Shield of Winter Read online

  The throb at the back of her head now a pounding, she forced her mouth to shape words. "Don't be afraid." She nudged Rabbit up beside the distressed empath.

  Lianne's eyes flicked from Ivy to Vasic, then back. "I broke the rules." Shaking, Lianne clung to Ivy's hand when Ivy came down on the cot beside her. "I'll be punished."

  It was difficult for Ivy to think with Lianne's fear threatening to suffocate her, so it took her several seconds to process the meaning of the other woman's words. She thinks you're going to kill her, she telepathed Vasic. There's a good chance she'll calm down if you step outside.

  Vasic didn't move from his position by the doorway. Lianne is now a known security risk. I won't leave you alone with her. He switched from telepathic to verbal speech, his words directed at Lianne, before Ivy could argue with his stance. "You won't be executed so long as you keep your silence about this project from now on."

  Ivy stared at him. Are you serious? You would've killed her if you thought she might publicize what she knows?

  No. He turned his attention to her, the gray of his irises so cold, it made the hairs rise on the back of her neck . . . and this time, she didn't know if the response was her own or Lianne's. I'd have simply had her memories locked down, he continued. Execution would be an overreaction, as this experiment will either succeed, in which case it will go public, or it will fail, in which case decisions will be made about the information to be shared.

  Is that what you'll do if I break the rules? she asked through the miasma of panic and fear fogging her mind. Erase me?

  An infinitesimal pause. That situation will never arise. You and your family don't want attention, won't do anything to draw it. Lianne's, on the other hand, is hungry for power.

  Ivy wanted to push at him until he gave her a real answer, but he was so scary she couldn't--

  Lianne, she reminded herself with teeth-clenched concentration, this was Lianne's fear. Ivy might've momentarily doubted her own emotions under the influence of it, but while she accepted that, objectively speaking, Vasic was scary, she wasn't scared of him . . . would never be again. Because the one thing she remembered from the previous night was his strong-boned wrist under her fingers, this cold-as-ice Arrow allowing her to hold on to him, his voice--

  Stabbing pain in her stomach, her mouth full of bile.

  Conscious Lianne's increasing panic could soon paralyze them both, Ivy twisted to face her. "Breathe, Lianne," she ordered, modulating her own inhales and exhales until the other woman fell into the same pattern. "The Arrows aren't planning to execute you."

  It was over seven minutes of repetition later, Ivy's empathic senses raw, that Lianne calmed down enough to follow Ivy's request to shield her emotions.

  Peace.

  Ivy couldn't hold back the shudder that rippled through her.

  Lianne, cheeks red, whispered, "I would've been exposed on the Net." Her hand spread on Rabbit's head where the dog was sprawled across her lap.

  Ivy understood the other woman's worry. Silence might have fallen, but the change was too new to be trusted. Ivy herself had discarded her veneer of Silence now that she was safely away from the settlement, but that didn't mean she wasn't worried about the consequences of her actions. Even now, she maintained her PsyNet shields so her emotions wouldn't leak out and betray her to strangers who might wish her harm.

  "I ensured you weren't."

  Vasic's voice was an icy balm on Ivy's ragged senses . . . until she realized she couldn't sense him. At all. Even a shielded Lianne continued to register on her empathic senses, but Vasic was missing. If she hadn't been able to see him, she'd never have known he was in the room.

  Her breath hitched as she understood the crushing depth of his control for the first time.

  "It's time for you to leave the compound."

  Lianne went rigid at Vasic's statement. Turning to offer comfort, Ivy found herself facing thin air. Vasic had initiated the teleport--after transferring Rabbit from Lianne's lap to beside Ivy.

  Blinking, she shook her head as her poor, confused dog stood up and did the same. "Yes," she muttered, rubbing at her temples. "That is definitely starting to annoy me."

  Rabbit woofed in agreement and bounded down to the floor while she continued to sit on the cot. Uncomfortable thing. And this was where Vasic would sleep when he was off shift. Frowning, she wondered if he'd had any rest the previous night.

