Mine to Possess

CHAPTER 10

Talin woke from an inadvertent nap with a jerk, her heart beating triple time. After almost exploding at Clay in inexplicable rage, she had headed upstairs to put down her stuff, then collapsed on the bed to try to get her emotions under some sort of control. She couldn’t remember anything after that.

Afraid the disease had struck again, she glanced at the clock. To her relief, she’d only been out ten minutes at most. A nap, that’s all it had been. Getting up, she staggered to the bathroom and threw some cold water on her face.

The eyes that looked back at her from the mirror above the sink were haunted, bruised. She wished she had the magical power to wipe away all the badness, all the evil in the world, and make everything right. A stupid wish. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t hope. Her resolve firmed. As of today, she would act with the absolute and total belief that Jonquil was still alive. “I’m going to bring you home, Johnny D. Hold on for me.”

Decision made, she got moving, aware if she delayed too long, Clay would come searching. And though that violent surge of anger at him had passed, her emotions were a turbulent stew where he was concerned. Nevertheless, fifteen minutes later, she had put away her things, taken a shower, and brushed her wet hair back into a ponytail while admiring the leafy morning view from the balcony of her third-floor aerie.

It was time.

Wiping her hands on her jeans, she went to open the trapdoor. Her eye fell on the large bed as she passed and she bent to smooth out the marks she’d made on it during her nap. Her fingers lingered—she might be human, with senses far less acute than Clay’s, but she could smell the earthy masculinity of his scent in this room, in this bed. It was frighteningly easy to imagine the muscular strength of him sprawled over the white sheets, arrogant and assured of his right to dominate that intimate territory.

The image caused an odd, melting sensation in the pit of her stomach. She blinked, shock rooting her to the spot. This slow curl of need in her body, it was something wholly new. Her previous sexual partners had been…nothing. Faceless, nameless bodies. None had touched her emotions, much less given her pleasure.

When she’d admitted her senseless promiscuity to her long-ago counselor, she had expected censure, but the other woman had simply nodded. “You’re punishing yourself,” she’d said. “Punishment is meant to hurt. And it does hurt, doesn’t it?”

The counselor had been right and though Talin had been unable to trust her enough to create a long-term relationship, the woman had helped her find her way out of that morass of pain. She had never felt as alone or as cold as she did—or had done—during sex. At no time had she ever experienced anything like this dark lick of heat inside of her.

Her face flushed, mortification temporarily wiping away everything else. She was aware of her breasts swelling, her blood rushing to places it didn’t normally caress with such primal heat. “No.” She couldn’t be falling victim to lust. Not for Clay.

He was repulsed by her.

The reminder threw ice water over her incipient feelings. She was glad. Thinking of Clay in that way scared her. Despite their years apart, despite how angry he was with her—and even despite her own inexplicable rage at him—she thought of him as her friend, the only friend she trusted without reservation. She didn’t want to destroy that precious relationship. And sex destroyed everything and everyone once it got in the way.

She was willing to admit that her view of sex might be skewed, distorted by what had been done to her during childhood. But one truth was indisputable: lust never lasted. Then it was, “Adios and hope I never see you again.” The rare relationships that survived were those like the Larkspurs had—warm, stable, friendly, without the overwhelming rush of lust. But that wasn’t a viable option for her and Clay.

He was too intense, too deeply passionate. The woman who took him on would have to be fearless, with enough strength of will to withstand his autocratic nature and enough heart to love him no matter how dark his dreams. Her hands clenched so tight, she felt her nails cut into skin. The idea of Clay with another woman—

Biting off a curse, she pulled up the trapdoor and headed down.

Clay was on the second level, in the small kitchenette to the left. “Eat.” He thrust a plate of food at her and pulled out a chair at the nearby table.

A second ago, she would’ve sworn her stomach was too twisted up to eat. But now, it rumbled. She took the seat. “Thanks.” He had made her toast and eggs. Simple enough. Except for the muffin that accompanied it. Her appetite dulled. “Faith?” She picked up the offending piece of baking, barely able to stop herself from crushing it to a pulp.

He put down his own plate and grabbed a seat opposite her. “Tamsyn,” he said, eyes cat-sharp. “She sneaks in here and leaves things in the cooler.”

She couldn’t stand the suspense. Stupid muffin. “Who is she?”

“Nathan’s mate.”

That cut off her simmering jealousy midstep. “And Faith?”

His lips curved a little and she suddenly felt very warm. “Careful, Tally. Your claws are showing.”

“I’m human,” she retorted, knowing she shouldn’t be so happy at the sign of a thaw in his earlier mood, but she was. “The best I can do is grow my nails.” She stared at her stubby nails. “And I’m not exactly good at that.” He’d wait forever if he thought she would ask about Faith again. She shoved some eggs into her mouth.

