Hostage to Pleasure

The sniper growled and became a man named Dorian again, his cold control falling away to expose the deeply protective nature of his beast. He might have been born lacking the changeling ability to shift into animal form, but he carried the leopard within. And that leopard was enraged by the callous treatment meted out to this defenseless child. Reaching in, he gathered the stiff, scared body in his arms, his hold far gentler than anyone would’ve believed. “I have him.”

Another vehicle appeared out of nowhere. This one was sleek, silver, nothing like the now abandoned truck, though the driver was the same man. “Let’s go,” Clay said, his eyes a flat green.

Getting into the backseat, Dorian ripped off his face mask and put away the gun before cutting through the boy’s bindings with the pocketknife he carried everywhere. Blood slicked his fingers and he drew back so fast, he sliced open a thin line on his own palm. But when he looked closer, he realized he hadn’t accidentally cut the child-the boy had been struggling against his bonds for what must’ve been hours. His wrists were raw.

Biting off a brutal oath, Dorian slid the knife back into his jeans and took out the plugs from the boy’s ears, removing his blindfold a second later. Unexpected blue gray eyes looked into his, startling in a face with skin the color of aged gold, a dusky brown that almost glowed. “Keenan.”

The boy didn’t say anything, his face preternaturally calm. So young and he’d already begun the road to Silence, begun to learn to suppress his emotions and become a good, robotic Psy. But his calm facade aside, he was too young to hide his bone-chilling fear from the changeling who watched him, the sharp bite of it insulting to Dorian’s senses. Children were not meant to be bound and used as pawns. It was not a fair fight.

The car came to a stop. The opposite passenger-side door opened and then Judd was sliding inside, his gun strapped to his back. “We have to do it now or they’ll track him through the PsyNet.” The other man’s eyes were a cold brown when he stripped off his own mask, but his hands careful as he touched the boy’s face. “Keenan, we have to cut the Net link.”

The boy stiffened, leaned into Dorian. “No.”

Dorian put an arm around his fragile, breakable body. “Be brave. Your mom wants you safe.”

Those astonishing eyes looked up at him. “Will you kill me?”

Dorian looked to Judd. “It gonna hurt?”

A slight nod.

Dorian held Keenan’s hand, the boy’s blood mixing with his own where he’d sliced open his palm. “It’ll hurt like a bitch, but then you’ll be okay.”

Keenan’s eyes widened at the vulgarity, exactly as Dorian had intended. In that moment of distraction, Judd closed his eyes. Dorian knew the Psy male was working furiously to unlock the child’s shields and get inside his mind-so he could cut Keenan’s link to the PsyNet, the psychic network that connected every Psy on the planet, but for the renegades. Bare seconds later, the boy screamed and it was a sound of such brutal suffering that Dorian almost killed Judd for it. The sound cut off as abruptly as it had begun and Keenan slumped into Dorian’s arms, unconscious.

“Jesus,” Clay said from the front, merging onto a busy highway even as he spoke. “The kid okay? Tally will kill me if we get a scratch on him.”

Dorian brushed back the boy’s hair. It was straight, unlike his mother’s curls. She’d had it tamed into a braid the one and only time he’d seen her-through the scope of his rifle-but he’d been able to tell. “He’s breathing.”

“Well”-Judd paused, white lines bracketing his mouth-“that was unexpected.”

“What?” Dorian took off his jacket and covered Keenan in its warmth.

“I was supposed to pull him into our familial net.” The other man rubbed absently at his temple, eyes on Keenan. “But he went… elsewhere. Since he’s not dead, I’m guessing he’s linked into DarkRiver’s secret network-the one I’m not supposed to know about.”

Dorian shook his head. “Impossible.” They all knew that Psy brains were different from changeling or human-Psy needed the biofeedback provided by a psychic network. Cut that off and death was close to instantaneous, the reason why defectors from the PsyNet were few and far between. Judd’s family had only just made it out by linking together to form the tiny LaurenNet. Their psychic gifts meant they could manipulate that net and accept new members. But DarkRiver’s net, the Web of Stars, was different.

“There is no way he could’ve entered our web.” Dorian scowled. “It’s a changeling construct.” Created by loyalty, not need, it welcomed only a select few-leopard sentinels who had sworn an oath to the DarkRiver alpha, Lucas, and their mates.

Judd shrugged and leaned back against the seat. “Maybe the boy has some changeling blood.”

“He’d be a shape-shifter if he had that much of it,” Clay pointed out. “Plus, my beast doesn’t sense an animal in him. He’s Psy.”