Caressed by Ice p-3

  Caressed by Ice

  ( Psy-Changelings - 3 )

  Nalini Singh

  Explore new heights of sensuality in this return to the world of the Psy—where two people who know evil intimately must unlock the good within their icy hearts…

  As an Arrow, an elite soldier in the Psy Council ranks, Judd Lauren was forced to do terrible things in the name of his people. Now a defector, his dark abilities have made him the most deadly of assassins—cold, pitiless, unfeeling. Until he meets Brenna…

  Brenna Shane Kincaid was an innocent before she was abducted—and had her mind violated—by a serial killer. Her sense of evil runs so deep, she fears she could become a killer herself. Then the first dead body is found, victim of a familiar madness. Judd is her only hope, yet her sensual changeling side rebels against the inhuman chill of his personality, even as desire explodes between them. Shocking and raw, their passion is a danger that threatens not only their hearts, but their very lives…

  Caressed By Ice

  (The third book in the Psy-Changelings series)

  Nalini Singh

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing is a solitary business but it’s not a lonely one, especially not when you’re surrounded by as many wonderful people as I am.

  At home: My family, the ones who have to put up with my single-minded focus when I’m working and who do it in such style. Thanks for not making me cook or clean…or vacuum…or do the laundry…I love you guys!

  On a California beach sipping a margarita (well, she might be if she didn’t have obsessive-compulsive clients): Nephele Tempest, my agent and the first person to tell me she loved my Psy/Changeling world. Thanks for being such a great advocate for my work. If we ever manage to meet in person, the margaritas are on me!

  At my publisher: Cindy Hwang, my brilliant editor and someone who gives me the freedom to follow my imagination wherever it takes me; Leis Pederson, superefficient editorial assistant (and someone who is probably sick of hearing my voice after those marathon editing session over the phone!); and the Sensational behind-the-scenes team. A huge thank-you for everything you’ve done since the very first book in the Psy/Changeling series.

  In unknown locations: All the booksellers, readers, reviewers, librarians, and bloggers who have supported my books to date. If I tried to list you all, I’d run out of room, which, I think, is an amazing, humbling thing. Thank you.

  Outside the door demanding I come out or they’re going to drag me out: My friends, who put up with my hermitlike tendencies without crossing me off their invitation lists. You know who you are. I feel blessed to have you in my life.

  And inside my head: My characters, who let me tell their stories. Thank you.

  ARROWS

  Mercury was a cult. That was what everyone said at the start. The Psy laughed at Catherine and Arif Adelaja’s claims of being able to free their people from insanity and murderous fury.

  To be Psy was to court the edges of madness.

  It was accepted. It was accepted.

  There was no cure.

  But then Mercury produced two graduates of their early version of the Silence Protocol—the Adelajas’ own twin sons. Tendaji and Naeem Adelaja were as cool as ice, their emotions holding nothing of anger or madness…for a while. The experiment eventually failed. The dark side of emotion rushed back into the Adelaja twins in an avalanche, and, sixteen years after being heralded as the harbingers of a new future, they committed suicide. Tendaji, the strong one, killed Naeem then himself. There was no doubt that it had been a mutual decision.

  They left a note.

  We are an abomination, a plague that will kill our people from within. Silence must never take root, must never infiltrate the PsyNet. Forgive us.

  Their words were never heard, their terror never understood. Found by acolytes of Mercury, they were buried in a hidden grave, their deaths termed an accident. By then, Mercury had begun training a second generation, improving their technique, refining the tools with which to excise unwanted emotion from the heart and madness from the soul. The most important change was the quietest—this time, they had the cautious support of the leaders of their people, the Psy Council.

  But they also needed support of another kind, the kind that would catch any other lapses and mistakes before they made it to the public domain…and to the ears of the still-skeptical Council. If the Councilors had found out about the continuing deaths, they would have pulled back. And the Adelajas could not bear the thought of their vision being consigned to the trash heap of history. Because, though shattered by the deaths of their twin sons, Catherine and Arif never lost faith in Silence. Neither did their eldest son—Zaid.

  Zaid was a cardinal telepath with a furious ability in mental combat. He, too, had trained under Silence, but as a young adult, not a child. Still, he believed. The Protocol had given him peace from the demons of his mind and he wanted to spread that gift of peace, to quiet the torment of his people. So he began cleaning up the mistakes, wiping away those who broke under the experimental versions of Silence, burying their lives as efficiently as he buried their bodies.

  Catherine called him her Martial Arrow.

  Soon, Zaid recruited others like him. Others who believed. They were loners, unknown shadows, darker than the darkness, men and women whose sole aim was to eliminate anything that might threaten the successful realization of Catherine and Arif’s lifelong dream.

  Time passed. Years. Decades. Zaid Adelaja was washed from this Earth, but the torch of the Arrows continued to be handed from one acolyte to the next…until there was no more Mercury and the long-dead Adelajas were being hailed as visionaries.

  The Silence Protocol was implemented in the year 1979.

  The Psy Council was unanimous in its vote, the masses divided, but the majority in favor. Their people were killing each other and themselves with rage and inhumanity unseen in any of the other races. Silence seemed their only hope, their only solution for a lasting peace. But would they have taken that step had they read Tendaji and Naeem’s last words? There is no one left who can answer that question.

