Caressed by Ice

CHAPTER 30

“Weird stuff about shields and lowering them.” He sounded confused. “They hypnotized us to fix the ones who wouldn’t.”

“Give us a minute, Kevin.” Raising his blindfold again, Indigo met Judd’s gaze. He nodded toward the door.

Outside, the lieutenant leaned against the vehicle that had brought Judd to the cabin. “Mind control?” she asked, spine rigid.

He shook his head. “More like programming. Full mind control needs to be maintained by a constant link between the controlling Psy and the victim and that link sucks power.”

Judd had never stepped over that line, but he’d been taught the technical aspects. He had no doubt that had he stayed in the Net, he would have ended up using that knowledge. Evil had a tendency to wear away at humanity. It was a truth the Ghost didn’t yet see. “If you don’t want that drain on your resources,” he continued, “you can program someone to do certain things. The downside and upside compared to mind control are both the same—the victim cannot and will not deviate from the set plan. The hyenas wouldn’t have turned back even if they’d been confronted by armed wolves.”

“This is a mess.” Indigo kicked up snow with her boot. “If they got to the hyenas, we don’t know who else they might have influenced.”

“Finding that out is your job.” Judd began walking back to the cabin. “Mine is to clean Kevin’s mind.”

“Wait!” Indigo ran to his side. “We can use him as our eyes and ears.”

He met her eyes. “No.” That was on the other side of that line between humanity and the clawing darkness that constantly whispered at the corners of his mind. “I won’t replace one kind of slavery with another.”

Indigo’s face blanched. “You make me feel like a monster.”

Judd didn’t answer, already to the door. Pushing it open, he walked inside. Kevin was in the same position as before, but his terror seemed to have whittled down to grim acceptance. He thought he was going to die.

Judd stood in front of the man. “I’m going to remove what they put in. The choices you make from then on will be your own.”

The hyena’s head snapped up, moving blindly in the direction of Judd’s voice. “You’re not going to kill me?”

“Not today.” Judd went behind the male. Lower shields, he said telepathically. It was the first in a long list of commands the programmers could have used. But he had no need to go any further—Kevin’s tough changeling shields disappeared as if by magic. The cruelty of whoever it was that had done this was beyond anything Judd had ever seen. They had left the changeling wide open to any Psy who knew or could guess the code words.

Once inside, Judd began to check the structure of the programming. The work was effortless—not only was he a strong telepath, he’d been trained in the very techniques that had been used on Kevin. Those skills told him that the binding was crude, done in haste. Clearly, the Council wasn’t worried about failure. Then again, why should they be? While other Psy might be able to get into Kevin’s mind, only a Psy with a very specific skill set could undo the original programming.

A few minutes later, he was about to reset the compromised neural pathways when he saw it. A Black Key. A tiny piece of psychic code that would kick in the second he began the reset. Kevin would die from a massive aneurysm in less than a minute.

He withdrew before carefully retracing his steps. Finally satisfied the Black Key was the single contingency, he spent ten minutes deactivating and removing it. Then he cleaned house. Kevin.

“Yes.” The vocalization was distant—the hyena remained in the trance initiated by the code words.

Your mind is now free. As of this moment, you will not respond when asked to “lower shields.” Do you understand?

“Yes.”

Aware of the wolves looking on, bemused at what appeared to them to be a one-sided conversation, Judd checked for any further activation phrases then repeated his instruction several times to ensure comprehension before giving Kevin the order to wake with full memory of what had taken place.

The hyena immediately bent double, dry-retching. Judd looked at the nearest soldier. “Get a glass of water.”

D’Arn obeyed without looking to Indigo. When the soldier returned and went to lower Kevin’s blindfold, he glanced at Judd. Understanding, Judd stepped back into the shadows once more.

Indigo waited until the hyena was no longer shaking before asking him to tell them everything he knew.

Kevin was able to share details of three other planned attacks. To Judd’s military mind, it was obvious that the PineWood leader had made no effort to keep a lid on the details. He’d known about, and relied, on the programming to ensure silence.

“I think there might be more.” Kevin sounded broken, lost. “I’ll see if I can find out anything.”

Judd was no changeling but he understood why the hyena was so distraught. Hierarchy was important in changeling packs and that hierarchy relied on trust. What Parrish had done was obliterate Kevin’s system for understanding how the world worked. It was the same psychological trauma that had destroyed so many young children at the dawn of Silence. The transitional children—those under seven years of age at the time of the Protocol’s implementation—had been taught to devalue love, warmth, touch, everything that made them feel safe. More had died than survived.

“Don’t put yourself in danger,” Indigo told Kevin now. “With what you’ve given us, we can shut down this operation. How many in your pack?”

“A hundred but that includes the old and the very young.” He coughed a couple of times. “There’s about forty able-bodied. The Psy didn’t bother to talk to the others.”

“Not many.” She looked over Kevin’s head, toward Judd. “Can you handle it?” At Judd’s nod, Indigo returned her attention to Kevin. “How stable is your pack?”

