Branded by Fire (Psy-Changelings), page 35
His head lowered even as she rose on tiptoe.
“Ahem.” A pointed cough. “Didn’t you two already get that out of your system?”
“Go away, Hawke,” Riley said without looking.
The wolf alpha came up the stairs and tugged on Mercy’s hair. “Red. Pretty.”
Mercy smiled . . . and flashed up her claws. But Hawke was already on the other side of the porch, a smirk on his face.
“Now, now,” he said, “I’m your alpha—”
“Bullshit.” Mercy sheathed her claws and turned so her back was cradled against Riley’s chest as he leaned on the railing. “I’m a DarkRiver sentinel.”
The wolf alpha’s eyes gleamed. “You sure about that?”
Catching a couple of familiar scents on the breeze, she waited. Lucas and Sascha stepped out of the forest a few minutes later. Mercy took one look at them and bit back a grin, but Hawke didn’t bother to resist the urge to make a comment.
“You have a leaf stuck in your hair, cat.”
Nonchalant, Lucas reached up to pull it off. “Jealous, wolf?”
“Boys,” Sascha said. “We’re here to discuss something important.” Walking up the steps, she hugged Mercy. “I’m so glad you two are alright.” There was a change in her eyes—an impossible new depth of soul, of empathy. And her scent . . .
Mercy’s leopard all but pounced on Sascha in excitement. “Holy crap! Congratulations!”
Sascha smiled, and glanced at Lucas. “I don’t think I can quantify our excitement.” Then she turned back. “But that’s not why I’m here. It’s about the Web of Stars and the equivalent thing with the wolves.”
“You should sit,” Lucas said, and he wasn’t talking to Mercy.
Sascha stared at him. “I didn’t realize pregnancy of four weeks’ duration made me incapable of standing upright.”
“It makes me incapable of reason,” Lucas said, charm in every inch of him. “Humor me.”
Rolling her eyes, Sascha turned back to Mercy. “We should go in and grab seats—Tamsyn was here when you woke this morning and she said you’re going to be fine, but you need more bed rest. Lara gave the same orders to you.” She pointed an admonishing finger at Riley.
“Sascha darling, I don’t know what you and the cat get up to in bed, but those two aren’t resting.” Hawke padded over, and Mercy noticed that though he was wearing jeans and a white tee, he was barefoot. Crazy wolf.
Lucas cut Hawke off, opening the door to usher his mate inside. Mercy went in with Sascha and Riley followed. They heard a thump an instant later, and then some swearing, but when the two alphas walked in, there wasn’t a bruise on either of them. Sascha gave them both a narrow-eyed glance, got choirboy smiles in response.
“I’m assuming,” Mercy said, trying to control her laughter, “that something weird’s happened with the Web?”
Sascha nodded. “When you and Riley first mated, it was as if the Web and the SnowDancer network didn’t know what to do. In most cases, I think one of you would’ve been pulled out of your network—a connection across networks is theoretically impossible.”
Riley’s fingers played over her hip. Worried. Possessive. She leaned into him. “So what happened?”
“The impossible.” Sascha’s eyes sparkled. “The mating bond snapped into place between you two, without removing either of you from your respective webs.”
Riley stirred. “Are you saying you can see both the SnowDancer and DarkRiver networks now?”
“Not exactly.” Sascha blew on the surface of the glass coffee table to steam it up, then used her finger to draw the connections as she explained. “Lucas and Hawke have a blood bond because of the alliance, so the packs are already bonded on some level.”
Hawke shifted and Mercy’s cat picked up an edge in his movements. Not directed at anyone in the room but there. “Why didn’t our networks merge?” he asked.
Sascha looked from wolf alpha to leopard alpha. One was by the fireplace. One behind his mate. Opposite sides of the room. “Because neither of you will submit to the other.”
“Hell, no!” From two different throats.
“See.” Sascha threw up her hands. “I think a changeling network has to have an alpha at the core—and you can’t have two alphas. But the alpha-to-alpha blood bond has obviously had some psychic effect. I can’t see the wolf web,” she explained, “but I can sense that it’s now side by side with DarkRiver’s web on the psychic plane. The mating bond goes from Mercy and disappears, and since you two are mated . . .”
“It means it reappears on the other side.” Mercy thought about it. “If the blood bond hadn’t been there between DarkRiver and SnowDancer?”
