The leopards had closed ranks. No one would tell her what the final steps of the mating dance were so she could avoid taking them. She was their alpha's chosen mate and they weren't going to give her the chance to slip away. Even Vaughn had refused, though she'd tried to convince him it would save Lucas's life. Not one of them understood the power of the PsyNet. It could not be fought.

Chapter 20

"F-Psy," Lucas murmured. "Let me guess. Foresight?"

She nodded. "These days they're usually hired by businesses to forecast market trends, but I've heard that in the past, they often worked for Enforcement and local government in order to prevent murders and disasters."

If they hadn't succumbed to the lure of cold hard cash, forgetting the human emotions behind death and loss, perhaps Lucas's parents would still be alive. How could he not hate her people? Hate her?

"But no E-Psy," Tamsyn said.

"No." Sascha frowned. "It makes no sense. A specialty may be rare but it never disappears entirely."

"Did you check the classification system?" Lucas asked.

She nodded and decided not to mention that she'd had to make a quick visit to the PsyNet to do so. "It wasn't hidden. I guess they thought no one would ever care to look it up. Until Silence, E was an accepted designation. It disappeared soon after the Protocol went into effect and wasn't replaced in the classification charts." She made a frustrated sound. "But I don't know what it means!"

"What's your classification?" Nate asked.

It was the one question she didn't want to answer, the one question that showed her how useless she was. "I'm non-specialized."

"But I know you're a telepath." Tamsyn frowned. "The cubs told me you talked to them."

Sascha smiled at the thought of Julian and Roman's mischievous welcome. "Telepathy is a base skill necessary for survival." Otherwise, the uplink to the Net couldn't be created or maintained. "All Psy have it to at least 1.0 on the Gradient. However, I have telepathy to approximately 3.5 on the Gradient, telekinetic powers to around 2.2, and whispers of some of the other powers to no real level."

"You're a cardinal." Lucas squeezed her tight, obviously seeing through the smile to the pain she'd tried to hide. "That means you have a great deal of power."

She shook her head. "No, it means I have the potential for a great deal of power. Cardinals are uniformly over 10.0 on the Gradient in their particular specialty - no one's been able to figure out a way to measure them past that. Not that measurement is necessary to figure out whether someone is a cardinal." Her eyes had marked her from birth.

"In my case the potential was never unlocked." Trying not to let them see how much it mattered to her, she shrugged. "According to Mother, it shouldn't have stopped me rising to the Council ranks but I think she meant to help me." Help by icily controlled murder. "Eventually she stopped mentioning that possibility. We both knew I'd never be powerful enough to survive at that level."

Tamsyn pushed off Nate and started to pace across the carpet. Her mate looked on, bemused. "I'm no Psy, Sascha, but I can feel your power same as I can feel Lucas's."

Sascha tipped her head to the side. "I'm not sure..."

"The Psy think we can't read them but some of us can." Tamsyn dropped the bombshell with a feline smile. "Ask Lucas."

She found him wearing that same smile. "Tell me."

"So demanding." It was a growl but there was mischief in his eyes. "Whenever you use Psy power, I know. Not only that, I can read spikes in Psy activity. And you, kitten, are no Gradient 3 in anything."

"Impossible." She scowled. "I've barely been using any Psy power since you've known me. What I have used, like when I pushed you telekinetically, has been very low level. You can't be reading the spikes right."

Leaning forward, he nipped her lower lip. "That was for the push."

She made a face. "Watch out or I'll use some of my transmutation powers - I have enough to turn your hair green." It was a bluff but she got to see Lucas's eyes narrow in warning as he debated whether she was serious.

"You have power," Tamsyn muttered, interrupting them. "Maybe you're an E-Psy like your great-grandmother. Maybe being an E-Psy is no longer allowed, so they categorize you as non-specialized and bang it into you that you have no power to speak of. Tell someone a lie often enough and they'll start to believe it, even to the extent of handicapping themselves."

Sascha's eyes widened. "When I was a child undergoing training, the instructors always told me I had so much potential, and that it was such a pity it was blocked."

Lucas suddenly rose in a startlingly fast movement, destroying her train of thought.

"What - " She found her feet as he set her down.

"Quiet." Nate's head jerked toward the front yard.

Lucas's body was a study in silent danger. "Where are Vaughn and Clay?"

