Hostage to Pleasure

CHAPTER 32

Dorian walked around to sit beside Ashaya. When she made no move to acknowledge him, he growled low in his throat and tugged back her head using her braid.

“Dorian!” she snapped, her shell cracking. “Faith’s information means I have to maintain—”

“Shut up, Shaya.” He wrapped her braid around one hand, gripping her jaw with the fingers of the other. “Yeah, your sister sounds like a serious problem, but fuck it, she’s going to come after you sooner or later. Let it be sooner because I refuse to let you bury yourself for her. We stand and we fight.”

Ashaya didn’t reply, didn’t say a word. If he hadn’t already begun to sense her with a part of him he’d never thought would awaken for a Psy, he wouldn’t have picked up the distress behind her implacable mask. “What is it?”

She pressed her lips together. Damn, stubborn woman. Eyes narrowed, he thought over what he’d said, coupled it with her vulnerabilities. I refuse to let you bury yourself for her.

“You were buried in a quake.” Close, he thought when her lashes fluttered down for an instant before rising resolutely. “But you dealt with that. Hell, you worked in an underground lab for months. So it’s not the idea of burial that scares you… it’s the idea of being buried by Amara.”

“Stop it.” A harsh whisper. “Let me go and stop it.”

“Oh, no, Shaya.” He released her chin but maintained his hold on her braid. He was careful of his strength, but implacable. He knew she’d refuse to talk unless he made her. “This is how it’s going to work,” he said. “You tell me what the hell your crazy sister did to you, or every time you try to flick me off—or tell a lie—I’m going to kiss you.”

Her eyes widened, then grew hot with the blinding fury of a temper she’d never before shown. “Dorian, despite what the Psy Council likes to release via its propaganda machine, you’re not an animal. You’re a civilized being who understands the rule of law.”

He’d already given her a warning. So now he just kissed her. Her mouth was open and he was oh-so-tempted to sweep his tongue inside, to savor what he craved with every hard inch of him. But, though she might not believe it, he was trying to be good. She had no idea how good he was being.

The second their lips parted, she took a deep, shuddering breath that did all sorts of interesting things to her breasts. He looked down and realized he had plans for those breasts, such sinful plans. “Talk,” he ordered.

“Even the Councilors couldn’t make me talk,” she taunted. “What makes you think you can break me?”

He smiled, slow, sensual, pleased. Finally, she was playing with him. “I don’t want to break you, sugar.” Giving a chuckle, he dipped his head and licked at the jumping beat of her pulse. “Hurting women isn’t my style. But I do want to handle you”—free hand smoothing down her arm—“pet you”—the slightest brush of his knuckles against her generous breasts—“devour you.” He closed his teeth over the fullness of her lower lip and nearly forgot about his good intentions.

Color rode high on her cheekbones when he released her after a stolen kiss, but she met him eye to eye. “You pointed a gun at me. You told me you’d kill me if necessary.”

“You weren’t a woman then, you were a Psy scientist.” A feline answer, full of a cunning Ashaya realized could get her into very hot water very fast if she wasn’t careful.

She could feel her breath coming quicker as he began to place suckling kisses along the bared line of her neck. “That’s against your own rules.” She didn’t know why she’d said that. It was blatant encouragement, no two ways about it.

His teeth grazed her pulse as he spoke against her neck. “I said I would kiss you. I never said where I would kiss you.”

Of course Ashaya knew about the mechanics of sex, though it was an act the Psy had phased out as soon as technology allowed. But, she now realized, there was a giant hole in her knowledge—practical application. “A kiss between two people is, by definition, on the lips,” she argued.

He chuckled and she swore she could feel the sound across her skin. “But this isn’t about two people kissing. It’s me kissing you.” He opened his mouth on her neck and sucked. Hard.

Heat exploded from that point outward, devastating her defenses even as that strange layer of chaos went up between her and her twin, shutting Amara out of this intimacy. “Dorian, please.” An ambiguous plea.

He released her heated flesh, but only after a final, warning bite. “Talk.”

