The Psy-Changeling Series, Books 6-10 (218 page)

“It’s home,” Zane had said when Teijan had told his people what might be coming and offered them the option of leaving. “We stay and we fight.”

Now, they did just that.

Having worked with DarkRiver over the past couple of months to connect with the cats’ network of human and non-predatory changeling shopkeepers in Chinatown, that connection spreading out through family and business contacts like an ever-growing tree, the Rats had a flow of information coming in not even the PsyNet could beat.

They knew where Henry Scott’s people were landing, their numbers, the approximate type and number of their weapons within seconds of each landing. All that data was routed at once to the DarkRiver teams in charge of holding the city as SnowDancer held the mountains.

The tactical split showed a massive amount of trust from both packs—because some of that mountain land was DarkRiver territory, and if San Francisco fell, then Henry Scott’s army would have the perfect location in which to dig in and throw assault after assault at the wolves. Both parts of the defense had to hold if they were to win this battle.

“A new team’s rappelling down near Russian Hill,” Teijan reported to Clay, “and a bigger one has surrounded Nikita’s building.”

Clay’s voice came through peppered with the sounds of gunfire. “She said she didn’t need backup, but—”

“Wait.” Teijan swore low and hard. “Nikita doesn’t like people poaching on her territory. Fifteen attackers just went down with exploding brain syndrome.” There was no other way to put it—on the video feed coming through a street camera, Scott’s people fell where they stood, their brains leaking out their ears.

The survivors wisely decided to get the hell out of Nikita’s zone.

Teijan smiled, switched connections. “They’re coming your way, Vaughn.” He had, he decided, developed a sudden soft spot for Nikita Duncan, especially given that Psy loyal to her were also feeding information into the Rats’ network.

Catching a new piece of data, he switched connections again. “Lucas, I’ve got jet-choppers flying into SoMa. You need to be prepared for aerial attack.” Connected as he was to the communications systems, he heard the DarkRiver alpha say, “Judd, can you deflect?” just as the assault craft began to drop small, high impact bombs.

“Got it.”

On the screen, Teijan watched the bombs arrow back to the jet-choppers, turning them into spectacular fireballs.

“Holy fuck,” Zane muttered from where he was holding contact with the wolves. “It kind of freaks me out that this guy’s been in the region the whole time without us knowing.”

Teijan had met Judd Lauren earlier that day, had to agree with Zane. “At least he’s on our side.” Pulling up screen after screen of information, he patched in the telepaths and telekinetics supplied by Nikita and Anthony. “Full unit heading through Chinatown to DarkRiver HQ. Ensure the guards are shielded against mental attacks.”

“Understood. Message communicated to all Tp units in range.”

Zane tapped a screen. “Enemy’s ignoring the bunker,” he said, referring to the third sub-basement of a building owned by DarkRiver on the outskirts of Chinatown but held under the name of an unrelated corporation. Right now, it was home to the leopard healer and her team, as well as the mate of the DarkRiver alpha, their child having been taken to safety by the evacuation team. “Would you have your mate in a war zone, Teijan?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “The alpha pair
must
always be part of a fight. Sascha’s safe in the bunker. Pure Psy has no idea it exists.” If there was a breach, Teijan had a team standing by to whisk them out and away through the tunnels. “Whoa!” He punched a fist into the air as Judd “Freaking Scary” Lauren reversed a missile right into a stealthcraft, turning the night sky incandescent.

But the sweet moment was cut short an instant later as Zane ripped off his earpiece, clapped his hand to his ear. “Oh fuck, something bad just happened in the mountains.”

AGONY HAZED THROUGH
Hawke’s brain. And he realized that Henry Scott might just have outthought them after all. “Brenna,” he said into the mike, “can you block that?” It was almost impossible to speak.

Brenna’s voice came out garbled, and he went to switch to a better channel . . . when he figured out it was his hearing that had gone, blood dripping down the sides of his face from violently ruptured eardrums. Unable to figure out what she was saying, he scanned the combat zone. A large number of his people were down, hands clasped over their ears. Others remained standing, but it was clear their balance was shot.