"Out back." Nate prowled to stand beside Lucas. "Tammy, get Sascha out of here."

"I'm not leaving. This is my fight, too."

Lucas whipped her a blazing green look. "Actually it's not. That's the SnowDancers out there. Tammy?"

The healer crossed the room and took Sascha's arm. "Come on. Lucas won't be able to concentrate if you're nearby." It was an almost inaudible whisper.

Sascha felt the protective fury in him and knew Tamsyn was right. Frustrated but unwilling to endanger him, she followed the other woman out of the living room and to one of the windowless upstairs bedrooms.

They encountered Dorian in the hallway, a sleek presence dressed head to toe in black. He put a finger to his lips and jerked his head for them to keep going. Sascha froze as she felt the lethal anger coming off him, so dangerous it threatened everything and everyone in its path.

"Come on." Tamsyn tugged at her arm.

Dorian scowled and motioned for her to go. Sascha forced herself to start moving again. The sentinel's deep anger wasn't something she could fix, not when he seemed determined to nurture it.

She turned to Tamsyn the second they were behind the solid wooden door of the bedroom. "How can you stand this? Being shut away safe while they might not be?"

"I'm the healer. It does no one any good if I die. I fight my battles after they've fought theirs." Intense emotion overlaid her every word.

"At least you get to fight. They should've let me help - I have enough Tk and Tp powers to cause some mayhem."

"There might not be any need for violence. The wolves have a pact with us." Tamsyn didn't sound too convinced of her own argument. "I've been thinking of something."

"What?" Sascha paced the room, feeling more like a caged animal than the cool, controlled Psy she was supposed to be. "That it's idiotic to be locked up here when we're fully capable of protecting ourselves?"

"If you go down, you make Lucas vulnerable." Tamsyn's words pleaded with her to think. "If the SnowDancers pick up that the mating dance is incomplete, they'll use you as a lever against him."

"Will they know if we don't tell them?"

Tamsyn paused. "I'm not sure. They're wolves, not cats. Their scent is very different from ours - they might assume you already belong to Lucas."

For some reason, that made Sascha smile. "How can you talk about belonging to someone so easily? I thought predatory changelings were independent by nature."

"Simple." Tamsyn walked over and took Sascha's hand. "Because Lucas belongs to you, too."

Sascha wanted to break the contact but she could feel the healer's need for touch, for Pack. Nate was down there facing off with the wolves, and despite the logic of her statements, Tamsyn was terrified. Not quite understanding how she knew what to do, she pulled the other woman into a hug. Tamsyn came without hesitation.

"How can you treat me like one of the pack?" Sascha asked, even as she stroked Tamsyn's thick fall of hair.

"You smell of Lucas, and I don't mean on a physical level. It's difficult to put into words." She pulled back from the embrace, as if she'd received what she needed to be strong again. "Our bodies and hearts recognize yours. We know you're one of us."

"But I'm not mated to Lucas yet," Sascha argued, feeling the noose slip about her neck. She couldn't, wouldn't, destroy these people who'd come to mean everything to her. If Lucas went down, DarkRiver would fragment. The pack might physically survive with the deadly sentinels at the helm, but they'd all be broken. She would not do that to them.

"You're so close as to make little to no difference." Tamsyn pushed her hair off her face and held up a hand when Sascha began to speak. "Don't ask me what the final steps are. I can't tell you. It's different for each couple..." She sighed. "But the male half of the pair usually has a better idea of what's needed - I guess it's nature's way of ensuring the more independent females can't avoid bonding."

"He'll never tell me." She sat down heavily on the floor, her head hanging between bent knees. "I'm coming apart at the seams and I refuse to take Lucas with me."

Tamsyn knelt in front of her. "That's not your choice to make. Mating isn't marriage. You can't divorce each other and you can't walk away once you've found one another."

Sascha met the other woman's compassionate gaze. "I'll destroy him." It was a painful whisper.

"Maybe. Or you might save him." Tamsyn smiled. "Without you, Lucas might've become too much his beast, too much the predator, cruel and without mercy."

"Never."

"He was christened in blood, Sascha. Don't ever forget that." Tamsyn sat down cross-legged in front of her. "Until he met you, do you know what he was like? Do you know where he was going? Day by day I watched him get more protective, more unbending and strict, especially with the kids, and there was nothing I could do."