Clay had already finished his toast and now took a sip of coffee. “Faith is Vaughn’s mate,” he said, looking at her over his cup. “Coffee?”

She let him pour her a cup, feeling silly. “Nathan and Vaughn are your friends?”

“Yes. So are Faith and Tammy.”

It shook her. The Clay she’d known had been her only friend, and she had been his. But now he was part of a pack and she was an outsider. “I’m glad for you,” she whispered, even as an ugly possessiveness bared its teeth inside of her. “It must be nice.”

His response was a grunt. “Eat.”

She ate, cleaning her plate far quicker than she would have believed possible when she first came downstairs. The muffin proved delicious. “Tamsyn’s a good cook.”

“How about you?”

Surprised by the question, she answered honestly. “Weird, but I like cooking. I used to do it with Pa Larkspur.”

“Pa Larkspur?”

She smiled. “Don’t be so chauvinistic. He’s the best cook in the county. His baskets bring in more money than any others at the picnic auctions.”

“Jesus. Baskets? Picnic? Just how country is the Nest?”

“Very.” His horrified expression made her laugh. “Clay, you live in a tree. I don’t think you should throw stones.”

“I guess the corn would provide some cover when grown,” he muttered. “Nowhere to climb or create a lair though. Not unless you build a house.” He almost shuddered.

She’d never thought about the farm from a predator’s point of view. “Well, yeah. But there is one thing you might like.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“There are caves.” She had spent a lot of time in them as a teenager, pushing away the love the Larkspurs tried to give her. She had never talked back, never created trouble at home. She’d simply disappeared to where they couldn’t find her and she couldn’t hurt them. “They’re deep enough underground that it doesn’t affect the farming operation, but the area’s riddled with them.”

A gleam of interest lit the dark green of his eyes. “They ever been mapped?”

“I didn’t find any records when I researched them for a school project,” she said, “but there have to be maps.”

He laid his arm on the table. “Why?”

“Because”—she leaned forward—“I’m certain the caves are man-made. They’re almost like proper tunnels in places.”

Interest turned to intrigue, the forest green getting brighter. “Your town have a big changeling presence?”

Catching his line of thought, she shook her head. “A small horse clan, and an owl one—predatory but not particularly dominant. They always used to vote me in as captain when they split us into teams for gym class.” And she was no superathlete.

“You’re a strong personality,” he said, surprising her. “Most nonpredatories would automatically see you as dominant, and as for predatory changelings, they decide according to the individual. Your owl schoolmates must’ve figured you were tougher than them.”

“Huh.” But it made sense. The owls had been scholars from a nice family, while she had been very hard-case. “Anyway, the horses and owls can’t have dug the caves. They hate being shut in.”

“That’s it?”

“Yep.”

“No snakes?”

She almost spewed coffee all over the table. “There are snake changelings?”

“Why wouldn’t there be?” He refilled her cup. “They’re rare, but they exist.”

“You think a bunch of snakes created those caves?” She shivered, recalling all those times she’d been alone in them.

“Changeling snakes, Talin.” A reprimand. “No more or less animal than I am.”

She bit her lower lip, feeling about five years old. But this was Clay, so she admitted the truth. “I can’t help it. Leopards are dangerous, beautiful. Snakes are creepy.”

“I think the snake changelings would disagree.” He leaned back in his chair, a predator at ease in his territory.

She felt his foot touch the rung of her chair, knew it to be a possessive act. But she was having too much fun to call him on it. “Are they as human?” She scrunched up her nose at his scowl. “You know what I mean. When you walk, it’s with this feline grace. What do they take from their animal?”

His lips curved again, full, tempting. “Calling me graceful, Tally?”

“I’ll call you vain in a minute.” But he was graceful, lethally so.

Both his feet touched her chair now. “Snakes are very…other. They tend to scare people on a visceral level, even when in human form. But that makes them no less human.”

“No,” she agreed, thinking of how the world judged her children.

“A long time ago, I saw one after she shifted. She had black-diamond scales that shimmered like an oil slick does in the rain—full of rainbows.”

The image was startlingly beautiful. “If they were there, under the farm,” she asked, “why would they leave?”

“A hundred things—maybe the colony disbanded or they decided to migrate elsewhere.” He shrugged. “Now, tell me about the dead children.”

That quickly, their little interlude was over. No more talk about mysterious changeling snakes and the quaint beauty of corn-farming country. But his feet remained on the rung of her chair. Taking strength from that, she began at the beginning. “I left the Larkspurs at age sixteen to enroll in a scholarship program at NYU.” Somewhat to her shock, she had proven very bright once given a chance, so much so that she’d graduated the purgatory of high school two years ahead of schedule.