Bright blue eyes clashed into hers, demanding a form of surrender she didn’t know how to give—she’d spent her entire life protecting herself from someone who should’ve been her one point of safety. Trust didn’t come easily. “What if Amara—”

“Let her try to hurt Keenan.” Another kiss, this one pressed to her parted lips. The dark taste of male fury entered her mouth. “Let her fucking try.”

“You’re so arrogant you don’t even realize she could kill you,” she snapped. “She might be an M-Psy, she might be my twin, but she’s got the calculating mind of a sociopath. She won’t worry about honor or courage. She’ll stab you in the back, shoot you with a gun, poison you, whatever it takes!”

“I know exactly what Psy killers are capable of.” He tugged her head farther back.

“She’s not a killer!”

“Fine.” He didn’t know whether to be infuriated or impressed by her loyalty. “I know how sociopaths think.”

When he ran his knuckles over her arched neck, she reached up with both hands and gripped his wrist. “You think of her as a woman, like me. She’s not.”

“So tell me what she is like.” A face that was a warrior’s, ruthless, without mercy. “Or would you like me to kiss you… elsewhere?”

She could almost see flames lick their way across the extraordinary color of his eyes. Then he whispered, “Lie to me, Shaya.”

Her thighs pressed together without conscious thought and she found herself fighting the desire to give him exactly what he wanted. That much sensation might finally shatter her PsyNet shields, exposing her to the hunters. Which left her with only one choice. “On my seventeenth birthday, Amara put something in my water glass.”

Dorian didn’t release her hair, but he relaxed his hold enough that she could straighten up. Then he listened with the quiet, lethal focus of the leopard within.

“After I lost consciousness, she dragged me into a hole she’d dug under the house—it was an old building, raised up off the flood-prone ground. We’d been moved to it after we completed our run through the Protocol at sixteen.” Ashaya felt her skin begin to crawl with the sensory memory of insects scurrying across the exposed skin of her face. “The hole was shallow, but it was… enough.” For sheer, unrelenting terror.

Dorian didn’t say a word, but he released her… only to pull her down against his chest as he sprawled lengthwise on the sofa. Her head, he held pressed to his chest, his free hand stroking up and down her arm. She should’ve fought him, but she had a feeling this was a battle she’d lost the day she’d first spoken to the sniper in the trees.

“Go on,” he said when she went silent. “I’ve got you.”

She took a deep breath, drawing the scent of him into her lungs. “Amara had made a lid for the hole. Nothing complicated—just slats of wood nailed to each other—but she’d weighed it down so it couldn’t be pushed up. When I woke, I could see the light shining down from the torch she’d left hanging over an exposed beam. I tried to sit up, hit my head, panicked.” Her hands had been bloody by the time she realized she couldn’t get out, her vocal cords able to utter nothing but paralyzed whimpers. And her Silence had broken so suddenly and irrevocably that only memories of the pain controls remained—because what her trainers had never considered was that there could be worse terror, worse pain, than the backlash of Silence.

Her brain had come through the break unscathed, perhaps because of the adrenaline, perhaps because Amara had never let her be truly conditioned in the first place. But her mind… “She was there the whole time, listening to me. She knew no one would come—she’d drugged our guardian’s drink, too.”

Oddly, Dorian’s bitten-off curse made her feel safer. Amara couldn’t get to her here, she dared to think for the first time. “After the blind panic passed and I was able to comprehend where I was, she started to talk to me.”

How does it feel?

Has your conditioning fragmented, or are you holding on to some of it?

Come on, Ashaya, don’t be a spoilsport.

“I begged her to let me out. But she said the experiment wasn’t over yet. I don’t know how long we stayed like that—perhaps an hour, more likely two. Then…” Her throat dried up. She found she was digging her fingernails into Dorian’s chest, gritting her teeth so hard her jaw hurt. “I’m sorry.” She tried to release her fingers, couldn’t make herself let go.

“I’m tough.” His voice was sandpaper over rock. “You hold on however hard you damn well want.”

She took him at his word. “Amara began to bury me. Some of the dirt fell through the cracks where the light had been coming through, and crumbled over my face, my body. Then one of the planks broke over my leg… and I shattered.”

The past and the present had melded, until she was sure the earth was closing around her, smothering her in a wave of violent tremors. “I screamed, begged, promised to do anything she wanted if she’d only let me out.” Her entire body shook with the memories and she felt the constant cord of her connection to Amara begin to gain in strength. But still, her sister continued to be blocked out.

