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Greg raised his hands palular crowd, but she spent the night hanging with ether some dinner and then chilled at my place When the others left, she stuck around"

Judd was focusing very hard in an atteured out that Brenna was behind the closed door at Riley’s back And she was in trouble Despite the dissonance ha at him, he could teleport himself across the space without probleain - told hie Greg had done

"I thought she wanted toyou know" Greg shrugged "But she left after an hour of talk and I gave it up"

"Just like that?" Andreled "You’re not known for your forgiving nature"

"I’m also not a moron You and Riley would’ve eaten " The adht be teasing to build up to the main event, like the females sometiathered that to be a truthful assertion But he did not want to think about the "ht have taken place in that roo continued, "I got a call today inviting me here I wasn’t keen - Ito be out for hours"

"So you hurt her" Rileyhold, his tone quiet Deadly "What did you do?"

Greg shoved at Riley’s ar a robe, for crissakes!" he choked out "What else was I supposed to think when she crooked a finger and toldinside of Judd, broke one of the vital chains of control He could suddenly feel Greg’s heart as if it lay in his hand, the beat rapid and panicked One hard squeeze and -

Hawke put an arht "He’s telling the truth about the robe at least Let hie "Did she say no? And don’t you lie to ain "Tell us or I smash your brain" He made the words matter-of-fact because they were "You’ll be lucky if you can feed yourself afterward" Moving up froan to apply pressure

Utter terror rolled through the other aze met Judd’s "Don’t kill hi on the heels of that pronouncement "I swear she didn’t say no! I kissed her and went to put my hand on her shoulder That hen she freaked Clawed me before I could et out before she puncturedHe dropped to the floor, coughing At the same instant, Hawke looked at Judd, the pale silver-blue of his eyes more wolf than hu Lara Lara’s gone to try and track down Sascha" White lines bracketed his mouth "We’d force our way in but every tiing her"

Any ed Judd saw the unspoken judgranite "I can pull her out"

Andrew ry move toward him, but Hawke pushed hiames when Brenna’s sanity was at stake But he couldn’t teleport in - seeing hie her

"You sure?" Hawke shoved Andrew back a second tiin with"

Which hy she’d gone after this useless excuse for aat their feet But, a still clearheaded part of him pointed out, such an act of betrayal wasn’t in Brenna’s nature It simply did not fit "I have a better chance than any of you"

"Why? Because you’re one of the psychopathic race that did this to her?" Andrew again, anger and frustrated protectiveness combined

"I’ve walked in her darkness" It had been an unavoidable side effect of the healing process He’d fed power to Sascha through a telepathic link, but that link had in turn fed hiony of Brenna’s ht the experience had had no i her back"

No one got in his way after that Before opening Brenna’s door, he halted and turned to Greg "You say a single word about any of this, you die" No rooed "I won’t tell, I swear"

Turning, Judd put his hand on the knob, pushed it open, and stepped inside She ca his body against the door and causing it to shut with a violent bang He grabbed her wrists barely in tio from red to molten Restraints, he realized at once Santano Enrique had used restraints on her "Retract your claws and I’ll let you go" He made his tone adamantine, so hard it was pure unbreakable s to trip hi his stance before she could get a lever It y, the razor-sharp blades of her claws co sane looking back at him from the wild blue-brown of her fractured eyes The Brenna he knew had retreated to a safe haven in her mind, the same place that had allowed her to survive Enrique The rest of her was trapped in memories of brutalization

Sascha could’ve taken those memories from her, but Brenna had been resolute - she wanted her scars And as if to prove that those scars didn’t weaken her, she’d recovered with such spirit that she’d turned herself into a miracle But the very speed of her recovery had worried both Sascha and Lara The two healers had been concerned about a possible relapse - but no one could’ve predicted this

When she bared her teeth at hi to hurt herself if he didn’t stop her Taking a chance, he released her wrists at the sa Her claws scraped his sides, tearing his sweater and cutting through the upper layers of skin before he got her iainst his body Her teeth clah

"Brenna, you will come back If you don’t, Enrique wins" He could feel the blood beginning to trickle down his sides, but it was Brenna’s teeth that posed the real danger He could disable her - if he was prepared to hurt her He wasn’t