But Judd beat him to it. "Sascha and I have been preparing for such a lapse, though we didn't believe it would occur so abruptly."
"What?" Walking closer, Riley tugged Brenna into the curve of his arm, turning her so she was no longer standing with her back to Judd.
"Your sister has a backbone of steel." Dark chocolate eyes met hers. "She refused to cry or release her emotions in any but the most restrained fashion during the healing."
"Building up the pressure," Brenna completed, moving from Riley's hold to stand beside Judd again. "I should've listened to Sascha." The healer had urged her to embrace and accept that she'd been hurt, raped in the most sadistic of fashions, her mind stripped and then filled with things that were not her own, her body tortured. But Brenna had simply wanted to move past it, to pick up the threads of her life as if they had never been snapped.
"You can listen to Sascha when she arrives," Hawke ordered. "She'll be here soon."
"No." It came out without thought. At the wary looks on their faces, she tempered her tone. "I need time to sort this out in my own head. Judd can help me if necessary."
"He's an assassin, not a healer." Riley's voice dropped close to a growl.
It wounded her that because of her, her generous, forgiving brothers had become so inflexible in their hatred of the Psy as a race. "Riley - "
"You'll see Sascha," he ordered.
"Enough." Judd's voice held an unmistakable tone of command. "Bullying her into seeing anyone won't help the situation."
Riley took an aggressive step forward. "We call this taking care of our own. You've done your bit, so get lost. No one wants you here."
Brenna felt her stomach drop. If Judd had been a changeling, those words would've been reason enough for a fight. A big one. And after having seen the look in his eyes when he'd spoken of executing Greg, she wasn't so sure about his control. Stepping back in what she hoped was an unobtrusive manner, she let the fingers of one hand brush over his thigh. The muscles were bunched, ready to attack.
"Brenna is perfectly capable of taking care of herself," he said. "If you want to help her, stop making her feel incapable at every turn."
She winced inwardly at that freezing tone. Oh, he was pissed, but covering it with a layer of Psy arrogance. "He's right." She looked at Riley, her hand flattening on Judd's thigh. Strong warm muscle. It hadn't relaxed even a fraction. "You two need to back off before you suffocate me. You, too," she said to Hawke.
White lines bracketed his mouth. "Until we figure out what the hyenas were up to, the rules still apply. You've become a symbol of changeling strength - if anyone succeeds in taking you out, it'll lead to blood. So stay in the den or within the inner perimeter."
It chafed but she nodded, deciding to fight one battle at a time. Right now, that involved keeping her brothers and Judd from tearing into each other. "But you have to send Drew back to San Diego and reassign Riley so he's not in the den so much."
Her brothers growled. Hawke raised a hand to cut them off. "That's family business. I need them here."
"Then I want a room at the other end of the den," she insisted, deriving strength from the dark angel at her back. "Or I swear I'm moving back to the city."
Andrew swore a blue streak. "Now you're being - "
"Don't." Judd's quiet menace.
Her middle sibling went motionless. "How do I know you're not..." His voice trailed off as she let out a choked cry, able to feel her face twisting into a mask of shock.
"That he's not what? Controlling me?" she asked, throat thick with hurt. "Is that what you think of me - that I have no spine unless a Psy is forcing it on me?"
"I didn't mean - "
"Then you shouldn't have said it!" She chose to turn the heartbreaking pain into anger. "I need you to stand by me, not chip away at my confidence. Do you know the only person in this room who's never made me feel inadequate? Judd."
Andrew sucked in a breath, as if he'd been punched. Riley was the one who answered. "You take these rooms. They're the most secure in terms of their location. We'll find bunks in the soldiers' section." He left without giving her a chance to respond, forcing Drew to go with him.
Hawke shot Judd a measuring glance. "I'm sending someone else to cover the cabin region for now."
"Understood."
Hawke left the next second.
Finally, she was alone. Except for the assassin at her back. "I need you to go, too."
The muscled thigh under her palm bunched. "I know what they don't."