Slave to Sensation

CHAPTER 21

Standing over the fallen wolf, Lucas forced himself not to bare his teeth. “She’s mine. Think about that the next time you open your big mouth.”

Getting up, Hawke slashed his hand down. Indigo and Riley straightened from their crouch. “Hell, Lucas. You could’ve told me you’d really mated to her.” He rubbed at his bruised jaw and winced. “You have a right like a damn freight train.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“I was the one who brought you your Psy safe and sound.”

Lucas stared at the other alpha and even through the protective rage running through him, he knew Hawke was right. He did have a right to meet the woman he was being asked to entrust with the life of one of his people. Riley, too, must need assurance that his sister’s life was in safe hands. “Do all your wolves know about this place?”

“No. Just like not all your leopards know the location of our tunnels.” It was a reminder that Lucas and his sentinels had tracked down the SnowDancers’ main hideout.

Since the start, their alliance had been cool and distanced, two predators circling each other, not quite sure when the other would bite. It was time to take the next step, to build strength the Psy would truly fear. “I’m going to invite you into this home.”

They’d always done their talking out in the open, away from their personal places. Though it had never been said, they both knew it was so that those places wouldn’t be tainted by violence if blood was spilled. Theirs was a fragile trust and it was no longer enough. With his invitation, he’d not only accepted, but expanded, the offer that had been hinted at when Hawke’s lieutenants had treated DarkRiver juveniles as their own.

Ice-blue eyes looked at him without blinking. “That’s a good deal of trust.”

“Don’t make me regret it.” He held out his arm.

The other alpha clasped it at the elbow and they went toward each other in the hard embrace of two hunters. When they drew back, Lucas turned to head toward the safe house. Hawke followed with his lieutenants stalking behind him.

“Free passage,” Hawke said as they walked. It was clear enough to be heard by the other changelings.

Lucas thought about the war that might break out, thought about the safety of his people. And then he thought about what they would want, what he had no right to deny them. They were predators but they were also human in a way the Psy would never be. “Free passage.”

With those two simple words each, they’d turned their alliance into a blood bond. They’d given each other’s packs free passage in all of their respective territories, the right to come and go without any of the current stipulations. But that wasn’t the important part.

As of now, the wolves would come to the aid of the leopards and the leopards would die for the wolves.

No matter what the fight.

Once inside the house, the lieutenants and sentinels placed themselves in a protective circle, watching each other and their alphas. They might now be blood allies but complete trust would take time.

“Dorian.” Lucas gave the other man the signal to fetch Sascha. Everything in him wanted to take care of it himself, wanted to protect her every step of the way. But he couldn’t leave his people alone with the wolves, or betray his driving need, need which was this raw only at the final stage of mating.

Hawke couldn’t be allowed to guess that the mating dance was incomplete. It wouldn’t damage their alliance but it would probably make the other alpha back off from placing any faith in Sascha.

The beast wasn’t convinced by the logical argument. It wanted Sascha. Now. It was taking too much of Lucas’s will to fight the possessiveness of the panther. He didn’t even trust the sentinels at this stage. It was part of the price he paid for being a leopard, an alpha, and a Hunter.

Nobody spoke until Sascha walked back into the room followed by Tamsyn, with Dorian shadowing their backs. Tammy didn’t need to be here, to be vulnerable. Protecting one of their women was going to put enough pressure on the sentinels. Nate was clearly furious at his mate, his eyes narrowed in anger. Already, her presence was affecting their ability to defend.

“Tamsyn,” Lucas said, walking over to pull Sascha to his side. “You need to leave.” He rarely gave Tammy orders, knew he was too easy with her. He even knew why.

It wasn’t because his mother had been a healer as many people thought. No, it was because he’d seen the condition she’d been in after trying to save his father’s life. She’d almost killed herself, given everything she’d had in that slender seventeen-year-old body. And when they’d found him, Lucas, she’d tried desperately to squeeze impossibly more from her worn—out soul.

