Slave to Sensation

CHAPTER 20

“F-Psy,” Lucas murmured. “Let me guess. Foresight?”

She nodded. “These days they’re usually hired by businesses to forecast market trends, but I’ve heard that in the past, they often worked for Enforcement and local government in order to prevent murders and disasters.”

If they hadn’t succumbed to the lure of cold hard cash, forgetting the human emotions behind death and loss, perhaps Lucas’s parents would still be alive. How could he not hate her people? Hate her?

“But no E-Psy,” Tamsyn said.

“No.” Sascha frowned. “It makes no sense. A specialty may be rare but it never disappears entirely.”

“Did you check the classification system?” Lucas asked.

She nodded and decided not to mention that she’d had to make a quick visit to the PsyNet to do so. “It wasn’t hidden. I guess they thought no one would ever care to look it up. Until Silence, E was an accepted designation. It disappeared soon after the Protocol went into effect and wasn’t replaced in the classification charts.” She made a frustrated sound. “But I don’t know what it means!”

“What’s your classification?” Nate asked.

It was the one question she didn’t want to answer, the one question that showed her how useless she was. “I’m non-specialized.”

“But I know you’re a telepath.” Tamsyn frowned. “The cubs told me you talked to them.”

Sascha smiled at the thought of Julian and Roman’s mischievous welcome. “Telepathy is a base skill necessary for survival.” Otherwise, the uplink to the Net couldn’t be created or maintained. “All Psy have it to at least 1.0 on the Gradient. However, I have telepathy to approximately 3.5 on the Gradient, telekinetic powers to around 2.2, and whispers of some of the other powers to no real level.”

“You’re a cardinal.” Lucas squeezed her tight, obviously seeing through the smile to the pain she’d tried to hide. “That means you have a great deal of power.”

She shook her head. “No, it means I have the potential for a great deal of power. Cardinals are uniformly over 10.0 on the Gradient in their particular specialty—no one’s been able to figure out a way to measure them past that. Not that measurement is necessary to figure out whether someone is a cardinal.” Her eyes had marked her from birth.

“In my case the potential was never unlocked.” Trying not to let them see how much it mattered to her, she shrugged. “According to Mother, it shouldn’t have stopped me rising to the Council ranks but I think she meant to help me.” Help by icily controlled murder. “Eventually she stopped mentioning that possibility. We both knew I’d never be powerful enough to survive at that level.”

Tamsyn pushed off Nate and started to pace across the carpet. Her mate looked on, bemused. “I’m no Psy, Sascha, but I can feel your power same as I can feel Lucas’s.”

Sascha tipped her head to the side. “I’m not sure…”

“The Psy think we can’t read them but some of us can.” Tamsyn dropped the bombshell with a feline smile. “Ask Lucas.”

She found him wearing that same smile. “Tell me.”

“So demanding.” It was a growl but there was mischief in his eyes. “Whenever you use Psy power, I know. Not only that, I can read spikes in Psy activity. And you, kitten, are no Gradient 3 in anything.”

“Impossible.” She scowled. “I’ve barely been using any Psy power since you’ve known me. What I have used, like when I pushed you telekinetically, has been very low level. You can’t be reading the spikes right.”

Leaning forward, he nipped her lower lip. “That was for the push.”

She made a face. “Watch out or I’ll use some of my transmutation powers—I have enough to turn your hair green.” It was a bluff but she got to see Lucas’s eyes narrow in warning as he debated whether she was serious.

“You have power,” Tamsyn muttered, interrupting them. “Maybe you’re an E-Psy like your great-grandmother. Maybe being an E-Psy is no longer allowed, so they categorize you as non-specialized and bang it into you that you have no power to speak of. Tell someone a lie often enough and they’ll start to believe it, even to the extent of handicapping themselves.”

Sascha’s eyes widened. “When I was a child undergoing training, the instructors always told me I had so much potential, and that it was such a pity it was blocked.”

