Hostage to Pleasure

Kaleb was about to move back to his study when he caught the edge of a different newscast burning up the Net. He made immediate telepathic contact. Ming, I assume you’re behind this?

It’s a message. Ashaya Aleine is not a stupid woman. She’ll understand.





CHAPTER 17


I’ve just seen a broadcast that could change everything. We need to meet. 0800 hours. Tell the others.



—Handwritten note slipped under an apartment door in the sunken city of Venice





Dorian had trapped her against the balcony railing and Amara was trying to claw into her very psyche. Ashaya snapped, and, mind screaming at the sense of entrapment, shoved at Dorian’s chest. “Get away from me.” She snatched back her hands as the heat and power of him soaked through her palms.

He smiled and it wasn’t pleasant. “Scared?”

“I’m Psy.” Reminding herself of that helped block Amara. She was safe. This time. “I feel nothing.” It was the same lie she’d told herself her entire adult life, only allowing the truth to surface in the deepest depths of night, when she was sure Amara slept. To leash her sister, and survive in the Net, she’d become the creature everyone expected her to be. The unrelenting charade had taken a toll, but she refused to crack. Not yet. Not while Keenan remained at risk.

“My conditioning may have malfunctioned once or twice,” she said, since he’d caught her lapses, “but it’s now repaired. I’m fully enmeshed in Silence.”

“Liar. You’re hiding behind the conditioning like a scared child.”

She held her ground. “Believe that if you want. It doesn’t change the truth.”

He snorted. “You know what, Ashaya, I thought you had a heart of fucking ice the first time I met you”—he leaned so close, his breath whispered across the curls that had escaped the knot at the back of her head—“but I never took you for a coward.”

For a moment, claustrophobia retreated under the thundering force of a clean, bright wave that fired energy through her body. It undermined every one of her efforts to keep Amara at bay, but for that single instant, she didn’t care. “What right do you have to call me anything? You, with your prejudice and your self-pity.”

Golden skin pulled taut over his cheekbones. “Careful, sugar. I’m not real nice when I’m pissed.”

“How would I know the difference? You’ve been unpleasant to me every chance you get. If that’s the result of a lifetime of emotion,” she said, deliberately coating each word with frost, “then I prefer Silence.”

The door to the balcony swung open, hitting Dorian on the shoulder. He didn’t turn, but Ashaya glanced over—to meet the vivid green eyes of a man with savage clawlike markings on one side of his face. He raised an eyebrow. “Takes most people a few days at least to get Dorian that close to a killing frame of mind. You have talent, Ms. Aleine.”

Dorian growled low in his throat, warning Lucas to back off. This was between him and Ashaya. “What the hell are you doing here?” He took his hands off the railing on either side of Ashaya and shifted so the door could be pushed fully open.

His alpha leaned against the wall opposite the door, looking like a fucking CEO with his dark gray suit and crisp white shirt. And a tie. Jesus H. Christ. “I just had some information come through,” Lucas said, “thought Ms. Aleine might be interested.”

Dorian shifted to place himself between Lucas and Ashaya. He saw Luc note the move, and knew the other man understood the way of things when he kept his distance, though he spoke directly to Ashaya. “We need to get you to a safe house. That broadcast didn’t declaw the beast.”

Some of the anger riding Dorian shifted into steely focus. “You sound sure.”

Lucas jerked his head in the direction of the subbasement. “Follow me.”

Dorian moved to let Ashaya brush past him. When she hesitated at going down the steps, he leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Want to stay up here with me, instead?”

“I’d rather eat dirt.”

The cat liked that acerbic response. So did the man. Biting back a smile, he followed her down into the now empty studio. Only one of the control screens was on, the image paused. “This transmission came through in bits and pieces through various networks,” Lucas said. “The fact it got through at all, given the current state of communications, speaks for itself.” Without further explanation, he touched the screen and the recording began to play. Images of smoke and debris, the reporter shouting through a face mask.