MINE TO POSSESS

For a minute, they just stared at each other. “What about the other names?”


Her face fell. “Nothing. It’s like they’ve been erased from the system—I only realized about Yurev because he was mentioned in an out-of-print textbook I read when I was fifteen. I was bored and it was the last physical book in the library I hadn’t read.”

“Geek.”

She stuck out her tongue at him. “I guess Yurev was too famous to wipe out completely—though you know, he’s not in any of the electronic textbooks, hasn’t been for over half a century. Even the Internet databases have very little on him. If he was that hard to trace, I have no clue how Shine did the others.”

“Maybe,” he murmured, “they had a head start, a list to a certain point.”

“Hold on.” Tally liberated a small notebook from the confusion of paper on the table. “See on the family trees, they also have locations listed next to the names. Around two generations back, sometimes three, they start to scatter.”

“A diaspora.” Clay blew out a breath. “Yurev wasn’t the only Psy.”

“No,” she said. “I can’t prove it but it fits. The murdered kids were all gifted in a way that was almost Psy.” Her mouth fell open at the echo of Dev’s words. “Dev was telling us without telling us.”

“Someone’s trying to gag him, but I don’t think he’s happy about it.”

“You don’t think we could be jumping to conclusions?”

He shoved a hand through his hair. “My instincts say we’re right, but one name isn’t enough to go on.”

“And,” Talin pointed out, “once, the Psy were like us. I mean they intermarried with humans and changelings. It wasn’t anything weird.” Her tone became less certain. “A lot of us probably have Psy blood in our past.”

“I know for certain that Lucas does.” Turning, he leaned back against the table and wrapped an arm around her waist, delighted when she automatically put her hands on his shoulders. “We need a Psy perspective.”

He felt her body go stiff, but her response was a nod. “You’re right. Here or—”

“Sascha’s likely to be around.” He was male, but he wasn’t stupid—no sense in aggravating Tally with Faith. The cat preened in the heat of her possessiveness. “We’ve got a new development deal going with a Psy corporation.”

“Psy?” Curiosity had her leaning into him. “I thought they liked to keep to their own businesses. I’ve heard rumors saying, you compete with the Psy, you die.”

He couldn’t resist reaching out to trace the curve of her lip. She pretended to snap her teeth at him. His cock was suddenly taut with need but he resisted the urge to lay her on the table and satisfy his hunger. “DarkRiver ran a project for Nikita’s mother. The profits were huge.”

“It’s a big shift,” Talin murmured, her heartbeat steady under his stroking fingertips but her scent edged with the exquisite bite of arousal. Her mind might not have made the decision yet, but her body craved his. “I wonder if you guys even realize it.”

“Oh, we realize it.” Clay relaxed at the clear signs that she wasn’t suffering any ill effects from that morning. “But no sense tipping off the enemy.”

“You make it sound like a war.”

“It damn well is. And these children”—he pointed to the files—“are some of the casualities.”

That shook her. “I have the feeling there’s more going on here than I know.” But she wouldn’t ask. He either trusted her or he didn’t.

He drew her between the vee of his thighs, one hand sliding down to press over her lower back. “Are you trying to pretend to be stoic?” he asked. “It doesn’t work if you tap your toe in temper.”

She glanced down and blushed. “That wasn’t nice.”

A warning graze along her neck with sharp leopard teeth. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” His unshaven jaw rasped over the skin exposed by her V-necked sweater. “But right now we have to focus on this. We’ll talk about the other stuff later.” He pressed a row of kisses along that same triangle of flesh. “Freckles. I want to count them.”

“You’ll lose count after the first million.” Her heart felt like it would burst from inside her chest. Did he have any idea what he meant to her? She didn’t think so.

“Go get the others.” It would give her time to compose herself, to put her heart back together. “Call Faith, too.” She made a face and pulled the short hairs at his nape. “I’m not a baby. I can handle her.”

He shot her an amused look. “Very mature.”

“Shuddup. Go.”

“I can call them from here.” He proceeded to do exactly that. “Sascha will be here in about an hour. Faith’s tied up with something, so you don’t have to be mature.”

“Really not nice.” She began to sit back down at the table.

Clay grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door. “First, we eat.”

“But—”

“Did you have lunch?”

She considered lying but knew he’d catch her out. “No.”

“It’s three o’clock.”