Indigo's face blanched. "You make me feel like a monster."
Judd didn't answer, already to the door. Pushing it open, he walked inside. Kevin was in the same position as before, but his terror seemed to have whittled down to grim acceptance. He thought he was going to die.
Judd stood in front of the man. "I'm going to remove what they put in. The choices you make from then on will be your own."
The hyena's head snapped up, moving blindly in the direction of Judd's voice. "You're not going to kill me?"
"Not today." Judd went behind the male. Lower shields, he said telepathically. It was the first in a long list of commands the programmers could have used. But he had no need to go any further - Kevin's tough changeling shields disappeared as if by magic. The cruelty of whoever it was that had done this was beyond anything Judd had ever seen. They had left the changeling wide open to any Psy who knew or could guess the code words.
Once inside, Judd began to check the structure of the programming. The work was effortless - not only was he a strong telepath, he'd been trained in the very techniques that had been used on Kevin. Those skills told him that the binding was crude, done in haste. Clearly, the Council wasn't worried about failure. Then again, why should they be? While other Psy might be able to get into Kevin's mind, only a Psy with a very specific skill set could undo the original programming.
A few minutes later, he was about to reset the compromised neural pathways when he saw it. A Black Key. A tiny piece of psychic code that would kick in the second he began the reset. Kevin would die from a massive aneurysm in less than a minute.
He withdrew before carefully retracing his steps. Finally satisfied the Black Key was the single contingency, he spent ten minutes deactivating and removing it. Then he cleaned house. Kevin.
"Yes." The vocalization was distant - the hyena remained in the trance initiated by the code words.
Your mind is now free. As of this moment, you will not respond when asked to "lower shields." Do you understand?
"Yes."
Aware of the wolves looking on, bemused at what appeared to them to be a one-sided conversation, Judd checked for any further activation phrases then repeated his instruction several times to ensure comprehension before giving Kevin the order to wake with full memory of what had taken place.
The hyena immediately bent double, dry-retching. Judd looked at the nearest soldier. "Get a glass of water."
D'Arn obeyed without looking to Indigo. When the soldier returned and went to lower Kevin's blindfold, he glanced at Judd. Understanding, Judd stepped back into the shadows once more.
Indigo waited until the hyena was no longer shaking before asking him to tell them everything he knew.
Kevin was able to share details of three other planned attacks. To Judd's military mind, it was obvious that the PineWood leader had made no effort to keep a lid on the details. He'd known about, and relied, on the programming to ensure silence.
"I think there might be more." Kevin sounded broken, lost. "I'll see if I can find out anything."
Judd was no changeling but he understood why the hyena was so distraught. Hierarchy was important in changeling packs and that hierarchy relied on trust. What Parrish had done was obliterate Kevin's system for understanding how the world worked. It was the same psychological trauma that had destroyed so many young children at the dawn of Silence. The transitional children - those under seven years of age at the time of the Protocol's implementation - had been taught to devalue love, warmth, touch, everything that made them feel safe. More had died than survived.
"Don't put yourself in danger," Indigo told Kevin now. "With what you've given us, we can shut down this operation. How many in your pack?"
"A hundred but that includes the old and the very young." He coughed a couple of times. "There's about forty able-bodied. The Psy didn't bother to talk to the others."
"Not many." She looked over Kevin's head, toward Judd. "Can you handle it?" At Judd's nod, Indigo returned her attention to Kevin. "How stable is your pack?"
"Good. If you take out Parrish, Mahal or Lou-Ann can step in." His voice held acceptance of his leader's impending death. "I don't know if they're in on it."
"Don't worry about that, we'll figure it out." Indigo raised an eyebrow at Judd. "Could be they've all been brainwashed."
"It could." However, he considered it unlikely, given the crude nature of the programming. The Council hadn't spent too much time on this. "Who were the Psy who programmed you? Were they wearing uniforms?"
"No. Suits like the rest of them." Kevin didn't attempt to look over his shoulder. "I didn't see anyone who seemed really important. Nothing stands out."
Judd would have been surprised to hear otherwise. "Any names mentioned?"
"Not that I can - " The hyena paused. "Wait. I walked up on Parrish once while he was on the phone. He said he couldn't change things without Duncan's authorization."
