BONDS OF JUSTICE

“I’m fine,” she said to Faith, tremors shaking her frame. “We’re both fine. Here, you better speak directly to Max.”


Leaning back in her seat, she tried to get her heart to beat in a normal rhythm as Max had a short, sharp discussion with Faith. Closing the phone, he ordered her to step out of the car. Neither of them said a word until they were standing in front of the innocuous-looking vehicle.

“I’m getting the bomb squad,” Max said, using her cell phone to make the call when his own proved to have a flat battery. “They’ll be here in five minutes, tops.”

“So soon?” She had to focus on the mundane, on the practical . . . rather than on the fact that Max had come terrifyingly close to death.

Max touched her lightly on the back, and she realized just how much she’d missed the contact in the frenetic pace of the past two days. No one had ever told her that touch was something you became addicted to, the loss of it a hunger, an ache deep within.

“They work out of the same Enforcement building we used as a base.” His hand dropped away as an Enforcement vehicle drove into the garage. “Still, that was damn fast.”

Two men and one woman stepped out, all three in the protective gear of the bomb squad. “Tell me what you know,” the woman said.

“We got the heads-up from an F-Psy—” Max began.

“Foreseer?” The woman whistled. “I didn’t realize they made civilian predictions—heard it was all business.”

“Faith NightStar,” Max said. “She’s part of DarkRiver. She saw the car explode after I started the engine.”

“Hmm. Given current technology, it’s got to be some kind of a detonation message being sent to the actual device.” She was already moving toward the car, equipment in hand. “You two might want to clear the garage. You’re not wearing protective gear.”

Max nodded to the entrance ramp. “We’ll be waiting outside.”

“I’ll give you a yell soon as we locate anything.”


Faith paced across the beautifully lighted cave that was her home office, rubbing her hands up and down her arms.

“You cold, sweetheart?”

Looking up, she found Vaughn in the doorway. Her jaguar had a streak of white dust on his face, a rip near the bottom of his T-shirt, and was so wonderful she still couldn’t believe he was hers. “No.” But she walked into his embrace. “Hold me.”

“Hey.” His arms came around her, strong and warm, one hand gripping a chisel he’d clearly been using on his current sculpture. “I thought you said the cop and his J were all right?”

“They are.” She ran her fingers over the gritty dust that covered the skin of his arm. “But I still have this knowing that something bad is coming.” She hated the amorphous knowings even more than the dark visions. At least the visions showed her something concrete, something she could fight or avert. “It’s an emotional knowing—connected to someone who’s important to me.”

“Did you try the exercises you’ve been working on to fine-tune your control over your abilities?”

She nodded, sliding her hands under his T-shirt and to the muscled warmth of his back. “I can’t break through the veil. And Vaughn, it’s something really, really bad.” Ice filled her heart, coated her veins. “What if I can’t stop it?” What if she lost one of the people she loved?

Vaughn pressed his lips to her brow. “We discussed this. You’ll go mad if you take responsibility for every evil you can’t stop.” His tone was gentle but absolute. “You saved two lives today. Celebrate that.”

Raising her head, she met those golden eyes—eyes of a jungle cat made human—that had become the fulcrum of her universe. “It’s hard.” And part of the reason why so many F-Psy had gone irrevocably mad in the past—that need to save every life, avert every sorrow, could devour the unwary.

“That’s why you have me.” Lips against her own, intense protectiveness in the way his body curved over hers. “Let’s see if we can’t get you into a better frame of mind.” And then her jaguar was purring low in his throat as he peeled off her clothes. “It’ll come to you if you’re relaxed.”

She felt her heart lighten with sensual humor. Oh, how she needed him. His ability to play, to laugh, to love, made every darkness bearable. “So you’re stripping me naked for my benefit?”

A look so innocent, it would’ve done one of Tammy’s rambunctious twins proud. “Of course.”

Faith let him love her, let him comfort her . . . and hoped it would break open the deadlock on her mind. Because whatever was coming, it was a crushing, terrifying blackness that only ever meant one thing.

Death.





CHAPTER 28


We don’t choose our parents. And their mistakes aren’t our own. You are what you make yourself—don’t ever forget that.





—Max Shannon in reply to an e-mail from the sole

survivor of the Castleton murder-suicide