Psy & Changelings 05 - Hostage to Pleasure

retorted. “Perhaps in California, yes, but elsewhere? They’re too caught up in their petty animal concerns.”
    “But are you willing to chance a war on US soil for the sake of a single scientist?” Kaleb asked, backing Nikita. “If we do come down hard and even a small percentage of the populace decides to turn to the changelings, we’ll have the beginnings of an untenable rupture in the Net.” He would not allow war to shatter that which would one day be his.
    “Might I suggest a two-step approach,” Anthony said into the silence. “As a first step, we attempt to recapture her, with the aim of forcing her to recant. We’re all capable of overcoming her psychic defenses—she’s an M-Psy, with no offensive abilities.”
    “An excellent point,” Shoshanna accepted. “And step two?”
    “We take her out of the equation.”
    “It’s a sound plan,” Tatiana said. “It won’t only silence her, it’ll have the dual effect of demoralizing the rebels—they’ll see that even if they manage to get their voices heard, it means nothing.”
    “Agreed.” It was a unanimous decision.
     
Kaleb was about to move back to his study when he caught the edge of a different newscast burning up the Net. He made immediate telepathic contact. Ming, I assume you’re behind this?
    It’s a message. Ashaya Aleine is not a stupid woman. She’ll understand.

CHAPTER 17
    I’ve just seen a broadcast that could change everything. We need to meet. 0800 hours. Tell the others.
     
—Handwritten note slipped under an apartment door in the sunken city of Venice
     
 
Dorian had trapped her against the balcony railing and Amara was trying to claw into her very psyche. Ashaya snapped, and, mind screaming at the sense of entrapment, shoved at Dorian’s chest. “Get away from me.” She snatched back her hands as the heat and power of him soaked through her palms.
    He smiled and it wasn’t pleasant. “Scared?”
    “I’m Psy.” Reminding herself of that helped block Amara. She was safe. This time. “I feel nothing.” It was the same lie she’d told herself her entire adult life, only allowing the truth to surface in the deepest depths of night, when she was sure Amara slept. To leash her sister, and survive in the Net, she’d become the creature everyone expected her to be. The unrelenting charade had taken a toll, but she refused to crack. Not yet. Not while Keenan remained at risk.
    “My conditioning may have malfunctioned once or twice,” she said, since he’d caught her lapses, “but it’s now repaired. I’m fully enmeshed in Silence.”
    “Liar. You’re hiding behind the conditioning like a scared child.”
    She held her ground. “Believe that if you want. It doesn’t change the truth.”
    He snorted. “You know what, Ashaya, I thought you had a heart of fucking ice the first time I met you”—he leaned so close, his breath whispered across the curls that had escaped the knot at the back of her head—“but I never took you for a coward.”
    For a moment, claustrophobia retreated under the thundering force of a clean, bright wave that fired energy through her body. It undermined every one of her efforts to keep Amara at bay, but for that single instant, she didn’t care. “What right do you have to call me anything? You, with your prejudice and your self-pity.”
    Golden skin pulled taut over his cheekbones. “Careful, sugar. I’m not real nice when I’m pissed.”
    “How would I know the difference? You’ve been unpleasant to me every chance you get. If that’s the result of a lifetime of emotion,” she said, deliberately coating each word with frost, “then I prefer Silence.”
    The door to the balcony swung open, hitting Dorian on the shoulder. He didn’t turn, but Ashaya glanced over—to meet the vivid green eyes of a man with savage clawlike markings on one side of his face. He raised an eyebrow. “Takes most people a few days at least to get Dorian that close to a killing frame of mind. You have talent, Ms. Aleine.”
    Dorian growled low in his throat, warning Lucas to back off. This was between him and Ashaya. “What the hell are you doing here?” He took his hands off the railing on either side of Ashaya and shifted so the door could be pushed fully open.
    His alpha leaned against the wall opposite the door, looking like a fucking CEO with his dark gray suit and crisp white shirt. And a tie. Jesus H. Christ. “I just had some information come through,” Lucas said,