"I thought the wolves were silent partners in the project," Judd commented as she took her seat beside Dorian and began to check the lines of programming for the last time. "They just supplied the land, correct?"

Dorian nodded. "Lucas and Hawke were talking and decided to give themselves an airtight 'alibi.'" He smirked. "Hard to accuse them of masterminding this when they were in a meeting with Nikita at the time."

Of course, Judd thought, the Council would know exactly who to blame for the technological strike, but that was the point. The alphas were sending a message: You attack us and we'll bite back, and we'll do it where it hurts. The six Psy assassins who had butchered the DawnSky deer had already been dispatched - that op had taken place the same day Judd obtained the names. Now it was time for the second strike.

He glanced at his watch. "The stock exchange opens in ten seconds."

"Give it a few minutes - let them think everything's okay." Dorian leaned back in his chair as they waited. "Okay. Time's up. You want to do the honors, kid?"

"Oh yes." Rubbing her hands, Brenna held her finger over a key. "They should have never come into our territory and taken the lives of those under our care." She pressed down. "We look after our own."

The Psy Council convened an emergency session within minutes of the exchange failure. They had barely gotten a handle on that situation when other systems began to fail in a relentless cascade. Major Psy banks and large Psy businesses were the worst hit.

There was no signature, no way to identify the perpetrators of the rapid-fire assault. But Nikita Duncan had looked into two pairs of alpha-changeling eyes today. She got the message. And she made sure the rest of the Council appreciated it.

For the first time, no one argued with her. The damage was too widespread, the intelligence behind the stealthy attack too finely honed. There was no doubt the animals had won this skirmish.

EPILOGUE

It happened in the middle of a wild outdoor lovemaking session that had gotten more than a little vigorous. Winter had left with languid softness and now spring was a cool breeze on her skin. Judd picked Brenna up and put her flat on the ground. Her breath rushed out - not because he'd used excessive pressure - on the contrary, her landing had been angel soft. No, it was because he hadn't used his hands.

Attuned as he was to the bond, he froze in the act of ripping off his shirt, leaving his ridged abdomen bare. "Brenna."

"I'm okay. It was a surprise, that's all." She meant that. Her mate was a powerful telekinetic and she trusted him never to use that Tk to hurt her.

His eyes darkened, then he smiled. "Do you like surprises?"

That still-rare smile had the ability to send warmth rushing to the juncture of her thighs. Squeezing them together, she nodded. That was when her pants unzipped of their own accord and began being pulled down her body along with her panties.

She couldn't help it. She cried out, especially when he lifted her bottom to help drag the clothing off. They flew to land on the branches of a nearby tree. "Some surprise." Her heart raced. "What's next?"

Not answering, he walked around to stand at her feet, looking down at her body with blatant possessiveness. Her shirt was open and parted to reveal her breasts, her lower body naked, her knees raised. She had never felt more deliciously exposed.

"Spread your thighs." A low, rough order.

She blushed at what he was asking her to do but even as she hesitated, phantom hands began to spread her. Shocked, she didn't fight because those hands felt just like those of the man who watched her - watched her as if she were a feast he was waiting to gorge on. Then those invisible hands slid down to her curls and paused.

Dangerous Psy eyes clashed into hers. "I want to open you."

Brenna had known she was getting a dominant male when she chose Judd. His intensity didn't scare her. Rather, it sent erotic need rushing over her body, further tightening the already taut peaks of her breasts and dampening the woman core of her. But what seduced her to complete submission was that, even violently aroused, he had stopped to check how she was handling this escalation of their sexual life, the working of his Tk fully into who they were together.

"Do it," she whispered, the words so thick she had to force them out.

Those phantom fingers spread apart her intimate lips, baring her to the air...to his gaze. Blood flooded her cheeks and she could feel herself flushing in other, normally hidden places. An invisible finger dipped into her, pushing in an inch before spreading her cream over the hard bud he'd exposed to the air.

"Judd!" When she could breathe again, she looked up to find he'd undone his pants at last, releasing his erection.

"I want." A bold sexual statement she could only make because this was her mate.

He fisted himself. "This?"

She couldn't believe it. "You're going to tease?" Two could play at that game, even if Judd was undeniably the more skilled at it. Sliding one hand down her own body, she dipped her fingers into her heat, pleasuring herself with lazy strokes, while she used the fingers of her other hand to caress her breasts, pluck at her nipples.

