Hostage to Pleasure

—the sensation of leaves brushing her hair and bark under her palms. A thousand scents in her nose and— A shutterblink and it was gone.

“Dorian,” she whispered, imagining their fledgling bond as a holovision set with bad reception. Or perhaps bootlegged cable was the better analogy. But who was the hacker? Thinking of the bond in such technical terms helped her get her mind around the shimmering wonder of something so outside her realm of experience, she barely dared imagine she might have a right to it.

She stepped over a fallen log and paused, listening with an inner ear that had nothing to do with being Psy, before turning left. The earth was softer the deeper she went, the trees closer together. But there were still large patches of open land covered with the debris of the forest—leaves and branches, rocks and moss. She had no difficulty skirting the obstacles—light had infiltrated but it was a subdued, heavy kind of light. A waiting light.

She paused again and listened, this time with her human ear. Silence. Dorian was good, very, very good.

—earth and the sharp bite of pine, concentration. The sight of a beautiful woman walking along the forest floo— She glanced behind her, searching. But the man who thought she was beautiful was nowhere to be seen. Yet she could feel him inside her, though she was in the PsyNet and he was outside. How had he broken—“Of course,” she whispered, coming to a standstill. Dorian hadn’t broken in. No, she had invited him in.

The mating bond was piggybacking on the powerful emotional attraction she felt for him. Full of color and chaos, this emotion tied her to him far more powerfully than any psychic bond.

It didn’t matter that she refused to accept the bond. She’d already accepted Dorian into her heart.

Amara walked out from behind a copse of tall firs at that instant, her face ravaged by scratches, dirt, and a mental disturbance that had given itself physical form. “No,” she said, voice husky and lips parched. “He can’t have you.”

Seeing the loaded pressure injector in her sister’s hand, Ashaya felt a wave of wild protectiveness sweep over her. “I won’t let you touch him.”

“You’d never harm me.” Confident, brazen.

But she was wrong. Not giving herself time to think, Ashaya walked forward and kicked out her leg, hitting her twin’s knee side-on. Amara cried out and collapsed into a whimpering pile on the forest floor. Ashaya could feel her sister’s mind scrabbling at the surface of her own as she leaned down, took the injector, and stowed it away in a pocket.

“Your hurt me.” An uncomprehending statement.

Heart torn and bloodied, Ashaya knelt down beside Amara and put her hand on her cheek. “To save you.” She didn’t glance up when Dorian dropped soundlessly behind Amara’s fallen body. Her sister found her hands tied behind her back, her ankles roped together before she could struggle away. Betrayal turned her eyes indigo.

Ashaya felt the painful shove of her twin shutting her out completely on the psychic plane. “You need help, Amara.”

Nothing from Amara’s mind as Dorian swung her up over his shoulder. “I’ll carry her the rest of the way.”

Ashaya nodded and began to walk beside him. She kept trying to catch Amara’s gaze, but her sister stared fixedly down at the forest floor. “Did I hurt your knee badly?” she asked.

Nothing.

She looked at Dorian, feeling helpless and in the wrong, though she knew she’d done the right thing. This way, Amara stayed alive. If she’d attacked Dorian, she’d probably have ended up de— A telepathic strike that drove her to her knees, every ounce of Amara’s meager Tp abilities focused over a very short distance and shoved like an ice pick into Ashaya’s brain. Ashaya gripped her head, unable to see through the brutal ferocity of the pain.

Dorian saw Ashaya go down and made his decision in the flicker between one instant and the next. “Fuck this.” He dropped Amara lightly to the ground. Then he coldcocked her.

She went out like a light.

But he wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was cradling Ashaya in his lap, stroking his hand over her hair, dropping kisses along her temple, and wiping away her tears. She whimpered as if it still hurt. It was such a helpless sound to come from this woman who never let anything bring her down. The rage inside him was a powerful beating thing, but it had nowhere to go—because killing Amara would kill a part of Ashaya, too.

So he just held her until she raised her head. Her gaze went to her sister’s unconscious body. “You hit her.”

“Only way I could think of to cut off whatever it was she was doing to you.” He figured she’d be shocked, maybe a hell of a lot more than shocked. He didn’t care. Not when it came to protecting her.

But she didn’t berate him. Instead, she nodded, a bruised kind of resignation in her eyes. “I’d almost convinced myself it would all work out, that she’d listen.” She shook her head. “There’s going to be no easy answer, is there, Dorian?”

He couldn’t lie to her. “No, Shaya.” This would make them all bleed before it was over.