However, right now, he couldn’t afford to have her fight against him, couldn’t afford to show any weakness. If she spoke up, he’d have to get very harsh and he didn’t want to do that to Tammy. To his shock, Sascha was the one who spoke. “She needs to be here.”

The SnowDancers raised their brows, but there was a kind of shadowed respect in their eyes. The rules were different for the mates of Pack alphas. No one wanted their alpha mated to a weak female.

“Why would that be?” Hawke turned to face them, his back to the mantel.

Lucas moved until Sascha and Tamsyn were both half-hidden by his body. “None of your business, wolf. You came to see Sascha. Here she is.”

Sascha pushed at his back until he shifted enough that she could meet the wolf’s gaze. It was as far as he was going to go.

“I know you don’t trust me,” she said. “I even know that you hate the Psy on a level that’s so deep, it has no end.”

Hawke’s mouth tightened, his eyes going glacial.

“But you don’t have to trust me in this—you have to trust Lucas.”

Hawke snorted. “He’s your mate. He’s hardly likely to be unbiased.”

Lucas waited for Sascha to dispute their mating, unable to do anything to warn her.

Her hand slipped around to lie against his stomach. The panther wanted to purr. “Do you really think he’d mate to someone who’d endanger his pack?”

“Yeah, wolf.” Relief at her acceptance ran through Lucas like fire. “Just how much do you trust me?”

“How do you know she hasn’t fucked with your mind?” It was a harsh question.

“Because you know as well as I do that the Psy can’t hold on to our minds for longer than a few minutes.” Lucas tracked Hawke’s every movement, leaving Indigo and Riley to the sentinels. He had a feeling Riley was the more dangerous of the pair—like Dorian, he’d lost a sister to this killer. “She would’ve had to manipulate not only my mind but those of the sentinels as well.”

“Psy never work alone.” Hawke watched them both without blinking.

Sascha’s hand clenched on Lucas’s abdomen. “Psy also don’t feel emotion.” Stretching, she kissed the hard angle of Lucas’s jaw from behind his shoulder. “Yet I feel so much, it’s threatening to destroy me.”

There was no arguing with her statement. She was sensually, beautifully female, her body’s hunger for Lucas a siren song. The unmated males could no more ignore that than they could stop breathing.

Every instinct in him quivered, wanting to take her, right here, right now, and show everyone that she belonged to him. Fighting the animalistic urge merely served to heighten the craving, until the panther’s fur rasped along the inside of his skin.

“Then those eyes of yours mean nothing.” Hawke crossed his arms across his chest. “You’re weaker than the ones we’re fighting.”

“You’re calling emotion a weakness?” Tamsyn was trying to get past Dorian without success. Nate stared at her from across the room, obviously willing her to be silent, but the healer had never been good at following orders. “Emotion is what makes us strong!”

“She’s not one of us,” Hawke said. “Her strength comes from feeling nothing. If she feels, it means she’s damaged goods. We can’t trust Brenna’s life to a defective Psy who could crumble at any minute.”

Lucas felt the panther’s claws cut through his skin. “Be very careful what you say about my mate, Hawke. I’d hate to have to kill you.” The warning lingered on the air.

Both of Sascha’s arms wrapped around his middle. “Lucas, he’s right. If I were weak, I’d be of no use.”

“You’re not weak.” He held her hands flat against him, luxuriating in the public gesture of belonging. This Psy was his and he wasn’t going to let her escape. Ever.

“No,” she said, “I’m not. I’m a cardinal E-Psy.”

Hawke’s gaze reflected a bright flash of shock so deep, it couldn’t be hidden.

“What do you know, wolf?” Lucas wondered what Sascha had learned that had enabled her to make that statement so confidently, but he wasn’t going to ask her to explain in front of the SnowDancers.

“I want to see her face,” the wolf demanded.

Lucas felt his muscles lock. Sascha’s hand smoothed over his body as she drew back. “Let me, Lucas. This is my time to fight.”

The anguish in her tone got through to him, cutting past the possessive beast to the man within. He let her move until she stood slightly in front of him, where he could quickly haul her behind his body. “You or your lieutenants even blink wrong and I’ll slash you wide open.” It wasn’t a threat, just simple fact.