“Honestly,” Sascha said, “I don’t know. Could be we’d have ended up with the same result. You’re both so dedicated to your packs—with changelings, such things seem to matter a great deal when it comes to the psychic plane.”
Riley straightened his unbroken leg. “You want us to choose.” A glance at Hawke, then back at Lucas.
“It’s necessary,” Hawke said, pale eyes intent.
Lucas nodded. “Your animals won’t like not having a concrete answer. Plus, we need it for the stability of the pack structure.”
Mercy turned to Riley and raised an eyebrow. “Okay?”
Nodding, he looked to Hawke. “I’ll stay SnowDancer, she’ll stay DarkRiver.”
“There won’t be a loyalty issue,” Mercy said. “My loyalty is to my mate first, then my pack.” It was how it had always been. Pack was built on the ties of family. And family began with mating. “Don’t ask us to keep secrets from each other.”
Lucas made a mock obeisance at her pointed reference. “As if we’d even try,” he said, rising to his full height. “Mates come first.”
Riley brushed his lips over Mercy’s hair in a caress so tender, her toes curled. “It would also,” he said, “make our domestic life easier if you two didn’t declare war against each other anytime soon.”
“Why would we do that when we now have the liaison team of our dreams?” Lucas was all but rubbing his hands. So, for that matter, was Hawke.
“I hate you both,” Mercy said without heat.
Riley put his arm around her. “Me, too.”
EPILOGUE
There was a celebration in the Pack Circle a week later, after Tamsyn and Lara had cleared both Mercy and Riley. It was a joint celebration—of the new life coming into the pack, and of Riley and Mercy’s mating.
Bas thumped Riley on the back. “Look after her or I’ll scalp you in your sleep.” A smile so feral that if Mercy hadn’t known better, she’d have thought her brother didn’t even know what a suit was, much less a financial market.
“Judd said one day it would come back to bite me,” Riley muttered, leaning on his crutches.
“He won’t hurt you,” Mercy teased. “If he does, I’ll use his kitten defurring tools on him.”
Bas showed her teeth. “I’m bigger than you. And I intend to cheat.”
Laughing, she pulled him down for a kiss on the cheek, then pushed him into the dancers. “Go make some woman’s night.” And there were a lot of them giving Bas the eye.
Grinning, he blew her a kiss and merged into the dancers. Grey, she saw with a surge of warmth in her heart, was flirting outrageously with Mia, both of them none the worse for their short kidnapping. Sage was operating a camera somewhere, recording this for Keely’s archival files.
“This is nice,” she said, leaning into Riley’s side as they stood with their backs against a large tree trunk. “Both our packs here.”
“And everyone behaving.” He nodded at the two groups of juveniles, one on either side of the Pack Circle. That the event was being held here was another step into trust. Changelings guarded their Pack Circles zealously. During Dorian’s mating ceremony, certain wolves had been invited down, but it had been a limited number.
But with Riley and Mercy’s mating, Lucas had decided it was time to extend the hand of friendship. Hawke had snarled, but he’d taken it. There was going to be another joint party up in the SnowDancer circle a month from now. However, the SnowDancer alpha had only made a fleeting appearance at this party—Mercy had a good inkling why.
“Hey, as long as they don’t claw into each other,” she said, putting the issue from her mind, “I don’t care how much they glare.”
“Poor Sascha,” Riley said, a laugh in his voice. “She can’t find a minute to herself.”
Mercy glanced over to see Sascha being offered food, drink, a blanket, suggestions for baby names, and God knows what else. Changelings adored children, but their fertility rate wasn’t as high as that of humans or Psy. As a result, any birth was cherished. And any pregnant woman was cosseted, petted, and generally driven out of her mind by the others in the pack—male and female.
As Mercy stood there, amused by the knowledge that Lucas would most certainly be getting a strip torn off his hide later tonight, she glimpsed Kit slipping off into the forest. That wasn’t unusual. He was a twenty-year-old male, after all—a gorgeous one. What was unusual was the girl holding his hand. Sienna Lauren.
Oh, shit.
Mercy was about to go after the two—if only to stop an interpack incident, when Riley said, “Look at her.”
She followed his gaze to find Brenna laughing up at Judd, her golden presence a stark contrast to her mate’s quiet intensity—but no matter what he looked like, there was no doubting the bond between the two. “They’re good together.”
