Hostage to Pleasure

“Ouch.” She put her hand over her heart, pretending shock.

“You know, Ming,” she said in a stage whisper, “you shouldn’t throw stones—you’re a cold-blooded murderer.”

“You broke Silence. Your emotions control you.”

Amara smiled again, slow and dark, well aware there was nothing but emptiness in her eyes. “Are you sure?” Ming was attempting to use psychological warfare on her, treating her as if she really was insane. Perhaps she was, but she was also highly intelligent and more than capable of seeing through his attempts to undermine her self-confidence. “What do you want, Councilor LeBon? What need is great enough that you’ve hunted down the rabid wolf you once called your pet?”

Ming’s eyes faded to pure black, an eerie darkness that Amara was used to seeing in the mirror. “You’re the only one capable of completing your sister’s work. You must conclude what she began. Finalize the Implant Protocol.”

“So little?” She smiled again, showing teeth. “Consider it done.”





CHAPTER 12


I heard the sniper’s voice against my ear when I woke today. He whispered sensual promises so savage, I can hardly believe these thoughts come from some corner of my own psyche. And yet they must. Because, at the end, he called me prey.

And told me to run.



—From the encrypted personal files of Ashaya Aleine





Half an hour after waking, Ashaya snapped on a pair of thin latex gloves included in her first aid kit before heading into Mercy’s kitchen and beginning to open cupboards.

“That’s not polite.” The drawled warning made her glance over her shoulder.

Dorian had been fiddling with the organizer’s security codes for the past thirty minutes, giving her time to clean up and consider her next move. She’d expected him to push for more information about Amara, but so far, he’d remained quiet. She wasn’t fooled—leopards were masters at stalking prey. “I need some household chemicals.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Try under the sink.”

She did so and found most of what she needed. Aware of Dorian’s interested gaze as he came to stand in the entrance to the kitchen, she found a bowl and began mixing the chemicals together. “Would you mind getting me the pale blue tube from my first aid kit?” She expected a refusal, but he left and came back with cat swiftness. “Here.”

“Thank you.” She emptied the pure alcohol into the mix.

Dorian stepped closer, until he was leaning against the side of the counter, his arm braced on the upper level, while she worked on the lower level. She couldn’t help but note that despite his white-blond hair, his skin was golden, as if it tanned easily.

He peered at the mixture and sniffed. “Smells acrid, bitter.”

At that moment, he appeared more feline than ever before. Once, she’d had a neighbor’s domesticated cat sneak into the house she’d called home before the Council moved her to a lab—the creature had watched her experiments with the same fascinated expression.

Not sure how to take his continued lack of aggression, she fell back on Psy practicality. “You’d be surprised at how caustic household chemicals can be, especially when mixed with each other in a selective way.” She shook the bowl gently and saw it was beginning to scar on the inside. “I’ll pay Mercy for this.”

“Don’t worry,” Dorian murmured. “It’s not expensive—I can smell the strength of your brew. Whoa!” His exclamation had her looking down.

The mixture was bubbling.

“Excellent.” Taking the bowl, she carried it carefully into the bathroom, put it in the sink, and pulled out the tissue-wrapped chip from her pocket. “May I borrow your timepiece?”

He snapped it off and handed it to her. An instant later, he gave a horrified shout as she opened the tissue and dropped the tiny piece of hardware hidden inside into the caustic mix. “Jesus, woman!” His hand clenched on her upper arm—the flesh bare since she’d showered and changed into a short-sleeved tee. “What the hell—?”

She forced herself to speak with Psy calm, even as her heart rate skyrocketed. “Twenty-four hours prior to my defection, I coated the chip with a protective layer so it would survive my stomach acids.” She’d put the poison over it, and protected that with a weak substance that would be destroyed the minute the chip touched her mouth. “It made the chip nonfunctional. I need to clean off the coating to get to the data.”

Dorian moved closer, his hand still on her arm, his thumb moving absently against her skin. She almost missed his next words, she was so focused on the stark intimacy of skin-to-skin contact. A normal human or changeling interaction. Except she wasn’t human or changeling. She was Psy. She hadn’t been touched that way . . . ever.

“How will you know when it’s done?”