Caressed by Ice

CHAPTER 32

Dorian and Brenna both looked up. He’d expected surprise and perhaps fluster, but Brenna’s face reflected an expression he could define only as relief. Getting up off her chair, she pressed her body into his, burying her face against his chest. “You need to hold me.”

He could follow orders, especially when they were given in a familiar female voice hiding a tremor. Raising his arms, he wrapped them around her body. She didn’t seem to mind being crushed, her own arms holding on tighter.

Dorian’s eyes met his over the top of her head. The leopard had an inscrutable look on his face. But when Judd inclined his head in thanks, Dorian returned the gesture.

After escorting Brenna back to the den sometime around three in the afternoon, Judd left to help Sascha with the deer. Brenna had decided to stay behind because she had a viral problem to figure out, but her torn loyalties were obvious.

“Your work is important,” he told her. “We need to strike at the Council’s heart.”

“I know.” She flashed a smile. “But thanks for saying it anyway.”

He left her hunched over her personal computer and spent the rest of the day feeding Sascha power. When it became clear he wouldn’t make it back to the den before dawn the next day, he rang Riley. “Keep an eye on her. The stalker’s been quiet, but he’s out there.”

Riley made a sound of agreement. “She’s not going to like it.”

“Do you care?”

“I care about keeping her alive.” A pause. “I’m checking out the soldiers.”

“Any indication who it might be?”

“Not yet.” Riley’s tone held both frustration and pure focus. “Do what you have to do to help DawnSky. I’ll take care of Bren.”

Judd ended the call, his mind on the killer and the concordant threat to Brenna. It made him even more determined to return to the den as soon as possible. However, because of the number of victims, he didn’t make it back until after eight the next morning. He was tired but not drained—because Sascha was having to work very slowly, the draw on his psychic strength had been steady but not intense.

Many of the DawnSky children were close to catatonic. Several had seen their parents being torn up. One young boy had been trapped under the body of his dying mother; another had tried to protect his siblings, only to get his chest carved open. He’d survived, his mind strong. Others…others were broken. The healing process was going to be a long one, but Judd had pledged himself to it.

That thought in mind, he headed to his room to wash up before going to Brenna. Not seeing her wasn’t an option. He made it to her apartment a few minutes after nine. But when he entered her quarters—she’d keyed him in—he found not Brenna, but a note pinned to the new kitchen bench she had put together using a thick plank and precise towers of synthetic bricks. Smart.

The note was short and very Brenna. Left before dawn to go use my other degree. Have bodyguards so don’t worry. Be back when the work’s done. Get some sleep. Bren.

Putting the piece of paper in his pocket, he called through to DarkRiver HQ to confirm. It was Clay who answered. “She’s in the basement with Dorian. Andrew’s with her. Riley’s gone to keep watch on the healers doing the physical nursing.”

So much for the siblings keeping their distance from each other. Given their closeness, he’d known it would be difficult. “Thanks.” Hanging up, he used telekinesis to get rid of the debris by the door, teleporting it discreetly into one of the large recyclers kept in a corner of the underground garage.

That done, he decided to bow to Brenna’s order and catch some sleep. The less sleep he had, the worse his mental degradation would get. But he’d only been asleep for three hours when he woke. Something was wrong. Parts of his brain he’d never seen active were sparking in awareness. And those sparks tasted like Brenna…and terror.

He called Clay. “Where is she?”

“She left close to two hours ago. She was riding with her brothers.”

Two hours wasn’t enough time to return to the den unless they’d floored the accelerator. “Why did they leave?”

“Something about an urgent call. Everything okay?”

“Yes.” He hung up, still convinced something was wrong. If the call had been urgent enough to pull Brenna away from something so important, they would have pushed their vehicle to the limit and arrived by now. He tried to call Brenna’s cell phone, but no one picked up.

Get outside the walls.

It was a command from that newly awakened section of his brain. He listened. The second he exited the den, those firing sparks turned into a firestorm. It was as though he could feel Brenna screaming. Shutting down everything else, he concentrated on following that odd psychic echo. The instant he had a link—an inexplicable link—he began running. He found them twenty minutes from the den, no car in sight.

Road likely blocked in some way they couldn’t clear. Forced them to proceed on foot. Ambush.

Cool Arrow calculations in a dark corner of his mind as he took in the scene: Andrew lay on the ground, Riley and Brenna on their knees on either side of him. It was immediately clear that the fallen SnowDancer wasn’t breathing. His pulse was also absent when Judd placed his fingers against the other man’s throat—not surprising, given the size of the hole in his chest.

Brenna shook, looking to him with eyes gone wild with grief. “Judd.” The clothing on the right side of her body was dirtied with muddy slush, her face slightly scratched.