By chaos touched with feral protectiveness.

She was a psychic being—she knew that that strange shield was connected to Dorian, to what he made her feel. She tried to follow the thought, but terror sucked her under. “I shredded my hands, ripped off my nails trying to get out. My own blood dripped onto my face until the iron of it was all I could smell.”

Dorian’s hand tightened on her nape. “Listen to my heartbeat, Shaya. Focus.”

Trapped as she was in the madness of that grave, his words made no sense, but because he’d said them in such a commanding tone, she obeyed. The beat was hard, steady, certain. A lifeline. “She left me in there for… a long time.” Her voice broke. “I was conscious the entire time.”

“Jesus, baby, why didn’t you ask for help—you’re Psy. You could’ve telepathed someone.”

“I was so phobic, Dorian. It was literally my worst nightmare come true. At first, I simply wasn’t rational enough to telepath.” She’d become a primal being, terror her lifeblood. “And later… she’s smart, Amara. She locked me inside her own shields while I was unconscious. I could’ve smashed my way out, but by the time I realized what she’d done, I was also thinking logically enough to know that I couldn’t ask anyone.”

Dorian muttered a few choice words. “Because if you’d asked for help, they’d have punished you, too. For breaking Silence.”

“Yes.” She pressed herself deeper into the living warmth of him, so strong, so safe. “At that age, we were valued but not invaluable. They would’ve rehabilitated us in a second, wiping our minds until we were little more than walking vegetables. I knew to survive, I had to wait Amara out. And… I knew some of it was my fault.”

A growl that sounded very, very real.

“Listen.” She fisted her hand against him. “She was always a little different, but most geniuses are—even in the Net. Things really only began to deteriorate after my claustrophobia developed. My emotional control or lack of it feeds her instability. That’s part of why I became so good at hiding my emotions. Even inside my own mind, I had to believe the lie—anytime I slipped, Amara degenerated.”

Both Dorian’s arms came around her, unbreakable steel bands. “If she’s that smart, she has to know the triggers, too. But she’s let you be the one to carry the weight. Enough, Shaya.” The leopard was still in his voice, rough and protective. “You’re not to blame.”

Shuddering, she buried her face against him. “I have to stop.” The memories were sucking her under, taking her back to that grave. “I’m not strong enough to do this.”

“You stood up to a sniper—most people start running when they see me.” Hard words, but his fingertips were tracing the shell of her ear with utter gentleness.

She’d never expected tenderness from her sniper. It kept startling her. “Probably because tales of your meanness precede you.”

“That’s my girl.” Pride overlaid with a raw kind of possessiveness. “You’ve kept it inside you long enough.” Lips brushing over her hair, a firm hand stroking down her back. “It’s time to let it go.”

She wondered what it would be like to have that extraordinary strength of will always by her side. Dorian would never surrender, no matter what.

“Why did you stay conscious?” he asked. “How?”

“She was in my head the entire time.” The memory of violation caused bile to rise in her throat. “She’d been doing that since childhood. That’s why my shields are pretty much impenetrable under normal circumstances”—when she wasn’t drowning in emotion—“sheer self-defense.”

“And the intrusions weren’t picked up when you were younger?”

It was a good question. “Most telepathic children slip in and out of younger siblings’ minds until around the age of two. With twins that goes both ways. It’s an accepted part of a Psy child’s development—it teaches us shielding, and most kids stop spontaneously when the time comes.”

“They learn it’s not an acceptable thing to do,” Dorian said. “Like cubs learning it’s not okay to bite or claw.”

Ashaya nodded. “Amara never made that cognitive leap—to her, we’re not two people at all.”

“Obviously, you learned to block her, or you wouldn’t have developed a personality.”

“You’re extremely intelligent.” Not many non-Psy would’ve understood the consequences of such long-term telepathic interference.

“No way. I’m here for the beer and the babes.” The tone was pure California surfer. “Now, stop stalling.” And the lethal DarkRiver sentinel was back.

