The soft brush of lips against his cheek. "Pain I can take."

He didn't question her, didn't doubt her. Brenna had earned his respect the day she'd come out sane from that bloody room where she'd been held. "No matter what happens," he told her, "don't let anyone else interfere."

"But - "

"No one."

"Fine, but not if it gets to the point where you might die."

"Accepted." Arrowing his senses to a fine laser point, he sliced the shields in half.

For a moment, there was nothing. True silence. Pure calm.

Then agony streaked through every nerve ending, every synapse, every sense he possessed. He heard Brenna scream and the protective core of him refused to allow that. He threw up an instinctive block against a connection that shouldn't have existed and had the satisfaction of hearing her shudder in relief. A second later, the pain blanked everything from his mind.

Chapter 46

Shoshanna Scott met her husband, Henry, in their living quarters after their operations had been completed. Ashaya Aleine's closest aide, the one who had implanted them in the first place, had done the retraction. It had taken an hour each, the procedures complicated by the way the implants had integrated into their neural cells.

"How do you feel?"

"A slight headache and some weakness in my limbs but that's supposed to pass." Henry answered her question in the spirit in which it had been asked. Concentrating on the physical. They were husband and wife for propaganda purposes only - the humans and changelings seemed to like the idea of a couple in the Council.

"I'm much the same." She took a seat beside him. "It's to our advantage that we were implanted after the others." It had given them plenty of warning of the experimental implants' catastrophic failure. "It's a pity the implants were so degraded they won't be able to reverse engineer them."

"Perhaps we should rethink the idea of storing backup files on the Net."

"No." Shoshanna agreed with the other Councilors on this, shortsighted though many of their decisions were. "We upload it, we chance a leak. Aleine will be able to put it all back together."

"It will take months if not years for her to get back to where she was before the sabotage." Henry shifted. "It's disconcerting to have to return to this ineffectual method of communication."

During the past two months, they had been functioning as a flawless psychic unit, sharing every thought. However, they hadn't quite become one mind - Shoshanna was aware that she'd wielded more power in the unit. It proved the theory that there must always be a controlling mind. For example, the eight below them had been unable to merge into Henry's and Shoshanna's minds but the reverse hadn't held true. "We'll return to it one day. What's the status of the remaining four participants?"

"Alive but agitated."

Shoshanna stood. "Take care of it."

"I already have." Henry mirrored her stance. Their minds were still attuned on a level beyond the norm, but without the implant, that link would eventually fade. "I gave a final order prior to the removal of my implant. They'll end their own lives one after the other during the next eight hours."

"Excellent." What it was to truly wield the power of life and death - the others knew nothing of this. If they had, they would've pushed Protocol I faster instead of insisting on the current snail's pace. "That ties things up nicely." Now they had to ensure the Council didn't backpedal from the idea. It had to go ahead. Shoshanna intended to become a queen in truth, to hold lives in the palm of her hand.

Chapter 47

Brenna's wolf was going crazy trapped inside of her. "Baby, please." Judd's head remained unmoving in her lap as she stroked his hair off his forehead over and over. It had been three hours since he'd gone down, taking her share of the pain as well as his own. The only thing keeping her from breaking apart was the certain knowledge that he was alive. She knew it in her soul. They were bonded whether anyone could see it or not.

Full dark had fallen long ago, along with the temperature. Judd's lips had begun to turn blue three minutes ago, as if some internal battery had died. Everything in her wanted to run for help, but he had made her promise not to let anyone else interfere. Her hand clenched on her phone as she ran her eyes over his body. His chest moved up and down. His breath came out. But he was so cold, so scarily cold. Colder than the snow.

This wasn't right. He was Pack. What he'd done so many times for the others should be his due now. To lean on Pack was no shame. Except that she knew he was too proud, too used to standing alone. But she couldn't watch him die. "I'm sorry, my darling." She flipped open the phone...and found it dead.

Throwing it aside, she began a frantic search of Judd. Nothing. But she knew he always carried a phone. Her mind went back to the image of him pulling on his jacket in the clearing. It had to have fallen out then. "No."

A movement in the forest. Her heart leaped in her throat, followed by predatory calm. No one will touch him. Her claws pushed at the edges of her skin as her eyes focused on the source of the sound, every instinct primed to defend her mate.