Riley hugged her to his side. “Yeah, they are.” And for the first time, there were no shadows in his eyes when he looked at his sister. It was, Mercy thought, an excellent start. “God,” he continued, “I can’t believe I used to play horsie for her when she was a little bit.” He shook his head. “What games did you play with your brothers?”
“I considered Bas my own personal doll. I used to dress him up in sentinel gear and take him on raids.”
Riley laughed and it was such a rich, open sound that her leopard was enchanted. “Dance?” she asked.
He looked down at his cast. “If you don’t mind staying in one place.”
“If that’s pasted up next to you, sounds about perfect to me.”
Riley proved adept at balance. And fully capable and willing to hold on to his mate when the going got shaky.
Later that same night, tired but unable to sleep, Sascha went to the safe and took out the Eldridge book.
“Sascha?” Lucas called out. “Come pet me.”
“Only if you pet me, too.”
The response was quick-fast. “Deal.”
Smiling through her trepidation, she walked into the bedroom and lay back against her mate’s seated form. “Before we do that, I think it’s time we read this.” Because this wasn’t about her anymore. It was about her baby, too, a child who might be born with his or her mother’s gifts.
Lucas ran a hand through her hair and nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Taking a deep breath, she flipped to the first page of text.
Introduction
The E-Psy, or empaths, as they are called in the vernacular, are something of a peculiarity. The powerful among them can heal the most devastating of emotional wounds. Folklore says they can cure insanity. That has never been proven. What has been proven is that they can certainly help people through difficult emotional times, absorbing negative emotion in a way that defies even psychic explanation.
During the course of my research for this thesis, I was privileged to interview one hundred E-Psy in the greater New York region, of which three were cardinals, twenty were high-range (Gradients 6.5-9.9), thirty-seven were midrange (Gradients 4.0-6.4), and forty were low-range (Gradients 0.1-3.9).
“Lucas, that’s a lot of E-Psy in one location. If she got that many for a thesis project . . .”
“Means there were a lot more around in the Net.”
Sascha nodded. “Backs up what Faith told us—the NetMind is hiding so many others.” Snuggling against him, she continued reading . . . and found Alice Eldridge’s thoughts mirroring her own.
E-Psy have never been rare, but not much is known about them, perhaps because we study that which we are afraid of. And no one is afraid of the empaths. After having near-constant contact with them for close to twelve months, I feel it is safe to draw the following conclusion: E-Psy are some of the warmest, most welcoming people on the planet. They are quite delightful companions and are rarely seen alone.
However, it is this very warmth and generosity of spirit that makes the other aspect, or in some cases, expression, of their ability troubling to many. It is the ethical dilemma which disquiets them the most and one I will be focusing on in the second half of this book.
Sascha broke off to look at Lucas. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“Wasn’t it you who told me nothing can ever be black or white?”
She thought about it. “Shades of gray.” She nodded. “If I was utterly good, I’d never understand badness.”
“On to the next page?”
“Oh, yes.”
Riley didn’t say a word for several minutes when Mercy mentioned the Kit-Sienna thing sometime in the wee hours of the morning. “That,” he murmured at last, “could be a problem.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“We can’t do anything about it—they’re adults.” He ran his hand down her back. “But we can keep an eye on all the players.”
“Agreed.” A laugh bubbled out of her. “Look at us, in bed and talking Pack business.”
A pause. Then, “You make my heart beat, Mercy.”
Her heart jumped into his hands all over again. He was so damn calm and he made those statements as if they were facts of life. “Riley.”
Kisses on her cheek, along her jaw. “So, how many brat-lets do you want?”
“As many as it takes to drive you insane.” Her throat was husky with emotion.
“Then one redheaded little girl should do it.”
“I love you.” Beyond the mating bond, beyond the sensual draw, she quite simply loved Riley. “More every single day.” And she didn’t care how sappy that sounded.
A slow, perfect Riley smile. Just for her.
Turn the page for a preview of
Nalini Singh’s next
Psy-Changeling romance
Blaze of Memory
Available November 2009 from
Berkley Sensation!
DEATH
Death followed the Forgotten like a scourge. Relentless. Without pity.
