"It's called dissonance and it accumulates." Pain in his head, in his nerves, in his very bones. "I have to extend a certain amount of power to keep it contained."
Brenna jerked her hand from his without warning. "In real-speak, you hurt every time I touch you, every time we connect!"
He grabbed her hand again. "It's a programmed reaction, one I can handle."
When she tugged this time, he didn't allow her to get away.
"And that's another thing," she muttered, "how come you're so strong?" She didn't wait for an answer. "What happens if you try to dismantle the conditioning that causes the dissonance?"
"I can't afford to disengage that conditioning." An immutable fact. "I need the spikes of pain - they keep me from killing by telling me when I'm getting too close to an emotional reaction that might lead to the unintentional activation of my abilities."
"Okay, but why can't you get rid of the other parts of the Protocol - so you don't get hurt for feeling things below that unsafe level?" She bit her lower lip and gave him a guilty look through her lashes. "I asked Faith for help in getting you to break Silence."
A flare of red. "If you want to know something about me, come to me."
"I needed some advice!"
This time, it was Judd who pulled away. Walking to the other side of the room, he turned his back to her, bracing his palms on the wall. "There is no way to break Silence. Not for me. I refuse to become a danger to you or anyone else. This - tonight - is as far as I can go."
Brenna wanted to kick something. Instead, she went to stand behind him and, after a slight hesitation, put her hand on his muscled shoulder. His skin was a fever. It hurt her to know that her touch hurt him, but she also knew if she stopped touching him, she'd lose him to the talons of Silence. "Listen instead of doing the alpha male thing on me."
"Hierarchy is a changeling concept."
She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed herself to his back. Then she bit him - a light graze over his naked back. He didn't growl as a wolf male might have, but what he did was just as dominant, just as deliciously sexy. She didn't want a puppy - she wanted a man with teeth. And Judd had plenty.
Looking over his shoulder, he gave her a dark glance. "Keep pushing and you might not like the result."
Something sizzled under her fingertips, a thousand tiny teasing bites. Delighted, she pressed a kiss over the skin she'd bitten. Judd looked away, pressing his hands harder on the wall in front of him. It had the effect of further defining the muscles in his back.
"What was that you did?"
"A controlled use of Tk." His voice was arctic in its extreme focus.
Dangerous, he was dangerous. Again her brain tried to tell her something important, but she was concentrating too hard on getting through to Judd. "Just listen, okay?" She kept going before he could interrupt. "I've been talking to Faith more than you know. She thinks that maybe Silence isn't all bad."
"The Protocol gives sociopaths free rein." Words that sliced with their brutal cold.
She shivered. "That almost felt like you cut me." The sensation had been of a knife passing close to her skin. It scared her - Santano Enrique had taunted her with his scalpels hour after hour. Sometimes he'd done more than simply taunt.
Judd turned to stone. "Stop touching me. I'm losing control."
There was something in his voice that made her obey. She unclasped herself from him and took a couple of steps back. He didn't turn as he spoke. "I can cause telekinetic damage that looks like a cut, literally turn my will into a blade."
She swallowed at the image. "Okay."
"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said, every muscle on his back tight.
Her fear transformed into pure tenderness. God, the man was so hardheaded, so unwilling to see the truth. He'd likely kill himself before harming her and he thought he had to convince her of that? "I said it almost felt like you'd cut me. You didn't actually."
"So close, Brenna. Too close. You should be running, not trying to convince me to test my chains even more."
"That's exactly it," she said, fisting her hands in order to keep her distance. Touch was natural to her, the lack of it unbearable. Especially where Judd was concerned. "Maybe you can choose which parts of Silence you want. Where is it written that you have to accept or reject the entire Protocol? Faith says the skills she learned under Silence help her fight the cascades triggered by bad visions."
"What about Sascha?"
She breathed a sigh of relief - he was listening. "You know the answer. Silence was plain bad for her; it ran totally counter to her abilities. But not for Faith - "
He turned to face her at last. His expression stopped her in midsentence. "If Sascha exists, then it's logical I do."