Psy & Changelings 05 - Hostage to Pleasure

the lock on the door and began to pull her through.
    She had just enough time to see the exposed earth walls, the wooden beams holding up the ceiling, the darkness, before her mind revolted. “No! Dorian, no! Please! ” She dragged her feet, but he was too strong and his momentum threatened to carry them through the door and into the pitch-black of the tunnel.

CHAPTER 25
    The second he heard Ashaya scream, Dorian came to a complete stop. She slammed into his chest as he turned instinctively to catch her. The air punched out of him but he was more worried about the damage to her. Psy bones were far weaker than changeling or even human. It was the trade-off nature had apparently made for their powerful minds.
    He held her to him as he ran his hands over her back, silently calling himself every name in the book. “Jesus, I’m sorry.” He couldn’t get the absolute terror in that begging “please” out of his mind. He’d made this proud, strong woman beg, and he hated himself for it. “Are you all right?”
    He thought she might’ve nodded against his chest but didn’t take any chances, running his hands down her arms to check for injury. “Shaya?”
    “I’m fine.” She pushed away from him and though she tried to appear unfazed, there was a broken wildness in her eyes that he couldn’t bear to see.
    “Hold on.” He grabbed her hand again, felt her stiffen. And realized he’d lost her nascent trust through his own idiocy. “I’m taking you back upstairs,” he said, tugging her up the same flight he’d pulled her down only seconds ago.
    Neither of them spoke until they arrived back in the gloomy belly of the warehouse. It was piled up with boxes, but light came in through several narrow windows near the roof. He heard Ashaya release her breath in a rush. “Thank you.”
    The sincerity of it made his gut clench. “Don’t thank me.” He reached for his cell phone. “I almost made your mind snap.”
    Ashaya pulled at his hand. Tightening his hold on her, he turned. “Yes?”
    “I’m not that brittle.” Her face was smooth, showing no sign of her earlier panic. “I had to learn how to keep it together. I was underground in that lab for a long time.”
    He felt a layer of deepest respect coat his understanding of this woman who’d gotten to him from day one. “How did you do it?”
    “When something has to be borne, there’s no choice.” She looked to him. “You know that better than anyone.”
    He gave a slight nod. His latency—what it had cost him, what it demanded from him—was something he rarely discussed. He was who he was and people had learned to accept that. But Ashaya had a right to an answer after he’d scared her that badly. “And you had a son to protect.”
    Her face softened in a way that was everything female, speaking to a part of him that had nothing to do with lust and everything to do with tenderness. “Yes. The worst mistake the Council made was taking him from me.” She held out her free hand. “Give me the letter.”
    He handed it over, amazed but unsurprised by her strength. “What does it say?”
    “ ‘Hide and seek, hide and seek. Boo! I seeked you!’ ” Ashaya glanced up. “It’s what I thought—she has a lock on me, but she hasn’t told the searchers the precise location.”
    Nodding, Dorian punched in a familiar code on his cell. “I need an extraction. Quiet.” He gave the details of their location.
    “The Rats’ tunnel—” Clay began.
    “Not an option.”
    The other sentinel didn’t argue. “I’m sending one of the vans to pick you up. It’ll be”—a pause—“an old ice-cream one.”
    “Thanks.”
    “You can swap to a normal vehicle once you’re out of the immediate danger zone—it’s the Council’s spies, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah. You heard anything?”
    “They’re sniffing, but they don’t have the scent. We know where they are and we’re letting them know that, too. Five minutes.” Clay hung up.
    Dorian told Ashaya what was happening, then picked up the thread of their earlier conversation. “Now, tell me about your sister and why she can track you when the others can’t.”
    “It’s complicated.” She pulled at her hand. “Please, let go. The more physical contact I have with you, the harder it becomes to maintain what shields I have left. One slip and the Council won’t have any need to physically hunt me—they’ll find and cage my mind.”
    Releasing her hurt. The leopard clawed at the inside of his