"That doesn't mean it took any less courage to go out there and fight for your son's right to live, your people's right to have a choice in whether or not they become nothing more than insects in a hive." He quoted her with unerring accuracy.
Ashaya broke eye contact. Dorian saw too much with that vivid blue gaze. "I'm not that noble. I did what I did out of selfishness - to save Keenan."
He shrugged. "I fight monsters to protect Pack. They aren't any less dead because I do what I do out of a selfish need to save those I love."
"People who stick up their heads have a way of getting those heads blown off," she said, clenching her hands on the denim that coated the muscled length of his legs.
"I've got your back." There was a promise in those words that whispered down her spine with the exquisite heat of a leopard's touch. "You want us to set up another broadcast?"
She swallowed, but nodded.
"We're here." The driver brought the vehicle to a smooth stop.
Dorian was already moving. She'd come to expect that from him. He could wait with a predator's silent grace, but in life he was full of movement. Now she watched as he pushed open the back doors and jumped down. When he raised a hand to help her out, she shook her head and gestured for him to go on ahead to speak with his packmates. Her shields were already paper-thin. Much more and they'd be nonexistent. And to think how arrogant she'd once been, considering her defense of faux Silence unbreakable.
What a joke.
Of course it had been unbreakable in the Net. There was no one there who lived emotion every moment of every day, no one who challenged her as this wild changeling did. Other than her indefinable relationship with Amara, only Keenan had been a point of emotional weakness, and Ming had cut her off from him for months at a time.
Her lips pressed tight as her feet hit the ground and she knew that, no matter what, she would never again let anyone keep her son from her. It had almost broken her when the connection between them had been sheared off. She wasn't strong enough to bear the loss a second time.
The connection.
In the chaos of everything that had taken place, she hadn't even thought about how she'd known to go to Keenan this morning. The link had shattered - she'd never forget the tearing pain of it - when he'd dropped from the PsyNet. And since that link should never have existed in the first place, she had no way to search for it. Yet she knew it had re-formed - the knowledge had nothing to do with logic, and everything to do with love.
A hand on her lower back. Dorian's voice in her ear. "Get in the car. It's around the front."
They pulled away less than a minute later. "This is a longer route to Tammy's," Dorian said. "I want to make sure we don't have a tail."
Heading into the shadows created by the tall stands of trees that covered the Presidio, he put the car on automatic. While most forested regions weren't embedded for automatic navigation, this area was close enough to the city that it was a wild playground of sorts, hence the embedding, at least along the main route through it.
"Now," he said, sliding away the manual controls and turning to face her, his arm braced on the seat behind her, "tell me about your twin."
Chapter 26
Amara's lips curled upward when Ming LeBon's face appeared on the large communications panel at the other end of the lab, a lab located somewhere in Death Valley - they'd moved her there after she'd told them she could find Ashaya, but only if she was in the same state. It was a lie, of course. One that got her closer to her twin. "Councilor. I trust your hunt was successful."
Ming looked at her with those too black eyes of his. Conversely, one side of his face was covered in a bright red birth-mark. Some problem with pigmentation, Amara thought, unconcerned. Very few things concerned Amara.
"No," Ming finally replied. "Your coordinates were incorrect."
"Truly?" Amara played innocent. "She was there."
"There were indications she might've been in the area. But the net was too wide."
"Ah." She smiled and spread her arms open, palms upturned. "I'll try to do better next time."
"I would rather you tell me how you're able to track her in the first place."
Raising a finger, she waved it in a chiding manner. "No, no, no. That would break the rules."
"Rules?"
"Oh, no, Councilor." Amara laughed, and it was a premeditated act. "We both know I'm not quite right in the head." She took a cold delight in being deliberately offensive to his calculating Psy mind. "But it doesn't affect my intelligence so don't treat me like I have the IQ of one of the rehabilitated."
"My apologies."
She knew the words were meaningless. He was humoring her because he thought she could hand him the implant that would allow him to control the entire Psy race. Perhaps he would share it with the other Councilors. Perhaps he wouldn't. It made no difference to Amara. "As to how I track Ashaya, I - " She broke off with a theatrical gasp. "Oops, I almost let the cat out of the bag. Naughty me."