CARESSED BY ICE

Brenna growled. “You’ll kill him. We need to know what he fed Enrique.”


“I can get that.” Judd could almost taste the man’s death on his lips.

“His execution belongs to Tim’s family.” She stepped around the body to face him. “Tim died. I didn’t.”

Blood for life. Life for life. Changeling justice.

But Judd wasn’t changeling. Dieter’s heart pulsed in his psychic hold. Just one—Brenna gripped the front of his shirt. “Stop.”

He stared at her. “No.” His mind recognized killing, was drawn to the taste of it.

She kissed him, bit down hard on his lower lip. Dissonance crashed into him, combining with the sensory pleasure, the iron-rich taste of blood, and the hunger for violence. It scrambled his pathways for an instant. That instant was enough. When she drew back, he was still homicidal, but he could think past it. “You’re right. We need to know what he knows. I’ll take him.”

This time, she didn’t try to stop him as he hauled the changeling over his shoulder and strode out, Elias by his side. The other man kept growling low in his throat until Judd dumped Dieter in the lockup and secured the door. “Does he need a healer?” Judd wanted him very alive for the questioning.

Elias’s eyes were flat. “He needs to be dead, but I’ll call Lara. It might be a while if there were injuries in the nursery.”

Judd had forgotten the alarm in the emotional chaos of the attack on Brenna. “Are you capable of guarding him? I know he was your friend.”

“I want to tear him to pieces.” His claws were out. “But I won’t let him die—Tim’s family deserves the honor of ripping his two-faced heart from his fucking chest.”

Accepting that, Judd left to return to Brenna. He found the apartment full. Surprisingly, Lara herself was looking at Brenna’s cuts, while Hawke asked her questions and her brothers swore in low, continuous bursts. Outside, someone was already trying to repair the door he’d busted. He heard Sing-Liu’s cool voice giving the orders.

“Judd.” Brenna’s face lit up the second she saw him. She went to hold out a hand but dropped it halfway.

He grabbed it anyway. Damn the consequences. “The nursery?” he asked Lara.

“Looked worse than it was,” she said. “No kids hurt but that was by sheer luck. If a pup had crawled into the doorway when it came down—” She shook her head.

“A diversion,” Judd said. “He had to get D’Arn away from Brenna.”

“D’Arn’s already beating himself up about it.” Riley blew out a breath. “But Dieter knew what he was doing—I would’ve taken off for the nursery, too. Bren can look after herself, pups can’t.”

Brenna shot her big brother a smile at the vote of confidence, before returning her attention to Judd. “I was telling Hawke how it happened. I left to grab my comm equipment from my room and when I came out, he was standing here.” Her voice shook, not with fear but anger. “He smirked at me, said no one’s here to protect you now, little girl. He had that injector in his hand.” She pointed to the small cylindrical object lying in a corner.

A wall hanging crashed to the floor, the tough plasglass cover splintering.

As everyone else turned toward the sound, Brenna squeezed his hand. The warning worked. He pulled his rage under control, but it was an uncertain control at best. “When did you remember about the van?”

“That smirk.” She almost spit out the words. “It made me want to kill and then I knew why.”

Hawke kicked aside a piece of debris on the floor—a large splinter from the door. “No wonder you blocked it out. One of us served you up to die.” His eyes had gone pure wolf.

“Yes.” Her tone softened, grew sad. “He killed Tim, tried to kill Drew, gave me up . . . and for what? Money.”

“I’ll find out what he knows.” Hawke glanced at Judd. “Can you help?”

He thought of how Dieter’s heart had felt in his hands, so slick, so crushable. “Give me a week. I’d kill him right now.”

“It’ll take him longer than that to heal the damage Brenna tells me she did.” Lara’s tone was without its normal gentleness. “I’ve got to go stitch him up now.”

Hawke went with Lara. Judd looked at Drew and Riley. “Give us a few minutes.”

Both men left after a short, tense silence. Judd took Brenna into her room and closed the door. She stood with her back to it as he leaned over her, palms braced on either side of her head. “You’re okay.” Not a question, because even bruised, she was standing strong.

“You’re not.” She took a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at his jaw and he realized he was bleeding from his ear canal again. Worry laid another bruise in her eyes, turning the areola of blue almost indigo. “You can’t wait much longer.”