Vaughn wondered if he should tell her that what she'd done made her more, not less, attractive to him. Jaguars liked their women tough. Smiling, he rubbed his fingers against his jeans and walked around to take the driver's seat.
Faith said nothing until he'd started up the car. "Did I really hurt you? I've never used the ability against a living being before."
His Psy, the one who didn't feel, was experiencing tinges of remorse. "If you did, I deserved it." He ran a finger down her cheek. "Doesn't mean I'll stop, but I'll be a bit more careful about how I tie you up."
"I should've shocked you harder." She folded her arms across her chest.
He began driving. "Sascha never mentioned that kind of talent. Does it fall under a separate designation?"
"Why should I tell you? You don't tell me your secrets."
"You're hooked up to the Net." An absolute fact. "Anything I tell you could be leaked and you might not even know you were doing it."
"You're right." Her voice had gone very soft. "I'm under constant surveillance and yesterday ..."
"Yesterday? What happened yesterday?"
He almost heard her mouth snap shut. "I'm not your spy, Vaughn. Get someone else if you want a puppet." The statement was devoid of any emotion that might have made him excuse it, an unwelcome reminder that the woman beside him was a cardinal Psy. One of the enemy.
"You came to us," he grit out. "You came to us because you couldn't trust anyone in your precious world - they would've hung you out to dry. DarkRiver is not a charity for lost Psy." Fur ruffled the wrong way by her words, he accelerated down the road. "Asking you to give us something in return for our help is good business. You understand business, don't you?"
The second the words were out, he knew he should've kept a lid on his temper. He rarely lost it, but when he did, he tended to be brutal. Faith's hurt was all the more painful for being hidden under the brittle armor of Psy Silence, but he could feel it, feel it in the heart of his maleness. "I'm sorry, Red. That was uncalled for."
"Why? You only stated the truth." Her voice was so cold, Vaughn expected to see icicles forming in the air.
Something in him relaxed. He didn't mind Faith's anger - it was the emotionless mask he hated. "Yeah, but that's not why I said it."
"I don't understand." No hint of curiosity, pure Psy calm.
"I said it because you pissed me off." He turned down a leafy lane and glanced over at her sitting so motionless beside him. "We're not above collecting the information you give us - we'd be stupid not to gather as much as possible while you remain in the Net - but we aren't doing it behind your back, so don't accuse us of that."
Faith didn't know how to respond. For twenty-four years, she'd lived in a world that operated on a very different set of principles. Nothing was ever said so bluntly and without any hint of subterfuge. Shoshanna Scott's visit was a vivid example - the Councilor had been all allusions and hints, never quite coming out and saying what it was that she wanted from Faith, though Faith had a very good idea. What she didn't understand was why.
It was almost a compulsion for her to talk about it with Vaughn, but she couldn't. Not yet. If she gave away the Council to the cats, notwithstanding her lack of any definitive knowledge, then she was in a sense giving away her loyalty to the Psy race. And they were her race. They understood what she was, what she could do, and the price that she paid. She was respected, more than respected. If Shoshanna's visit was any indication, she might climb even higher, the highest of any in her PsyClan.
If she did as Vaughn wanted and successfully dropped out of the Net, what would she be? Nothing. A broken Psy without race or family. She'd done enough reading to know that her inborn talent wasn't always respected in the human-changeling world. Many scoffed at the idea of foresight. There were some who went so far as to call her entire designation a fraud.
Of course, none of that would mean anything if her abilities continued to spiral into chaos. She had to find a way to exert control over the dark visions, even if she couldn't block them. Vaughn's fingers whispered over her