Caressed By Ice

"We'll talk more later," he said. "Level 3 class to teach."

The first thing she did after the call ended was check her bank balance. Her eyes went huge. Before the abduction, she'd worked part-time at a SnowDancer lab - after Hawke had lured her back from a human competitor. Level 2 and 3 techs pulled great salaries, so her savings had been good. But now she saw that the college had refunded her course fees for the component she hadn't had to complete. She was flush and she was qualified at the top of her field.

The world was literally her oyster. And this den didn't have to be her prison.

It was two hours later - around nine at night - that she went looking for Judd "Damn" Lauren. She had things to say and he was going to listen. Ignoring the voice of reason, the one that said a Psy assassin was unlikely to be brought into line by her steaming temper, she stalked to his quarters. When that room proved empty, she made her way to the family apartment occupied by the rest of the Laurens.

She didn't get past the corridor outside the apartment. Little Marlee Lauren, her strawberry blonde hair in two pigtails and a smile on her lips, was bouncing a ball against the wall. Normal...if you overlooked the fact that she wasn't touching the ball.

Brenna's throat dried up at the same instant that the eight-year-old - a child whose calm bearing often had her being mistaken for older - realized she was being watched. Her ball fell out of rhythm, rolling to a stop at Brenna's feet. Heart thundering so hard she thought it might bruise against her ribs, Brenna went down to her haunches and picked it up, never taking her eyes off the little girl in denim overalls and a fluffy pink sweater. It was stupid, but she was scared of Marlee.

"Hi," she said, not rising. "This is a nice ball." She rolled the sparkly blue sphere back to Marlee, who grabbed it physically and held it to her chest.

"My uncle Judd gave it to me," the child volunteered, no Psy coldness in her face - Marlee and her cousin Toby had never finished the conditioning under Silence. To them, emotion was not an enemy but simply part of who they were. "He gave me a seesaw game, too, but that's really hard."

Both things to help train developing Tk powers, Brenna guessed. "Oh?" She tried to smile - Marlee was hardly capable of hurting her. But logic was no match for the nightmare of memory. "Actually, I was looking for your uncle. Have you seen him?"

Marlee shook her head, pigtails bouncing. "I could look in our secret Net but I'm not allowed. I could take a peek if you want." A soft whisper that asked for permission.

Something in Brenna tightened. "That's okay. I don't want to get you in trouble."

Marlee continued to stare at her with the pale green eyes she'd inherited from her father, Walker. "Why don't you like me?"

Chapter 18

The guileless question knocked all the air out of Brenna. Collapsing into a cross-legged position on the floor, she felt her face pale. Had Judd been right? Was she really such a bigot? "I think you're very sweet, Marlee."

"Then how come you don't like me? How come?" The stubbornness of her jawline was achingly familiar, apparently a Lauren family trait.

Brenna couldn't lie, not with Marlee's face demanding honesty. "You know how you can move the ball without touching it?"

Her pigtails bounced as Marlee nodded. "I'm a Tk. Only a little bit, though. I can't do it so good, not like Uncle Judd."

The reminder of Judd and what he'd kept from her was another punch to the chest. He'd had no right to do that. Lying was not what should be between them. And for that certainty, too, she had no concrete reason. "Yeah." She forced her fingers to uncurl. "A bad man who could do the same thing, a very strong telekinetic, he hurt me once. A lot. That's why sometimes, I get scared by other Tks."

"That's silly. Some of the wolves aren't nice to me, but I still like the others."

"Who's not nice to you?" She frowned, hackles rising. Wolf pups could get rough in play, but bullying wasn't tolerated under any circumstances.

"Some stupids." Marlee shrugged. "Uncle Hawke said since I'm little, I can hurt them if they try to hurt me."

Brenna knew that Judd, Walker, and Sienna had been banned from using their powers on SnowDancers. "Have you?"

"I used Tk to push Kiki down when she tried to bite me," Marlee volunteered, face mischievous. "She cried and tattled, but the teacher said it served her right."

Since wolf teeth could do considerable damage to weaker Psy physiology, Brenna had to agree. "I think so, too."

"I won't push you." Marlee dropped her ball and came to stand right in front of Brenna. "Don't be scared of me."

She nodded, tears thick in her throat. "Okay."

Smiling, Marlee leaned in and wrapped her arms tight around Brenna's neck. Shaking, Brenna held that small body to her own and let the tears roll down her face.