  Then there he was, walking over to crouch in front of her. "Your headache is worse, isn't it?" His eyes focused totally on her, his hair black silk she wanted to feel against her skin. "Aden said they should pass within forty-eight hours."

  He was so beautiful, she thought. All hard lines and strength and a strange, unexpected vulnerability. Of the latter she had no evidence, and yet her instincts insisted. Foolish Ivy. "Lianne?" she asked, drinking in the sight of him as if she'd been thirsty for a lifetime.

  "Safe with those family members I've confirmed have no fanatical pro-Silence leanings. I have an Arrow keeping a discreet eye on her to make certain," he said. "Your headache?"

  She hadn't expected him to care about Lianne's safety after the other woman's betrayal. That he did . . . "Yes," she murmured. "It's worse."

  "Do you have the training to ease it?"

  He had such solid shoulders, wide enough to block out the world. She wanted to smooth her hands over the breadth of them, tear off his armor, touch the living heat of him. Visceral, the need knotted her gut, made her hurt.

  "Ivy?"

  Fingers curling into her hands, she forced herself not to take advantage of his nearness to indulge her need. It would hurt worse if he started keeping his distance because she couldn't follow the unspoken rules. "Yes." All Psy children were taught how to manage pain, since pain medication had an unpredictable effect on psychic abilities. "But I haven't used it a lot," she admitted, and it wasn't quite a lie. "I'm rusty."

  The truth was, she didn't want him to go.

  "I'll talk you through it," he said, before switching to telepathic communication to do exactly that.

  I like your voice, she said afterward, luxuriating in the icy strength of it.

  Good, since you'll hear it throughout this contract.

  Laughter sparkled in her veins. Yes, I suppose so. Unable to touch, she ran her gaze over the nonregulation-length hair that hinted so tantalizingly of a man behind the frost. Hopefully, you don't find mine irritating.

  No.

  "No." Biting the inside of her cheek, she tried for a solemn tone. "You're very verbose, you know that? I don't know how I'll stand your chattering."

  No smile in his eyes, but when he rose to his feet, he said, "I don't see your bodyguard."

  Hope exploded like confetti in her heart. That hadn't been an Arrow comment. It had been a Vasic comment. "I think Rabbit's starting to thaw where you're concerned," she said, fighting not to betray the strength of her response. "Still, it must've been something really exciting to draw him away while you were so close to me." She had no idea how right she was until they left the cabin.

  A squeak escaped her.

  Chapter 17

  HER VERY SMALL dog was sitting at quivering attention in front of a huge wolf with a coat of silver-gold. A beautiful, scary wolf who could eat Rabbit in one bite, and who appeared to be listening to an unfamiliar male clad in jeans and a black sweater with the sleeves shoved up to his elbows. Not an Arrow, given his clothing, but there was something about him that said he wasn't much different.

  From him, she sensed very little, but from the wolf came a whiplash of primal wildness and dangerous focus.

  "Rabbit," she called, patting her thigh.

  Instead of running straight to her, he glanced over his shoulder then looked back at the wolf, only racing over when the wolf inclined its head. Heart in her throat, she knelt down to pet him as Vasic strode over to speak to the visitors. A few minutes later, both the wolf--the changeling--and the unknown male headed into the trees.

  Who was that? she as
ked Vasic, scowling at Rabbit when he tried to race off after the departing pair.

  The SnowDancer alpha and one of his lieutenants.

  Kissing Rabbit's sulky face, she continued to keep hold of him lest he be overcome by the urge to join a wolf pack. The dark-haired man, he looked like an Arrow.

  Vasic gave her a considering look. Judd defected from the PsyNet three and a half years ago, but yes, he is an Arrow.

  The pieces clicked. Is he the one the reporters said was deflecting missiles using telekinesis? Astonishing and riveting, the reports had come in during Pure Psy's attempted invasion of this region the previous year. A member of the missing Lauren family?

  Yes. He turned toward Abbot when the other Arrow walked over from Jaya's cabin. You need to eat breakfast.