Lucas suddenly rose in a startlingly fast movement, destroying her train of thought.

“What—” She found her feet as he set her down.

“Quiet.” Nate’s head jerked toward the front yard.

Lucas’s body was a study in silent danger. “Where are Vaughn and Clay?”

“Out back.” Nate prowled to stand beside Lucas. “Tammy, get Sascha out of here.”

“I’m not leaving. This is my fight, too.”

Lucas whipped her a blazing green look. “Actually it’s not. That’s the SnowDancers out there. Tammy?”

The healer crossed the room and took Sascha’s arm. “Come on. Lucas won’t be able to concentrate if you’re nearby.” It was an almost inaudible whisper.

Sascha felt the protective fury in him and knew Tamsyn was right. Frustrated but unwilling to endanger him, she followed the other woman out of the living room and to one of the windowless upstairs bedrooms.

They encountered Dorian in the hallway, a sleek presence dressed head to toe in black. He put a finger to his lips and jerked his head for them to keep going. Sascha froze as she felt the lethal anger coming off him, so dangerous it threatened everything and everyone in its path.

“Come on.” Tamsyn tugged at her arm.

Dorian scowled and motioned for her to go. Sascha forced herself to start moving again. The sentinel’s deep anger wasn’t something she could fix, not when he seemed determined to nurture it.

She turned to Tamsyn the second they were behind the solid wooden door of the bedroom. “How can you stand this? Being shut away safe while they might not be?”

“I’m the healer. It does no one any good if I die. I fight my battles after they’ve fought theirs.” Intense emotion overlaid her every word.

“At least you get to fight. They should’ve let me help—I have enough Tk and Tp powers to cause some mayhem.”

“There might not be any need for violence. The wolves have a pact with us.” Tamsyn didn’t sound too convinced of her own argument. “I’ve been thinking of something.”

“What?” Sascha paced the room, feeling more like a caged animal than the cool, controlled Psy she was supposed to be. “That it’s idiotic to be locked up here when we’re fully capable of protecting ourselves?”

“If you go down, you make Lucas vulnerable.” Tamsyn’s words pleaded with her to think. “If the SnowDancers pick up that the mating dance is incomplete, they’ll use you as a lever against him.”

“Will they know if we don’t tell them?”

Tamsyn paused. “I’m not sure. They’re wolves, not cats. Their scent is very different from ours—they might assume you already belong to Lucas.”

For some reason, that made Sascha smile. “How can you talk about belonging to someone so easily? I thought predatory changelings were independent by nature.”

“Simple.” Tamsyn walked over and took Sascha’s hand. “Because Lucas belongs to you, too.”

Sascha wanted to break the contact but she could feel the healer’s need for touch, for Pack. Nate was down there facing off with the wolves, and despite the logic of her statements, Tamsyn was terrified. Not quite understanding how she knew what to do, she pulled the other woman into a hug. Tamsyn came without hesitation.

“How can you treat me like one of the pack?” Sascha asked, even as she stroked Tamsyn’s thick fall of hair.

“You smell of Lucas, and I don’t mean on a physical level. It’s difficult to put into words.” She pulled back from the embrace, as if she’d received what she needed to be strong again. “Our bodies and hearts recognize yours. We know you’re one of us.”

“But I’m not mated to Lucas yet,” Sascha argued, feeling the noose slip about her neck. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, destroy these people who’d come to mean everything to her. If Lucas went down, DarkRiver would fragment. The pack might physically survive with the deadly sentinels at the helm, but they’d all be broken. She would not do that to them.

“You’re so close as to make little to no difference.” Tamsyn pushed her hair off her face and held up a hand when Sascha began to speak. “Don’t ask me what the final steps are. I can’t tell you. It’s different for each couple…” She sighed. “But the male half of the pair usually has a better idea of what’s needed—I guess it’s nature’s way of ensuring the more independent females can’t avoid bonding.”