“Good. If you take out Parrish, Mahal or Lou-Ann can step in.” His voice held acceptance of his leader’s impending death. “I don’t know if they’re in on it.”

“Don’t worry about that, we’ll figure it out.” Indigo raised an eyebrow at Judd. “Could be they’ve all been brainwashed.”

“It could.” However, he considered it unlikely, given the crude nature of the programming. The Council hadn’t spent too much time on this. “Who were the Psy who programmed you? Were they wearing uniforms?”

“No. Suits like the rest of them.” Kevin didn’t attempt to look over his shoulder. “I didn’t see anyone who seemed really important. Nothing stands out.”

Judd would have been surprised to hear otherwise. “Any names mentioned?”

“Not that I can—” The hyena paused. “Wait. I walked up on Parrish once while he was on the phone. He said he couldn’t change things without Duncan’s authorization.”

Brenna felt unexpectedly fresh the morning after her emotional breakdown. It was as if the tears had released something toxic that had been brewing inside of her, setting her free. Added to that, Judd had messaged her to let her know he hadn’t yet returned to the den. She grinned. The Man of Ice was learning.

Walking out of her apartment, she headed off to find Hawke. She had work to do—she hadn’t forgotten that Tim’s killer might be gunning for her and she wasn’t going to put a bull’s-eye on her back, but neither was she going to let that piece of scum dictate her movements.

Hawke raised an eyebrow when she hunted him down in one of the workout rooms. “That look spells trouble.” His entire upper body was drenched in sweat, but his breathing remained smooth. Healthy and muscled, he was quite beautiful in a very masculine way.

She was woman enough to appreciate him, but without wanting more. “I promised DarkRiver I’d help them hack into the Psy databases. Can you assign me an escort down to their headquarters?” Because she wasn’t a soldier and she couldn’t fight like one.

“They decided to set up special untraceable equipment for it.” He picked up a towel and wiped off his face. “Should be ready by tomorrow. You want to go help Sascha instead?”

Brenna shook her head. “She said she doesn’t need me till later. Right now, the deer are too traumatized to accept my presence.”

“Makes sense. I’ve got a meeting that way tomorrow—you can hitch a ride with me,” he said, slinging the towel around his neck. “I’ve already got SnowDancer guards sorted and DarkRiver has the whole place under watch, too.”

“Trusting the cats, Hawke?” she teased.

He snorted. “Like I said, I’ll have my own men there.”

Relieved he hadn’t stood in her way, she was about to head back to her room when Hawke’s phone beeped. Since it was closer to her—on the floor with the sweatshirt he’d stripped off during training—she picked it up and handed it to him. It wasn’t her intention to listen in, but he motioned for her to stay.

The conversation was short and ended with Hawke saying, “You’ve tracked down the pack?” A pause filled with the most lethal anger. “Then do it today. We don’t know what else they might have been programmed to do.”

“Do what?” Brenna asked after he’d hung up.

“Judd’s not going to get back till after dark,” he said instead of answering. “He asked me to keep an eye on you.”

She concentrated on the first part of his response. “What does he do for you, Hawke?” Her heart was a block of cold stone in her chest.

His face went dangerously neutral. “I don’t know if I like your tone of voice.” It was a reminder of who he was.

But she knew her status, too. “I’m not a juvenile to be slapped down.” She faced off with him, eye to eye. “Answer my question. What do you ask from Judd in exchange for giving sanctuary to the kids?”

His pale eyes iced over. “Judd is a fully trained Psy assassin with experience in covert wet work. I’d be a fool if I didn’t utilize his skills.”

She choked back a cry. “How can you ask that of him?” An alpha looked after his own. He didn’t destroy them. But maybe Hawke didn’t consider the Laurens his own. After all, and for reasons she’d never known, he hated the Psy as much as her brothers did.

His face gentled, an unexpected softening of harsh masculine lines. Closing the distance between them, he cupped her cheek. “He is who and what he is, Brenna. If you want something different, you shouldn’t be with him.”

“He’s the only one I want to be with.”

“Then accept his beast like you do your own.”

Hawke’s words wouldn’t leave her alone as she went through the day. It was disturbing to think that she might be asking Judd to change when she professed to want him for himself. “But asking him to break Silence is different,” she muttered to herself as she scanned the details of another of the job offers Dr. Shah had forwarded her.

If Judd didn’t dismantle the conditioning, he’d continue to hurt each time they touched, each time he felt anything for her. How could a relationship survive under that kind of pressure? “No, Brenna, be honest.” She sighed and went to the next offer. While everything she’d thought so far was true, there was another truth—she wanted Judd to hold her, to offer her affection…to love her. A selfish need.

What if accepting his beast meant denying the needs of her own?

It made her head ache, especially when she added in the fact that her beast didn’t recognize Judd as her mate. The mating bond was conspicuous in its absence. “Enough.” Thinking herself to a standstill was not going to help matters. And if she didn’t stop thinking about Judd, she’d start to speculate about what it was he was doing today.

