dorian had once thought nothing could penetrate the scientific shell around ashaya. now he knew different in so many ways - but this link with amara, it had the potential to destroy her. "can you control her?"

ashaya shook her head. "no."

"incorrect, ashaya." amara raised an eyebrow. "if i allow you to embed a control link inside me, you can."

"is she right, shaya?"

ashaya's fingers brushed his as she shifted to stand beside him. "yes. not mind control but - "

" - a leash," amara completed. "long enough to let me pretend i'm free but short enough to keep me from indulging in things my twin would deem unconscionable."

"will it hurt you?" he asked ashaya, ignoring amara.

"no." her fingers closed around his. "our twin bond exists whether we like it or not. if amara lets me in that deep, then i'd become the one in control. she'd lose the ability to enter my mind, but i'd be able to monitor her at will."

"you'd be her keeper your entire lifetime."

ashaya looked at him. "i have help now. i have you."

the leopard inside him growled in a rush of possessive pleasure. "glad you're finally beginning to understand that."

"amara's in our web," lucas said to sascha as they stood outside the hospital. "what does that mean?"

sascha leaned against the wall that faced the manicured front lawn. "it means there's darkness in the web now."

"how do we fight it?"

"we don't." she thought back to when faith had joined them, to the revelation about the darkmind. "amara is fundamentally flawed, but she exists. she's part of the world. we watch her, we manage her, but we don't imprison her on the psychic level. the instant we do, we sow the seeds of a split inside our own web."

"i don't like it." lucas's tone was alpha-hard. "with her link to ashaya, she could come through, influence you, faith - hell, any of us."

"no," sascha said, having spent hours looking at the situation from every angle. she and faith both agreed on this. "her link doesn't allow that."

"if she's in the web, how can it not?"

"think of it like a math problem." grabbing her organizer from the pocket of her light summer coat, she slid out the attached laser pen. "first we have the large value - our web." she drew a circle and filled it with the members: lucas in the center, herself enclosed within him, the spikes leading out to the sentinels, and then the connections to their mates.

"the mating bond links ashaya into the web." she connected the m-psy to dorian. "but our web is different from the psynet. it's a network you can only join via two methods that we know of - mating or a blood bond."

"keenan," lucas said, frowning. "dorian said he had an open cut on his hand, and the skin on the kid's wrists was broken. the boy's need probably short-circuited the process i'd normally go through to blood-bond someone into the web. the problem is, it takes control out of my hands."

"no, it doesn't," she said. "if asked, would you have denied sanctuary to a child dying of psychic starvation?"

he gave her a speaking look. "what do you think?"

"i think the web knew you'd have said yes." she smiled at his expression. "it may be changeling, but it's still a psychic construct - it has the capacity to learn." kissing his cheek when he blew out a breath, she returned to her diagram. "because of the way he was brought in, keenan is linked straight to dorian, though he also has a very strong and visible attachment to his mother.

"the web seems to have decided to treat him as their cub, giving him full access." she drew a triangle around the new family. "amara, on the other hand, is connected through the twin bond." she drew a small circle that cut very slightly into the web of stars.

"i initially expected amara to be connected to ashaya, and otherwise isolated, but the web's allowed her to be a peripheral part of it. i think it's because it understands that she's a psychic being, that she needs to know the web is there. however, she can't actively surf or influence it. i'd worry about that limitation since she is caged in a way, but i think ashaya is the sole person amara truly cares about. as long as she can talk to her twin on the web, she's not bothered."

lucas continued to stare at the diagram. "if ashaya dies, so will amara. but not vice versa."

"yes." sascha put away the pen and organizer. "i don't think it could be any other way. ashaya is a complete sentient being, but amara..." she put her head against lucas's chest, finding comfort in the feel of his arms coming around her. "she's only complete if ashaya exists."

a pause and she knew he was thinking things through. "i guess we can find her a position at sierra tech," he said at last, referring to the research and development company in which darkriver held a major stake. "we'll give her a chance to prove herself."

