shared business profits." It was a unique situation for the predatory changelings, notorious for their turf wars. That weakness made it easy for the Psy to manipulate them. All they had to do to create conflict was manufacture a territorial transgression. But Sascha had a feeling that things were changing - and most of her people were just too caught up in their sense of superiority to notice.
"Don't let your guard down around Hunter."
"Yes, Mother." Sascha had every intention of following Nikita's advice. Lucas was not simply an alpha leopard, he was a highly sensual male. It was the latter that terrified her. Something in her flawed psyche reacted to him on the most visceral level.
After much thought, she'd decided that the only way to get rid of the voracious need pushing at her shields was to indulge it in a safe environment. The actual event couldn't be that difficult - she'd done her research, memorized several books of positions and skills.
Her heartbeat staggered at the thought of what she was considering, throwing doubt on her certainties. What if it didn't work? What if a taste made her crave more?
Impossible, she told herself. She wasn't that far gone, not yet completely lost. She was still Psy, still cardinal. It was all she knew how to be.
Lucas met with his sentinels late that night. Sprawled around his lair, Nate, Vaughn, Clay, Mercy, and Dorian were the toughest members of the pack. In a one-on-one fight, every one of them would lose to him. But together they were formidable. As he'd told Sascha, if he broke vital Pack laws they'd take him down. Until then, they were his absolutely.
Not all pack alphas commanded such pure loyalty, but he'd earned his, earned it in the bloodiest, most terrible of ways. A fist squeezed his heart as memories of his parents awakened. It was always worse at this time of year, the ghosts of the past constant whispers in his mind.
They'd been cut down before they'd had a chance to live, and he'd been forced to watch. Like all children, he'd grown. Unlike most other young men, he'd grown into an alpha Hunter with the capacity to track down murderers and the brutal strength to demand justice. For some crimes forgiveness was impossible and vengeance the only cure.
"Nate, you first." He nodded to the most experienced member of the team. Nate had already been a sentinel for five years when Lucas had been confirmed as alpha a decade ago. But Nate hadn't waited for that official recognition of Lucas's status to give him his loyalty - he'd chosen to walk into hell beside Lucas years before, when Lucas was only eighteen, earning his absolute trust.
"We've confirmed our suspicions about the seven kills in Nevada, Oregon, and Arizona beyond any doubt." Nate's blue eyes were cold with withheld fury. "It's definitely the same killer."
"Bad news is, we have no new leads," Mercy picked up. The female sentinel was a tall, shapely redhead who could fight like the most lethal of blades. At twenty-eight she'd been a sentinel for a short two years but she'd earned the respect of all five males. "The cops are worse than useless as an information source - they refuse to call this a serial. It's like they can't even think the idea."
None of them had to voice what that might mean. The Psy were more than capable of clouding human thinking and changing the course of an investigation if they were determined to do so. There were Psy scattered through every level of Enforcement, probably for that very purpose.
"From what Sascha let drop, I'm certain that the PsyNet isn't equal opportunity," Lucas told them. "Democracy bypassed their Council a few centuries ago." He thought of his personal Psy shadow and wondered whether she had access to the core, whether she was guilty of covering up after a killer. Somehow, it didn't fit with the image of the woman who'd let a baby leopard gnaw on her boot. Nothing about Sascha Duncan fit the Psy mold and that made her unique. A unique Psy was a contradiction in terms.
"I can't find out any more information about that damn hive mind," Dorian muttered from his seated position on the floor. "Not even the dope fiends are willing to talk and, Psy or not, they'd sell their mother if it would get them another fix."
Lucas agreed. The Psy had the biggest drug problem on the planet. As long as they didn't try to