Psy & Changelings 06 - Branded by Fire

written, it’s not easy to put down at bedtime; it kept me reading well into the night.” —Fresh Fiction
     
    “A fresh, intriguing, and thought-provoking mythology and a very appealing cast of characters . . . I look forward to the next installment from this talented writer.” —BookLoons
     
    “A must even for those uninitiated in the paranormal genre. The story ends much too quickly, and the author’s magical writing conjures up sensual images and intense emotions that linger long after the last word is read.” —Romantic Times

Berkley Sensation Titles by Nalini Singh
    Psy-Changeling Series
    SLAVE TO SENSATION
VISIONS OF HEAT
CARESSED BY ICE
MINE TO POSSESS
HOSTAGE TO PLEASURE
BRANDED BY FIRE
     
    Guild Hunter Series
    ANGELS’ BLOOD
ANGELS’ PAWN
(A Berkley Sensation eSpecial)
     
     
     
    Anthologies
     
    AN ENCHANTED SEASON
(with Maggie Shayne, Erin McCarthy, and Jean Johnson)
THE MAGICAL CHRISTMAS CAT
(with Lora Leigh, Erin McCarthy, and Linda Winstead Jones)



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    BRANDED BY FIRE
     
    A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author
     
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Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / July 2009
     
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    eISBN : 978-1-101-08206-5
     
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To my own personal brain trust—you know who you are. :)

CHANGE
    Change can kill.
    Devastate.
    Destroy.
    But it can also save. The Psy know this better than any other race on the planet. With the imposition of Silence, the protocol that wiped their emotions even as it saved their minds, this race of telepaths and telekinetics, foreseers and healers, a race both gifted and cursed, clawed its way back from the edge of the abyss.
    As they stood looking down into the horror they had escaped, they shivered and turned away.
    Years passed. And when the Psy Council declared that their once catastrophic rate of insanity had lowered to negligible levels, that there was no longer any violence in the PsyNet, they knew they’d made the right decision. The only decision.
    Love. Happiness. Joy. What did any of that matter when the flip side was murderous rage, blood-soaked anarchy? The Psy preferred to leave such things to the “animal” races—and while the humans and changelings buried themselves in the viciousness of emotion, the Psy evolved into the most powerful beings on the planet.
    Cold. Pitiless. Silent.
    But now, in the year