Hawke nodded. “Fair enough.” Nobody played games with mates.

“What do you want to see?” Sascha tipped her head slightly to the side, her eyes on the wolf. He was feral in a way that even Dorian wasn’t, his beast separated from his humanity by the thinnest of layers.

“I want you to prove you are what you say you are.”

“Are you sure?” she asked softly.

Hawke’s jaw could’ve been carved from stone. “Yes.”

She took a breath and let her eyes flutter shut. As her senses expanded, she felt the full brunt of Lucas’s possessive, dominant personality. He was pure strength, pure heart. But buried deep was an echo of the staggering pain suffered by the young boy he’d once been, an echo that now beat with a fierce need to protect. She felt his determination to keep her, too, but that was the one thing she could never allow. He’d already spent a childhood without parents—she would not condemn him to a lifetime without a mate.

Behind her panther, she could feel the dull anger that was Dorian, so wounded that she’d have to spend years to lighten his anguish. Except she didn’t have years. Tamsyn was gentleness and joy, power and care. The soldiers of both groups gave off their own distinctive emotional scents. But it was Hawke that she was searching for and Hawke that she found.

The wolf’s emotions struck cold terror into her heart. She’d never felt such pure, unadulterated rage. Dark and violent, it was a scar across his soul. Hawke could function, could rule, but this man would never love, not so long as he was blinded by the red veil of blood and death.

Sascha didn’t know if he’d feel what she was doing, didn’t know if he’d find his proof. What she did know was that she couldn’t let him walk away without trying to heal the festering wounds in his soul. Like Dorian, he couldn’t be healed overnight, but perhaps she could give him a moment’s surcease.

She wrapped mental arms around him and drew away the anger, the violence. And gave back joy, laughter, pleasure. To her surprise, she felt him react to her like Lucas did. He jerked in shock and then started trying to push her out. He was no Psy but he was definitely saying No!

She withdrew at once.

When she opened her eyes, it was to find him staring at her as if she were a ghost. “I didn’t think the empaths existed anymore.” His voice was half wolf.

Empath.

It was the right word, the word that had been systematically destroyed from the Psy lexicon. “Neither did I,” she whispered, letting her back rest against Lucas’s front. His arms came around her and she swore she felt the ruffle of fur against the skin.

“Do you know how to attack using your powers?” Hawke’s eyes lingered on her and Lucas’s skin-to-skin contact.

“Nothing smooth,” she told him, having thought about this upstairs. “But it’ll keep me alive long enough to give you what you need to find Brenna.”

Lucas’s arms tightened across her shoulders. “I won’t let her set the plan in motion unless we can pull her out of the Net safely.”

Hawke shifted position. Sascha’s eyes met his and her soul froze. He knew. Somehow, the alpha of the SnowDancers knew that she couldn’t leave the PsyNet without facing death. Mutely, she pleaded with him to remain silent. If Lucas discovered the truth, he’d never let her go. Never.

And she needed to go, needed to wipe out a lifetime of failure by saving this one vibrant light before her own flickered out forever.

“Sorry, sweetcakes,” Hawke raised his hands palms out, “but you’re his mate. I’m not going to let you kill yourself and have Lucas out for my blood. In that kind of rage, I wouldn’t want to take my chances against him.”

Lucas’s arms became manacles. “What’s he talking about, Sascha?” It was a warning. She’d kept something from him and he wasn’t happy about it. To Hawke, he said, “You can leave now. You got what you came for.”

Hawke looked at them for another long moment before nodding. “We have two more days if the killer sticks to his usual pattern. Protect your woman, panther.” With that the wolves left, tracked out of DarkRiver territory by Mercy, Clay, and Vaughn.

Lucas didn’t wait for the sentinels to return. “Nate, Dorian, secure the house.”