  As no one can answer why a protocol meant to bring peace also brought with it the coldest, most dangerous kind of violence—rumors of the Arrow Squad spawned on the heels of the implementation process, fed by the fear of minds going under Silence. It was said that those who protested too hard had a habit of simply disappearing.

  Now, in the final months of the year 2079, the Arrows are a myth, a legend, their existence or nonexistence debated endlessly in the PsyNet. To the naysayers, the post-Silence Psy Council is a perfect creation, one that would never do anything as underhanded as create a secret squad to take care of its enemies.

  But others know differently.

  Others have seen the dark streaks of highly martial minds shooting through the Net, felt the cold chill of their psychic blades. But of course, these others cannot speak. Those who come into contact with the Arrow Squad rarely live to tell the tale.

  The Arrows themselves do not heed the rumors, do not consider their secret army a death squad. No, they have remained true to their founding father. Their only loyalty is to the Silence Protocol and they are dedicated to its continuance.

  Executions are sometimes unavoidable.

  CHAPTER 1

  A fist crashed into Judd’s cheekbone. Focused on eliminating his opponent from the field, he barely noticed the impact, his own fist already swinging out. Tai tried to evade the blow at the last second but it was too late—the young wolf’s jaw slammed together with a thick sound that spoke of damage on the inside.

  But he wasn’t down.

  Baring teeth stained red from a cut on his top lip, he rushed at Judd, clearly aiming to use his heavier build a
s a battering ram to smash his adversary into the hard stone wall. Instead it was Tai who ended up with his back slammed against the stone, his mouth falling open as air punched out of his lungs in an uncontrollable blast.

  Judd gripped the other male by the throat. “Killing you would mean nothing to me,” he said, tightening his hold until Tai had to be having trouble breathing. “Would you like to die?” His tone was calm, his breathing modulated. It was a state of being that had nothing to do with feeling, because unlike the changeling across from him, Judd Lauren did not feel.

  Tai’s lips shaped into a curse, but all that materialized was an incomprehensible wheezing sound. To a casual observer it would have seemed that Judd had gained the advantage, but he didn’t make the mistake of lowering his guard. So long as Tai hadn’t conceded defeat, he remained dangerous. The other male proved that a second later by using the changeling ability to semishift—slicing up hands turned to claws.

  Those sharp talons cut through leather-synth and flesh without effort, but Judd didn’t give the boy a chance to cause him any real injury. Pressing down on a very specific pressure point in Tai’s neck, he slammed his erstwhile opponent into unconsciousness. Only when the changeling was completely out did he release his hold. Tai slumped down into a seated position, head hanging over his chest.

  “You’re not supposed to use Psy powers,” a husky female voice said from the doorway.

  He had no need to turn to identify her but did so anyway. Extraordinary brown eyes in a fine-boned face topped by a choppily cut cap of blonde hair. Those eyes had been normal and that hair hadn’t been short before Brenna had been abducted. By a killer. By a Psy.

  “I don’t need to use my abilities to deal with little boys.”

  Brenna walked to stand beside him, her head just reaching his breastbone. He had never realized how small she was until he’d seen her after the rescue. Lying in that bed, scarcely breathing, her energy had been contracted into a ball so tight, he hadn’t been sure she was still alive. But her size meant nothing. Brenna Shane Kincaid, he had learned, had a will of pure, undiluted iron.

  “That’s the fourth time this week you’ve been in a fight.” Her hand rose and he had to stop himself from jerking away. Touch was a changeling thing—the wolves indulged in it constantly and without thought. For a Psy it was an alien concept, something that could ultimately foster a dangerous loss of control. But Brenna had been broken by an evil spawned of his own race. If she needed touch, so be it.

  Faint imprints of heat on his cheek. “You’ll have a bruise. Come on, let me put something on it.”

  “Why aren’t you with Sascha?” Another renegade Psy, but a healer not a killer. Judd was the one who had blood on his hands. “I thought you had a session with her at eight p.m.” It was now five past the hour.

  Those stroking fingers slid to linger on his jaw before dropping off. Her lashes lifted. And revealed the change that had taken hold five days after her rescue. Eyes that had once been dark brown were now a mix he’d never seen on any sentient being—human, changeling, or Psy. Brenna’s pupils were pure black, but surrounding those dots of night were bursts of arctic blue, vivid and spiking. They jagged out into the dark brown of the iris, giving her eyes a shattered look.

  “It’s over,” she said.

  “What is?” He heard Tai moan but ignored it. The boy was no threat—the only reason Judd had allowed him to land any of his punches was because he understood the way wolf society worked. Being beaten in a fight was bad, but not as bad as being beaten without putting up a solid resistance.

  Tai’s feelings made no difference to Judd. He had no intention of assimilating into the changeling world. But his niece and nephew, Marlee and Toby, also had to survive in the network of underground tunnels that was the SnowDancer den, and his enemies might become theirs. So he hadn’t humiliated the boy by ending the fight before it began.

  “Is he going to be alright?” Brenna asked, when Tai moaned a second time.