  Chancing relaxing her grip on Rabbit, she tried not to read too much into the fact that Vasic had made it a point to remind her to replenish her strength, and headed to her cabin. Rabbit, apparently over his starstruck reaction to the wolf alpha, kept her company--at least until he'd finished his own breakfast. Then he took off to explore, and she crossed her fingers the changelings would nudge him back if he attempted to follow the wolf's trail. Not that she could blame her pet for his dangerous fascination.

  Look at her.

  Can you do that? she asked Vasic, unable to control the urge to connect with him even when she knew he was busy with the shift change. Throw missiles around?

  *

  VASIC had never had a voice like Ivy's in his head. There was no restraint to it, the tone an iridescent kaleidoscope that hinted a thousand other things lay beneath. Yes, he said in reply to her query, considering what she'd do if he told her he could also initiate missile strikes through his gauntlet.

  There goes that verbosity.

  Filtering her comment through what he'd observed of human interaction, he confirmed his earlier suspicions that she was teasing him. No one had ever teased him. He didn't know the correct response.

  I know you haven't had breakfast, she said while he was still working on the question of whether teasing required a response. Come eat with me.

  He should've taken the chance to catch a couple of hours' rest, but he'd spent days awake at a time. One night was nothing. Not compared to a woman who teased him. That was unusual enough to require further exploration.

  She smiled when he stepped up to her doorway, her curls tousled around her face and her blue cable-knit sweater too big for her frame. "Thanks for leaving me my porch."

  "It wasn't in any of Lianne's photographs."

  A delighted laugh that felt like a tactile stroke over his cheek. "Right." She mixed up a nutrient drink with hot water rather than the cold he always used, then took several meal bars out of the cupboard. "Here. You must've burned a lot of energy last night and this morning."

  First she teased him, then she fed him. Neither action was one he could've predicted. Taking the food, he stepped back outside.

  Ivy's face fell. "Are you going already?"

  It was almost as if she was disappointed to lose his company. "No," he said, adding another inexplicable act to his private Ivy file. "Your table is small."

  "Oh, you're right. You'd probably have to fold yourself in half." Eyes lit from within, she pulled on her boots and picking up her cereal, followed him out to take a seat on the edge of the porch.

  He came down beside her, the distance between them approximately eight inches.

  And though she'd warned him she liked to talk, they sat in silence for long minutes, the compound quiet now that the shift change was complete, the morning sunlight pale. Despite the silence, the experience wasn't like eating with another Arrow; there was a subtext to it he struggled to unravel.

  The last time he'd eaten with anyone unconnected to the squad was the day he'd been permanently excised from the family unit. He could still remember that final meal with his biological father, though he'd lost the emotions of the child. What he remembered boiled down to the Silent space between him and the man who'd given him half his genetic material.

  "Hey." A smile so open, he knew the world would savage her if she wasn't protected. "You're thinking too hard. Eat." Having finished her own meal, she put aside her bowl and peeled open the wrapper of one of the nutrition bars he'd set between them.

  When she held it out, he realized it was for him. "Thank you."

  "I think I'd better talk to Sascha," she said, taking the wrappers of the two bars he'd already eaten to drop them into her empty bowl.

  "I put in the request earlier."

  "Was that what you were discussing with Judd Lauren and the wolf alpha?"

  Vasic nodded, eating the nutrition bar in methodical bites.

  "Stop that." A narrow-eyed look as she held up the drink he hadn't touched. "I didn't make this hot so you could let it go cold."

  Unpredictable, she was more unpredictable than a rogue missile. "Temperature doesn't alter the nutritional value of it," he said, drinking half a glass.

  "I know that. It's to warm you up."

  He thought about pointing out that his combat uniform insulated him against the temperature, but decided to keep his mouth shut for reasons he couldn't articulate. Perhaps it was because of the way she looked at him . . . as if concerned.

  "I wonder what it's like for Judd"--her gaze shifted to the trees through which the other male had walked away--"living in a changeling pack."

  "I can't hope to understand," he said, when he realized Ivy was waiting for an answer, though she hadn't asked a question.

  "Of course you do. You're part of one yourself."

  "The squad functions differently from a pack."