Brenna felt unexpectedly fresh the morning after her emotional breakdown. It was as if the tears had released something toxic that had been brewing inside of her, setting her free. Added to that, Judd had messaged her to let her know he hadn't yet returned to the den. She grinned. The Man of Ice was learning.
Walking out of her apartment, she headed off to find Hawke. She had work to do - she hadn't forgotten that Tim's killer might be gunning for her and she wasn't going to put a bull's-eye on her back, but neither was she going to let that piece of scum dictate her movements.
Hawke raised an eyebrow when she hunted him down in one of the workout rooms. "That look spells trouble." His entire upper body was drenched in sweat, but his breathing remained smooth. Healthy and muscled, he was quite beautiful in a very masculine way.
She was woman enough to appreciate him, but without wanting more. "I promised DarkRiver I'd help them hack into the Psy databases. Can you assign me an escort down to their headquarters?" Because she wasn't a soldier and she couldn't fight like one.
"They decided to set up special untraceable equipment for it." He picked up a towel and wiped off his face. "Should be ready by tomorrow. You want to go help Sascha instead?"
Brenna shook her head. "She said she doesn't need me till later. Right now, the deer are too traumatized to accept my presence."
"Makes sense. I've got a meeting that way tomorrow - you can hitch a ride with me," he said, slinging the towel around his neck. "I've already got SnowDancer guards sorted and DarkRiver has the whole place under watch, too."
"Trusting the cats, Hawke?" she teased.
He snorted. "Like I said, I'll have my own men there."
Relieved he hadn't stood in her way, she was about to head back to her room when Hawke's phone beeped. Since it was closer to her - on the floor with the sweatshirt he'd stripped off during training - she picked it up and handed it to him. It wasn't her intention to listen in, but he motioned for her to stay.
The conversation was short and ended with Hawke saying, "You've tracked down the pack?" A pause filled with the most lethal anger. "Then do it today. We don't know what else they might have been programmed to do."
"Do what?" Brenna asked after he'd hung up.
"Judd's not going to get back till after dark," he said instead of answering. "He asked me to keep an eye on you."
She concentrated on the first part of his response. "What does he do for you, Hawke?" Her heart was a block of cold stone in her chest.
His face went dangerously neutral. "I don't know if I like your tone of voice." It was a reminder of who he was.
But she knew her status, too. "I'm not a juvenile to be slapped down." She faced off with him, eye to eye. "Answer my question. What do you ask from Judd in exchange for giving sanctuary to the kids?"
His pale eyes iced over. "Judd is a fully trained Psy assassin with experience in covert wet work. I'd be a fool if I didn't utilize his skills."
She choked back a cry. "How can you ask that of him?" An alpha looked after his own. He didn't destroy them. But maybe Hawke didn't consider the Laurens his own. After all, and for reasons she'd never known, he hated the Psy as much as her brothers did.
His face gentled, an unexpected softening of harsh masculine lines. Closing the distance between them, he cupped her cheek. "He is who and what he is, Brenna. If you want something different, you shouldn't be with him."
"He's the only one I want to be with."
"Then accept his beast like you do your own."
Hawke's words wouldn't leave her alone as she went through the day. It was disturbing to think that she might be asking Judd to change when she professed to want him for himself. "But asking him to break Silence is different," she muttered to herself as she scanned the details of another of the job offers Dr. Shah had forwarded her.
If Judd didn't dismantle the conditioning, he'd continue to hurt each time they touched, each time he felt anything for her. How could a relationship survive under that kind of pressure? "No, Brenna, be honest." She sighed and went to the next offer. While everything she'd thought so far was true, there was another truth - she wanted Judd to hold her, to offer her affection...to love her. A selfish need.
What if accepting his beast meant denying the needs of her own?
It made her head ache, especially when she added in the fact that her beast didn't recognize Judd as her mate. The mating bond was conspicuous in its absence. "Enough." Thinking herself to a standstill was not going to help matters. And if she didn't stop thinking about Judd, she'd start to speculate about what it was he was doing today.
Covert wet work.
Her stomach turned. If he came to her with hands dipped in blood, would she accept him? Her fingers trembled. She had no easy answers to that question and that shook her. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to pay attention to the next offer on the list. It was from a corporation named Sierra Tech.
