Lucas suddenly understood. "You haven't tried to initiate a link, have you?" Terror and fury combined to chill his heart.
Sascha smiled and shook her head. "You have to live."
"You promised!" he yelled, driven beyond patience, beyond anything but demand and need. His mate couldn't die.
Those beautiful eyes were fading. "I'm sorry."
"No! No!" He cradled her in his arms, his voice shaking. "Link, damn you! Link!"
Her hand rose to lie against his heartbeat. "Love you." A single tear fell from eyes gone charcoal gray.
"Tammy! Do something!"
The healer was trembling, her eyes wet. "I can't, Lucas. She has to..."
"Do it, Sascha!" he ordered, crushing her to him. "Don't you leave me."
She gasped and the fingers on his chest curled. But she didn't reach out to his mind, didn't take the step that would complete the mating dance.
"If you don't, I'll start taking out the Councilors," he threatened. "They'll hunt me down and kill me anyway."
But his mate was beyond hearing. Her eyes drifted shut and her face smoothed out as her shivers faded.
"No!" His scream was of purest rage. "I won't let you die! You're mine and damn if I'm ever going to let you go. You're mine. Mine." The panther clawed to the surface and let out a roar that was nothing human.
That was when he felt it. The bond between them snapping taut. The panther recognized the bond, though it had never before felt it. It calmed him enough to let Lucas think, holding fast even as Sascha's heartbeat stuttered. Lucas closed his eyes and fed her. He didn't know what he was doing, just knew that as long as the bond stayed strong, Sascha would live.
A minute later, her eyes fluttered open again. The deathly gray was being replaced by dark ebony. "Lucas? What's happening?"
"You're going to live." It was nonnegotiable.
He felt her search for and find the link. Felt her try to cut it - his heart stopped - but it wasn't something she could influence. This link wasn't Psy. It was changeling and it was unbreakable. The cat began to smile - her safety was no longer out of his grasp.
"You can't," she whispered. "Stop doing what you're doing. You're giving me your lifeforce. It's worse than if I simply accepted the bond and let it keep me alive."
"Then accept, because I'm not going to stop." He poured even more of himself into her.
Futility darkened her expression. "Damn you for being so stubborn!"
"Accept."
Her shoulders fell. She shot back along that bond, dropping the barriers she'd erected in an effort to prevent their mating. Suddenly, she was a rainbow inside him, a sparkling fountain of such beauty that he felt blessed to have been allowed to see her. For one instant, their minds were one and he saw how desperately, how wildly, how unreasonably she loved him - enough to break a promise, to choose death so he could live.
She saw how much her panther adored her, how his heart beat for her alone, how life would turn into death after she was gone. The beast was angry at her for attempting to deny him his mate, and the man was beyond angry, but beneath the anger was hunger, need, love. Such intense, furious love that it had no beginning and no end.
She pulled back with a gasp, allowing their two minds to separate, allowing them to think private thoughts once more. Somehow, Lucas knew that if he should ever ask, she'd open to him again. She was his and he was hers. They had under-the-skin privileges.
Those dark eyes looked up at him. Tears streamed down her face. "I've killed you. I've killed you. I've killed you!"
Sascha knew Lucas was enraged with her but she was too mad to care. How could he have forced her into this? It didn't matter that the mating bond wasn't controllable. As far as she was concerned, if he'd accepted her choice, if he'd let her go, it wouldn't have come into being. Even now, she was sucking his life away so she could be healthy and strong. Her life at the price of his. Damn him!
Ten hours had passed since the plan had been successfully executed. Depleted by his attempt at trapping her, Enrique's powers hadn't been strong enough to withstand the changelings. Improbably, he'd kept Brenna caged in his large soundproofed apartment, safe because no Psy could feel her pain. She was alive. The SnowDancers and DarkRiver's soldiers had also ensured Sascha's safety. No one was going to be hunting her or the changelings.
"We took what was due us," Hawke told her in the living room of the safe house. His gaze included Dorian. "And we left them a message. Should anything ever happen to you, we'll go after each and every one of the Council, no matter who it was that set the dogs on you. What we did to Enrique will seem like a picnic."
"How can you be sure that'll keep them contained?" Sascha knew the Council too well.
"The message we left," Hawke said, his eyes pure blue flame. "It was stapled to Enrique's tongue. Tatiana Rika-Smythe got the tongue in a velvet jewelry box inside her bedroom. Nikita got the remainder of the head."
She couldn't breathe. She tried to speak but nothing came out. Hawke continued his bloody narrative.
"The Councilors outside the immediate area have been promised personal delivery of a piece of Enrique - I'm thinking we'll leave the gifts on their pillows."
Sascha felt her gorge rise. She gripped Lucas's hand. "How could you...?"
"We did nothing to him he didn't do to our women," Dorian gritted out. "We did less - he raped their minds!"
She looked at him, felt his anguish - anguish that vengeance hadn't calmed - and knew he needed her to accept what he'd done. She was his alpha's mate and for the first time, she saw what that entailed. Not quite sure what she was doing, she crossed the room and took his face in her hands. He stilled. When she brushed her lips over his, a sigh seemed to ripple through his body.