“It’s fake.” Max’s hands on the other boy’s face, forcing the golden child to meet his gaze, his voice flint hard. “It’s just make-believe. You know that. When you crash, it hurts.”
A moment of strange clarity. “So what? What’s so good about our life? Huh?” The golden child cupped Max’s face in turn. “One of her men tried to touch me last night.”
Cold rage turned Max’s expression to ice. “I’ll kill him.”
Truth, Sophia thought, that was the unvarnished truth.
“It’s okay. Mum screamed and kicked him out.” He pressed his forehead to Max’s in a painful kind of affection. “She protects me. Why doesn’t she protect you?”
Thin shoulders sagging for an instant. “I don’t know, River.”
A vivid blackness, a connection being cut, and Sophia felt air whistling into her lungs in a violent, biting rush.
“Sophie! Look at me.” Max’s hand on her cheek, a tactile shock that made her eyes snap open.
He dropped his hand at once, white lines bracketing his mouth. “Talk to me.”
“Not here.” Her throat was shredded, lined with a million splinters. “Get me home. Please, Max.”
And somehow, he did.
Her knees buckled the instant they were inside his apartment.
“I’ve got you.” Catching her up in his arms—and being careful to avoid any skin-to-skin contact—Max carried her to the sofa. But instead of setting her down, he took a seat with her in his lap. “Shh,” he said when she grew stiff. “Let me hold you.”
“Max—”
“I need to do this.” A fierce whisper.
When he did nothing except hold her, she relaxed, laying her head on his shoulder. It was so tempting to place her hand on his other shoulder, but he was only wearing a fine cotton shirt and she wasn’t sure if the barrier would be strong enough. Not after the impact of what she’d seen, and with him so warm and solid around her, the scent of him an unambiguously masculine blend of heat, soap, and a fresh pine that she knew was his aftershave.
Drawing it in, she sighed, melting into his embrace. She could have cuddled into him forever, but she had to know, had to ask. “Who is River?”
Max froze at the quiet question, his heart punching against his ribs so hard, he half expected to see blood dot his chest. “My younger brother.”
Sophia stilled within his arms, but her question, when it came, was practical. Psy. “You have clear markers of Asian descent, while he was unquestionably Caucasian.”
The logical query calmed him, gave him an anchor. “He looked—looks exactly like our mother.” River had been her shadow and her mirror. And in the end that knowledge had broken his brother. “We had different fathers. His was as blond as our mother.” While Max’s was an unknown, a man who’d given him only the genetic heritage of another culture. “No one ever believed we were brothers.” But they were. They’d come from the same womb, grown up in the same hell.
“Is he—” A pause, a long breath. “You wanted to use the past tense.”
Another stab of pain, but he didn’t tell her to drop the subject. It had been so long since he’d spoken of River to someone who’d known him—and somehow, he knew his J did. “River disappeared when I was almost fourteen and he was eleven. He was so lost in the drugs by then that I know he can’t have survived long . . . but part of me wakes up every morning hoping that when I open the door, I’ll see him on the other side.”
Sophia shifted position, her gloved hand rising to curve hesitantly over the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Max. I didn’t mean to invade your memories.”
“I thought my shield—”
She shook her head. “Most telepaths who are born with the ability to be Js often also have some latent or weak F abilities.”
Max frowned. “Foreseers see the future.”
“Usually, yes. But there is a small subgroup that sees the past. It’s termed backsight.”
He knew she was talking so factually because she’d read his pain, was trying to distance him from it the only way she knew how, his vulnerable J with a heart that understood how much memories could hurt. “You saw River in a flash of backsight.”
“Yes. It’s the first incident I’ve ever had.” Eyes haunted, she placed her hand on his shoulder. “If statistics hold true, that’s probably the single one I’ll ever experience.”
“You sound glad.”
“I’ve never felt so helpless,” she whispered.
“What did you see?” His heart twisted—there’d been no horror in her eyes, so perhaps she’d seen a slice of happiness.
“You and your brother in an alley. You were trying to talk him out of doing drugs.”
“I tried so many times.” Max dropped his head against her. “He was the one person I loved, the one person who mattered. But I couldn’t save him.”
“He was so young,” Sophia said.
“And damaged—so much that he couldn’t see any other way out.” Max wished he could go back in time, convince River that none of it was his fault. “He blamed himself for things over which he had no control.”
BONDS OF JUSTICE
Nalini Singh's books
- Ascendancy of the Last
- Blood of Aenarion
- Broods Of Fenrir
- Burden of the Soul
- Caradoc of the North Wind
- Cause of Death: Unnatural
- City of Ruins
- Dark of the Moon
- Demons of Bourbon Street
- Edge of Dawn
- Eye of the Oracle
- Freak of Nature
- Heart of the Demon
- Lady of Devices
- Lance of Earth and Sky
- Last of the Wilds
- Legacy of Blood
- Legend of Witchtrot Road
- Lord of the Wolfyn
- Of Gods and Elves
- Of Wings and Wolves
- Prince of Spies
- Professor Gargoyle
- Promise of Blood
- Secrets of the Fire Sea
- Shadows of the Redwood
- Sin of Fury
- Sins of the Father
- Smugglers of Gor
- Sword of Caledor
- Sword of Darkness
- Talisman of El
- Threads of Desire (Spellcraft)
- Tricks of the Trade
- Visions of Magic
- Visions of Skyfire
- Well of the Damned
- Wings of Tavea
- Wings of the Wicked
- A Bridge of Years
- Chronicles of Raan
- Dawn of Swords(The Breaking World)
- A Draw of Kings
- Hunt the Darkness (Guardians of Eternity)
- Lord of the Hunt
- Master of War
- Mistfall(Book One of the Mistfall Series)
- The Gates of Byzantium
- The House of Yeel
- The Oath of the Vayuputras: Shiva Trilogy 3
- The Republic of Thieves #1
- The Republic of Thieves #2
- Edge of Dawn
- A Quest of Heroes
- Mistress of the Empire
- Servant of the Empire
- Gates of Rapture
- Reaper (End of Days)
- This Side of the Grave
- Magician's Gambit (Book Three of The Belgariad)
- Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files
- Murder of Crows
- The Queen of the Tearling
- A Tale of Two Castles
- Mark of the Demon
- Sins of the Demon
- Blood of the Demon
- The Other Side of Midnight
- Vengeance of the Demon: Demon Novels, Book Seven (Kara Gillian 7)
- Cold Burn of Magic
- Of Noble Family
- Wrath of a Mad God ( The Darkwar, Book 3)
- King of Foxes
- Daughter of the Empire
- Mistress of the Empire
- Krondor : Tear of the Gods (Riftwar Legacy Book 3)
- Shards of a Broken Crown (Serpentwar Book 4)
- Rise of a Merchant Prince
- End of Days (Penryn and the End of Day #3)
- Servant of the Empire
- Talon of the Silver Hawk
- Shadow of a Dark Queen
- The Cost of All Things
- The Wicked (A Novella of the Elder Races)
- Night's Honor (A Novel of the Elder Races Book 7)
- Born of Silence
- Born of Shadows
- Sins of the Night
- Kiss of the Night (Dark Hunter Series – Book 7)
- Born Of The Night (The League Series Book 1)
- The Council of Mirrors
- Born of Ice
- Born of Fire
- Born of Defiance
- Gates of Paradise (a Blue Bloods Novel)
- A Very Levet Christmas (Guardians of Eternity)
- Darkness Eternal (Guardians of Eternity)
- City of Fae
- The Invasion of the Tearling
- The Book of Speculation: A Novel