Hostage to Pleasure

“What about through the PsyNet?” he asked.

A pause. “Possible. She’s the only one who can find me there. If she does, it’ll blow my cover . . . even though I’m starting to panic about exactly how that cover is staying in place. I’m feeling too much—my shields should’ve been compromised days ago.”

Dorian ignored her final murmurs. “Would she do that, put you at risk?”

Ashaya walked back out, fingers busy with the buttons on the cuffs of her ice-blue shirt. “I broke the rules—I brought someone else into our game. I don’t know what she’ll do in retaliation.”

About to answer, he heard Amara take a deeper, more conscious breath. “She’s waking up.”

Ashaya gave him a startled look. “How can you tell? She’s shut me out, I can’t feel her anymore.”

“Good.” Amara’s head rose from her chest to pin Ashaya to the spot, but when she spoke again, it was to Dorian. “Wonder what the Council will say about changelings interfering in their business again.”

“Don’t know where you’ve been,” Dorian replied conversationally, “but we don’t give a shit about your Council.”

Amara continued to stare.

He smiled. “Trying to crack my shields? You’re not strong enough to do it.”

Amara’s head swung toward Ashaya. “You’ve been telling secrets. Ming won’t like that. Should I contact him?”

“Are you sure he’ll help you?” Dorian raised an eyebrow. “He left you for us to deal with.”

Amara didn’t blink. “I suppose I should’ve expected that—I put six of his guards in a narcotic coma.”

“Will they live?” Ashaya asked.

“Should.” A shrug. “He won’t.” A flat glance at Dorian. “I’m going to kill you.”

“No, you won’t,” Ashaya said. “You’re not a murderer.”

“I know. I wouldn’t kill you.”

“Amara, you can’t kill anyone.”

Dorian’s phone beeped in the ensuing silence. He glanced at the readout. “We’d better get going.”

Ashaya looked at Amara. “You need to have a shower.”

“I’ll make sure she gets the chance,” Dorian told her, knowing Sascha would ensure Amara didn’t pull any psychic tricks. He would’ve preferred to have Judd come down, but didn’t want to take the other man away from Keenan. Then there was the fact that like Ashaya, Amara was still in the Net. And according to the Net, Judd Lauren was dead.

Amara was now staring at her twin. “I saw your broadcast. You lied.”

“What did you expect me to do? Let them continue to torture my son?” Ashaya’s voice rose for the first time. “Or should I have handed him over to your tender mercies?”

Dorian found it interesting that Amara didn’t challenge Ashaya’s claim to Keenan. “What will you lie about this time?” she asked instead.

“I’m going to reiterate the message, make it clear I’m not out for political gain.”

“It’s obvious you feel things.” Amara stared, unblinking. “Your eyes give you away.”

Very perceptive, Dorian thought—Amara Aleine was a sociopath, but she was in no way stupid. “So what?” Dorian said. “It’s the message that’s important.”

“The second my twin acknowledges a breach in her conditioning,” Amara said, eyes never moving off Ashaya, “she loses all credibility. The Council won’t have to do anything to rebut her accusations.”

Dorian had an uneasy feeling her point might be valid. He met Ashaya’s gaze. “She right?”

Her nod was reluctant. “Silence is being challenged on a number of levels. People know it’s failing for some—there are whispers of violence, of madness, but for the vast majority, it’s an indelible truth, something they’ll fight to maintain.”

“Because,” Amara said with the absolute detachment Dorian was coming to expect from her, “at the heart of it, they’re afraid.”

“Psy don’t feel.” Dorian leaned back against the wall.

Amara turned to him, black pupils stark against the paleness of her irises. “It’s the great irony of our race. Psy cling so hard to Silence because at the bottom of it all, they’re terrified, afraid that if they let go, the monsters inside their heads will start crawling out, reducing them to the level of you animals once again.”

Dorian understood when he was being played. Instead of letting her get to him, he raised an eyebrow. “But you don’t think that. You feel.”

She gave him a disappointed look. “No, I don’t. I’m a pure sociopath. I can pretend, but I can’t actually feel.”

He was fascinated by the clinical way she described herself. “How do you know if you’ve never felt?”