"It's okay, the bad man won't get you." Small pats on her back. "My daddy and Uncle Judd and even Sienna can scare him away."

It only made her cry harder. How could she have been afraid of this sweet, tenderhearted child for even a second? How? Was she that twisted, that badly damaged?

A movement.

She jerked up her head to discover Walker Lauren standing a few feet away. Unlike his daughter, Walker was quintessentially Psy, impassive, unemotional, cold. Yet there was a fierce protectiveness to him when he looked at Marlee.

Breaking the eye contact, Brenna hugged Marlee for several more seconds, soaking up her generous childish empathy. "Thank you," she said after they parted.

Small fingers began to wipe away her tears. "Want to play ball with me?"

Brenna looked at Walker. "If it's okay with your dad."

"Ten minutes," Walker said. "It's way past your bedtime."

Marlee heaved out a sigh so put-upon that Brenna found herself smiling. "Tell you what - I'll come by to play with you again sometime."

That satisfied Marlee and ten minutes later to the second, Brenna said good-bye and went to find Hawke. She ran into Riley instead. Her brother was happy to confirm that Judd hadn't returned to the den. "You shouldn't be sniffing around after him in the first place."

"Don't start. And I'm not sniffing at him." She was still mad over the way he'd abandoned her. Now he'd rubbed salt into the wound by not bothering to come back so she could flay the skin off his bones. That was how you fought. Disappearing was a sign of aggression and disinterest.

Fine. If that was how he wanted it, there were plenty more male fish in the sea.

She went prowling. It was time to get back in the game.

Judd woke to the smell of flowers and the sound of a soprano choir. He lay in bed and listened for several minutes as he checked his senses. All the mental and psychic channels were open and running at full strength. Satisfied, he swung his legs over the side and stood to begin going through a stretch routine designed to test every one of his muscle groups. The verdict was clear - he was fully functional.

Stripping off his briefs, he ducked into the tiny shower cubicle to his left. Once clean, he pulled on the pants and sweater he'd shucked before crashing yesterday. His jacket was in the car where he'd left it. When he opened the door and walked out into the hallway at the back of the church, he was struck by the crystal clarity of the choir.

The Psy had lost the ability to produce such tones after Silence, their voices too flat, too dead. But as his race didn't listen to music, that was considered no loss. Today, Judd knew that to be a lie - it was a loss, a great one. The fact he could understand both that truth and the beauty of what he heard was another warning sign, one he chose to ignore.

Father Perez emerged from another room down the hall. "Ah, you're awake." His expression was pensive. "You okay? Looked beat when you came in."

Judd had managed to make it behind the locked door of the spare room by the slimmest of margins. "I'm fine. Thank you for the bed." And for asking no questions.

"What are friends for?" Perez smiled. "How about a bite to eat? You've been out for" - he glanced at his watch - "close to twenty hours."

"I'll get - " He was about to say something else when a sense of urgency suddenly exploded to life in his brain. He had to get back - to Brenna. Before it was too late. "I have to go." With that, he ran past the priest and out.

The car was waiting in the attached indoor garage, fuel cells having recharged during his recovery. It was tempting to get in and take off without delay, but he spent ten careful minutes checking the car for tracking equipment. The SnowDancers were fanatical about keeping their den a secret - their tech arm had even perfected satellite-deflecting technology before the first spy satellite ever achieved stable orbit.

Judd agreed with their stance. Enemies couldn't target what they couldn't see. He'd do nothing to jeopardize the wolves' safety because that would jeopardize Brenna's safety. And that was unacceptable.

By the time he parked the car in the underground garage beneath the den, the warning in Judd's brain had gone critical. He began running full-tilt the second he hit the ground and made it to the Kincaid family quarters in less than a minute.

The door was open.

He entered to find Riley, Andrew, Hawke, and Greg - a wolf Judd knew to be both vicious and bigoted - standing in the living room. Greg was bleeding from several lacerations on his face and Andrew bore a number of cuts on his left forearm.

"Where is she?"

All four men looked up. Andrew bared his teeth. "Get the hell out! Your kind is the reason she's like this!"

Judd looked at Greg's face. "What did you do to her?" Ice spread through his veins, bringing the dark heart of him, the part that could kill without compunction, to the surface.

"Nothing!" Greg yelled. "That's what I keep trying to tell you all. I fucking did nothing to your little princess."

"Watch your mouth or I'll clock you myself," Hawke growled.