The only ones unaffected were the human members of the pack. In front of him, Kieran pushed aside a packmate in the line of fire and took on an attacker in hand-to-hand combat, while a reinjured Sam, his shoulder bearing a field dressing, dragged SnowDancer after fallen SnowDancer to safety. But there weren’t many human packmates. Not enough.

Henry’s men weren’t even bothering to shoot anymore. Instead they were walking up to dazed and bleeding wolves, and smashing them in the backs of their heads. Prisoners, Hawke thought as he shot down as many of the enemy as he could, Scott wanted prisoners. To torture? For experimentation? It didn’t matter. No SnowDancer would ever suffer as Hawke’s father had suffered. He kept on shooting, covering those soldiers darting out to drag in unconscious or hurt packmates. But even with an alpha’s strength, he was no longer as fast or as effective.

His people continued to fall under brutal crunches of bone.

They had one last weapon. His wolf had scented her on the air currents, the autumn and spice of her as vivid to him as the blood that saturated the air. The only problem was, he didn’t want to use her that way.

 

 

SIENNA
dug her nails into the pine needle–strewn earth. They were falling onto their knees one by one, her friends, her family,
Hawke.

Energy rippled through her body, a massive build-up of X-fire that would need to be earthed soon—or used in combat, as it was meant to be used. “Hawke, I’m here,” she whispered, not knowing whether to intervene or to wait for the signal as agreed. If she entered the conflict at the wrong moment, she could ruin everything.

Suddenly afraid that there would be no signal because Hawke was dead, she spread out her telepathic senses in a desperate search. Her mind recoiled from that of another powerful telepath, but Henry Scott had sensed her. She saw his eyes flick open as he searched for the unfamiliar mind.

“Please,” she whispered as the attackers began slamming their weapons down on SnowDancer skulls. “Use me.”
Let me do this.

Her breath was a razor in her chest when a howl—broken, the cadence all wrong—lifted into the air. It didn’t sound like it should have, but she understood.

It was time.

Abandoning any attempt at secrecy, she walked out onto the night-cloaked battlefield bathed in the crimson and gold shimmer of cold fire. The enemy might have been Silent, but they went pale at the sight of her. An instant later, they began to shoot. She would’ve taken evasive action . . . except the flames around her repelled everything, melting the bullets down to nothing, reflecting the lasers back at the shooters.

It was then that she realized Judd couldn’t have acted as the failsafe. No bullet would’ve gotten through. That wasn’t the scariest part—her link to the LaurenNet was shielded by cold fire even Sienna wouldn’t be able to breach, the ultimate defensive measure from a martial mind. But that was no longer an issue. She knew what to do now, and she would do it after the battle was done and her pack was safe.

Angry and sickened at the sight of the broken and hurt SnowDancers around her, Sienna spread out her arms, palms facing the sky. And the fire with the cold, cold heart touched the enemy, and they weren’t there anymore. She aimed the most powerful wave at Henry Scott, knowing he’d try to get his men to teleport him out.

The bastard screamed high and shrill before he disappeared. She didn’t know if he was dead, but she did know the attacking force should’ve retreated at the sight of her. Yet bullets continued to fly, now aimed at the fallen changelings.

Something arctic and dark and deadly rose up inside of her as the X-fire emerged in a straight line on either side of her body, cutting the enemy in the way in half and cauterizing the massive wounds with such flawlessness, it appeared the men had fallen into two neat pieces. The rest of them were trapped beyond the wall of voracious flame, but they continued to shoot. And then her mind, a huge, vast endless thing that saw and heard every sigh, every heartbeat, caught the whisper of more of them coming down through the mountains. They’d slipped in past the defenses when the sonic weapon took out the changelings as well as the feral wolves, and now they thought to flank them from behind.

“Traitor!” The word came from the throats of those in front of her and she knew them then. Pure Psy. Zealots. They would not back down.

Very well.

The cold, dark thing inside of her shoved aside all else . . . and the flames began to feed. Screams filled the air, filled her consciousness, filled the sky. The monster inside of her, she thought with a small part of the endless vastness that was her mind, had seized control.

