"Judd - we need to find out what she knows," Clay said as Larsen ran past the alley where he stood cloaked in shadow.

"I'm on it."

Satisfied the two men would control the female, Clay went after the monster who had killed so many children. In a test of physical strength and speed, a changeling would always win over a Psy. He caught up within seconds, close enough to verify that the Psy fit the description Jon had given them.

"Judd - chances he's sending telepathically?" he asked as he tracked the man out of the residential streets and toward a quieter area full of warehouses closed up for the night. Fog curled up around his feet, muddied the air, but the leopard had excellent vision and a nose trained to track prey.

"If we're lucky, he might be too agitated to send. That won't last."

"Did he see Lucas?"

"No." Judd sounded as if he was running. "I'm blocking the girl, but she's too exhausted to try to send anyway. We're about to run her to ground."

The link went silent.

Clay waited. If Larsen hadn't seen Lucas, that meant he remained unaware of any changeling connection. Even if he did send a telepathic message, he could report nothing but an attack. His superior - Ming LeBon - would likely assume Shine involvement. Clay's blood boiled at the thought of Ming, but he knew the Councilor wouldn't pursue this particular evil if he destroyed the man who was driving it.

The Psy male began to slow down. As he bent over in a dark alleyway, breathing hard, Clay's earpiece activated. It was Lucas. "We've got her - blindfolded. She can't ID us and doesn't want to. Says she's one of Ashaya Aleine's people, and she fits Jon's description of the blonde he saw with Ashaya. She confirms the Psy you're chasing is Larsen Brandell, the man behind the experiments. Gradient 7."

A Psy that strong could shove enough power through a changeling's mind to cause instantaneous death. So Clay gave Larsen no warning. Slicing out with his claws, he cut through the man's jugular in a clean sweep.

Blood spurted in a dark splash, coloring the ground and the wall beside the Psy. A gurgling sound followed. Larsen was dead before he hit the asphalt.

It was an execution. And that he felt no pity or guilt should have made Clay a monster. Perhaps it did. But as blood scented the air, sharp and metallic, he wondered if it took a monster to kill a monster.

Chapter 43

Dressed only in a pair of loose black pants, his body covered with sweat, Councilor Kaleb Krychek walked to the edge of his balcony and looked down into the gorge that fell away an inch from his feet. But he didn't notice the dangerous view, his mind on the problem of Shoshanna and Henry Scott. While Nikita, Tatiana, and Ming were all dangerous adversaries, the Scotts were particularly problematic because they worked as a unit. Neither of the two was cardinal strength, but together, they were a lethal combination.

With Marshall gone, Shoshanna had begun jockeying for control of the Council. Kaleb had won the first skirmish, but he was under no illusion the battle would be easy. He glanced down at the mark branded onto his forearm, a deceptively clean-appearing shape that had shifted the course of his life beyond redemption. It was a reminder of what he was, what he was willing to do.

Something brushed his mind then, an oily darkness that looked to him for comfort. It was the voiceless twin of the NetMind, the neosentient entity that kept order in the PsyNet. The DarkMind, by comparison, was pure chaos. Very, very few people knew about the DarkMind. And only one could assert any control over it.

As a cardinal telekinetic, Kaleb had a natural affinity with both the NetMind and the DarkMind. Now he reached out a psychic hand and touched the DarkMind.

Sleep, he said. Sleep.

The DarkMind was tired today. So it slept. Kaleb knew the respite was temporary at best. The DarkMind carried within it all the violence and pain, the rage and the insanity that the Psy refused to feel. It had no voice but spoke through the acts of violence it perpetrated via the weak minds of compromised Psy. It was, in a sense, a lost child. It was also pure evil.

Kaleb had first spoken to it at seven years of age.

Satisfied the DarkMind would cause no more chaos for the next few hours, he returned his attention to the problem at hand. If either of the Scotts discovered the truth behind the mark that branded him, it would give them the weapon they needed to challenge his meticulously planned takeover of the Council. That could not be allowed to happen.

He glanced at his watch. While the sun shone in Moscow, it was now three a.m. in San Francisco. But this conversation could not be delayed. Retrieving a secure phone from inside the house, he punched in a code. "Put me through to Anthony Kyriakus. PsyClan NightStar."

Chapter 44

"Tell me," Talin said to Clay hours later.

He'd come to her an hour before dawn, after he and the others had cleaned up the evidence and buried the body so far in the forest that no one would ever find it. Larsen Brandell had, for all intents and purposes, disappeared without a trace.

