip to any incidents where the noise level went over the baseline.”

There were several noises that made the computer stop, people coming and going. Then, a bare few minutes before Sascha left Marsha’s apartment, the sound of footsteps, a knock, a door being opened.

“I see you received my message,” said a male voice, with a slight French accent. “Come in. The papers are sitting on the coffee table where you left them earlier today.”

“Ah, fuck,” Lucas muttered, thrusting a hand through already tousled hair. “If that’s what I think it is, Max is going to be pissed.”

CHAPTER 20

Like the majority of telepaths born with the J facility, this female has a minor ability in the F spectrum, limited to the potential for backsight. Her ability measures at 1.5 on the Gradient and may never activate.

—
PsyMed report on Sophia Russo, minor, age 8

Max wasn’t pissed
when Lucas called him. He was beyond pissed. “Damn it, Luc. You should’ve told me this when we met.”

“It’s evidence you wouldn’t otherwise have,” the DarkRiver alpha said as Sophia got up and closed the door to the interview room, ensuring privacy. “And for the record, I didn’t know. I’ve already snarled at the two culprits for you.”

Recognizing the peace offering for what it was, Max blew out his breath. “Can you send the segment through to my phone? I’ll pick up the original later.”

“I’ll get Dorian to do it. And, Cop”—his voice dropped—“you need us, we’re there. Don’t hesitate.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Closing the phone, Max told Sophia what the DarkRiver alpha had shared.

Sophia tucked her hair behind her ear, baring the marks on her face, marks that were becoming intimately
familiar to Max. “They take the protection of their mates seriously.”

“Do you think it’s only changelings who do that?” Max raised a hand, waited until she leaned a wary fraction toward him. Then, his eyes on the sweet curve of her lips, he danced his fingers over her temple, the edge of her cheek, and along her jaw.

Sophia’s heart was a stampede in her chest, her skin prickling with a near-painful heat, but she didn’t move away. And when Max stepped even closer, until her breasts brushed his chest with every breath, she found her free hand rising to press against the warm resilience of his pectorals.