“Lucas,” Tamsyn began, “maybe you should—”

“Stay the hell out of this.” Lucas’s eyes met her shocked ones. He’d never spoken to Tammy like that. “Nate, if you want your mate to last the night, you’d better get her under control.” He wasn’t kidding. There was only so much he could take and Sascha’s keeping a secret had pushed him over the edge.

I’m not going to let you kill yourself…

What did the wolf know that he didn’t?

“Don’t talk to Tammy like that,” Sascha ordered.

“I’ll talk to my pack however the hell I feel like. You don’t get to have a voice until you explain yourself to me.” Grabbing her hand, he began to haul her up the stairs.

A psychic blow hit his chest but he was expecting it and took it with a grunt. “You’re not that powerful a Tk, kitten.” He was in the grip of the panther’s instincts and there was nothing civilized about them.

“Damn it, Lucas. Let me go!” She tried to pull her hand away and kicked out at his shin.

Fed up with her wriggling, he bent down, threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and ran up the stairs. Her weight was nothing to his changeling strength, her fists on his back mere caresses. She was yelling and screaming by the time he got her into the bedroom and locked the door.

When he put her down on the floor, she took a swing at him. Only his lightning-fast reflexes saved him from a black eye. He pinned her hands behind her back before she could try again. Furious eyes met his. The woman in his arms was pure fire and heat, as different from the Psy he’d first met as night was from day.

Desire sparked deep and low in his gut, brought to life by the stunning brilliance of her emotions. This was a fit mate, the panther in him growled. This female would never let herself be crushed by his demands and needs. She’d meet him more than halfway. And she’d fight to the death for him like his mother had fought for his father.

“If you don’t let me go right now, I swear I’ll knock you unconscious,” she threatened. “I have enough Tk for a blow hard enough to rattle your thick skull.”

“I’m not budging until you tell me what Hawke meant.” The scent of her infiltrated his lungs, fuel to the inferno of his possessiveness.

“You don’t need to know.”

He swore. “How do you think that made me look down there? My own mate keeping secrets from me?”

She looked discomfited for an instant. “He shouldn’t have known. Nobody should know.”

“But he does and I have a right to. You’re mine!”

“Don’t pull this alpha thing on me, Lucas. You’re not my alpha!”

He had no desire to dominate her that way. “But I’m your mate.” Leaning down, he nipped sharply at her jaw. Goose bumps appeared on the exposed skin of her neck. “I have certain rights.”

“You’re not my mate,” she protested, but her voice was weak.

“Tell me, kitten. You know I’m not going to let it go however much you want me to.”

Her eyes darkened, ebony spreading over the light. “Why?” she pleaded. “We can’t let that girl die if I can save her. If I tell you everything, you’ll try to stop me.”

“You think I won’t stop you right now?”

“You can’t.” Her eyes were almost pure black. “I can work the PsyNet from behind bars.”

He used one hand to keep her wrists under control, still not sure she wouldn’t go for his eyes like every other pissed-off female he knew. With the other, he clasped the back of her neck. “Yeah, but can you do it while unconscious?”

“You wouldn’t.” It was an outraged whisper.

“To keep you safe, I’d do worse things than knock you out.”

Her eyes narrowed. “We’re going to have to talk about this dominant streak of yours.”

“It’s not a streak. It’s all of me.” For her, he’d try to be reasonable occasionally. Except on this one point. “Are you going to talk or are you going to make me put you under? Do you know how much it’ll hurt me to have to do that to you?”

Her entire body softened. He finally chanced letting her wrists go free. Instead of hitting out at him, she put them on his chest, palms down. “Lucas.” Her eyes were pure black now, so dark that he could see nothing but his own reflection. “The PsyNet isn’t a chosen part of our life,” she began. “It isn’t something that’s forced on us either. It’s necessary.”

“Food and water are necessary,” he said. “Why the Net?”

“My mind isn’t built like yours—it needs to be fed by the electronic impulses of other Psy minds.” She clenched her hands on his T-shirt.

The panther understood at the same moment as the man. “So once you expose yourself as bait and the Councilors pick up on your empathy, there’s no way to get you out?” He was so furious he could barely speak.