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"No, it doesn’t reach the critical threshold for the lish, Sascha," Clay drawled

"Sorry With the millions of minds in the Net, the biofeedback actually multiplies, so that it becomes more than as put out The same principle holds true for a sh The one - " Sascha broke off so quickly, Talin knew she had been about to betray confidential inforhtened on the chair aroing to let pride get in the way of finding Jon, no ry it made her to come face-to-face with the truth that she reht her in That hat hurt the most

Clay touched the stiffness of her shoulder "Stay"

"She can’t," Lucas said "This isn’t about us"

"It’s all right, Clay," she began, mollified by his support

His hand closed around her nape, hard and inflexible "She stays Talk around it"

There was a taut moment when the twovery low to Lucas and the alpha seelad that Lucas had understood If he hadn’t, they would’ve had a serious problem Clay wasn’t a sentinel because he bowed down to his alpha’s every word He was a sentinel because he could fight back and draw blood And for Tally, he’d do a lot worse "Sascha?"

"We know of a s, Clay knew, to the Laurens, the family of defectors who had found unlikely sanctuary with the SnowDancers "That net is strained I’d say their number is at the outer limit of what’s safe And it’s h He wondered if she realized she’d put it there when the first signs of aggression had entered the rooravated the hell out of him but the leopard was pleased she saw hih she didn’t seeave hi her attention to the others The utter rightness of it cut him off at the knees, made him want to wipe away the past and make her his Only his It hat she should have always been "If we carry our theory through," she said, "itdown children with a Psy bloodline, more specifically descendants of those Psy who defected froo of hih the files "These nuure out what they meant But if you look at Jon as a descendant with a lot of Psy blood, it makes sense He’s labeled as45"

"Forty-five percent Psy?" Sascha nodded "What about - "

Talin had already found the numbers for the other abducted kids "Forty, thirty-six, thirty-nine - nothing lower than thirty-five percent" Her fingers touched the edge of the extra file Dev had sent through She’d figured it to be a mistake "And here’s mine"

"You Psy, Tally?" Clay lips lifted up in aeinto scowling outrage "Point zero three! Three percent! It’s a joke!" Though her s" More likely, she snorted inwardly, they were the result of plain old human intuition "Makes me wonder why Shine took me on in the first place"

Clay’s amusement turned into disbelief "That low? What about your randfather had an eidetic memory And he was a hundred percent huifts"

"I know that" Clay slid her hair through his fist "Maybe we’re not giving Shine enough credit Could be they take on ade Psy had to have married humans, so they can’t think of theht There’s another consideration" She stared at the docuifted to worry about anization We worker-bee types pick up the slack - could be oneout the ave her an odd look "You know, I’ve heard other humans refer to themselves as the worker bees of the world But I don’t - " She shook her head "We’ll discuss that later"

Talin nodded "We need to talk to Dev now"

"Probably go better if you do it alone We’ll wait in my office," Lucas said

Talin waited until theto the co a key, she activated the comm function

Clay went to stand behind her and when she leaned back into hi one hand over the arm he’d wrapped around her middle, she entered the private code Dev had sent with the files "Clay, if we’re right, it means I’m part Psy"

"You smell human You taste human" He nipped at her ear "And you have the heart of a human Don’t worry - hell, I’m pretty sure even Luc has more than three percent Psy blood"

"How did you knoorrying?"

Because he understood her with a part of hi his hands on her hips, he nudged her attention forward as the screen cleared to show Devraj Santos