Standing, Brenna’s head reached just over Andrew’s heart. Putting together the visible facts—Andrew’s wound, the dirt on her—Judd reconstructed the scene in milliseconds. The bullet had been aimed for Brenna’s head. Andrew had sensed danger at the last moment and shoved aside his sister. He’d saved her life, but hadn’t been fast enough to dodge the bullet himself.

He saw Riley doing CPR and knew that that wouldn’t be enough. Andrew’s heart was obviously shattered, the sniper’s bullet having hit it at the exact spot to cause maximum damage. He couldn’t feel an exit wound, which meant the bullet had to be lodged within the mangled flesh. Judd touched Brenna’s cheek in a fleeting caress, his mind going at a hundred miles an hour. “Stop, Riley.”

Riley raised a face strained white. “We have to keep going.”

Judd put a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “His heart is damaged. I need to fix it.” He had never done anything like this, never even considered that he could. His job was to stop hearts, not repair them. But he knew the finest details of how the organ functioned—to destroy you had to know how things worked. “Breathe for him but don’t touch his heart.”

Riley didn’t argue. “Do it.”

The first thing Judd did was send a Tk shock to Andrew’s shattered heart, starting it again, hopefully in time to keep his brain alive. As Riley bent to blow breath into his brother’s lungs, Judd used Tk to keep that heartbeat going. Then he began picturing what needed to happen to the destroyed cells for Andrew’s heart to beat on its own.

He’d have to reconstruct the damaged section from the cellular level up, putting the SnowDancer’s heart back together like the most intricate of jigsaw puzzles. The problem was, some of the pieces were missing or too damaged to function. New pieces would have to be created from somewhere. Judd wasn’t an M-Psy, but he could move things, make them change shape…smooth over scars by manipulating the cells. A child’s trick given new purpose.

At no point during the operation did he stop thinking. He had to be absolutely correct about the precise degree of each and every cellular movement. One mistake and Andrew’s heart would not beat after Judd stopped making it beat. That was an outcome Judd couldn’t accept…because it wouldn’t be only Andrew’s heart that would break.

A slender hand clasped his shoulder at some stage and he knew it was Brenna. Her touch should have destabilized him, but it did the opposite. It anchored him. An abnormal reaction he’d have to consider later, when his mind had room for thoughts other than the methodical repair of a heart that had been blown to pieces.

“Jesus,” Hawke whispered from beside Brenna, so many hours later that the light was starting to fade. The alpha and several others had arrived soon after Judd—she’d somehow gathered enough calm to call the den using Riley’s phone. Hers lay forgotten in the car.

She knew what had caused Hawke’s surprise. They could literally see Drew’s skin shifting. At first, it had seemed an illusion, but then she’d realized her brother’s horrific wound was disappearing second by slow second. Four hours into it, something metallic had pushed up out of the wound. The bullet.

Fingers trembling, Brenna had taken it as soon as it rolled free and handed it to Hawke, who’d wrapped it in a piece of cloth torn from the shirt he wore under his jacket. That had been an hour ago. Judd hadn’t spoken or looked away from what he was doing the entire five-hour stretch, Riley had kept breathing for Drew, and Brenna had held on to Judd, instinct telling her it was the right thing to do.

Judd suddenly lifted his hands from Andrew’s chest. “Riley, move.” His voice was rough, holding the rust of disuse.

Riley broke contact and a bare instant later, Drew’s body jerked as if an electric shock had passed through it. Brenna gritted her teeth, knowing that Judd had just tried to restart her brother’s heart after stopping whatever it was he’d been doing to keep it going. But there was so much blood on Drew’s chest! Her hand clenched on Judd’s shoulder. He reached up to touch her fingers for a second, staining them dark red. “His heart is beating on its own. He’s breathing.”

Disbelieving, she came close enough to touch Drew’s neck. His pulse beat strong and powerful. Shaking, she pulled out and used the edge of her own shirt to wipe away the blood. “Please.” Please let him be safe.

Riley was the first to see it. “It’s gone.”

Then she saw it with her own eyes. The wound had ceased to exist. Under the blood, Drew’s skin was pink and tender but it was unbroken. She turned to the man by her side. “Judd, oh, my God.”

He didn’t seem to be able to focus on her. His eyes had gone black at the start then slid back to normal near the end. Now, they were close to dazed. Worried, she pulled back from Drew. “Baby, what’s wrong?” Putting her hands on his cheeks before she realized she had blood on them, she leaned close. “Judd, speak to me.”

“Flameout.” A single word and then his eyes went pure black again, the whites disappearing as before. Except this darkness held tinges of bloodred. It terrified her. She expected him to fall unconscious but he shook his head. “One hour.”

“One hour.” She remembered his disappearance after he’d teleported her during the hyena situation and made the connection. He had to be in a safe place within the hour. “Okay, okay.”

