CARESSED BY ICE

You are not crippled, not now, not ever.

The memory had her looking away from the sleek forms of her packmates to Judd. He was watching her, no hint of an apology in his features. Her earlier fury reignited, but Hawke spoke before she could let her temper get the better of her.

“Tell me what you found.”

Judd responded with military precision. “They were carrying high-grade laser-powered weapons. None are readily available on the general market.”

“Psy supplied?”

“High likelihood. They’re produced by Psy companies.”

Riley changed position and it caught her attention—her older brother didn’t make random movements. It was Andrew who was the more physically impatient.

Hawke had also noted the action. “You have something to add?”

“For a race that dislikes using weapons,” Riley commented, “the Psy sure seem to have some advanced ones.”

“What makes you think the Psy have an aversion to weapons?” Judd asked, so eerily calm it made her want to shiver.

Riley stared hard enough to have sent lesser men cowering. “They’ve never used them to take us out.”

“Only because such an open move would cause too big a ripple. It might destabilize the economy if people thought a Psy-changeling war was in the making.” Judd’s arctic tone was akin to the baring of fangs by a wolf. “That’s why they prefer quieter, less detectable methods of removing changelings from the equation.”

“Like setting us against the cats. Exactly how stupid do they think we are?” Hawke pulled a sleek black phone out of his back pocket and punched in a code. “Lucas,” he said a second later. “We may have a situation.” A short pause and then Hawke’s face went preternaturally still.

Brenna stood in tense silence as her alpha listened to whatever it was the DarkRiver alpha was telling him, blindingly aware of the unsettling quiet of Judd by her side. A Tk. One of the same breed that had tortured her, broken her.

You’re being stupid and childish, a part of her mind said. No, she wasn’t, replied another part, one that had been bruised and bloodied.

“How bad?” Hawke asked, his savage tone snapping her back to the present. “Do I need to pull out my people?” Another pause. “Try hyena. I’ll see you as soon as you can make it.” He ended the call and returned the phone to his pocket.

“They were also hit,” Judd guessed.

“Someone tried to snatch three cubs from a city kindergarten.”

“Cubs hurt?” Indigo finally spoke.

Hawke shook his head. “It was in Chinatown, near their HQ. Kids went cat and roared their heads off. A teacher and several nearby shopkeepers got to them in seconds, but it was long enough for the attacker to blend into the streets and lose himself in the crowd. He also found the time to leave behind a piece of his clothing.”

No one had to ask what scent had been embedded in that clothing.

“Cats have to be rabid—got to be some hotheads who aren’t thinking straight,” Riley said. “We going on alert?”

Hawke gave a negative shake of his head. “Lucas says he has the situation under control. He’s contained the spread of information, and the juveniles who know have been told it looks like a Psy setup. He has them trying to track the attacker, which should keep them out of trouble.”

“Not a bad result,” Judd remarked. “Even a year ago, you would’ve shed some blood over this.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Hawke’s ice-blue eyes were almost silver in the bright daylight, beautiful in a way Brenna had never before noticed. He wasn’t the kind of man who invited that sort of appreciation—he was too male, too hard. Exactly like Judd.

Soldier. Assassin. Tk.

“There’s one more thing we have to consider.” Judd glanced at the cabin and then back, something in his expression striking her as strange. “It might not have been the Psy. Others could have gained access to those weapons, humans and changelings included.”

Andrew growled. “Trying to save your race, Psy? Who else would dare intrude on SnowDancer and DarkRiver territory?”

“What happens if you set up the dominant changelings in a region against the Psy?”

Riley understood first. “We wipe each other out, leaving the region open to takeover by a new dominant pack.”

“Or a human conglomerate.” As his expression had, Judd’s voice sounded slightly off to her senses, but she couldn’t put her finger on why. “The Psy Council ignores humans. Changelings don’t, but you still see them as weaker. They’re not. The Human Alliance has access to a massive amount of firepower and funds.”

Hawke rubbed at his jaw. “If we track the hyenas, we’ll have a starting point. You get anything else?”

“They knew where they were going—they’d done their reconnaissance and done it well enough to know the cabin was supposed to be empty.”