Clay sat with such feline stillness, she couldn’t even see him breathe. “You never gave the Larkspurs a shot, did you?”

“No.” The simplest and most painful of truths. “The scholarship was one provided by the Shine Foundation.” She looked up to see if he recognized the name.

“Human backed,” he said. “Financed by donations from a number of wealthy philanthropists.”

“Its aim,” she picked up, “is to support bright but underprivileged children who might never otherwise have a chance to shine. That’s what the brochure says and I guess they really follow it. All the kids I look after are disadvantaged in some way.”

“What did you study?”

She folded her arms. “Child psych and social work.”

“You hated the social workers.”

“Ironic, huh?” She made a rueful face. “I thought I might be able to do a better job. But I never got into the system. I graduated at twenty-one, and was offered a position in the foundation’s street program.”

He didn’t push her to get to the point, and for that, she was grateful. She had to approach the horror obliquely, wasn’t sure she could survive full-frontal exposure. “We help get kids off the street and into school or training. Devraj—the director—makes sure there’s no corruption, no favoritism.”

“Sounds very worthy.” Open cynicism.

Her hackles rose. “It is! The foundation does so much, helps so many.” He had no right to mock them. “I work with the eleven-to-sixteen age group.”

“Tough crowd.”

“Tell me about it.” So proud, so unwilling to accept the helping hand she offered. “I get all sorts. Runaways, nice but poor kids, gang members who want out.”

“What’s your success rate?”

“About seventy percent.” The other thirty, the lost ones, they broke her heart, but she kept going. She couldn’t afford not to or the ones she could help would suffer.

“You said Mickey was yours.”

She gave a jerky nod. “So was Diana. She was found this week, around the same time as Iain. He belonged to one of my colleagues in San Francisco. Thirteen and already able to speak seven languages—can you imagine what he might’ve become?”

“Three Shine kids? Interesting coincidence.”

“Not really. The killers and the foundation work in the same pool—marginalized and vulnerable children.”

He nodded. “True.”

“And the other seven Max told me about were scattered across the country. None were Shine scholars.”

“So there’s no specific connection to San Francisco. Why come here?”

“To set up Jonquil. He’s fourteen, ex-gang. This was a new start.” Her voice broke.

Getting up, Clay walked around the table and tugged her to her feet. The simple contact destroyed her center of gravity even as it gave her courage. “Clay.”

“What happened to force you to come to me?”

The turbulence of his renewed anger was a wall between them. “I finally confirmed you really were here two weeks ago but—” No, she thought. Enough. Clay deserved absolute honesty, even if that meant she had to rip open every painful scar. “Jon disappeared.” And all she’d been able to think was that she needed Clay, the same thought she’d had a thousand times before. Except this time, he had been within reach.

He curved his hand around the side of her neck. “Why are you sure the killers have him? One of your feelings, Tally?”

A knot in her throat at the way he understood her without words. Nobody else ever had. “Yeah.” Instead of fighting the blatant possessiveness of his touch, she found herself leaning into it, soaking up the heated strength of him. “We had a fight before he ran away. I lost my temper, Clay.” She’d just had another small sign of her medical degeneration, had been so scared she’d run out of time to help that bright, hurt boy. “I took out my frustration on him.”

“Teenagers are good at getting on your last nerve.” Pragmatic. Oddly comforting. “So he was pissed at you?”

“Yes, but my gut says he would’ve contacted me by now if he had been able to—even if was to flip me off. He was no angel, but he was mine.” The things that boy had survived, the things he had done and still come out sane, it humbled her.

Clay’s hand tightened on her neck, warm, solid…suddenly dangerous. “When did this boy disappear?”

She didn’t move, though her mind wanted to panic at her vulnerability to this predator. “Four to seven days ago,” she said, trying to focus. “I traced him after the foster family reported him missing and had fairly reliable sightings for the next three days, then nothing. It’s like he vanished into thin air.”

Clay’s head lifted without warning. “We’ve got visitors.”

An odd kind of fear clamped over her chest and she could feel her heartbeat accelerate. “Your pack?” People who mattered to him, but wouldn’t necessarily like her. Probably wouldn’t.

“Yes.” Clay released her. “Wait here. And, Tally, try not to hyperventilate.” He was gone through the trapdoor in the blink of an eye, moving with inhuman speed—because, of course, he wasn’t human. He was changeling. He’d heard her racing heartbeat, smelled the sweat beading along her spine. Sometimes, she thought, being human sucked.

Unable to sit still, she cleared the table and was about to wipe it down when Clay called for her. Taking a deep breath and feeling very vulnerable, she went down, not looking up until she was standing beside Clay. As it was, she didn’t know which of the two strangers shocked her more.