CARESSED BY ICE

“Yeah—it can’t be another pack.” She rubbed her glove-less hands together. “If it were, he’d have sung like a canary by now.”


“Is he blindfolded?” If, for no reason that he could foresee right now, Judd let the man live, he could not be allowed to become a threat to the family. Of course, given that Judd knew he wasn’t rational where Brenna was concerned, the hyena’s chances of walking out alive were close to nil.

Indigo nodded. “I put it on when I heard your vehicle.”

“I’ll make him talk.”

Another nod and then Indigo led him into the cabin. The hyena sat on a chair in the center of the room, fear a damp sheen over his face. Seeing it, Judd glanced at Indigo. “You’re right.” No one that petrified would have held out for long otherwise, not with four wolves in the room—Indigo, D’Arn, Elias, and the knife thrower, Sing-Liu.

The hyena was thin with sallow skin. Black hair. A pathetic goatee in the same shade. The latter was a straggling attempt to hide a chin so weak, it was a wonder he hadn’t wet himself. His eyes were covered by a strip of dark brown fabric but Judd didn’t need to see them to know the panic skittering through the captive’s bones.

Walking to stand behind the hyena, Judd placed a single finger against his temple. “Which part of your brain do you like the least?” He didn’t need touch to work, but the theatrics helped. As did the mental push he applied, the one that must’ve felt like a slow-moving pincer around the man’s head.

The hyena gasped but didn’t speak.

“I’ll destroy the part I choose, then,” Judd said, making his voice metallically Psy. Despite his earlier thoughts about the threat to Brenna, he wasn’t enjoying this. It was simply something to be done. Predators and scavengers respected only brute strength. The changelings weren’t so different from the Psy in that regard.

The hyena’s reaction was surprising. Tears leaked out from under the blindfold. “You weren’t there!” he screamed. “You fucking weren’t there!”

Judd stopped touching the man, his telepathic abilities sensing something odd. Backing up into the shadows at the edges of the room, he began working on the psychic level, aware of the physical conversation with the section of his mind functioning on that plane.

Indigo glanced at him. At his nod, she tugged down the blindfold. “Don’t look behind you” was her first order. “We weren’t where, Kevin?” she prompted when the male didn’t speak again. “You talk or I let him do what he’s good at. I think you can guess what the result will be.”

Yes, Judd thought, threaten him with the Psy bogeyman. But he was far more interested in something else he’d found in the hyena.

Indigo growled low in her throat. “Talk. Last warning.”

“Parrish, our pack leader”—Kevin almost stumbled over his words in his effort to obey—“he said we had to do what the Psy said and they wouldn’t touch us.”

“Why?” Indigo folded her arms, looking down on the male. Judd recognized the move as a display of dominance. “Kevin, I asked you a question.”

The hyena’s swallow was audible. “Because otherwise they would wipe us out. They killed eight of our pups as a warning.”

Indigo swore, arms unfolding. “Why the hell didn’t you come to us?”

Judd knew that while the wolves wouldn’t hesitate to destroy trespassers in their territory, they’d also help a weaker changeling group against an enemy that didn’t follow the rules of engagement. One of the most important rules was: No targeting minors.

“We did!” Kevin’s scream faded off to a whimper. “You wouldn’t come.”

“Who told you we wouldn’t come?” Indigo had softened her voice and crouched down in front of Kevin. Not submission but a signal that he might come out of this alive.

Kevin took a deep, shaky breath. “Parrish. He went to Hawke and your alpha laughed in his face. Said the loss of our pups was good riddance to bad rubbish. Then the leopards said they wouldn’t help us unless the wolves did!”

This time, Indigo’s oath was considerably more blue. “That, I can tell you, is a complete lie. Hawke has a thing about pups, and the cats make their own decisions.”

Kevin reacted violently to Indigo’s statement, going so far as to make aggressive sounds in his throat. “It’s not a lie!”

“Your pack leader sold you out.” Indigo rose to her feet, rage a cold mask over her sharply defined features.

“No! He had no reason to.”

“Yeah? Try delusions of grandeur. Maybe he thinks he’s going to replace Hawke and Lucas.”

Kevin stopped struggling. The silence lasted for several long seconds. “He said that that would be our revenge—to take your place.”

“What were Parrish’s orders?” Judd asked, near certain of the answer.

Kevin’s whole body twitched, as if he’d forgotten the danger at his back. “To do what the Psy said.”

“And what did the Psy say?” Indigo prompted.





CHAPTER 30