Caressed By Ice

"I hope you rip out their guts while they're still breathing."



Hawke's grin was feral. "That's why I like you, Bren. You're more wolf than girl."



He shouldn't have used the code. He'd been overconfident. Now Riley was questioning all his top men. Sooner or later, they were going to figure out that he hadn't been where he was supposed to have been the day Andrew got shot.



It didn't matter. As long as Brenna wasn't around to point the finger, they'd never be able to prove that he'd done anything more than break watch without authorization.



No more fucking around. Today, he finished it.



Chapter 40



Judd took his position against the wall in the meeting room, impatient to get this over with so he could return to Brenna. Of course he wouldn't approach her, but he could keep an eye on her from a distance. His well-honed instincts were screaming at him by now, telling him that danger was only a heartbeat away.



If he could, he'd lock her in for safety. But that would kill her as surely as murder.



I'm never going to be put in a box again...



No, he couldn't do that to her.



"We're live," Indigo said as the huge comm screen at one end of the room came on. Lucas appeared on-screen, flanked by Dorian and Mercy, much as Indigo and Judd flanked Hawke.



The leopard alpha met Judd's eyes, raised an eyebrow, then turned to Hawke. "So you finally did something about him. About bloody time."



Judd shifted to bring Lucas's attention back to him. "I'd say we came to a mutual understanding."



It wasn't Lucas who spoke next but Dorian. "So how does a Psy lieutenant hunt?"



He met the leopard's bright blue gaze. "Very quietly."



"So do snipers." Dorian's expression was calculating. "We should talk."



"I might need a sparring partner." If he succeeded in breaking Silence, physical contact in another arena might serve to blunt the truly dark aspect of his abilities around Brenna. Because no matter what happened, he was what he was. Killing was built into his genes.



"Karate?" Those completely human-seeming eyes brightened in interest.



"Katana."



"Hot damn. Let's do it."



Lucas coughed. "If you two have stopped flirting, we have business to discuss."



Indigo grinned but stayed silent. Mercy wasn't so reticent. "So that's what it takes to get into Dorian's pants. I'll let the sentinel-chasers know." Her packmate's growl only widened her smirk.



Hawke nodded at Lucas. "You got something?"



"We think we've tracked down the assassins who hit DawnSky."



All amusement faded from the air. Judd looked at Lucas. "Are you certain? I told you that uniform is worn by every member of the Psy force under Ming LeBon's command."



"That's the problem," Lucas conceded. "We've narrowed it down to a specific squad, but there are fifty of them. Six Psy were spotted during the attack."



Dorian shrugged, no mercy in his face. "You know my opinion - gut them all."



"We do that, it's a declaration of war." Lucas's tone said he wouldn't mind going head-to-head with the Psy. "But that's what they want - it'll give them an excuse to come down hard on all changeling groups in the area. A pinpoint hit will deliver our message far more accurately."



Judd knew Lucas was right. "I may be able to get you the data."



Everyone looked at him.



"I have contacts in the Net." He let that sink in, let them judge his loyalties. "Not everyone is happy with how the Council is running things."



Hawke glanced at him, then gave a small nod. A concession of trust. "Backup plan," the alpha said to Lucas, "we take out the exact number of Psy who attacked the deer."



"That'll make the point with a little less finesse, but yeah, it could work." Lucas tapped his finger on the dark wood of the table he sat at. "I've been thinking about their tactics - trying to turn the packs against each other."



"So have I," Hawke said. "They have to have used it before, and successfully, to try the game on us."



Lucas's facial markings went white against his skin. "Doesn't say much about our intelligence if we can be worked so easily."



"We weren't. But weaker packs would be."



"You're too divided," Judd broke in. "It's the first lesson Psy soldiers learn. Don't try to take out changelings - get them to take out each other."



Someone growled and Judd wasn't sure that that primal sound hadn't come from one of the feminine throats. He remembered how Brenna growled at him when he got her mad. Her wolf side fascinated him - he liked seeing her claws.



"Let me guess," Hawke said, "before, the Council kept their interference minimal in this region because SnowDancer and DarkRiver kept each other in check."