The wolf that emerged was almost invisible against the snow, his pelt a thick silver-gold that acted like camouflage. Relaxing from her offensive stance, she returned her attention to Judd as Hawke shifted to human form and came to kneel on Judd's other side. "You didn't signal for attention."

She shook her head and met his eyes. "He's exactly like you."

"Hell, I know that. I expected you to have better sense." A sharp reproof. "How long?"

"Three hours."

"Can we move him?"

"I think so." But she wasn't going to risk it. "I don't know if there was any...damage." Brain damage. He was Psy - they were their minds, and things that erupted from the mind outward had the ability to destroy them. "Moving him might make it worse."

Hawke's eyes flashed to pure danger. "The damn Psy is too stubborn to die. Keep him alive while I get Walker and some heating sheets."

"Go." Brenna kept her hands on Judd's cheeks. "I'll be here."

Hawke left without anything further, disappearing into the woods in a flash of silver-gold. With his speed, help would be on the way in under half an hour. But what could Walker do? He wasn't a Psy medic and even if he had been, what medic could possibly see inside a mind as guarded as her Psy's? She knew his shields to be impenetrable.

Not against you.

Her breath caught. She wondered if the cold was starting to affect her brain. "Judd?"

I'm here. I have to repair some damage before I rise to full consciousness.

That sounded too much like him to be her imagination. "Damage?" she whispered.

Don't worry, baby. I'll be fully functional. A definite sensual emphasis on those last two words.

She wanted to thump him for worrying her so, but what stopped her was the open affection in his mental tones. She'd never heard that in his voice. But now he was speaking to her without any barriers...trusting her with everything he was. Swallowing, she wiped the backs of her hands across her eyes. "You idiot. I'll damage you myself if you don't shut up and hurry."

Male laughter in her mind. He sounded just as she'd always thought he'd sound if he laughed - arrogant, a touch bad, and drop-dead gorgeous. I can hear your thoughts.

"Then stop listening." But she was too happy to worry. And...this was Judd. He had under-the-skin privileges. "How can we talk like this anyway? None of the others can." Not that she'd seen.

I'm a high-level telepath. I could always send, even to very weak receivers, and you're not weak.

A small silence. "What did Enrique do?" She'd been avoiding the issue after no one had seemed to be able to give her any answers, but now Judd was in the one place she had vowed to never allow another being. And it felt right. "Tell me, I'm ready."

I don't know what his intention was, but it looks like he might have opened your mind in a way it was never meant to be opened. That's why you've been picking up fragments of others' thoughts and dreams, why you've been acting out of character. I need to teach you to shield, not like a changeling but like a Psy. Until you can, I'll shield you.

"Well, if we can talk like this, at least some good came out of that." She dropped a kiss on his forehead. Then frowned. Can I think to you?

Yes. He sounded delighted. Brenna, it's not just my telepathy and the changes in you that are allowing us to speak. I can see it - a bond like the one to my familial Net, except this one is...it's...I'm no poet...

A caress whispered through her mind and she knew he wanted her to close her eyes. So she did. A second later, she felt something travel down the bond. It was an image of the bond itself. A stunning kaleidoscope, twisted through with the martial threads of a soldier and the bright, animal sparks that represented her.

A tear streaked down her face. I love you.

You're mine.

She laughed at the possessive tone. "I've always been yours. Now hurry up or the others will find me here talking to myself."

I told you I didn't need any help.

"And I told you you're Pack now." She would beat that into his head even if it took a lifetime.

He went silent, obviously working. She didn't interrupt him and when he lifted those dark lashes twenty minutes later, all she could do was smile. "Hey."

Looking up into her eyes, he raised a hand to close over her nape. "Come here."

Bending down, she touched her lips to his. Warmth flowed from her to him and then back. The bond pulsed before sparking, sending a small electric shock down her spine. Gasping, she broke the kiss. "I don't think that's normal."

"You're mated to a Tk." He smiled and while it was small, it was most definitely a smile. The impact was, to say the least, devastating. "It looks as if I can do all sorts of things to you now that the bond's functioning as it should." As if to prove that, the next pulse traveled directly to the heat between her legs.