They’d sought to find hope when they dropped from the PsyNet, wanting only to build a new life away from the cold choices of their brethren. But the Psy in the Net, their hearts iced over with the emotionless chill of Silence, refused to let the dissidents go in peace—for the Forgotten, with their hopes and dreams of a better life, were a roadblock to the Psy goal of absolute power.
Among their numbers the defectors counted a large contingent of telepaths and telekinetics, medical specialists, men and women gifted in psychometry, and so much more. These powerful individuals, these rebels, stood as the only real psychic threat to the increasingly omnipotent Psy Council.
So the Council cut them down.
One by one.
Family by family.
Father. Mother. Child.
Again and again, and again.
Until the Forgotten had to run, to hide.
In time, memories were lost, truths were concealed, and the Forgotten almost ceased to exist.
But old secrets cannot be kept forever. Now, in the final months of the year 2080, the dust is rising, light is shining through, and the Forgotten stand at a crossroads. To fight is to face death once more, perhaps the total annihilation of their kind. But to run . . . is that not also a kind of annihilation?
CHAPTER 1
She opened her eyes, and for a second, it felt as if the world shifted. Those eyes, the ones looking back at her, they were brown, but it was a brown unlike any she’d ever seen. There was gold in there. Flecks of amber. And bronze. So many colors.
“She’s awake.”
That voice, she remembered that voice.
“Shh. I’ve got you.”
She swallowed, tried to find her own voice.
A raw hiss of air. Soundless. Without form.
The man with the brown eyes slipped a hand under her head and tilted it up as he put something to her lips.
Cold.
Ice.
She parted her lips, working desperately to melt the ice chips in her mouth. Her throat grew wet but it wasn’t enough. She needed water. Again, she attempted to speak. She couldn’t even hear herself, but he did.
“Sit up.”
It was like trying to swim through the most viscous of fluids—her bones were jelly, her muscles useless.
“Hold on.” He all but lifted her into a sitting position on the bed. Her heart thudded in her chest, a fluttering trapped bird.
Beat-beat.
Beat-beat.
Beat-beat.
Warm hands on her face, turning her head. His face shimmered into view, then twisted impossibly sideways.
“I don’t think the drugs are fully out of her system.” His voice was deep, reached deep, right into her beating fluttering heart. “Have you got—Thanks.” He raised something.
“Ahem.” A pointed cough. “Didn’t you two already get that out of your system?”
“Go away, Hawke,” Riley said without looking.
The wolf alpha came up the stairs and tugged on Mercy’s hair. “Red. Pretty.”
Mercy smiled . . . and flashed up her claws. But Hawke was already on the other side of the porch, a smirk on his face.
“Now, now,” he said, “I’m your alpha—”
“Bullshit.” Mercy sheathed her claws and turned so her back was cradled against Riley’s chest as he leaned on the railing. “I’m a DarkRiver sentinel.”
The wolf alpha’s eyes gleamed. “You sure about that?”
Catching a couple of familiar scents on the breeze, she waited. Lucas and Sascha stepped out of the forest a few minutes later. Mercy took one look at them and bit back a grin, but Hawke didn’t bother to resist the urge to make a comment.
“You have a leaf stuck in your hair, cat.”
Nonchalant, Lucas reached up to pull it off. “Jealous, wolf?”
“Boys,” Sascha said. “We’re here to discuss something important.” Walking up the steps, she hugged Mercy. “I’m so glad you two are alright.” There was a change in her eyes—an impossible new depth of soul, of empathy. And her scent . . .
Mercy’s leopard all but pounced on Sascha in excitement. “Holy crap! Congratulations!”
Sascha smiled, and glanced at Lucas. “I don’t think I can quantify our excitement.” Then she turned back. “But that’s not why I’m here. It’s about the Web of Stars and the equivalent thing with the wolves.”
“You should sit,” Lucas said, and he wasn’t talking to Mercy.
Sascha stared at him. “I didn’t realize pregnancy of four weeks’ duration made me incapable of standing upright.”
“It makes me incapable of reason,” Lucas said, charm in every inch of him. “Humor me.”
Rolling her eyes, Sascha turned back to Mercy. “We should go in and grab seats—Tamsyn was here when you woke this morning and she said you’re going to be fine, but you need more bed rest. Lara gave the same orders to you.” She pointed an admonishing finger at Riley.