Andrew coughed at that second and she switched her attention back to him, aware of Judd doing the same. After a few more coughs, her brother’s lashes lifted to display familiar blue eyes. “What the hell happened?”

Sobbing, she kissed his cheek. He struggled to raise his arms to hold her but didn’t seem to have the strength. “Hey, sweetheart. Come on.”

“You lost a lot of blood.” Judd’s voice. “Full recovery will take time.”

She broke away from Drew to hug Judd. “Hold on,” she whispered in his ear, knowing he wouldn’t want to display weakness in front of the others. “Can you walk?”

A small nod, but she didn’t really believe him, not with the way his face was losing color. This was worse than at the cabin. She got to her feet. “Let’s get them both inside.”

Her comment snapped everyone to attention. Within seconds, Drew was loaded onto a stretcher someone had had the foresight to fetch, and Riley and Tai were carrying him off to the den. Lara hovered anxiously at his side. Dismissing the other men, Hawke went down on his haunches, threw Judd’s arm around his shoulders, and dragged him upright.

“To my room,” Brenna directed.

Hawke didn’t argue and not much later, Judd was in the bedroom. He supported himself, one hand on the wall. “No assistance.”

Hawke looked to Brenna. “Is he serious? I’ll have Lara in here as soon as she checks Drew out.”

“No,” Judd said again.

She wanted him in bed. “He’s still conscious and able to make a decision,” she said to Hawke. “Let him recover in peace and he’ll be fine.” If not, she would get the medics herself.

Hawke scowled. “If you need anything, holler.” He glanced at Judd. “What you did today—I’ve never seen anything like that. I didn’t think it was possible. Get some rest and then we’ll talk.” He left.

Brenna was the only one who heard Judd’s reply. “According to my trainers, it isn’t.” He swayed on his feet.

She rushed to hold him up. “In bed. Now.”

“I need to shower.”

About to say absolutely not, she realized he was covered in sweat and blood. It would hardly make for a restful sleep. Helping him into the cubicle, she began to tug at his clothes. He stopped her with a hand on her wrist. “No.”

She was ready to push him off when she saw the look on his face. Pure male pride. “Fine.” She sighed. “But if I don’t hear from you in five minutes, I’m coming in.”

Walking out, she kept every one of her senses on high alert as she turned down the bed and whipped up a high-energy drink from a mix Drew often used. The shower turned off after exactly four minutes.

By the time she got back into the bedroom, Judd was asleep. Putting down the drink, she brushed damp hair off his forehead, the tenderness in her heart overwhelming. “God, I love you.” She kissed his temple and for a second it felt like something in him responded. But he was out cold.

Shaking her head, she got up and began to pick up the clothes he’d left crumpled on the floor in what struck her as a very uncharacteristic bit of messiness.

Ironically, Drew was up and around before Judd. He came knocking twelve hours later, just after she’d finished breakfast—a bit of a misnomer, as she hadn’t actually slept, too worried about Judd. He was in such a deep sleep, she kept checking to see if he was breathing. “How are you feeling?”

“Fantastic for a guy who apparently had half his chest blown off.”

She was careful when she hugged him, aware the repaired wound had to hurt. “Drew, you stood in front of that bullet for me.” It had happened so fast she still couldn’t sort out the sequence in her head.

He laughed. “I meant to push you in front of it. Damn.”

“Idiot.” Sniffling, she broke the hug. “I love you.”

“That’s what baby sisters are for.” He opened his fist to reveal the bullet she’d picked off his chest. “Do you know the name of this little piece of evil?”

Her gut roiled at the sight of that twisted piece of metal. “No.”

“ShrapnelX. Illegal as hell.” His expression was pure fury. “It’s meant to spread into five sharp points on impact and claw its way through anything it touches.” He put it into a pocket. “Which makes me a walking miracle. I’m told it’s thanks to your boyfriend.”

“So he’s my boyfriend now?” A very important concession.

He scowled. “Don’t rub it in. Lara says I’m missing some flesh from lower down in my chest and that’s just what we can see—it’s like he moved bits to fill in the gaps.”

“He did.” She’d seen it happen in front of her eyes. “Will you be lopsided?” She was trying very hard not to cry. A world without Drew to fight with was unimaginable.

He hugged her anyway. “Nah. It’ll fill back out.” A pause. “Probably.” His arms tightened. “So, where is he?”

“Sleeping,” she said against his chest. “And no, I’m not waking him—he’s exhausted. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

He crushed her to him. “Hell, I’m not going anywhere. Need to stick around to make sure he treats you right.”

“He will.” She smiled and leaned back enough that she could look up at him. “Don’t judge him by his Ice Man persona. He’s different.”

“No, he’s not, sweetheart,” Andrew said. “I think Judd’s the same as any wolf in the den—he simply hides his animal better.”

Coming from a changeling, being called an animal was the highest of compliments.