The problem was . . . the Psy weren’t the only targets in the vicinity.

 

 

HAWKE
pulled his injured out of range of those Pure Psy operatives who’d been trapped on this side of the divide when Sienna created that bladelike wall of X-fire. It was clear the enemy would not surrender, but trapped as they were, he offered them one final chance. The response was a hail of bullets, so he gave the order. When it was done, he checked on his people. Most were staring shell-shocked at Sienna as she blazed in a storm of crimson and gold, her hair flying in a terrible breeze, her eyes caverns of pure, raw power.

At first the wall of cold fire, it had touched the enemy alone, but now it changed shape, became a wave that rippled outward in both directions, growing ever closer to the injured and bleeding SnowDancers.

Ignoring the pain of shattered eardrums barely begun to heal thanks to his strength as alpha, he screamed, “Sienna!” as he ran to her, even knowing she couldn’t hear him inside the inferno that consumed her, until it poured out of her eyes, her mouth, her every pore and every cell. The cold burn of it hit him a meter from the quickly creeping edge.

He knew she’d told him not to do it, that the X-fire would kill him the same as anyone else if she wasn’t in conscious control. But he had to stop her, had to save her. If she took the life of even one SnowDancer and survived to witness what she’d done, it would break her.

“Baby, you better be in there!” Running back, he got a racing start and jumped through the flames, expecting to fry. Instead, he slammed into her body, his arms going around her, but she didn’t go down—as if the cold fire had rooted her to the earth.

Her eyes, those eyes filled with red and gold, so stunning, so lethal, seemed to see him for a second, and he was almost certain he heard,
Forgive me
, deep inside his head before a dark, endless something grabbed his mind, punching through with such savage force that it brought him to his knees.

Shoving aside the throbbing pain as the shock of the impact vibrated through his body, he raised his head and looked out through the wall of X-fire, saw the flames lick out and over his people at a speed not even a wolf could outrun.

It spread, a crackling wave of wild color over the injured, over those that stood guard, over the sentries and into the forest, going endlessly in every direction until his people were consumed by it. Until they burned up in it, so fast and hard that there were no screams. Only a terrible, endless silence.

“No, Sienna, no,” he said, rising to hold her to him in a futile attempt to get through to the woman behind the vast dark of ravenous power. She’d come to save them, but what was inside of her, it had broken free, and now she killed the very pack she’d wanted to protect. His wolf knew what he had to do, but he couldn’t snap her neck, couldn’t erase her.

God help him, he couldn’t, not even to save SnowDancer.

A minute, an eternity later, the flames blinked out, and Sienna sagged in his arms.

“Sienna.” He was shocked by how very light she was, how very fragile. “Don’t you dare leave me.”

When he raised his head, he looked first toward the Pure Psy side, unable to bear what he’d glimpse on the other.
Everything
—the enemy, the trees, the grass, the rocks—was gone, smears of ash barely visible even to his night vision. Agonizing pain in his heart, he turned. And saw. “Oh, baby, I understand.” So smart, his Sienna, so aware that his wolf would know each and every one of his people, feral wolves included. “There’s no need for forgiveness, you hear me?”

Her eyes flickered open for an instant, and they weren’t the night-sky of a cardinal. They were a startling, amazing gold untouched by crimson. “A hundred years,” she whispered. “That would’ve been nice, don’t you think?”

“This isn’t over yet.”

“The LaurenNet link remains protected,” she said, and he had the impression she was talking to herself. “Strange. But it doesn’t matter.” Gold melting to blue in her eyes, she pushed him hard without warning, ending up sprawled on the earth. “I love you.” Blue flame licked up that wild tangle of ruby red, the scent of burnt hair sharp and acrid.

Man and wolf both realized what she intended to do, said,
FUCK NO!

Using the doorway she’d opened when she punched into his mind, the wolf shoved wild changeling energy into her, bowing her back, snapping her eyes open again, and shutting off that lethal blue flame. “What have you done?” A question filled with horror as the violent snap of the mating bond brought him to his knees beside her.