BONDS OF JUSTICE

Max’s breath against her neck. “No.”


She balled her fingers into fists. An emotional reaction. One that would’ve concerned her before she’d decided to live . . . to love. She wasn’t sure she knew how, wasn’t sure the capacity hadn’t been cut out of her with brutal efficiency. But Max was important. She’d kill for him, she thought, this man who saw in her a woman worth trusting . . . a woman worth teasing. “This cardigan has pearl buttons, too,” she whispered.

His body seemed to relax a fraction at her reference to the note he’d dropped into her bag earlier, and she hoped she’d brought some light into his heart. “Witch.”

Releasing her clenched fingers one by one, she lifted her hands and then, very deliberately, stripped off her gloves. Dropping them to the floor, she reached for his hand.

His palm met hers, his fingers twining with her own to curl into her palm.

For an instant, everything went black. When she could see again, she found herself leaning against Max’s chest, his free hand curved over her abdomen as he held her against the masculine heat of his body. “I’m here.” A rough murmur.

She clung to the strength of him, the lean muscle of his body a solid wall in a shifting universe. It was difficult to breathe—he was in the air, too, an invisible caress. Dark, potent, male, Max surrounded her.

“Your shields,” he said against her ear, his lips touching her skin in small, erotic bites. “Are you safe?”

Knowing he was right to be concerned, she opened her psychic eye and checked her protections against the PsyNet, ready to patch any fractures, hide any weaknesses. What she saw made her go motionless. “They’re holding, but not in a normal way.”

“Explain.”

“My shields have always been rock solid, but now . . . they’re moving. It’s as if I’m in the middle of a tornado.” The psychic wind blew back her hair as she stood shocked in the center of her mind. “Nothing can get in or out because the layers shift constantly, tearing apart anything that attempts to penetrate.”

“Is it harming you?”

“No. It’s efficient beyond anything I’ve ever seen, but it may bring attention to me.” She’d survived this long by being faultless when it came to her work, but deliberately unremarkable in any other way—the perfect Psy.

Even as she spoke, there was a mental knock on her mind. “Someone’s seen,” she said, before answering the telepathic contact. Sir.

Jay Khanna’s psychic voice was clear, direct, his telepathic reach close to 9.8 on the Gradient. That reach had given rise to speculation that the reason Khanna had been taken off the active roster at an early age was because the Council had other uses for his telepathy. Ms. Russo, he said now, there’s been a significant change in your shields. Do you need assistance?

It was a thinly veiled query about whether her conditioning was close to total collapse. If she said yes, she’d be picked up for emergency reconditioning—and find herself undergoing total and comprehensive rehabilitation, her memories of Max scrubbed away, her mind broken until it was nothing but an empty shell.

Silently thanking the M-Psy who’d told her the truth about her status, she said, My shields appear to have evolved to provide better protection.

Shields do not evolve.

No, she thought, they didn’t. I misspoke, sir. I’ve been working with the idea of this type of a shield for a while—they simply went into effect before I planned. It was a reasonable response—all Js tinkered constantly with their shields in an effort to eke out another day, another hour of life.

Khanna accepted her explanation, his tone retaining its professionalism as he switched topics. Have you reviewed the Valentine file?

Yes, sir.

And your conclusions?

Remain unchanged.

Very well. Continue with your current assignment.

Ending the telepathic conversation, Sophia sagged against Max, telling him what had occurred. Max moved the hand he had on her abdomen, inciting a strange twisting sensation in her body. It wasn’t painful. No, it was . . . interesting. “What else is up?” he asked.

“What?”

“Your expression changed toward the end.”

She thought about what her boss had asked her to do, thought, too, what it would mean to share that with Max. He’d know. What she’d done. The lines she’d crossed. Pain rippled down her spine. “I don’t want to tell you,” she said, incapable of any sophisticated evasion when it came to this man.

To her surprise, Max squeezed her hips and said, “Keep your secrets”—his voice an intimate darkness in her ear—“for now.”