CARESSED BY ICE

Leaving Judd alone.

As Judd was considered the most dangerous member of the Lauren family, his living quarters had never been in any question. He continued to be looked on with suspicion, though she knew he’d been integral to her rescue. While he hadn’t been one of those who’d entered the pain-soaked room that had been her torture chamber—an omission for which she would always be grateful—he’d helped Sascha lay the psychic trap that had led to Enrique’s capture. He’d proven his loyalty. But still he remained an outsider.

The unfairness of it rubbed at her sense of justice, but she couldn’t blame her packmates for their feelings, not when Judd seemed determined to reinforce their attitude. The man was aloof to the point of rudeness.

Reaching his door, she knocked softly. “Hurry up.” Though the corridor was currently deserted, she could near the sound of approaching footsteps. With her luck, it would be one of her overprotective brothers.

The door opened. “What—?”

She ducked under his arm and into the room. “Shut it before someone comes.” For a second, she thought he would refuse, but then he pushed it closed.

Turning to stand with his back to the door, he folded his arms across a bare chest. “If your brothers find you here, they’ll put you under lock and key.”

She was suddenly hyperconscious of the scent of fresh male sweat and gleaming skin in a confined space. Terror spiked, but she squashed it almost before it arose, hiding it in that impregnable box in her mind. “Aren’t you worried about what they’ll do to you?” Despite the edge of fear, her fingertips tingled, wanting to touch this dangerous creature.

“I can take care of myself.”

Of that she had no doubt. “So can I.”

Judd’s eyes, eyes the color of bitterest chocolate except for the flecks of gold in the irises, didn’t shift their focus off her face. “What are you doing here, Brenna?”

She shook herself out of her fascination. “I need to talk to a Psy and you’re it.”

“What about Sascha?”

“She won’t understand.” Brenna both respected and liked Sascha Duncan, the Psy mind-healer who had mated with Lucas Hunter, alpha to the DarkRiver leopards. But . . . “She’s too good, too gentle.”

“It’s a side effect of her abilities,” Judd said in his usual icy tone.

It was a tone that infuriated the other males, but Brenna knew she wasn’t the only female who wondered about thawing him out. Her claws pricked the insides of her skin as she was hit by a near-violent surge of inexplicable sensual hunger. She fought it—she wasn’t stupid enough to think she could change him.

“Sascha feels the emotions of others,” Judd continued. “If she harmed another being, it would rebound back on her.”

“I know that.” Fisting her hands, she turned on her heel and began to pace around the small room. His scent was everywhere, closing around her changeling senses in a dark and uncompromising masculine wave. “This is like a cell. Couldn’t you put up a poster at least?” The size of the room was comparable to those of other unmated soldiers, but even the worst lone wolf made some changes to his living space.

In contrast, Judd’s was stark in its emptiness, his bed the single piece of furniture, the sheet white, the blanket institutional gray. The only addition appeared to be a horizontal exercise bar fitted about a foot below the ceiling.

“I don’t see the point.” He leaned back against the door, the movement drawing her attention to a chest she knew was pure hard muscle. “Ask what you came to ask.”

“I told you I’m seeing things. I saw that—that—” She couldn’t bring herself to say it, to reawaken the nightmare.

Of course Judd didn’t attempt to offer comfort. “I explained that they’re likely nothing more than psychic echoes of the trauma you suffered at Enrique’s hands.”

“You’re wrong. They’re real.”

“Tell me what you see.”

“Bad, bad things,” she whispered, hugging herself. “Death and blood and pain.”

Judd’s expression didn’t alter. “Be more specific.”

Sudden, blinding anger swamped the fear raised by the memories. “Sometimes you make me want to scream! Would it hurt you to try and appear a little human?”

He didn’t respond.

“Walker’s different.”

“My brother is a telepath with a special affinity for young Psy minds. He was a teacher in the Net.”

She took time to think that through, surprised he’d answered at all. “You’re saying he already had the capacity to feel emotions before you defected?”

“We all have the capacity,” Judd corrected. “The whole point of the conditioning under Silence is to cauterize that capacity—elimination is impossible.”