“Sascha darling, I don’t know what you and the cat get up to in bed, but those two aren’t resting.” Hawke padded over, and Mercy noticed that though he was wearing jeans and a white tee, he was barefoot. Crazy wolf.
Lucas cut Hawke off, opening the door to usher his mate inside. Mercy went in with Sascha and Riley followed. They heard a thump an instant later, and then some swearing, but when the two alphas walked in, there wasn’t a bruise on either of them. Sascha gave them both a narrow-eyed glance, got choirboy smiles in response.
“I’m assuming,” Mercy said, trying to control her laughter, “that something weird’s happened with the Web?”
Sascha nodded. “When you and Riley first mated, it was as if the Web and the SnowDancer network didn’t know what to do. In most cases, I think one of you would’ve been pulled out of your network—a connection across networks is theoretically impossible.”
Riley’s fingers played over her hip. Worried. Possessive. She leaned into him. “So what happened?”
“The impossible.” Sascha’s eyes sparkled. “The mating bond snapped into place between you two, without removing either of you from your respective webs.”
Riley stirred. “Are you saying you can see both the SnowDancer and DarkRiver networks now?”
“Not exactly.” Sascha blew on the surface of the glass coffee table to steam it up, then used her finger to draw the connections as she explained. “Lucas and Hawke have a blood bond because of the alliance, so the packs are already bonded on some level.”
Hawke shifted and Mercy’s cat picked up an edge in his movements. Not directed at anyone in the room but there. “Why didn’t our networks merge?” he asked.
Sascha looked from wolf alpha to leopard alpha. One was by the fireplace. One behind his mate. Opposite sides of the room. “Because neither of you will submit to the other.”
“Hell, no!” From two different throats.
“See.” Sascha threw up her hands. “I think a changeling network has to have an alpha at the core—and you can’t have two alphas. But the alpha-to-alpha blood bond has obviously had some psychic effect. I can’t see the wolf web,” she explained, “but I can sense that it’s now side by side with DarkRiver’s web on the psychic plane. The mating bond goes from Mercy and disappears, and since you two are mated . . .”
“It means it reappears on the other side.” Mercy thought about it. “If the blood bond hadn’t been there between DarkRiver and SnowDancer?”
“Honestly,” Sascha said, “I don’t know. Could be we’d have ended up with the same result. You’re both so dedicated to your packs—with changelings, such things seem to matter a great deal when it comes to the psychic plane.”
Riley straightened his unbroken leg. “You want us to choose.” A glance at Hawke, then back at Lucas.
“It’s necessary,” Hawke said, pale eyes intent.
Lucas nodded. “Your animals won’t like not having a concrete answer. Plus, we need it for the stability of the pack structure.”
Mercy turned to Riley and raised an eyebrow. “Okay?”
Nodding, he looked to Hawke. “I’ll stay SnowDancer, she’ll stay DarkRiver.”
“There won’t be a loyalty issue,” Mercy said. “My loyalty is to my mate first, then my pack.” It was how it had always been. Pack was built on the ties of family. And family began with mating. “Don’t ask us to keep secrets from each other.”
Lucas made a mock obeisance at her pointed reference. “As if we’d even try,” he said, rising to his full height. “Mates come first.”
Riley brushed his lips over Mercy’s hair in a caress so tender, her toes curled. “It would also,” he said, “make our domestic life easier if you two didn’t declare war against each other anytime soon.”
“Why would we do that when we now have the liaison team of our dreams?” Lucas was all but rubbing his hands. So, for that matter, was Hawke.
“I hate you both,” Mercy said without heat.
Riley put his arm around her. “Me, too.”
EPILOGUE
There was a celebration in the Pack Circle a week later, after Tamsyn and Lara had cleared both Mercy and Riley. It was a joint celebration—of the new life coming into the pack, and of Riley and Mercy’s mating.
Bas thumped Riley on the back. “Look after her or I’ll scalp you in your sleep.” A smile so feral that if Mercy hadn’t known better, she’d have thought her brother didn’t even know what a suit was, much less a financial market.
“Judd said one day it would come back to bite me,” Riley muttered, leaning on his crutches.
“He won’t hurt you,” Mercy teased. “If he does, I’ll use his kitten defurring tools on him.”
Bas showed her teeth. “I’m bigger than you. And I intend to cheat.”
