Attack from the front. It was a matter of pride. Of honor.
"But," he continued, frost chilling his voice, "there are a lot of things I can do without killing - or even leaving a bruise - in order to get someone to speak."
Brenna knew he expected that to send her running. But she'd grown up in a family of tough men. She wasn't some wide-eyed miss who didn't know the facts behind SnowDancer's power. "That doesn't scare me, Judd." Though she'd be lying if she said it didn't worry her - for him. What impact did it have on a man to be the darkest of enforcers?
"Good, because I told you - there's no going back." He turned toward the door.
"Bite me," she snapped, frustrated at his stubborn will, his refusal to even consider a way out of Silence. In the tense pause that followed, she finally listened long enough to her own instincts to understand something she'd known subconsciously since the day he'd told her about his telekinetic abilities. Frustration transformed into anger and it flowed through her like fire. "You know what really pisses me off?"
He paused with his hand on the doorknob. "I don't have time for games, Brenna."
"What really pisses me off," she continued as if he hadn't spoken, "is you daring to come across as so possessive and protective when you've been lying to me for months."
He went very still. "That's a dangerous insult."
"You're a Tk. Enrique was a Tk. You can throw men against walls and crush their bones. So could he. How am I doing so far?"
"Get to the point."
Her blood boiled at his icy response. "If strong Tk are so damn lethal, how did SnowDancer and DarkRiver men manage to execute Enrique without a single changeling fatality or major injury?" Striding to where he stood, she went toe-to-toe with him. "You were there the night they rescued me and executed that monster." She had complete faith in her pack's ability to deal with a murderous Psy, but Santano Enrique had been a cardinal Tk fighting for his life. "Weren't you?"
"What would it matter if I was?"
Her heart froze - she had wanted her sudden burst of insight to be nothing more than paranoia. "It matters because you didn't tell me! Why the hell not?"
His phone beeped again. They both ignored it.
"Because you didn't need to know." His jaw was as unyielding as stone. "It has no bearing on anything."
"The hell it doesn't." She thumped a fist against his chest, making him move back from the door. "It means you've been lying to me from day one! If you can lie about that, what else might you be lying about?"
He grabbed her wrist when she would've spun away. "You're acting extremely irrationally. This has nothing to do with what we were talking about."
She wrenched her hand from his hold, not wanting her defenses falling victim to the raw heat of his touch. She was so damn hungry for him she could easily become his sensual slave. One, just one teasing stroke and she'd melt. Good thing Judd wasn't the stroking kind. "Guess what? Out of the PsyNet, this is called being furious. And, for your information, I'm planning on staying that way for a while." Wrenching open the door, she walked out and headed toward an exit.
She didn't give in to the shakes until she was hidden in the inner perimeter, surrounded by the thick dark of the forest. Placing a hand on the trunk of a tree, she tried to breathe evenly of the cold air, but it was all she could do to take in ragged gulps. Judd was right. Her reaction had been unreasonable on the surface, as if she were picking a meaningless fight. He didn't understand.
The fact of his keeping something from her because it might upset her, treating her like an invalid, was enough to make her mad. But that wasn't what devastated her - it was the realization that he'd seen her at her most broken, her most humiliated. She'd been tied spread-eagled on a bed in the butcher's personal torture chamber. Naked. Bleeding.
She didn't want Judd to have that image of her in his mind. He'd seen her during the healing sessions, but there, she'd been fighting back, proud of herself for surviving. But in Enrique's lair, she'd been close to giving in, close to having her will crushed. In the final hours before she withdrew wholly into her mind, she'd begged. If the butcher had promised to set her free, she would have crawled, would have cooperated with his sick games, would have licked his feet...anything to make the pain stop.
Tears streamed down her face for the second time that day, but these weren't quiet, silent tears. These hurt coming out and burned like acid on her skin. She bit her lips to keep from making loud noises. But the tears wouldn't stop. She was humiliated and hurt and angry and lonely, the emotions a caustic brew that made it impossible for her to draw a clear breath.
Hands on her shoulders.
They startled her enough that she allowed him to turn her before lifting up her fists to keep distance between them. He hugged her to him anyway. "Shh. Don't."
It only made her cry harder. When his body curled protectively over hers and he rubbed his cheek against her hair, her heart almost broke. She knew the payment Silence must be demanding from him. And still he held her.
"Why?" She tried to push off his chest but he wouldn't let her. "Why?"
One of his hands rose to close over her nape in that dominant way she'd come to expect, a hold she allowed because she trusted. "I know how proud you are, how strong. That's how I see you and that's all that matters."
Her throat felt scraped raw. "Did you see me?" Splayed out on that bed, reduced to a thing, mind and body no longer connected.
"No."
"Don't lie to me again. I can't bear it."