CARESSED BY ICE

“Somebody is trying to hurt you.” Something not wholly on the side of the angels moved at the back of his eyes.

She had already decided she wasn’t going to run from what he was, but that didn’t mean she was going to submit to his every wish. “I don’t need a babysitter if I’m wide-awake.” She swallowed. “Go. Looking at you makes me want.”

For a timeless second, it appeared he wouldn’t listen. Then he turned on his heel and left even as she reached out to touch the odd glint of dark red she thought she saw at the side of his face. “Oh, God.” She fought the urge to collapse, to rage at the unfairness of it all. Instead, she pushed up her sleeves, found the vacuum-bot, switched it to manual, and began to clean up the dust Judd hadn’t manage to corral.





Judd touched the wetness near his jaw and brought his fingers up in front of him. Pale red stained his fingers. His first guess was that he’d been cut by a piece of flying debris but when he moved to the mirror over the sink, he discovered his mistake.

The blood had leaked from his ear.

Extreme dissonance.

His body was literally fighting itself, the conditioning and its attendant pain controls slamming up against the emotions he shouldn’t have been feeling. He wiped away the blood and did an internal check. The rupture had already healed over, his body having automatically utilized the same technique as the one that made his scars disappear.

But he knew it couldn’t keep up with what was happening inside him. Sooner rather than later, he’d have to shut down every facet of emotion, every glimmer of passion. Because otherwise, his brain would look exactly like those of the hyena children he’d seen.

Bloody. Battered. Irrevocably broken.





Several hours after her cleaning frenzy, Brenna found herself bad-tempered from lack of sleep, lack of touch, and a sensual need that refused to quit. It probably wasn’t the best of times for her to be charting a hack, but she’d made a promise. So here she was with Dorian in the second subbasement of DarkRiver’s business HQ.

The blond sentinel had growled at her several times, but she’d just snarled back.

“You’re going about it ass-backwards,” he said for the fourth time in an hour.

Brenna’s eyes narrowed. “The whole plan is to sneak in, not stampede so loudly that everyone from the Psy Council to your uncle in Poughkeepsie can hear us.”

“Where the hell is Poughkeepsie anyway?” Dorian pushed into her personal space, standing with his hand on her chair as he leaned over her shoulder to look at the screen.

Brenna was itching for a fight after the frustrated night she’d had. But there was something she had to talk to Dorian about. “Can I ask you a question?”

“What?” He scowled, tapping at her screen and threatening to shift the pathway she’d mapped out. “You should’ve gone—”

“Dorian.”

Her tone must’ve gotten through to him because he swung around to take a seat in the chair beside her, swiveling so he faced her profile. “What is it, kid?”

He was the only one she let get away with calling her that—she had guessed that Dorian, who had lost his sister to Enrique, saw her as another baby sister. It was the reason he acted so bossy with her. That was more than okay with her, because while Dorian was hard to read, if he was anything like Drew and Riley, then his sister’s murder had to have devastated him, tearing into the protectiveness at his core.

“First, Judd knows but that’s all. Don’t tell anyone else, okay?”

His surfer-blue eyes were piercing. “I can’t make that promise until I know if it’ll affect either of our packs.”

“It won’t.” Glancing over her shoulder to double-check that no one was listening, she turned back to the DarkRiver sentinel and simply asked what she needed to know. “How do you deal with not being able to change into animal form?”

Dorian’s face reflected surprise. “Most people dance around that. Like they’re afraid of hurting me.” His voice said that that was a ridiculous worry.

“Please tell me.” She held his gaze. “Please, Dorian.”

Realization dawned. “Oh, damn, sweetheart. That bastard messed you up, didn’t he?” Reaching out, he stroked a hand over her hair. “How bad?”

The gentleness brought tears to her eyes. “I can use my teeth and claws, but I can’t shift fully. No loss of strength, speed, or flexibility.”

Dorian dropped his hand to lie on the back of her chair. “I grew up latent—I never had anything to lose.” His tone was matter-of-fact. “But you’re different. Are you sure it’s permanent?”

“I don’t know anything. But I want to prepare myself for the worst-case scenario.” That way, her heart couldn’t break all over again.

“Alright.” Dorian’s handsome features settled into decisive lines. “The first thing you have to do is stop feeling sorry for yourself.”