  "No, it doesn't." She broke off a bit of his last bar to nibble on before giving him the rest. "They're as tasteless as I remember." Swallowing the bite with a shudder, she turned to face him, one foot on the ground, the other leg folded up on the porch, her hands on her calf.

  "I admit I don't know too much about changeling packs," she said, the sun at her back, "but from what I understand, loyalty is the glue that holds a pack together. Isn't it the same with the squad?"

  "Yes." It was often the only loyalty an Arrow had or would ever know. "Changelings, however, live in close proximity, bonded on a physical as well as emotional level." Two packmates near one another would touch sooner or later--a handshake, a hug, a kiss, it depended on the relationships involved--but touch was a constant in every changeling interaction Vasic had ever witnessed.

  Which was why he had trouble comprehending Judd's life. Because unlike those in a pack--"Arrows are designed to function alone."

  Ivy's sweater slipped off her left shoulder when she leaned forward, baring skin of golden cream to the morning sunlight. "Okay, I get that." She didn't notice when he nudged the sweater back in place with Tk, the temperature too cold for her to be so exposed. "But while you may be designed to function alone, that doesn't mean you're not as tight a family." Passionate words, with no echo of a Silence that had always been an ill-fitting coat. "Like Aden and you, you said you're brothers."

  Vasic didn't talk about his childhood, but then he didn't normally say this many words in a day or eat breakfast with a woman who kept reaching out as if to touch him before she caught herself, her fingers curling into her palm.

  Today was not a normal day.

  "We grew up together," he said at last. "While I wasn't placed into full Arrow training till I was four, I had military-level instructors almost from the cradle." He sometimes considered how his unprotected mind might have been molded. What saved his sanity was the memory of his later childhood, when he'd been no model pupil. "Designation Tk-V is rare enough that the Council was notified at once of my birth."

  Ivy leaned farther toward him, one hand pressed to the wood of the porch and her eyes dark with an emotion he couldn't identify. "How did they know your subdesignation so fast?" Her sweater slipped again and he nudged it back. "It usually takes time to be certain, even with genetic markers."

  "I tele
ported out of the womb."

  Ivy's mouth dropped open. "No, really?"

  "That's what I was told when I was old enough to understand. The records I accessed as an adult bear out the story. According to the notes of the attending M-Psy, she almost dropped me."

  Ivy shifted close enough that her knee brushed his thigh, the soft scent of her whispering across his senses. "How did you know where to 'port?"

  "It was put down to the telepathic connection I had with the woman who gave birth to me." After which she'd severed all ties as per her conception and fertilization agreement with his biological father. "That's probably the correct answer."

  Ivy looked at him for long minutes, and he had the sense he'd said something that distressed her, but he couldn't identify what when he backtracked through his words.

  "You were telling me about Aden," she said at last, so close that he could've easily reached out and gripped the vulnerable arch of her neck.

  Looking away, he stared at the hands that had ended more than one life. "He was assigned as my telepathic sparring partner." He and Aden had bonded as only scared children could do, long before their capacity to bond had been tortured out of them. "We've known one another for most of our lifetimes."

  Ivy's fingers brushed his arm before she jerked her hand guiltily back. "See? You're family," she said, her pulse a rapid flutter in her throat. "And what's a pack but a great big family?"

  Vasic glanced at her shoulder, nudged the sweater back up. This time, she noticed, color on her cheeks as her hand went up to the spot. "How many times?"

  "Five." He got to his feet before he could make it six. "I need to rest."

  Frown dark, she rose, too. "I've been keeping you. You should've said." Folding her arms, she angled her head toward her cabin. "You can use my bed. It's much more comfortable than one of those cots."

  That bed would smell of green apples, taking the scent from her hair and skin courtesy of the changeling-stocked bath items in the cabins meant for the empaths. And . . . it would smell of Ivy. "No."

  Her eyebrows drew together over her eyes. "We'll argue about that later," she told him. "After you've rested."

  Walking to the Arrow cabin where two others lay sleeping, he'd opened up a cot and was removing his thin but effective chest armor when Ivy's iridescent secret of a voice kissed his mind. Don't forget to take off your boots.