Hostage to Pleasure

Ashaya looked at him. “I have help now. I have you.”

The leopard inside him growled in a rush of possessive pleasure. “Glad you’re finally beginning to understand that.”

“Amara’s in our web,” Lucas said to Sascha as they stood outside the hospital. “What does that mean?”

Sascha leaned against the wall that faced the manicured front lawn. “It means there’s darkness in the Web now.”

“How do we fight it?”

“We don’t.” She thought back to when Faith had joined them, to the revelation about the DarkMind. “Amara is fundamentally flawed, but she exists. She’s part of the world. We watch her, we manage her, but we don’t imprison her on the psychic level. The instant we do, we sow the seeds of a split inside our own web.”

“I don’t like it.” Lucas’s tone was alpha-hard. “With her link to Ashaya, she could come through, influence you, Faith-hell, any of us.”

“No,” Sascha said, having spent hours looking at the situation from every angle. She and Faith both agreed on this. “Her link doesn’t allow that.”

“If she’s in the Web, how can it not?”

“Think of it like a math problem.” Grabbing her organizer from the pocket of her light summer coat, she slid out the attached laser pen. “First we have the large value-our web.” She drew a circle and filled it with the members: Lucas in the center, herself enclosed within him, the spikes leading out to the sentinels, and then the connections to their mates.

“The mating bond links Ashaya into the Web.” She connected the M-Psy to Dorian. “But our web is different from the PsyNet. It’s a network you can only join via two methods that we know of-mating or a blood bond.”

“Keenan,” Lucas said, frowning. “Dorian said he had an open cut on his hand, and the skin on the kid’s wrists was broken. The boy’s need probably short-circuited the process I’d normally go through to blood-bond someone into the Web. The problem is, it takes control out of my hands.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she said. “If asked, would you have denied sanctuary to a child dying of psychic starvation?”

He gave her a speaking look. “What do you think?”

“I think the Web knew you’d have said yes.” She smiled at his expression. “It may be changeling, but it’s still a psychic construct-it has the capacity to learn.” Kissing his cheek when he blew out a breath, she returned to her diagram. “Because of the way he was brought in, Keenan is linked straight to Dorian, though he also has a very strong and visible attachment to his mother.

“The Web seems to have decided to treat him as their cub, giving him full access.” She drew a triangle around the new family. “Amara, on the other hand, is connected through the twin bond.” She drew a small circle that cut very slightly into the Web of Stars.

“I initially expected Amara to be connected to Ashaya, and otherwise isolated, but the Web’s allowed her to be a peripheral part of it. I think it’s because it understands that she’s a psychic being, that she needs to know the Web is there. However, she can’t actively surf or influence it. I’d worry about that limitation since she is caged in a way, but I think Ashaya is the sole person Amara truly cares about. As long as she can talk to her twin on the Web, she’s not bothered.”

Lucas continued to stare at the diagram. “If Ashaya dies, so will Amara. But not vice versa.”

“Yes.” Sascha put away the pen and organizer. “I don’t think it could be any other way. Ashaya is a complete sentient being, but Amara…” She put her head against Lucas’s chest, finding comfort in the feel of his arms coming around her. “She’s only complete if Ashaya exists.”

A pause and she knew he was thinking things through. “I guess we can find her a position at Sierra Tech,” he said at last, referring to the research and development company in which DarkRiver held a major stake. “We’ll give her a chance to prove herself.”

“Who knows,” Sascha commented, recalling Amara’s piercing intelligence, “she might end up being an asset.”

Lucas didn’t look convinced but he nodded. “Do we need to tell Dorian all this?”

“I’ll keep an eye on things, let him know if there’s a problem.”

“I guess I’ll have to trust you.” A teasing statement but one that held a question.

Of course he’d sensed her disquiet, she thought. He knew her to the depths of her very soul. “I need to tell you something.”

He rubbed his hand along the sweep of her back. “Good. My patience was about to run out-you’ve been sleeping badly ever since you visited Amara.” A lethal edge had entered his voice.

“It’s nothing she did,” Sascha said. “It’s something she said.”

“Sascha, we’ve had this conversation. The woman is a-”

She put a hand over his mouth. “Listen to me instead of acting all alpha.”

He licked her palm. She dropped it and scowled at him. “Behave.”

“Talk.”

“Amara’s words triggered some kind of switch in my mind, clarified something I’ve been getting hints of over the past few months.” She took a deep breath, exhaled. “My powers… they’re changing.”

“How?” His expression grew solemn. “Is it something that’s going to hurt you?”