  “Give him a minute or two.”

  Glancing back at him, she sucked in a breath. “You’re bleeding!”

  He stepped away before she could touch his shredded forearms. “It’s nothing serious.” And it wasn’t. As a child he had been subjected to the most excruciating pain and then been taught to block it. A good Psy felt nothing. A good Arrow felt even less.

  It made it so much easier to kill people.

  “Tai went clawed.” Brenna’s face was furious as she glared down at the male slumped against the wall. “Wait till Hawke hears—”

  “He won’t hear. Because you won’t tell him.” Judd didn’t need protecting. If Hawke had known what Judd truly was, what he had done, what he had become, the SnowDancer alpha would have taken him out at their first meeting. “Explain your comment about Sascha.”

  Brenna scowled but didn’t press him about the scratches on his arm. “No more healing sessions. I’m done.”

  He knew how badly she’d been brutalized. “You have to continue.”

  “No.” A short, sharp, and very final word. “I don’t want anyone in my head again. Ever. Sascha can’t get in anyway.”

  “That makes no sense.” Sascha had the rare gift of being able to speak as easily to changeling minds as to Psy. “You don’t have the capacity to block her.”

  “I do now—something’s changed.”

  Tai coughed to full wakefulness and they both turned to watch him as he used the wall to drag himself upright. Blinking several times after getting vertical, he lifted a hand to his cheek. “Christ, my face feels like a truck ran into it.”

  Brenna’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”

  “I—”

  “Save it. Why did you come after Judd?”

  “Brenna, this is none of your concern.” Judd could feel blood drying on his skin, the cells already clotting. “Tai and I have come to an understanding.” He looked the other male in the eye.

  Tai’s jaw set, but he nodded. “We’re square.”

  And their relative status in the pack’s hierarchy had been clarified beyond any shadow of a doubt—if Judd’s rank hadn’t already been higher, he’d now be dominant to the wolf.

  Shoving a hand through his hair, Tai turned to Brenna. “Can I talk to you about—”

  “No.” She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “I don’t want to go with you to your college dance. You’re too young and too idiotic.”

  Tai swallowed. “How did you know what I was going to say?”

  “Maybe I’m Psy.” A dark answer. “That’s the rumor going around, isn’t it?”

  Streaks of red appeared on Tai’s cheekbones. “I told them they were talking shit.”

  This was the first that Judd had heard of the clearly malicious attempt to cause Brenna emotional pain and it was the last thing he would have predicted. The wolves might make vicious enemies, but they were also fiercely protective of their own and had closed ranks around Brenna as soon as she’d been rescued.

  He looked at Tai. “I think you should go.”

  The young wolf didn’t argue, sliding past them as quickly as his legs would carry him.

  “Do you know what makes it worse?” Brenna’s question shifted his attention from the boy’s retreating footsteps.

  “What?”

  “It’s true.” She turned the full power of that shattered blue-brown gaze on him. “I’m different. I see things with these damn eyes he gave me. Terrible things.”

  “They’re simply echoes of what happened to you.” A powerful sociopath had ripped open her mind, raped her on the most intimate of levels. That the experience had left her with psychic scars was unsurprising.

  “That’s what Sascha said. But the deaths I see—”

  A scream ripped the moment into two.

  They were both running before it ended. A hundred feet down a second tunnel, they were joined by Indigo and a couple of others. As they turned a corner, Andrew came tearing around it and clamped his hand on Bre
nna’s upper arm, jerking his sister to a halt and raising his free hand at the same time. Everyone stopped.

  “Indigo—there’s a body.” Andrew snapped out the words like bullets. “Northeast tunnel number six, alcove forty.”

  Brenna wrenched out of her brother’s hold the second he finished and took off without warning. Having caught the unhidden blaze of her anger before she’d quickly masked it, Judd was the first to move after her. Indigo and a furious Andrew followed at his back. Most Psy would have been overtaken by now, but he was different, a difference that had predestined his life in the PsyNet.

  Brenna was a streak in front of him, moving with impressive speed for someone who had been confined to a bed only months ago. She’d almost reached the number six tunnel when he caught up. “Stop,” he ordered, his breathing not as ragged as it should have been. “You don’t need to see this.”

  “Yes, I do,” she said on a gasping breath.

  Putting on a burst of speed, Andrew grabbed her from the back, linking his arms around her waist to lift her off her feet. “Bren, calm down.”

  Indigo raced past, a flash of long legs, dark hair streaming behind her.

  In Andrew’s grip, Brenna began to twist furiously enough to cause herself harm. Judd couldn’t allow that. “She’ll calm down if you set her free.”

  Brenna jerked to a stop, chest heaving and eyes surprised. Andrew wasn’t so silent. “I’ll take care of my sister, Psy.” The last word was a curse.

  “What, by locking me up?” Brenna asked in a razor-sharp tone. “I’m never going to be put in a box again, Drew, and I swear if you try, I’ll claw my hands bloody getting out.” It was a mercilessly graphic image, especially for anyone who had seen the condition she’d been in after they had first found her.

  Behind her, Andrew paled, but his jaw remained set. “This is what’s best for you.”