Judd's eyes followed the movements of her hands, his own moving over rigid flesh in unconscious synchrony. The sight clutched at her stomach, made her want to speed up her strokes, push herself over the edge. But she was determined to seduce him this time.

She withdrew her fingers from her body on a groan...and held them out. "How about a taste?"

The tree branches over her shifted in a breeze she couldn't feel, new spring-green leaves flying every which way. Judd. He was making it happen, loosening his rigid control. Instead of fear, she felt pure exhilaration. And when he dropped down on his knees between her spread thighs, all she could see were the glowing embers of a very masculine desire in his eyes. Taking her glistening fingers, he tugged them back down to her sex.

"Touch," he ordered, voice harsh. "Show me what you like."

"You know what I like," she said, but followed the command.

Putting his hands on her raised knees, he spread her even farther, as if to better his view. She was so spellbound by the sexual chains of his unashamed hunger that she was barely aware of the crashing movements of the tree branches, the whiplash speed of the leaves circling around them. Her heartbeat was in her mouth, alive and demanding. Her whole body felt flushed to fever pitch. She wanted something thicker and harder than her fingers stroking in and out of the melting warmth of her body.

Without warning, Judd dragged away her hand and took over the task. His strokes were deeper, rougher than her own and they made her cry out in shocking pleasure. She wanted to wrap her legs around him but one of his hands remained on her knee, telling her he wanted her spread open for him. So she kept her feet flat on the earth.

"Good." He slid that hand down the inner face of her thigh to grip her hip firmly as she twisted under the force of his driving strokes. All thought of taking charge was lost, but it didn't matter, because in this sensual game, surrender was the sweetest of victories.

The edge beckoned, promising hot twisting pleasure/pain that would cut through her body like lightning and turn her mind to pure fever for long pleasure-drenched moments. Anticipation had her holding her breath. One more caress -

Judd withdrew his fingers.

"No," she moaned, so ready to go over she could hardly think.

He shifted his body closer. She felt the tip of his erection nudge at her. Then he gripped her hip tight and pushed in. All the air left her lungs in a harsh exhalation as she felt every thick inch of him scrape past her desire-swollen flesh. Her fingers clawed the earth, but she never took her eyes off his face. What she saw set off the ripples that announced an impending explosion.

He was watching their bodies join, his expression that of a man driven to ecstasy. Red streaked over his cheekbones and his jaw was clenched hard enough to have cracked stone. Beautiful and so sexy she could barely believe he was hers.

He pushed home, going so deep she could feel him in dark unexplored places. Against her spread flesh, the rough material of his jeans, the cold teeth of his zipper, provided an added erotic sensation, a quiet reiteration that Judd was no longer in control.

His eyes finally raised to hers, the gold flecks almost glowing against the bitter chocolate. "I'm going to move now."

That was her only warning before her lover began thrusting into her with hard strokes that bowed her back and tore a scream from her throat. Pure sensation shot through her, eclipsing the anticipation and cascading into her mind...a bolt of white lightning that traveled from both ends of the bond to create a sensual inferno.

Male to female. Psy to changeling. Mate to mate.

She stepped over a broken branch to retrieve her pants. "Baby, I love you, but when we go furniture shopping, I want titanium alloy." In the months since their mating, he'd already destroyed the wooden stuff. Four times. Currently, they had no table, no sofa, and no chairs. "Thank goodness the walls are stone and the bed's got a metal frame."

Her teasing made him stretch out, half-naked and indolently at ease on the forest floor. "If you'd stay still, I'd be fine." Except he didn't sound particularly enthused by the idea of her remaining still.

Turning to face him, she pulled on her pants over bare flesh, shoving her panties into a pocket. She very definitely had his full attention. "Where would be the fun in that?" Grinning, she left her shirt open and walked to kneel beside him. His abdomen was pure hard muscle under her touch. "Aren't you going to get up?"

He put a hand on the curve of her hip, a possessive gesture that had already become familiar. "No. Let's have more sex."

"Insatiable." She kissed him, loving that he trusted her enough to allow her to see him without barriers. As far as the rest of the den was concerned, he was still the Man of Ice. They couldn't understand how she could have mated with him. But he'd earned his stripes as far as being Pack went so they shrugged and accepted the pairing. "Any more sex and we'll expire. Don't you have a meeting with Hawke anyway?"