Returning home after an hour, his body covered in sweat, he took a shower, then sat down at his desk. The first thing he pulled up was a file on Sophia Russo, not out of any particular interest, but because he made a habit of keeping an eye on what his fellow Councilors were doing. Nikita might’ve been an ally, but theirs was an alliance of expediency, nothing more.

The J-Psy’s file was detailed, as was the case with most of her designation. And notwithstanding her irregular childhood, and recent appearance on the rehabilitation watchlist, her abilities fell within fairly normal parameters for a J. So why was Nikita so interested in this one particular J? There was no doubt that she was—the request to the J Corps had been very specific.

Making a mental note to monitor the situation, he was about to pull up another file when he felt something trigger his outermost shields on the PsyNet. Given that those shields were so complex they were all but invisible, he only spared the incident a cursory glance. Many people contacted his shields without realizing it. But then, the intruder made it through those shields.

Kaleb opened his psychic eye between one blink and the next.

The intruder was gone.

Which in itself was an answer—because anyone good enough to have left without getting caught in one of his traps shouldn’t have triggered the alarm in the first place. “So,” he murmured on the physical plane, “the game has begun.”

CHAPTER 10

Sensation builds. You may consider a handshake harmless, but each time you touch a human, it threatens your conditioning.

—Excerpted from lessons given to Psy children during

their transition into adult training

Sophia was more than ready to exit the car by the time Max brought it to a stop in front of a mid-rise building not far from Golden Gate Park—the site of Kenneth Vale’s apartment, the location of his suicide. Sophia had never suffered from a psychological issue that made her vulnerable to claustrophobia, but being in that car with a quietly brooding Max had been . . . unsettling.

He took up more space than he should, the heat of his body inescapable in the confines of the vehicle. She’d felt as if he was touching her with each wave of that starkly masculine heat—and for a woman who hadn’t been touched in years, it had been an experience that left her scrambling for escape.

“Entry codes?” Max asked as they walked up the steps, his voice rubbing against her skin like sandpaper.

Again, it was touch without a touch, something she had no ability to avoid, to process. “I have them here.” She let them into the building and headed toward the elevator security console, her gloved fingers slipping off the pad once before she collected herself.

Trembling, Max thought, Sophia was trembling.

“This is a very exclusive building.” A calm voice, that betraying hand dropping to her side as the elevator headed down to them. “Vale’s position with Councilor Duncan enabled him to secure his privacy to this extent.”

“Why bother?” Max folded his arms to keep from sliding his hand under her hair, to the soft warmth of her neck so he could tug her to him, so he could apologize for pushing her too hard, too soon, with a slow, sweet kiss—no matter that they’d been strangers only a day ago.

“Before these deaths,” he said, forcing himself to maintain a white-knuckled hold on a need that refused to obey the rules of civilized behavior, “I’m guessing being Nikita’s business advisor wasn’t exactly a high-risk position, so why the security?”

“Humans,” she said, “and the occasional nonpredatory changeling, have a way of expecting things from Psy they shouldn’t.” A meaningful glance out of those vivid, impossible eyes. “Vale was, in all probability, protecting himself from those who wanted to pitch to him in person.”

The elevator opened at that moment. A woman entered the lobby at almost the same instant, swiping a card where Sophia had entered Vale’s access code. “Please hold the elevator.”

Max did so, conscious of Sophia all but disappearing into a corner.

“Thanks.” The woman’s ruby red smile betrayed her humanity. “Are you moving in? I haven’t seen you before.”

Max saw the stranger give him the once-over, recognized it for what it was. Women had been making him offers since before he was legal. And he’d learned to turn them down without hurting their feelings—because in spite of the actions of the woman who’d shaped him, he’d never hated her or those of her sex. Part of him had always wanted to protect her—even as a child, he’d known that no matter what she did to him, her pain was deeper, older, a vicious animal that tore her to pieces from the inside out.

So today, he gave this woman a small smile. “Just checking the place out.”

“Well,” she said as the elevator opened on her floor, “if you want to ask any questions about the area, call me.” Passing over a card, she exited, her musky perfume a lingering reminder of her presence.

Sophia stirred. “She was playing a mating game with you.”