Judd nodded. "Yes. And if the computer attack doesn't succeed in warning them off, they'll keep picking away at you and your nonpredatory allies - until your power base is eroded to the point of nonexistence. Then they'll launch a quiet offensive to install Council-friendly packs in place of your former allies."



His last words had the effect of a bomb. Questions came at him from every angle until he raised a palm for silence. "Yes," he said. "There are packs that have made agreements with the Council for money, land, or simply immunity from Psy strikes."



"So even if we set up some sort of chain of communication to prevent the Psy from starting another territorial war" - Hawke's face was wolf-sharp - "we have no way of knowing who's snitching to the Council?"



"I'd operate on the assumption that everything you say is being reported back."



"That can be turned to our advantage," Lucas pointed out.



Hawke nodded. "After we run this next op, we need to talk about how to fix our lines of communication - packs can't remain isolated from each other anymore. Not if we're going to survive the Psy Council."



The meeting broke up soon afterward and Judd immediately contacted the Ghost. Because he didn't want to leave the den, he took the chance of sending a coded message asking for a call on a secure line. The Ghost responded within seconds. "This call should be untraceable, but we can't talk for long."



"Understood." Judd laid out the situation with the deer and the Psy without mentioning either DarkRiver or SnowDancer. Just as he didn't know the Ghost's identity, the Ghost had no knowledge of where Judd went after he left the church.



"You need the names of the exact officers?"



"Can you get them?"



"I'll have to break into a secure PsyNet database, but that shouldn't pose a problem unless the information has been highly classified. I assume you don't want to talk to these men?"



Judd didn't answer because no answer was needed.



"My goal is to help my people," the Ghost said in the chill tone of a Psy fully enmeshed in Silence, "not sell them out. I may be a revolutionary, but I am not a traitor."



"To fight an evil that butchers innocent women and children isn't treason."



"I agree - at least in this situation. Killing those deer was akin to taking out the most helpless civilians in a war no one knows is taking place."



"Case by case? Fine. Your conscience will tell you where to go."



"I have no conscience, Judd." The Ghost's voice dropped. "I've got so much blood staining these hands nothing will ever wash it away."



"The future might surprise you." It sure as hell had shocked him. "And if you don't have a conscience, why did you become a revolutionary?"



"Perhaps I want to grab power for myself."



"No." Of that he was certain. "You do it because you see what the Council is turning the Psy into and you know it isn't right. We were the greatest of races once upon a time, the true - and just - leaders of the world."



"Do you think we can have that back again?"



"No." The world had changed, the humans and changelings gaining in strength with the passage of time. "But we can become something even better. We can become free."



Brenna was fixing some kind of a small computronic device when he found her in her quarters. "Judd," she said, putting down her tools. "You can't be here. The dissonance - "



He interrupted her panicked words. "I need to ask you something important."



"What could be more important than your life?" She sounded close to tears.



"Your life. If you die, I don't know if I'd stay sane." A simple truth.



Her hands trembled as she lifted them to push back her hair. "Ask your question."



"The ferocity with which the shooter is stalking you argues for a deeper motive than the fact that he thinks you'll remember something about Tim's death." Finally, he knew he was on the right path. "You know something else he's scared you'll reveal."



"Tim's death has to be it. It would mean a death sentence for him."



"But, Brenna, he knows you didn't see anything." He leaned forward but caught himself before he touched her. Even so, he felt the start of a nosebleed. He managed to stop it with Tk, but it wouldn't last. "He planned Tim's death to the letter, made sure there was no trace evidence, no trail, and no eyewitnesses. He knows he didn't betray himself."



"Maybe he's crazy. Like you!" Her nostrils flared. "Do you think I can't smell you bleeding?"



He focused on the first part of her statement. "He's acting with too much logic to be crazy. Think, Brenna, what else could you know?"



"Nothing!" She threw up her hands. "I was in healing for months, then I was being babysat by Drew and Riley. And you, come to think of it. I'm still being overprotected!"



Judd felt ice crawl down his spine as his brain made the connection that had been eluding it for days. "The day of Tim's murder was when you started acting out - not following orders, behaving aggressively."