Psy & Changelings 01 - Slave to Sensation

point-blank.
    â€œI’m Psy, Lucas.”
    â€œDamn you.” He grabbed her arm. She froze. “What the hell have you done?”
    Her lips compressed to a fine white line. “I went to tell my mother everything.”
    The flames of betrayal spread like acid in his blood. “You bitch.” He let go of her arm, disgusted.
    â€œBut I didn’t.” The words were so quiet he almost didn’t hear them.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI couldn’t tell her.” Turning from him, she stared out at the trees that edged the lot. “Why not, Lucas? I’m Psy. My loyalty is theirs but I couldn’t speak.”
    Relief kicked him so hard it was almost pain. “What have they done to earn your loyalty?” Mixed in with the relief was anger. Anger that she should’ve even considered betraying him.
    â€œWhat have you?” She glanced over her shoulder.
    â€œI trusted you.” And he wasn’t a man who trusted easily. “I figure that evens us out.”
    She averted her gaze. “I’m going to search the PsyNet for information. I’ll give you what I have.” There was something heartbreakingly lonely in the perfect tones of her voice, something that made him think she’d splinter into a thousand pieces if he spoke the wrong words.
    â€œSascha.” He went to touch her shoulder, unable, in spite of his anger, to watch her suffer that way. It didn’t occur to him to consider why it was so important that she not hurt. It just was.
    â€œDon’t.” Moving away, she whispered, “I need to be something, even if that means I’m part of a race of killers. If I’m not Psy then what am I?”
    Before he could respond, Zara called out his name. Giving her a wave, he said, “Who said the Psy can’t be anything else?”
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    Sascha didn’t speak again until Lucas was on the other side of the site. “Nature.” The ragged whisper revealed the best-kept secret of their race. Like the rest of the Psy, she was dependent on the PsyNet for every breath she took. Cut off from it for much longer than a minute or two, she’d die a miserable death. And if her flaw were discovered, she’d be sentenced to living death through rehabilitation. Her only hope of survival was to become more Psy than the Psy, to become . . . unbreakable.
    This morning she’d gone to Nikita with the full intention of giving her everything she had. Filled with confusion and a kind of blind anger at a fate that had shown her glory and then told her she couldn’t have it, she’d convinced herself that if she betrayed DarkRiver, she’d redeem herself in Nikita’s eyes, at last be the daughter her mother had always wanted.
    Yet when she’d opened her mouth to speak, all that had come out had been a string of lies. Every single one of them had been told to protect the changelings, to protect Lucas. They’d come from a hidden part of her she’d never before seen, a bright, hard knot of fierce loyalty and utter determination. That part wouldn’t let her do anything to hurt the panther who’d kissed her and smashed the glass walls of her existence into a million slivers.
    It was then she’d realized that, for the first time in her life, she wanted something else even more than she wanted to belong. If only for a moment, if only for a second, she wanted to be loved.
    What a futile, impossible dream for a Psy.
    She would never have it, but she could at least help this race which knew how to love. Perhaps that would be enough to feed the need in her soul. Perhaps.
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    Lucas allowed Sascha to keep her distance as they finished the measurements, but he had no intention of letting her withdraw. He’d never been very good at following orders.
    â€œDon’t,” she’d said when he’d tried to touch her. Not because she was one of the untouchable Psy but because she was something more—a woman who felt. If he hadn’t been convinced of that after their kiss, he would’ve been left in no doubt after her confession. He hadn’t forgiven her for even contemplating betrayal, but that didn’t mean he was going to let her go.
    He couldn’t .
    She was his. The idea of watching her walk away was simply not tolerable. He might’ve been blinkered to the facts before now, but the fire of his rage at the thought of her selling him out had ripped the blinkers from