“He’ll never tell me.” She sat down heavily on the floor, her head hanging between bent knees. “I’m coming apart at the seams and I refuse to take Lucas with me.”

Tamsyn knelt in front of her. “That’s not your choice to make. Mating isn’t marriage. You can’t divorce each other and you can’t walk away once you’ve found one another.”

Sascha met the other woman’s compassionate gaze. “I’ll destroy him.” It was a painful whisper.

“Maybe. Or you might save him.” Tamsyn smiled. “Without you, Lucas might’ve become too much his beast, too much the predator, cruel and without mercy.”

“Never.”

“He was christened in blood, Sascha. Don’t ever forget that.” Tamsyn sat down cross-legged in front of her. “Until he met you, do you know what he was like? Do you know where he was going? Day by day I watched him get more protective, more unbending and strict, especially with the kids, and there was nothing I could do.”

Sascha was caught by the passion in the healer’s voice.

“He’s undoubtedly our alpha, someone we’d follow into hell and back if he asked it of us. But it takes more than an iron fist to rule, and he was starting to lose those other parts.”

“He’s so good with Kit,” Sascha said, recalling all the times she’d seen him with the juvenile.

“Five months ago, not long after we lost Kylie, he banned Kit from solo runs.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t want the boy hurt.” Tamsyn shook her head. “Kit has the scent of a future alpha—to have him always have a babysitter could’ve destroyed his development and turned him from us. Even more than the other juveniles, Kit needs the freedom to let his beast roam.”

“You persuaded Lucas to change his mind?”

“No, Sascha. You did.” She put a hand on Sascha’s knee. “Kit was ready to rebel when Lucas quietly took him out for a run soon after he met you. When he came back, Kit wasn’t with him.”

“He let Kit go his own way?” Sascha knew it must’ve been one of the hardest things he’d ever done. Protecting his own was a compulsion with him. It was also something he couldn’t indulge in—it would smother the very people he was trying to shelter from harm.

Tamsyn nodded. “You allow him to think, to see past his emotions.”

“I think you’re giving me too much credit. I can barely understand my own emotions.”

“I think I know what an E-Psy is.”

Sascha twisted her fingers together. “You think E stands for Emotion, don’t you? I’ve already considered that but it makes no sense. Before Silence, all Psy felt emotion.”

Tamsyn didn’t answer her. “The changeling healers around the country have a sort of informal alliance,” she said, in what seemed a complete change of topic. “We share our knowledge in spite of the fact that we might belong to enemy groups. The alphas don’t even try to stop us. They know we’re healers because we can’t be anything else—we refuse to withhold information that could save a life.”

“And the Psy call themselves enlightened,” Sascha whispered, stunned by the humanity of these so-called animals. “We wouldn’t give water to our enemy if he lay dying on our doorstep.”

“You would, Sascha. You’re Psy, too. Maybe, just maybe, there are more like you than you know.”

“If you knew how much I hoped for that… I don’t want to be alone, Tamsyn.” Tears choked up her throat. “I don’t want to die in cold silence.”

Tamsyn shook her head. “You’re never going to be alone again. You belong to us, to Pack.” Her hand covered Sascha’s. “Don’t be afraid of letting go of the PsyNet. We’ll catch you when you fall.”

Sascha desperately wanted to tell her the truth but couldn’t. If any of the leopards found out, they’d never allow her to set her plan in motion and it had to go ahead. If it didn’t, the SnowDancers would declare war. In a war between the most lethal wolf and leopard packs in the country and the Psy, thousands would die, innocents and guilty alike.

Nobody could know the ultimate secret of the PsyNet. It wasn’t only an information net, it was a life net. No one knew when it had been created, but theories abounded that it had come into existence on its own because Psy minds needed the feedback of other Psy minds.

