Tangle of Need (Psy-Changeling #11)(114)

The next time she halted, her heart thumped a pounding beat, the wolf’s exhilaration mixing with the woman’s. The air was a treasure trove of scents, the night full of song. It intoxicated. Knowing she needed to think with a clearer head, she shifted back into human form, her hair tumbling around her as she crouched on the forest floor, her head angled to the wind.

Dark, of the forest, kissed with woodsmoke and a wild bite of citrus.

All around her. In her skin. Against her tongue.

His lips smoothed over her neck, his hand gentle on her hip, but she knew she was caught. Turning, she watched him with the wolf’s eyes. His own hair fell over his face, his gaze luminous. This time, those eyes said, he wouldn’t let her run. But she wasn’t a wolf because she gave up. She twisted to the left without warning.

He was there almost before she moved, taking her body to the earth. She shivered at the cool kiss of the dew-laden grass, but he didn’t let her up. “I have you.” His voice was gravelly, dark with the determination of the predator inside him. “And I’m keeping you.”

She lifted a hand to his cheek, the tenderness within her an endless river. How could she have ever thought to keep any part of her heart safe from him? It was an impossibility. She was caught, well and truly. Tears burned her eyes, trickled down the sides of her face and into her hair.

“Shh.” He kissed the salt-laced sadness away, rolling onto his back and taking her with him, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other stroking down the curve of her spine. “Don’t cry, sweetheart.”

His gentleness twined another tendril around her heart, until she was so entangled in him, she knew she’d never break free. For the first time in her life, her wolf had chosen. And it had chosen this lone wolf. “You have me,” she whispered. All of me.





Chapter 55





KALEB WAS AT his home office when Silver called. “A. V. is Vasquez,” she said, “of that my family is as certain as we can be without having his DNA. He also appears to be running things as far as Pure Psy is concerned. However, the rank and file believe he speaks for Henry.”

So did Kaleb. The NetMind and DarkMind both had had too calm a reaction to Henry’s “death.” Kaleb had attempted to use the twin neosentience to track the former Councilor, but they had been acting increasingly erratic of late, and he’d been unable to focus them on the target. That bespoke a profound problem in the Net, the depth of which perhaps he alone understood—Henry’s fanaticism and the continued deterioration of Subject 8-91 were simply symptoms of a more dangerous malaise.

Concluding the conversation with his aide, he rose from his desk, playing a small platinum star through his fingers. The metal was warm from his touch, but his mind worked with ice-cold precision as he decided what was to be done with Henry. Aden.

The telepath’s reply was crystal clear. Councilor.

Kaleb will do. The Council is no longer in existence except in the minds of the populace.

Kaleb.

Henry will continue to be a problem if he lives. Do you have any issue with eliminating him? Kaleb needed to know how much of the Arrows’ loyalty was his.

No. His policies are not good for the Net.

Kaleb rubbed his thumb over the shining surface of the star. Then regard it as an authorized mission.

Noted.

Telepathic connection severed, Kaleb considered those who’d remain after Henry’s demise. Shoshanna, he didn’t waste time on. Henry’s “wife” had flaws that would make it easy to manipulate her. Nikita would leave Kaleb alone so long as he didn’t attempt to violate her territory—or harm her child and grandchild. The other Councilor hid it well, but Kaleb could glide through the Net without causing a single ripple. He saw everything. Nikita’s conditioning might be flawless, but she wasn’t Silent.

Not in the way he was.

Nikita’s protective instinct was her Achilles’ heel, but Kaleb had no reason to exploit it. Not as long as she didn’t attempt to get in his way. If she did…

His eye fell on the star. He halted his movements. And knew he had his own weakness, one Nikita would never guess at, and so he still had the advantage in his dealings with her.

As for Anthony, Kaleb didn’t think there would be any problems—he had no desire to encroach on NightStar lands or capture Anthony’s stable of F-Psy. No foreseer could stop him once he’d decided on a course of action.

That left Ming and Tatiana. Both would have to die when it was time. There was no other viable option. Kaleb would not chance them coming at him from behind.

The star sparked in the light from the lamp on his desk.

Caught, he stared at the small charm, wondering what its owner would make of his thoughts of assassination. Soon, he would discover the answer. Because he’d just breached another layer of security, unearthed the oldest part of the trail. It was fragile and fragmented, but it was there.

Soon.





Chapter 56





RIAZ CALLED ADRIA to ask her to come along to the meeting with Bo and the liaison three days later and discovered that she was already in San Francisco with Indigo, Tarah, Evie, and another woman who had a familiar scent but looked nothing like she should—from her height, to the color of her hair and eyes, even the shape of her face, the latter apparently altered using high-tech gel pads Judd had procured from who knows where.