Max had been about to drop the card into the small wrought iron recycling bin in the corner, but now slid it into his pocket. If it took jealousy to rouse the real Sophia to the surface, he’d use it without any guilt whatsoever—when a man got kicked this hard in the guts by a woman, anything was fair.

And the unique individual behind the mask of the perfect J, the one who’d told him Bonner’s victims shouldn’t have to spend eternity in the cold dark—that’s who he wanted to know. “It’s called flirting.” He shot her a slow, deliberately provocative smile. “I’m sure you must’ve seen humans do it before.”

“Is that the physical type that attracts you?” Aware she should back off, but unable to stop pushing for an answer, Sophia stepped out of the elevator on Vale’s floor. “Tall, slender, with a fashionable-dress preference?”

Max gestured to the left of the quiet, carpeted corridor. “That’s his place.” Letting her pass him so she could input the code that would disengage the locks, he pushed open the door. “And,” he said in a voice that made the tiny hairs on the back of her nape rise in warning as she walked in ahead of him, “the answer to your question is no. That woman didn’t do it for me.” He pushed the door shut behind them. “Now a small woman with dangerous curves . . . I could bite into her.”

She froze, certain she was misreading the comment, but suddenly very conscious of the way her lower body filled out her jeans. “Detective Shannon,” she said, turning to face him, “you’re being highly inappropriate.”

His lips kicked up at the corners. “You started it.”

She wanted to trace the shape of those lips, wanted it so badly her fingers cramped as she fisted them. Her Silence had been fragmenting for years—an inevitable side effect of her work as a J, and one for which the J Corps had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. So long as the medics didn’t find any evidence, the J Corps Management Board wouldn’t turn in a fractured J. It was partly an economic decision in order to retain the number of active Js . . . and partly because everyone in the Corps had looked into the chasm of madness at some point in their lives.

Though Sophia hadn’t allowed herself to think about the truth even within her own mind, conscious of how deep M-Psy could dig, her conditioning had broken close to completely earlier this year, her mind twined with strange, dark tendrils that rebuffed Silence; and the reconditioning she’d undergone only the previous day had already been sloughed off like so much dead skin. But in spite of it all, she’d been able to hold up the facade, the pretense of being the perfect Psy. Until now.

“Breathe, Sophia.” A husky order, and to her surprise, he took a step back, began to walk around Vale’s living area. “This room is set up for entertaining—or maybe meetings, since I’m guessing Psy don’t do parties?”

She forced her brain to function, to provide him with the answers. “Actually,” she said, the words coming sluggishly as she fought the confusion created by his mere presence, “cocktail parties are held when there are human or changeling clients. It’s all about putting the other side at ease.”

Some Psy could even manage a glacial kind of charm—Councilor Kaleb Krychek had an unusual number of admirers in the non-Psy population. She couldn’t understand why. Yes, aesthetically speaking, he was the epitome of a cold male beauty. But he was also, she was certain, quite capable of snapping his admirers’ necks without the least pause should the occasion call for it.

“Do you know if Vale received business clients in here outside of any social events?” Max’s expression was all cop when she dared meet his gaze again. Yet, embers continued to burn in the depths of those near-black eyes. He made no effort to hide them, no effort to pretend that things were as they should’ve been between an Enforcement detective and a Silent J.

“It’s possible.” Could Max share that warmth, she wondered, thaw the frost in her soul, frost that had begun to form when she’d been a traumatized eight-year-old strapped helpless to a hospital bed? Could he fix her? “Some humans don’t like to be seen consorting with Psy.” It was a question—vital, necessary, powerful—couched as a statement.

Max peeled off his Windbreaker, bunching the black material in his hand. “I don’t like the Psy,” he said with blunt honesty. “I don’t like how they mess with human minds and pervert justice so the Council can get what it wants.”

She’d known that, of course she’d known that. But she hadn’t wanted to know.

“But Sophie”—what had he called her?—“I’m no bigot. And you’re a J. Cops and Js have always gone together.” He held her gaze until she looked away, scrambling to find her footing by reciting the minutiae of the case in her mind. Because what he’d just offered, it was something she wanted so badly that if she dared reach for it and he drew back his hand, it would push her the final step into an irrevocable insanity.