Deprived of that feedback, they shut down and died. Even comatose Psy retained the PsyNet link, their bodies well aware of the requirement for the connection to ensure survival. The instant Sascha dropped out of the Net, she’d begin to slip into the final darkness.

“Thank you,” she said to Tamsyn, hiding her fear.

The woman squeezed her hand. “The reason I told you about the healers alliance is that we pass on a lot of things through word of mouth. One of our oral stories is very interesting—it tells of healers of the mind. They disappeared from the stories almost a hundred years ago. Interesting timing, don’t you think?”

Sascha stared. “Mind healers?”

“Yes. They could apparently take suffering and anger from people, enabling them to see past the block emotion can often be. They could also heal those who’d been abused, violated, hurt in a thousand different ways. They bandaged up wounds that might otherwise have destroyed people.” Tamsyn’s eyes were intent. “They were adored because everything that they took from others, they put into themselves. They had the capacity to neutralize the burden, but it had to have hurt.”

Sascha was so stunned, she was trembling. All those times she’d imagined taking away people’s pain, all those times she’d felt the heavy rock of others’ emotions sitting on her heart… none of it had been pretend. “They healed souls,” she whispered, knowing Tamsyn was right.

The explanation fit. No wonder she was fracturing. Her cardinal powers had been brutally contained for twenty-six years, growing endlessly with no release. The pressure point had been reached.

“I think that’s what you are, Sascha. A healer of souls.”

A single tear streaked down Sascha’s face. “They told me I was broken,” she whispered. “They told me I was flawed.” Because of their lies, she’d contained her light, her rainbow of stars, trapping the healing gifts of her mind. “They crippled me. And they had to have known!” Her mother certainly had to have understood her child’s unusual mind. She was Council—she knew their history, what had to be hidden… what had to be destroyed.

“When they tried to get rid of violence,” Tamsyn said, shifting over to sit beside Sascha, one arm around her shoulders, “they also got rid of one of their most precious gifts.”

Lucas walked out to the front yard, Nate and Dorian by his side. Vaughn and Clay were hidden in the shadows and Mercy was prowling the treetops behind the SnowDancers.

Hawke stood in the yard flanked by two wolves Lucas knew to be his lieutenants. Indigo was a stunningly beautiful female with the cold eyes of a snow wolf. Tall and slender, she was undoubtedly deadly. Riley was a solid-looking male who appeared to move slow. It was an illusion. He could take down a fully grown wolf in about three seconds flat. Without changing form.

“Why are you here?” Lucas asked.

Hawke walked forward, leaving his lieutenants behind. Lucas did the same. Two alphas meeting in neutral territory. Except it wasn’t. This was a DarkRiver safe house. The wolves shouldn’t have set foot near it without a damn good reason. He’d accepted Hawke’s previous intrusion because the alpha had come alone. Bringing others was a sign of aggression.

“We want to talk to your Psy,” Hawke said without prelude.

Lucas felt fury ripple through him. “No.”

“I trust you, cat, but I don’t trust any of the Psy.” Hawke’s eyes held bloodlust. “I won’t let the lives of my people hang in the hands of one of those creatures without meeting her for myself. This is the fourth day since Brenna was taken—we have only two days before he kills. And you’re asking us to wait.”

“If you trust me, why do you need to see her?”

“Wouldn’t you do the same if the situations were reversed? What if it was Rina in the hands of that monster?” His entire face went unnaturally calm. “We’re not here to pick a fight so you might want to tell the cat up in the trees to stay back.”

Lucas wasn’t surprised Hawke had picked up Mercy’s scent—the man hadn’t become alpha of a lethal pack by being weak. Neither had Lucas. “Mercy’s not the one you should be worried about.”

“Damn it to hell, Lucas. Don’t break our alliance over a fucking, worthless Psy. They’re nothing—”

Lucas slammed a fist into Hawke’s jaw. Hard. The wolf went down. Growls echoed around the yard as sentinels and lieutenants crouched down for battle.