Laughing, she pulled him down for a kiss on the cheek, then pushed him into the dancers. “Go make some woman’s night.” And there were a lot of them giving Bas the eye.
Grinning, he blew her a kiss and merged into the dancers. Grey, she saw with a surge of warmth in her heart, was flirting outrageously with Mia, both of them none the worse for their short kidnapping. Sage was operating a camera somewhere, recording this for Keely’s archival files.
“This is nice,” she said, leaning into Riley’s side as they stood with their backs against a large tree trunk. “Both our packs here.”
“And everyone behaving.” He nodded at the two groups of juveniles, one on either side of the Pack Circle. That the event was being held here was another step into trust. Changelings guarded their Pack Circles zealously. During Dorian’s mating ceremony, certain wolves had been invited down, but it had been a limited number.
But with Riley and Mercy’s mating, Lucas had decided it was time to extend the hand of friendship. Hawke had snarled, but he’d taken it. There was going to be another joint party up in the SnowDancer circle a month from now. However, the SnowDancer alpha had only made a fleeting appearance at this party—Mercy had a good inkling why.
“Hey, as long as they don’t claw into each other,” she said, putting the issue from her mind, “I don’t care how much they glare.”
“Poor Sascha,” Riley said, a laugh in his voice. “She can’t find a minute to herself.”
Mercy glanced over to see Sascha being offered food, drink, a blanket, suggestions for baby names, and God knows what else. Changelings adored children, but their fertility rate wasn’t as high as that of humans or Psy. As a result, any birth was cherished. And any pregnant woman was cosseted, petted, and generally driven out of her mind by the others in the pack—male and female.
As Mercy stood there, amused by the knowledge that Lucas would most certainly be getting a strip torn off his hide later tonight, she glimpsed Kit slipping off into the forest. That wasn’t unusual. He was a twenty-year-old male, after all—a gorgeous one. What was unusual was the girl holding his hand. Sienna Lauren.
Oh, shit.
Mercy was about to go after the two—if only to stop an interpack incident, when Riley said, “Look at her.”
She followed his gaze to find Brenna laughing up at Judd, her golden presence a stark contrast to her mate’s quiet intensity—but no matter what he looked like, there was no doubting the bond between the two. “They’re good together.”
Riley hugged her to his side. “Yeah, they are.” And for the first time, there were no shadows in his eyes when he looked at his sister. It was, Mercy thought, an excellent start. “God,” he continued, “I can’t believe I used to play horsie for her when she was a little bit.” He shook his head. “What games did you play with your brothers?”
“I considered Bas my own personal doll. I used to dress him up in sentinel gear and take him on raids.”
Riley laughed and it was such a rich, open sound that her leopard was enchanted. “Dance?” she asked.
He looked down at his cast. “If you don’t mind staying in one place.”
“If that’s pasted up next to you, sounds about perfect to me.”
Riley proved adept at balance. And fully capable and willing to hold on to his mate when the going got shaky.
Later that same night, tired but unable to sleep, Sascha went to the safe and took out the Eldridge book.
“Sascha?” Lucas called out. “Come pet me.”
“Only if you pet me, too.”
The response was quick-fast. “Deal.”
Smiling through her trepidation, she walked into the bedroom and lay back against her mate’s seated form. “Before we do that, I think it’s time we read this.” Because this wasn’t about her anymore. It was about her baby, too, a child who might be born with his or her mother’s gifts.
Lucas ran a hand through her hair and nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Taking a deep breath, she flipped to the first page of text.
Introduction
The E-Psy, or empaths, as they are called in the vernacular, are something of a peculiarity. The powerful among them can heal the most devastating of emotional wounds. Folklore says they can cure insanity. That has never been proven. What has been proven is that they can certainly help people through difficult emotional times, absorbing negative emotion in a way that defies even psychic explanation.
During the course of my research for this thesis, I was privileged to interview one hundred E-Psy in the greater New York region, of which three were cardinals, twenty were high-range (Gradients 6.5-9.9), thirty-seven were midrange (Gradients 4.0-6.4), and forty were low-range (Gradients 0.1-3.9).
“Lucas, that’s a lot of E-Psy in one location. If she got that many for a thesis project . . .”
“Means there were a lot more around in the Net.”
Sascha nodded. “Backs up what Faith told us—the NetMind is hiding so many others.” Snuggling against him, she continued reading . . . and found Alice Eldridge’s thoughts mirroring her own.