"who knows," sascha commented, recalling amara's piercing intelligence, "she might end up being an asset."

lucas didn't look convinced but he nodded. "do we need to tell dorian all this?"

"i'll keep an eye on things, let him know if there's a problem."

"i guess i'll have to trust you." a teasing statement but one that held a question.

of course he'd sensed her disquiet, she thought. he knew her to the depths of her very soul. "i need to tell you something."

he rubbed his hand along the sweep of her back. "good. my patience was about to run out - you've been sleeping badly ever since you visited amara." a lethal edge had entered his voice.

"it's nothing she did," sascha said. "it's something she said."

"sascha, we've had this conversation. the woman is a - "

she put a hand over his mouth. "listen to me instead of acting all alpha."

he licked her palm. she dropped it and scowled at him. "behave."

"talk."

"amara's words triggered some kind of switch in my mind, clarified something i've been getting hints of over the past few months." she took a deep breath, exhaled. "my powers... they're changing."

"how?" his expression grew solemn. "is it something that's going to hurt you?"

"no, nothing like that. it's this... sense that they're spreading out, developing. i just have no idea what they're developing into." that scared her. her mother was the best viral transmitter in the net. she could kill with a single thought. "what if i turn into nikita?"

"not a chance." he ran the knuckles of one hand over her face. "think of it as an adventure. we'll learn about it together." a pulse of love came down the mating bond, a pulse of devotion.

she felt her heart become his all over again. "i'm so glad you're my mate, lucas." whatever it was she was becoming, it was no longer so scary, not when she had a panther by her side.

on the other side of the car park, a dark-haired male lowered a pair of binoculars and coded in a call on his cell. "definite no go," he said to the person on the other end. "the hospital's swarming with darkriver leopards."

"options?"

"we wait until she's released. quick, clean extraction. they won't be expecting us."

a small pause. "they never do, do they? after all, we're no threat."

"they'll learn different."

"when we're ready," came the order. "keep watching. they'll drop their guard sooner or later."

"we should've taken her in the parking garage," the watcher said, referring to the location of ashaya's final broadcast. "i was less than twenty feet from her and the cat."

"too big a risk of being caught on surveillance. surprise is our biggest weapon."

because not even a leopard could hunt a phantom.

chapter 48

dorian isn't sleeping well anymore. i can feel the leopard's frustrated anger building once more. the intensity in him, the same intensity that drives his will to succeed, and powers his incredible loyalty, also lends itself easily to obsession. i will not let him go down that dark path. not again.

- from the encrypted personal files of ashaya aleine

dorian met with lucas and the other sentinels a few days later, his body fully healed. "they tried to kill my mate. they broke the rules." a quiet statement made in the sniper's lethal tone.

his mate was psy. the boy he already considered his own was psy. it made it impossible for him to hate the other race as he once had. but there were some psy he would never, ever forgive. the council had taken his sister. then they'd tried to take his mate. the monsters were all fucking dead.

"i know you want blood, dorian," lucas said. "but there's a problem."

dorian respected the hell out of lucas but the leopard wasn't just going to let this go. neither was the man. "what?"

"we don't know who ordered the hit." lucas held up a hand before anyone could interrupt. "vaughn, you take it."

"i spoke to anthony," the jaguar said. "he says there's dissension in the council ranks. ashaya was only supposed to be killed if all attempts to recapture her failed."

dorian swore, low and hard. "it had to have been a councilor. no one else would've had access to a tk who could teleport."

"anthony agrees, but he can't pin it down." vaughn's face was full of the same cold rage as dorian's. "some of the councilors are suggesting it was actually a vigilante pro-silence group. they call themselves pure psy."

"convenient."

"yeah." vaughn folded his arms. "but it leaves us with no clear target."

breathing past the black chill of the sniper's fury, dorian forced himself to think. "what's to stop them from trying again?" his need to protect ashaya was a craving that ate away at him night and day. "she's so high profile, she's an easy target."