She saw from his expression that he meant that, as if the hurt of that small, vulnerable child was nothing. “Do you truly feel nothing?” she whispered. “Are you without fractures?”
“It’s better this way.” His eyes kissed her with frost. “The day I feel is the day I die.”
Chapter 4
I’d like to propose a cooperative venture.Kaleb Krychek, in a conference call to DarkRiver alpha Lucas Hunter and SnowDancer alpha Hawke Snow ACROSS FROM SASCHA, Hawke shook his head, the silver-gold of his hair bright in the noon sunlight slanting through the skylight. “I’ll say this for Krychek,” the SnowDancer alpha muttered, “he has the balls of an elephant.”
Splurting coffee, Mercy coughed, eyes watering. “An elephant?” She stared at the SnowDancer alpha as her mate, Riley, rubbed her back. “Are you serious?”
Hawke shrugged. “What has bigger ones?”
“Man has a point,” Lucas drawled from beside Sascha, the six of them seated around Mercy and Riley’s dining table, the land beyond the windows a sprawl of tall green firs draped with snow that turned it into a winter postcard.
The snowfall was nothing like the heavy coating up in the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada range, while farther down, there was no precipitation at all, the air cold but dry.
“Whatever the size of Krychek’s balls,” Mercy said after catching her breath, “this is one hell of a request.”
Lucas ran his fingers absently over Sascha’s nape as he looked toward the male who sat on Riley’s other side. When Sascha had first met Judd Lauren, she couldn’t have imagined that the distant and self-contained former Arrow would end up a SnowDancer lieutenant mated to another member of the wolf pack. And never in a million years would she have predicted that he’d become a favorite with the pups and cubs both.
“The information Krychek sent us,” Lucas said to Judd now, “about the infection in the Net, were you able to corroborate it independently?”
Judd nodded, the fine dark gray wool of his pullover sitting easily on his shoulders. “Kaleb’s been up-front.”
“Too up-front.” Sascha wanted to believe love had altered Kaleb Krychek for the better, that he’d found the same joy with Sahara that Sascha had with Lucas, but the fact of the matter was, he continued to be a deadly threat. There was a reason he’d become the youngest ever individual to hold a seat on the Council, a reason why his name caused men and women across the world to tremble in naked terror.
Biting down on her lower lip as her mate continued to stroke her nape with the tactile affection that was so natural to the cats, she said, “He has my unqualified gratitude for putting his own life at risk to save countless people in San Francisco a month ago”—when the cardinal telekinetic had helped disarm a toxic weapon—“but I think it would be foolish to think we can predict anything when it comes to him.” The other man remained as opaque as ever, an enigmatic figure who held near-total control of the PsyNet.
No one, Sascha thought, should have that much power, hold that many lives in the palm of his hand. Yet, if not Kaleb Krychek, then who? His staggering psychic and military strength was the only reason the Psy race hadn’t collapsed into anarchy and death in the aftermath of the fall of Silence. It was as unavoidable a truth as the fact he’d risen to power with ruthless, blood-soaked determination.
Hawke narrowed his eyes. “The news about the infection.” He glanced at Judd. “Is it a secret?”
“No. It’s not headline news in the Net yet, but the knowledge is gathering steam.”
Lucas shook his head. “So, Krychek isn’t exactly giving up anything by offering us the data.”
“And,” Riley said in his quiet, direct way, “it’s not as if we didn’t already know about the existence of empaths.”
Everyone looked at Sascha.
Hands cupped around the mug of hot chocolate Mercy had offered her in lieu of the aromatic coffee the others were drinking, Sascha leaned a little into Lucas. “I have no hesitation in helping other Es,” she said, able to sense Lucas’s panther rising to the surface to rub against the insides of his skin . . . against her.
It made her feel safe and protected even before her mate wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tucked her close. “There’s nothing I want more than to stretch my psychic muscles with others of my designation,” she said, making no attempt to hide the depth of her hunger.
She adored working with Judd’s nephew, Toby, but while the young boy was a cardinal telepath who could blow her out of the water when it came to telepathy, the reverse was true when it came to their E abilities. “I want to learn from the others,” she said, “even as I teach them what I know.” Things she’d figured out through often frustrating trial and error. “But most of all,” she whispered, “I want to help those of my designation accept that they’re not broken”—her fingers tightened on the mug, her eyes wet—“that they aren’t flawed.”
Lucas pressed a kiss to her temple. Her strong, loving, protective mate had been with her when she’d understood the truth about herself, understood that she wasn’t a defective cardinal as she’d been told all her life, but a woman with a gift meant to help the hurt and the lost.
It was Mercy who said, “Yet something’s making you hesitate,” the red of her hair vivid against her fitted blue shirt.
“I’m a mother as well as an E.” Sascha’s heart bloomed with love at the thought of her and Lucas’s sweet baby. “And Naya is only one of the children in DarkRiver and SnowDancer.” Pups and cubs who were painfully vulnerable. “We can’t justify putting them at risk.” Even to help men and women who were as bruised and as wounded as Sascha had once been.
The thought made her chest clench in agony, but she couldn’t see a way around the threat posed by those coming in with the empaths.
“Kaleb won’t harm anyone in either pack.”
Lucas stirred at Judd’s confident statement. “Exactly how much of an ex-Arrow are you?” he asked, panther-green eyes intent.
“It’s been pointed out to me that an Arrow who has never broken faith with the squad continues to be considered an Arrow regardless of his location or belief otherwise.” The lieutenant’s lips curved up unexpectedly at the corners, the light reaching the deep brown of his eyes, the gold flecks in them bright.
It struck Sascha then that Judd existed on the same continuum as Kaleb. Not as ruthless—she didn’t think anyone was as ruthless as Kaleb Krychek—but a man who had walked long and alone in the darkness. The critical difference, of course, was that Judd had always been anchored to the world through his family, while Kaleb had been trained by a psychopath who’d murdered countless women.
“I’m in direct contact with more than one member of the squad.” The SnowDancer lieutenant paused, his gaze shifting to Hawke.
At his alpha’s slight nod, Judd added, “I’m also in direct touch with Kaleb, have been since long before the San Francisco op.”
“I thought we weren’t keeping secrets?” Lucas locked eyes with Hawke, alpha to alpha, dominant to dominant, his voice holding the edge of a growl.
Hawke folded his arms as Sascha put down her hot chocolate and patted her mate’s chest to get his attention, his dark green T-shirt soft under her palm. Left alone in this kind of an aggressive mood, two changeling alphas would stare at one another until it ended in violence. “No fighting,” she said to Lucas when he turned to scowl at her. “You know how cranky Hawke gets when his mate is out to lunch with a certain future leopard alpha.”
Lucas’s grin was very feline as he relaxed.
“Yeah,” Mercy murmured, shoulders shaking, “be kind to the poor wolfie.” She squeaked as her own wolf mate did something to her the rest of them couldn’t see.