E-Psy have never been rare, but not much is known about them, perhaps because we study that which we are afraid of. And no one is afraid of the empaths. After having near-constant contact with them for close to twelve months, I feel it is safe to draw the following conclusion: E-Psy are some of the warmest, most welcoming people on the planet. They are quite delightful companions and are rarely seen alone.
However, it is this very warmth and generosity of spirit that makes the other aspect, or in some cases, expression, of their ability troubling to many. It is the ethical dilemma which disquiets them the most and one I will be focusing on in the second half of this book.
Sascha broke off to look at Lucas. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“Wasn’t it you who told me nothing can ever be black or white?”
She thought about it. “Shades of gray.” She nodded. “If I was utterly good, I’d never understand badness.”
“On to the next page?”
“Oh, yes.”
Riley didn’t say a word for several minutes when Mercy mentioned the Kit-Sienna thing sometime in the wee hours of the morning. “That,” he murmured at last, “could be a problem.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“We can’t do anything about it—they’re adults.” He ran his hand down her back. “But we can keep an eye on all the players.”
“Agreed.” A laugh bubbled out of her. “Look at us, in bed and talking Pack business.”
A pause. Then, “You make my heart beat, Mercy.”
Her heart jumped into his hands all over again. He was so damn calm and he made those statements as if they were facts of life. “Riley.”
Kisses on her cheek, along her jaw. “So, how many brat-lets do you want?”
“As many as it takes to drive you insane.” Her throat was husky with emotion.
“Then one redheaded little girl should do it.”
“I love you.” Beyond the mating bond, beyond the sensual draw, she quite simply loved Riley. “More every single day.” And she didn’t care how sappy that sounded.
A slow, perfect Riley smile. Just for her.
Turn the page for a preview of
Nalini Singh’s next
Psy-Changeling romance
Blaze of Memory
Available November 2009 from
Berkley Sensation!
DEATH
Death followed the Forgotten like a scourge. Relentless. Without pity.
They’d sought to find hope when they dropped from the PsyNet, wanting only to build a new life away from the cold choices of their brethren. But the Psy in the Net, their hearts iced over with the emotionless chill of Silence, refused to let the dissidents go in peace—for the Forgotten, with their hopes and dreams of a better life, were a roadblock to the Psy goal of absolute power.
Among their numbers the defectors counted a large contingent of telepaths and telekinetics, medical specialists, men and women gifted in psychometry, and so much more. These powerful individuals, these rebels, stood as the only real psychic threat to the increasingly omnipotent Psy Council.
So the Council cut them down.
One by one.
Family by family.
Father. Mother. Child.
Again and again, and again.
Until the Forgotten had to run, to hide.
In time, memories were lost, truths were concealed, and the Forgotten almost ceased to exist.
But old secrets cannot be kept forever. Now, in the final months of the year 2080, the dust is rising, light is shining through, and the Forgotten stand at a crossroads. To fight is to face death once more, perhaps the total annihilation of their kind. But to run . . . is that not also a kind of annihilation?
CHAPTER 1
She opened her eyes, and for a second, it felt as if the world shifted. Those eyes, the ones looking back at her, they were brown, but it was a brown unlike any she’d ever seen. There was gold in there. Flecks of amber. And bronze. So many colors.
“She’s awake.”
That voice, she remembered that voice.
“Shh. I’ve got you.”
She swallowed, tried to find her own voice.
A raw hiss of air. Soundless. Without form.
The man with the brown eyes slipped a hand under her head and tilted it up as he put something to her lips.
Cold.
Ice.
She parted her lips, working desperately to melt the ice chips in her mouth. Her throat grew wet but it wasn’t enough. She needed water. Again, she attempted to speak. She couldn’t even hear herself, but he did.
“Sit up.”
It was like trying to swim through the most viscous of fluids—her bones were jelly, her muscles useless.
“Hold on.” He all but lifted her into a sitting position on the bed. Her heart thudded in her chest, a fluttering trapped bird.
Beat-beat.
Beat-beat.
Beat-beat.
Warm hands on her face, turning her head. His face shimmered into view, then twisted impossibly sideways.
“I don’t think the drugs are fully out of her system.” His voice was deep, reached deep, right into her beating fluttering heart. “Have you got—Thanks.” He raised something.