Covert wet work.

Her stomach turned. If he came to her with hands dipped in blood, would she accept him? Her fingers trembled. She had no easy answers to that question and that shook her. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to pay attention to the next offer on the list. It was from a corporation named Sierra Tech.

She knew a lot about ST—SnowDancer was the majority shareholder, at sixty percent. DarkRiver held twenty and a human conglomerate named Dekell the other twenty. ST was offering her a great package and her wolf would prefer to work for the pack. Not that all ST employees were wolves. It was considered a plum company to work for by scientists and techs across the globe. The only reason ST had no Psy employees was that it competed directly with several Council-backed labs.

Sierra Tech went to the top of her list, but she hadn’t made her decision. Her current frame of mind didn’t exactly lend itself to the task. Even when she finished looking over the offers and moved on to repair some small comm malfunctions for packmates, her mind remained chaotic. Lunch and dinner came and went, but she had no answer to her own uncomfortable question.

Would she hold Judd if he came to her after utilizing his skills as an assassin?

She went to bed mentally exhausted but woke after only a few hours of disrupted sleep…because she could smell Judd’s scent in her quarters. Getting out of bed still half-asleep, she saw it was four a.m. She walked out wearing the satin slip she used as her nightgown, her feet bare.

“Judd?” For a second, she couldn’t locate him. Then her night vision kicked in and she found him seated in an armchair close to the coffee table.

He was watching her, his entire body motionless. It didn’t strike her that she should be afraid or even wary. Yawning, she walked over and sat on his lap, curling her body into the armchair. His arms came around her without hesitation, one hand curving around her shoulders, the other sliding to close over the bare skin of her upper thigh.

The sensual contact brought her to full wakefulness. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she nuzzled at his throat. “Are you okay?”

His hand shifted to slide between her thighs, surprising a shocked feminine sound out of her. “Judd? Baby?” Something was wrong. With a changeling male, she would’ve let her body soothe him, used touch to connect. But Judd was Psy…and hers. At that moment, she knew the answer to the question that had tormented her all day—she would hold him, accept him, no matter what.

That was what mates did.

She didn’t care if there was no bond—no one was going to tell her she wasn’t meant to be with this man. “What do you want?” she asked, but he remained silent. Deciding to let instinct guide her, she softened for him.

His other hand tangled in her hair, tilting her head back in a sharp move. She went rather than resist. A woman who loved a dominant male had to know when to bend…and when to bite. His lips crushed hers, his hand squeezing her inner thigh. Moaning into the kiss, she opened her mouth. He didn’t wait for any more permission, ravaging her with a sensual fury that had her trying to press even closer.

Her body craved Judd. She had no desire to back off, perhaps because she hadn’t had time to be afraid, or perhaps because she could feel the hunger inside of him, a hunger only she could assuage.

He bit at her lower lip. She bit back.

His back muscles were rock hard under her palms as she splayed her hands and luxuriated in the unrestrained masculine heat of him. “No,” she protested when he broke the kiss to run his lips down her jaw and over her neck. She tugged at his hair. He nipped at her neck in reprimand. Something melted between her legs and when he stroked his hand farther north, she wanted to urge him to go faster.

He cupped her. Strong. Bold. Possessive.

She felt her claws threaten to release, sparks shooting behind her tightly closed eyes. And then he began to massage her like that, while her body simultaneously tried to get closer and writhe away. Her slip rode up and her bottom came in contact with the hard ridge of his erection.

A whisper of fear fluttered in her belly.

But her panties were gone, torn off her and oh God he was touching her skin to skin and his fingers were rubbing at the entrance to her body and—Crying out, she orgasmed with an almost painful clamping of internal muscles long unused. She buried her face in his neck and he held her there with his hand on her nape as he coaxed more and more pleasure out of her body.

The scent of him coated her tongue until she licked at him, taking the salt/ice/man scent inside. Slowly, the orgasm turned into a buzz of sensual heat, leaving her sated. Murmuring her pleasure, she relaxed back into her earlier curled-up position and opened her eyes. At first, she didn’t realize what it was she was seeing. Why were there pieces of wood everywhere? And did her kitchen bench look lopsided?

Judd’s teeth clamped down on her shoulder, as if he knew he no longer had her undivided attention. She jerked up. “Judd. Judd!” She tugged at his hair.

His answer was an explosion of tiny telekinetic bites in very sensitive places. Her entire body arched as pleasure short-circuited her nerve endings. In the corner of her eye, she saw the kitchen bench collapse, giving one final groan of creaking distress. And then all she could hear were her own gasping breaths.

By the time she came back down this time, she was lying crosswise in his lap, her slip puddled around her waist, the straps snapped. Judd wasn’t touching her exposed flesh, just looking at her breasts with hunger that was close to madness.

Giving a sob, she placed her arms tight around him once more, eyes wide as she watched the violence over his shoulder. “Stop. Please, baby, stop.” Small pieces of broken furniture circled the room in a savage storm. “Judd, darling.”