MINE TO POSSESS

“No,” Clay said at once. He was going to do this, make sure Talin was safe. “Judd can’t risk being made.”


“I can hide very well,” Judd responded. “But we also have to consider the fact that if I go into Larsen’s mind, there’s a high probability I’ll destroy everything he knows. I won’t have time to fine-tune the intrusion.”

Clay’s beast growled inwardly at Judd’s reference to the Psy ability to kill with a single focused mental strike. “Psy can’t strike at us if they’re unconscious, correct?”

“Yes. That is,” he amended, “if they’re strong enough to take you out in the first place. Not every Psy is. Anything below a Gradient 5, you’d survive.”

“Same problem,” Lucas pointed out. “He loses consciousness, we lose the chance to extract information.”

“I put some of our own bugs in the apartment when I checked it out earlier,” Clay told them. “Switch your earpieces to frequency two.”

“And here I thought you didn’t listen when I talked about the tech stuff.” Despite the lighthearted words, Dorian’s amazement was evident. “So, we listen, let Larsen and his buddies tell us what we need to know. Might work unless they choose to telepath. Telepaths, hell—Judd, they going to be able to pick us up?”

“I don’t think this Larsen is smart enough to run a telepathic scan. But if he does, we’ll be fine as long as we’re not too close. Most Psy only have the ability to scan a few meters in any direction.”

“We need to be close enough to intercept when necessary.” Clay scanned the area with a predator’s cool mind. “One covering the back of the building, one the front, two on either side.”

“Dorian—you’re the sniper,” Lucas said. “Get up high, set up your rifle, and aim it at the window of Talin’s apartment. If we need a shot, we’ll let you know.”

Dorian was already moving.

Lucas touched his earpiece a few minutes later. “He has a sightline into the window.”

The three of them moved out toward the building, one Psy assassin and two leopards who knew how to turn to shadows in the dark.

“I’m in position.” Lucas’s calm voice.

“So am I.” Judd.

“Copy.” Clay’s mind was working with near-Psy efficiency by then, his emotions contained until he needed their violent force. He was certain he would tonight.

Because he had no doubts whatsoever that the monster would come.

The animal had scented something in the wind, tasted something in the bruises Jon bore. The man who had preyed on the boy wouldn’t be thinking straight right now. He’d want his plaything back. And the easiest way to get to Jon was through the only person he trusted.

Tally.

Larsen probably planned to torture her, break her. But evil, he thought with a fierce stab of pride, didn’t understand good. Tally would rather die than betray those under her care. Just like twenty years ago, she had gone mute rather than betray him.

Don’t kill me! I promise I won’t touch her again!

Orrin had begged for his life, promised to turn himself in after the first slash of Clay’s leopard claws. Clay had executed him anyway. For the pain he had put in Tally’s eyes, for the childhood he had stolen, Orrin Henderson had deserved to die. But to the authorities, Orrin’s words would have changed Clay’s act from manslaughter in defense of a child, to cold-blooded retaliation.

They would have been wrong.

Clay had stopped thinking straight the second he’d heard that first, faint cry, the utter despair in it a violation. As Orrin broke Tally, something in Clay had broken, too. He could have no more stopped himself from killing Orrin than he could have left Tally to take the hurt. Part of him wondered if, deep down, she still blamed him. His leopard’s heart remained deeply scarred by the failure.

Without warning, warmth soothed into his bones, a silent whisper telling him the past was over and done. What they were now was the truth. He accepted that whisper, accepted it was Tally speaking to him, though she might not know it yet. He understood full well that she thought they weren’t truly mated. He hadn’t done anything to correct her misapprehension—with the shadow of disease hovering over her, she didn’t want to bond him to her in such an inescapable fashion, didn’t want to handicap him.

Sometimes, Tally could be very stupid for a smart woman.

She was his life, his soul. Without her, he would have gone rogue sooner rather than later. Faith had said that to him, once. That he was on the thinnest of edges and that his time would come. Now, Clay felt blood fury roar through him, inciting the urge to maim, to tear, to annihilate this creature who had dared threaten Tally … and knew that what Faith had foretold had come to pass. Today would decide his future, tell him whether he could be the mate Tally deserved.