Mine to Possess

“I mean it must be embarrassing for you…being that you’re such a big man.” Her tone implied all sorts of things. “Last night was an aberration, I’m sure. And if not, there are always the pills.”

Gasps sounded up and down the corridor.

Clay’s eyes blazed hot. “I’m going to show you aberration, you brat.” He turned and glared at their audience, as if memorizing every single face.

Suddenly, everyone had somewhere else to be. Only when he’d intimidated the corridor clear did he turn back to her. “I bet you think you’re funny.”

She grinned. “Yep.”

“I hope you still think that when I’m proving to you just how big I am.”

Her eyes dropped involuntarily to his pants and she realized she might have pushed him a tad too far. “Now, Clay…”

Pressing his body against hers, he hugged her to him with one arm and bent to speak with his lips against her ear. “Now, Tally,” he mimicked.

“Bully.”

“Brat.”

At the familiar exchange, Talin felt something else “click” into place between them. Clay’s expression told her he felt it, too. Giddy, she pressed a kiss to his throat, the affectionate act completely spontaneous. “I’m hungry.”

“So am I.” His tone was a lazy invitation. “When are you going to feed me?”

A rush of damp heat between her legs. Lord have mercy but she couldn’t remember any of her rational reasons for not having a sexual relationship with Clay.

CHAPTER 30

By the time they returned from lunch, Sascha and Lucas were already in the meeting room. “There you are. We were waiting for you.”

It was impossible to do anything but smile in response to the incredible warmth in Sascha’s voice. “Clay decided to eat the place down.”

“Yes,” Sascha said, a frown forming between her eyes, “I heard that you’ve been having some problems.” The last word was a sympathetic whisper.

Talin felt Clay stiffen behind her and was about to set Sascha straight when she noticed the glint of humor in the cardinal’s eyes.

“Better watch out, Clay,” Lucas drawled from where he sat on the side nearest the door, feet on the table and chair tipped back. “You’ll be getting helpful advice from the juveniles before you know it.”

Clay clasped Talin’s nape with one hand. “You are in so much trouble.”

Her laugh made the others grin. “It was your own fault.”

“We’ll discuss that later.” He pushed her toward a chair-beside the one Sascha had just taken, on the other side of the table.

She sat, while Clay chose to lounge against the wall to their left. The mischief leached out of her as soon as she focused on the papers. It had been over a week since Jon’s abduction. That in mind, she raced through the information as she bought Sascha up-to-date. “I was hoping you could pick out other Psy names.”

“It’s a long shot.” Sascha made a sound of utter frustration. “If I was uplinked to the PsyNet-”

“Which you never again will be.” Lucas’s tone was flint hard.

Sascha shot her mate a scowl. “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted”-another scowl, which Lucas responded to with a grin-“if I was uplinked to the Net, I could run a specific search, but now that I’m out, my data is based on what I knew before I dropped out.”

“What about the library stuff?” Lucas asked.

Sascha nodded. “I’ve been doing research in human libraries,” she explained to Talin. “Lucas is right, I might know some names from there…” Her voice trailed off, her eyes on a particular chart.

Lucas tipped his chair to the ground. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” she murmured, but her tone said otherwise.

Getting up, Lucas walked around the table to lean over Sascha’s other side, even as Clay did the same with Talin. It would’ve been very easy to be overwhelmed by the size and presence of the two men. Both were big. Both were undeniably dangerous. But Talin felt incredibly safe. Because these were men who cared for their women.

The revelation shocked her. So simple and yet so powerful, disproving as it did the conclusion that violence in one situation inevitably led to violence in another. Talin felt one of her strongest barriers fall-there was no longer any worry in her that Clay would one day lose his control and hurt her. Even now, he was doing that thing he seemed to like doing with her ponytail.

A possessive act. But also an act of deep tenderness.

Emotions a wet knot in her throat, she tried to focus on Sascha. “What do you see?”

The cardinal’s night-sky eyes clashed with Talin’s and for the first time, Talin saw not peace but confusion. “Can you show me the other family trees first?”

“Here’s the one they had for Mickey.” She forced herself to say his name. He deserved to be remembered, to be mourned. “Jon’s was one of the most intricate, but they’re all pretty in-depth.”

“You’re right,” Lucas murmured, fingering one of the printouts. “How the hell did they manage to trace this many relatives and descendants?”

“Easiest explanation is that someone was keeping records from the start,” Clay said. “Like changelings do.”

“You do?” Talin and Sascha asked at the same time.