Judd had left the woman's mind unharmed. There was nothing anyone could learn from her other than that she'd been interrogated by two unknown men, men who had taken her organizer before setting her free.

DarkRiver and SnowDancer didn't mind going up against the Psy, but sometimes it was better to work in the shadows, to become stronger than your enemy could imagine. They now had further evidence of the failure of Silence, evidence Clay had a feeling would end up being used as a weapon in the building revolution in the Net.

"Clay," Talin prompted, as they lay face-to-face in bed. "Talk to me, darling. Tell me what's put that look in your eyes."

And because this was Tally, the one person to whom he'd never been able to lie, he told her everything. "I'm happy he's dead," he said, drinking her in as she leaned on her elbow and looked down at him, that glorious mane tumbling over one shoulder. "It had to be done."

"Was it like before?"

"No." He surprised himself with that answer. "That was rage. Rage and protectiveness and helplessness. But it wasn't like the soldier when we rescued Jon and Noor, either - that was in the heat of battle. This was a cold-blooded execution." He refused to dress up the truth. Tally had to accept him, animal brutality and all. If she couldn't...It would claw into his predator's heart, but it wouldn't make him set her free. He wasn't ever letting her go. "I cut his throat."

Instead of exhibiting disgust, she spread one hand over his heartbeat. "Why did you execute him?"

"If I hadn't, he would have found a way to go on killing children." Larsen's own plans - stored in the organizer they had found in his pocket - had provided ample proof of his murderous tendencies.

Talin bent her head until their foreheads touched, her hair a shimmering curtain around them. "If that bastard was standing here right this second, I'd drive a knife into his black heart without hesitation."

He put his hands on her hips. "Would you?"

"Yes." Her lips brushed his. "He hurt my children. Ask any other woman in your pack and they'll give you the same answer. Do you think I'm a monster for admitting that?"

"No."

"Then how can you possibly be?"

Something tight unfurled inside him and he lay quiescent as she kissed him with delicate feminine sweetness, as if savoring the taste of him. "Still adore me?" he said into that kiss, his tone husky. A tone between lovers, between mates, between a man and the only woman he had ever wanted.

"Too much," was her response. "I only feel whole when I'm with you. Does that make me weak?"

The cat stretched out inside him as she pressed kisses along his jawline, down his neck. "If you're weak, then so am I." He could function without her but in the way a machine functions. His heart, his soul, he had given to her a long time ago. Her hair stroked over him as she began to kiss her way downward. "Tally - "

"Shh." She put her hand over his heart again and looked up, such tenderness in her gaze that he felt captured, contained, caged. But his jailer was soft and so sweet, he was completely in her thrall. "Let me love you tonight."

"Just tonight?" he teased, pushing one of his hands in her hair.

Her smile lit up the whole room. "Maybe I'll do it again...if you behave." Dipping her head, she pressed more of those delicate kisses to his skin. "Are you sensitive here?" She flicked her tongue across one flat nipple.

Clay sucked in a breath, felt more than heard her laugh. Then she blew a breath across the damp flesh and he groaned. That was when she used her teeth on him. The cat growled but Tally didn't stop what she was doing. He hadn't wanted her to. The cat liked her teeth, her claws, her scent, everything about her.

Her scent? For a second, he thought he should remember something, but Tally was moving to the other side of his chest and he was having trouble thinking about anything but the soft curves of her body. Under his hands, he felt satin and lace. "What's this?"

"The women gave it to me. Hmm." The sound vibrated through him as she reached the waistband of the sweatpants he'd worn to bed. "Why did you get dressed?"

His abdomen grew rock hard as he tensed his muscles in an attempt to keep his dominant instincts in check. "I thought you were tired."

She ran her tongue along the waistband, excruciatingly close to his cock. "You're not tired." Raising her head, she brought up her hand to clasp him through the material.

His back arched. "Tally." It was both warning and plea.

She snapped her teeth at him. "Should I bite?"

His cock jumped. "I thought you liked me."

Her laugh was husky. Releasing him, she sat up on her knees and hooked her hands into the sides of his sweatpants. He let her draw them down, fascinated by the vision of her in that pink satin and white lace thing she was wearing. It was strappy and about as substantial as cotton candy. "You look like strawberry ice cream," he managed to say as she got rid of his clothing and retook her kneeling position between his thighs.