“Did anyone ever figure out that you helped Noor and Jon escape Larsen’s experiments?”
“I told them the children were dead. That’s why I said both the boy and Noor had to disappear when they left the lab. I don’t suppose it matters now.”
It mattered, Dorian thought, though he didn’t say it out loud. Both children had been given new lives, a new start. They’d never have had that chance if this enigma of a woman hadn’t put her life on the line. “Why did you do it? Help the kids?”
“I told you that the first time you asked me-politics.”
He’d been lying along the solid branch of a heavily leafed tree at the time, eye to the scope of his rifle. Ashaya’s tangled sheets and blue ice of a voice had hit him so low and hard, he’d been ready to take her then and there. “It didn’t mean anything that they were innocent children?”
A long silence. “It meant something.” So quiet it was less than a whisper.
The possessive, protective nature of the cat uncurled in a lazy movement. It pushed at him to reach out, to show her she wasn’t alone. But that was the way of Pack. And Ashaya was nowhere close to Pack. “Another fracture in Silence?”
Putting away the slide, she leaned her head against the window. “To kill your young is a sign of true evil.” There was something in that tone, a hidden secret that set his senses searching. “I prefer not to think of my entire race as evil.”
“Evil, an interesting concept for a Psy.”
“Is it?” She looked at him. “It’s an intellectual idea as much as an emotional one, the dividing line between being human and being monstrous.”
He was about to answer when she snapped upright and grabbed his arm. “No! Take the next exit.”
“This is our one.”
“No.”
Given that she was Psy, he wondered if she’d picked up something. “We being trailed?” Even as he spoke, a strange sense of dread whispered into his mind.
“Please, just go that way.”
He went with gut instinct and listened. “Where are we going?”
She didn’t answer, but she was doing something very un-Psy-like and leaning forward, her hands braced on the dash. He couldn’t see her eyes but he had a feeling they’d gone the pure black of a Psy utilizing a lot of power. But Ashaya was an M-Psy and, as she’d told him herself, didn’t have any powers that were useful outside the lab. So either she’d lied or something else was going on.
She didn’t say anything for a very long time. He’d have worried that she’d gone into some kind of a trance except that he could feel her alertness, her absolute focus. “Ashaya, we keep going this way, we miss our meeting.” His own urgent sense of something being seriously wrong kept him driving.
“Don’t turn back.” It was an order.
Leopards, as a rule, didn’t listen to anyone outside their hierarchy. In Dorian’s case, the list of men and women he’d obey was very, very short. Ashaya wasn’t on it. “Give me a reason.”
“Get off here.” She was leaning so far forward, her head almost touched the sloped windshield of the bullet-shaped car. “Get off.” The strain increased when he didn’t change lanes.
Intrigued despite himself, he moved with cat-swiftness and took the exit. “Now wha-”
“Straight through the intersection.”
The directions kept coming, though when he asked Ashaya where they were going, she remained silent. He might’ve kept questioning her except that fifteen minutes from their destination, he realized where it was that she was taking them. His mouth tightened, even as he wondered how she could’ve possibly found out.
Twisting the wheel, he pulled to a stop on one side of a wide street, shocking Ashaya into a cry as her body slammed back in the seat. “Why are you stopping?” Her eyes were liquid night when she looked at him, so black that he could see his reflection in the mirror smoothness of them.
He turned to brace one hand against her headrest. “The only way you could know is if someone’s feeding you information via the PsyNet, or through telepathic contact.”
“What?” She seemed to have to force herself to think. “No one’s feeding me anything.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Know what?!” Her voice rose. Again, it wasn’t particularly Psy. “Drive, Dorian.”
He thought he heard a plea in those words, told himself he was imagining it. This woman would never unbend enough to beg anyone for anything. “Not until you tell me why we’re going where we are.”
“I don’t know where we’re going,” she said, eyes wild. “I’m just following his voice.”
His cat stilled. “Whose?”
“Keenan’s.” Her own voice was a fierce whisper as she touched her fingertips to the windshield. “My son is screaming for me. If you won’t drive me, I’ll walk.” Her hand went to the door.
He hit the child lock. “You aren’t going anywhere in this condition.” She wasn’t acting like herself. The ice had well and truly cracked, but it hadn’t cracked right. She was unbalanced, not thinking straight, not functioning on all levels.
She slammed a fist against the door without warning. “I have to get to him.”
He scented blood and he realized she’d broken skin with that single hit. Swearing, he reached over and grabbed her hands. “I’ll take you.”
She stared, as if she didn’t believe him. “Then drive.” Another order.
Releasing her hands, he did as directed. He didn’t need her to tell him where to go anymore but she did so anyway, as if she couldn’t control herself. The second they pulled up in front of the ranch-style house, she began to try to open her door. He hit the unlock button and she was out a second later. Even with his changeling speed, she was on the porch by the time he caught up.
He wrapped an arm around her waist. “Wait.”
She twisted. “I need to-”
“You go into a leopard home without invitation, be prepared to get your face torn off.” He forced her to look at him. “There might be cubs in there-their mother will rip you to shreds first and ask questions later.”
Something of his words seemed to get through. “I… see.” A battle for rational thought that made her cheekbones cut sharply against her skin. “I need to get inside.”
Continuing to hold her, he pushed open the door, knowing it wouldn’t be locked. Tamsyn wasn’t stupid, but she also knew this home was guarded around the clock by changeling soldiers. They hadn’t challenged Ashaya, but only because he was with her.
The instant they stepped foot inside the house, she elbowed him in the ribs, brought a booted foot down on his own, and took off up the steps. Too late, he remembered that Ashaya Aleine was very good at faking calm.
“Son of a-” Growl building inside his chest, he went after her.
He caught her in his arms in front of an open upstairs bedroom. He could scent Pack, but he could also scent Keenan Aleine. When he glanced inside, it was to meet Tamsyn’s surprised expression as she looked up from her kneeling position beside the boy’s bed. The child was lying on his side in the fetal position, apparently asleep. Tammy’s cubs were nowhere to be seen so they were probably still at their grandparents’ but Kit, one of the older juveniles, knelt on the other side of the bed, a frown on his face.
“Dorian?” Tammy said, her eyes flicking to Ashaya.
The sound seemed to snap her out of her shock. “Let me go!” Another elbow jab but he was already releasing her. Because there was something seriously wrong with Keenan. Dorian could feel it in his chest, a dark knot of dread, a psychic cry for help his changeling brain hadn’t been able to translate into words.
But Ashaya had known.
Now, she ignored everyone to crawl into the bed and take Keenan in her arms. As Dorian watched, stunned by her transformation from logical scientist to this… this leopardess with her cub, she gathered the boy into her lap and spoke. “Keenan, stop it.” Her voice was an unsheathed blade, ruthless and cutting.