"What would it matter if I was?"
Her heart froze - she had wanted her sudden burst of insight to be nothing more than paranoia. "It matters because you didn't tell me! Why the hell not?"
His phone beeped again. They both ignored it.
"Because you didn't need to know." His jaw was as unyielding as stone. "It has no bearing on anything."
"The hell it doesn't." She thumped a fist against his chest, making him move back from the door. "It means you've been lying to me from day one! If you can lie about that, what else might you be lying about?"
He grabbed her wrist when she would've spun away. "You're acting extremely irrationally. This has nothing to do with what we were talking about."
She wrenched her hand from his hold, not wanting her defenses falling victim to the raw heat of his touch. She was so damn hungry for him she could easily become his sensual slave. One, just one teasing stroke and she'd melt. Good thing Judd wasn't the stroking kind. "Guess what? Out of the PsyNet, this is called being furious. And, for your information, I'm planning on staying that way for a while." Wrenching open the door, she walked out and headed toward an exit.
She didn't give in to the shakes until she was hidden in the inner perimeter, surrounded by the thick dark of the forest. Placing a hand on the trunk of a tree, she tried to breathe evenly of the cold air, but it was all she could do to take in ragged gulps. Judd was right. Her reaction had been unreasonable on the surface, as if she were picking a meaningless fight. He didn't understand.
The fact of his keeping something from her because it might upset her, treating her like an invalid, was enough to make her mad. But that wasn't what devastated her - it was the realization that he'd seen her at her most broken, her most humiliated. She'd been tied spread-eagled on a bed in the butcher's personal torture chamber. Naked. Bleeding.
She didn't want Judd to have that image of her in his mind. He'd seen her during the healing sessions, but there, she'd been fighting back, proud of herself for surviving. But in Enrique's lair, she'd been close to giving in, close to having her will crushed. In the final hours before she withdrew wholly into her mind, she'd begged. If the butcher had promised to set her free, she would have crawled, would have cooperated with his sick games, would have licked his feet...anything to make the pain stop.
Tears streamed down her face for the second time that day, but these weren't quiet, silent tears. These hurt coming out and burned like acid on her skin. She bit her lips to keep from making loud noises. But the tears wouldn't stop. She was humiliated and hurt and angry and lonely, the emotions a caustic brew that made it impossible for her to draw a clear breath.
Hands on her shoulders.
They startled her enough that she allowed him to turn her before lifting up her fists to keep distance between them. He hugged her to him anyway. "Shh. Don't."
It only made her cry harder. When his body curled protectively over hers and he rubbed his cheek against her hair, her heart almost broke. She knew the payment Silence must be demanding from him. And still he held her.
"Why?" She tried to push off his chest but he wouldn't let her. "Why?"
One of his hands rose to close over her nape in that dominant way she'd come to expect, a hold she allowed because she trusted. "I know how proud you are, how strong. That's how I see you and that's all that matters."
Her throat felt scraped raw. "Did you see me?" Splayed out on that bed, reduced to a thing, mind and body no longer connected.
"No."
"Don't lie to me again. I can't bear it."
"I didn't see you. Your brothers refused to let anyone near." But he'd gone into the room afterward. He'd seen where she'd been held, seen the restraints she'd bloodied in her attempts to get out, the instruments of torture Enrique had preferred over his Psy abilities.
Her tears had lessened, but she didn't stop crying altogether until several minutes later. If he never heard those broken cries again, it would be too soon. Her ensuing silence cut parts of him no one should have been able to reach. He wanted to force her to speak.
The blue flare around her eyes seemed to glow when she finally raised her head. "I made Drew and Sascha tell me the details of the rescue. They didn't mention you, aside from saying you'd provided a psychic distraction at a certain point in the trap."
"Sascha never knew about my involvement," he told her. "I was a last-minute addition when Hawke realized who they were dealing with. He figured it wouldn't hurt to have a Psy on board, especially a trained soldier. My job was to deal with any psychic offensive."
"Hawke trusted you?"
"No." Judd had no illusions about that. "But he knew I wouldn't do anything, not with the kids still back in the den." When she didn't respond, he continued. "I'm guessing Andrew didn't mention it because his memories of that day are confused at best. He was driven by pure anger. He might not even have seen me. I went in with the team to execute Enrique, while he and Riley peeled off to rescue you."
She'd been held in a large soundproofed room in Enrique's apartment, only meters from where her abductor slept. "Enrique was tired from the PsyNet battle with Sascha" - the other Psy had managed to weaken the former Councilor as well as confirm his identity as Brenna's abductor - "but he wasn't wiped out."
Judd had blocked Enrique's volley of objects as the wolves and cats swarmed in, unable to use his Tk-Cell abilities to stop Enrique's heart because his opponent had been too good at deflecting back Tk power. But then, so was Judd. While Enrique was focusing his efforts on Judd, erroneously judging him the biggest threat, the DarkRiver leopards and SnowDancer wolves had surrounded him.
The second they were in position, Judd had thrown everything he had at the other Tk, punching a hole in Enrique's physical shields. It was all the changelings needed. They'd torn him to pieces in a matter of minutes. Blood had sprayed the walls in a spurt of arterial red, a fitting coda to a killer's life. In the melee, no one had realized exactly what it was they had seen Judd do, leaving the secret of his Tk abilities intact.
Brenna's hand opened against his shirt. "You didn't see me."
"No." At least he could tell her that truth.