CARESSED BY ICE

A fist crashed into Judd’s cheekbone. Focused on eliminating his opponent from the field, he barely noticed the impact, his own fist already swinging out. Tai tried to evade the blow at the last second but it was too late—the young wolf’s jaw slammed together with a thick sound that spoke of damage on the inside.

But he wasn’t down.

Baring teeth stained red from a cut on his top lip, he rushed at Judd, clearly aiming to use his heavier build as a battering ram to smash his adversary into the hard stone wall. Instead it was Tai who ended up with his back slammed against the stone, his mouth falling open as air punched out of his lungs in an uncontrollable blast.

Judd gripped the other male by the throat. “Killing you would mean nothing to me,” he said, tightening his hold until Tai had to be having trouble breathing. “Would you like to die?” His tone was calm, his breathing modulated. It was a state of being that had nothing to do with feeling, because unlike the changeling across from him, Judd Lauren did not feel.

Tai’s lips shaped into a curse, but all that materialized was an incomprehensible wheezing sound. To a casual observer it would have seemed that Judd had gained the advantage, but he didn’t make the mistake of lowering his guard. So long as Tai hadn’t conceded defeat, he remained dangerous. The other male proved that a second later by using the changeling ability to semishift—slicing up hands turned to claws.

Those sharp talons cut through leather-synth and flesh without effort, but Judd didn’t give the boy a chance to cause him any real injury. Pressing down on a very specific pressure point in Tai’s neck, he slammed his erstwhile opponent into unconsciousness. Only when the changeling was completely out did he release his hold. Tai slumped down into a seated position, head hanging over his chest.

“You’re not supposed to use Psy powers,” a husky female voice said from the doorway.

He had no need to turn to identify her but did so anyway. Extraordinary brown eyes in a fine-boned face topped by a choppily cut cap of blonde hair. Those eyes had been normal and that hair hadn’t been short before Brenna had been abducted. By a killer. By a Psy.

“I don’t need to use my abilities to deal with little boys.”

Brenna walked to stand beside him, her head just reaching his breastbone. He had never realized how small she was until he’d seen her after the rescue. Lying in that bed, scarcely breathing, her energy had been contracted into a ball so tight, he hadn’t been sure she was still alive. But her size meant nothing. Brenna Shane Kincaid, he had learned, had a will of pure, undiluted iron.

“That’s the fourth time this week you’ve been in a fight.” Her hand rose and he had to stop himself from jerking away. Touch was a changeling thing—the wolves indulged in it constantly and without thought. For a Psy it was an alien concept, something that could ultimately foster a dangerous loss of control. But Brenna had been broken by an evil spawned of his own race. If she needed touch, so be it.

Faint imprints of heat on his cheek. “You’ll have a bruise. Come on, let me put something on it.”

“Why aren’t you with Sascha?” Another renegade Psy, but a healer not a killer. Judd was the one who had blood on his hands. “I thought you had a session with her at eight p.m.” It was now five past the hour.

Those stroking fingers slid to linger on his jaw before dropping off. Her lashes lifted. And revealed the change that had taken hold five days after her rescue. Eyes that had once been dark brown were now a mix he’d never seen on any sentient being—human, changeling, or Psy. Brenna’s pupils were pure black, but surrounding those dots of night were bursts of arctic blue, vivid and spiking. They jagged out into the dark brown of the iris, giving her eyes a shattered look.

“It’s over,” she said.

“What is?” He heard Tai moan but ignored it. The boy was no threat—the only reason Judd had allowed him to land any of his punches was because he understood the way wolf society worked. Being beaten in a fight was bad, but not as bad as being beaten without putting up a solid resistance.

Tai’s feelings made no difference to Judd. He had no intention of assimilating into the changeling world. But his niece and nephew, Marlee and Toby, also had to survive in the network of underground tunnels that was the SnowDancer den, and his enemies might become theirs. So he hadn’t humiliated the boy by ending the fight before it began.

“Is he going to be alright?” Brenna asked, when Tai moaned a second time.

“Give him a minute or two.”

Glancing back at him, she sucked in a breath. “You’re bleeding!”

He stepped away before she could touch his shredded forearms. “It’s nothing serious.” And it wasn’t. As a child he had been subjected to the most excruciating pain and then been taught to block it. A good Psy felt nothing. A good Arrow felt even less.