Psy & Changelings 01 - Slave to Sensation

started up the car, he said, “Take a left on the street.”
    â€œWhere are we going?”
    â€œSomewhere safe.”
    He directed her across the Bay Bridge and through Oak-land. They hit the trailing edges of the wilderness that pressed against Stockton and kept going. The trees grew ever more dense, telling her that she’d entered some part of the massive Yosemite forests. Even with the considerable speed of her car, she’d been driving almost two hours when he told her to stop.
    â€œAre you sure you want me to stop here?” Nothing but trees met the eye.
    â€œYes.” He got out.
    Having no other choice, she followed. “We’re going to talk here? We might as well sit in the car.”
    â€œScared?” It was a whisper in her ear.
    His speed was frightening. He’d moved around the back of the car and to her in the space of a sentence. “Hardly. I’m Psy, remember? I’m simply confused by the logic of this.”
    â€œMaybe I’ve brought you here to do dastardly deeds.” His hand rested on the curve of her hip.
    â€œIf you’d wanted to hurt me, you could’ve easily done so in the parking lot.” She wondered whether or not to make an issue over the hand on her hip. What would a normal Psy do? Would a normal Psy ever get herself in such a position in the first place? She didn’t know!
    That hand slid up until it lay against the curve of her waist. “Stop.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œSuch behavior isn’t acceptable.” She coated each word with deliberate calm—it was the only way she could fight what he was doing to her. Unused to sensation, she was close to becoming a slave to it, the fantasies she’d indulged in during sleep leeching into her waking life.
    He moved away at once. “You sound just like a Psy.”
    â€œWhat else do you expect me to sound like?”
    Looking into Sascha’s night-sky eyes, eerie in the darkness, Lucas found himself saying, “More. I expect you to be more.” Before she could respond, he began walking. “Follow me.”
    Already, he was debating the wisdom of his decision in bringing her to his lair. It was a stupid thing to do by any standard. Yet, he hadn’t been able to stop himself, driven by instincts far older than human thought. The panther wanted her in its territory.
    When he’d found her in the lot, where he’d been drawn by impulses he barely understood, he’d thought that he was starting to see the real Sascha at last. Except that if he were to believe the way she was acting, the real Sascha existed nowhere but in his mind.
    Had he been wrong about her right from the outset?
    He took her through the hidden pathway that exited beneath his lair—most people never watched for danger from above. “How high can you jump?”
    She glanced up. “An aerie.”
    â€œI’m a leopard. I climb.” Even in human form, he could jump higher and farther, climb faster than any human and most other changelings. It was part of what made him alpha, what made him Hunter-born.
    â€œYour home is very far from your business premises.”
    â€œI have a city apartment I use when I’m pressed for time. Let’s go.”
    â€œIs there any other way up?” She was looking at the smooth trunk of the huge tree that supported his home among its branches. Like the other mostly coniferous trees in the forest, it shot up straight as a ruler. But this particular species had an impressive canopy that stretched in every direction, blocking out the starlit night.
    â€œAfraid not. You’ll have to hold on.” He gave her his back.
    After a minute’s silence, he felt two tentative hands on his shoulders and almost laughed in relief. Her actions spoke far louder than her frosty tones—his poor kitten was scared and dealing with it the only way she knew how.
    He’d been around her race a lot more than she knew, though, for the most part, they’d been low-level Psy the Council would never bother with. Still, they’d all had one thing in common—a complete and utter lack of reaction to most stimuli.
    In contrast, he’d caught Sascha looking up at the night sky as if it held a thousand dreams. He’d watched her playing with cubs with what most would term affection. And he’d felt her touch him as if he disturbed her on the most intimate of levels.
    â€œHarder, darling,” he drawled, the