Anyone who fell for that harmless act, she thought, deserved what they got. “You’re right. If a child is psychically directed from an early age, that child becomes nothing more than a shadow, a living echo of the controlling personality. I was lucky because Amara never did anything when we were young. She just liked being with me all the time.”

“You’re the stronger personality,” he said quietly. “You could’ve controlled her.”

“I never wanted to.” Even the idea nauseated her. “Eventually, I got very good at blocking her. But in that grave, I fractured… and she slipped in. She spied on my emotions, prodded me when I threatened to lose consciousness, made sure I lived every moment.”

Wakey, wakey, big sister. Tell me some more, show me.

“She knew how afraid I was of being in a small, dark place. She was curious about where that fear came from, since she’d been buried right beside me in the earthquake when we were fourteen and had had no adverse reaction. That was her justification for what she did.” Ashaya felt a cool trail down her cheek, and didn’t know what it was until the salt of it touched her lips.

Tears.

She was crying. She hadn’t shed a single tear since those mindless hours trapped in a pitch-black grave. “But still, I protected her. Because she was—is—broken, and I couldn’t let them destroy her, and because—” Her breathing caught, becoming so ragged, she could barely form words. But she had to finish, had to make Dorian see. “She was the single person in the whole world whom I was certain would never betray me to others, not for money, or status, not even to save her own life.”

Dorian understood the ties of family, of Pack, and today, he began to understand what drove Ashaya to protect Amara. “She didn’t care that you weren’t the perfect Psy.”

“Back then, she was the more outwardly Silent of the two of us. She would’ve been believed, but she never threatened to tell on me. Never. Not once.” Ashaya’s voice hitched as she tried to speak through her tears. “Whatever happened, whatever she did or I did, it was only ever between the two of us. I’ve never betrayed her and she won’t ever betray me.” A sob that made her entire body tremble. “But I’m tired, Dorian. I’m so tired. I don’t want to be stuck in this twisted bond forever, but I can’t see a way out.”

Dorian could, but the catch was, not everyone would come out of it alive. Leopard and man both agreed—Ashaya and Keenan were his to protect. Amara Aleine was a threat. A simple equation. And one that, if it came down to the killing fields, might just shatter Ashaya’s mind. To lose a twin…

“Make me forget.” A whisper, a plea.

Not giving her what she wanted wasn’t even an option. He switched their positions so she was under him. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll take advantage?”

She wiped away her tears. “Please do.”

“Ask nice.”

“Why don’t I make you angry instead? That gets me kissed a lot.”

He smiled and began to place kisses along the rim of her lips. He had no intention of abusing her trust by taking her while she was so distraught. But, he thought, sliding his lips over hers, changelings understood all there was to know about healing through touch. If Shaya needed a little stroking, he was more than happy to do the job. “Open your mouth.”

She did.

And his erection threatened to poke a fucking hole in his jeans.

Ashaya shifted instinctively beneath him, cradling him right where he wanted to be. Groaning into the kiss, he tried to stop himself from thrusting. Then she arched up, rubbing her body against his.

He tore his lips away. “Shaya, baby, I’m not that good.”

“I called you ‘the sniper’ in my journal. I know exactly how bad you are.” Her hands slid under his T-shirt to lie flat against his back.

Sizzle. “Harder,” he told her when her nails dug into him.

“Like this?”

“Mmm.” Dropping his head, even as he smoothed his hand down her back to tilt her heat tight against him, he began to kiss the sensitive line of her neck. Ashaya needed release. He’d damn well give her release. And he’d keep his promise to never hurt her. Even if she was driving him insane with those urgent little movements of her body. “That’s it, baby. Let me take you over.” He ground himself against her, startling a sharp little cry from her throat. “Shh, darling. Hold on to me.”

The scent of her was hot, wild, arousing as hell.

At the edge of his control, he took her mouth in an open-mouthed kiss, insinuating his hand between their bodies at the same time, and using the heel of his hand to give her the sexual friction she needed. He couldn’t handle any more. “Come on, sweet darling. Come for me.”

“Dorian.” It was a gasp as her eyes went pure black and her body arched like a bow, her breasts crushed against him.

“Good girl,” he whispered. “Good girl. I should get sainthood for this.”

She didn’t hear him, and that was fine. He liked seeing her like this, all loose and relaxed… and his.