Caressed By Ice Read Online Free PDF Page B

flecks spark to life in the rich brown of his eyes. “There’s more.” Not a question.
    She swallowed. “When I saw the murder in my dreams, when I heard the screams, it—” Her nails cut into the fleshy pads of her palms.
    â€œIt what, Brenna?” His voice was almost gentle. Or maybe that was what she needed to hear.
    â€œIt excited me,” she admitted, feeling dirty and wrong…a monster. “I enjoyed it.” She had craved the agony of her victim, her blood fevered with sick excitement. “Every cut, every scream.”
    Judd’s expression didn’t change. “But only during the actual dream?”
    She wanted to be held so badly, but Judd Lauren was about as likely to do that as he was to turn wolf. “It’s like he left a piece of himself inside of me.”
    â€œSantano Enrique was a true sociopath. He didn’t feel anything.”
    Her laugh sounded jagged to her own ears. “If you’d seen him as I did, you would never say that. He might have been cold, but he enjoyed what he did. And he infected me.”
    â€œEnrique didn’t have that ability. Transferring mental viruses is a rare skill.” He pushed off the door and walked to her. “Sascha found no trace of one in your mind and she’d know—her mother is the best viral transmitter in the Net.”
    â€œHe did something!” she insisted. “These thoughts, these feelings, they’re not mine.” They couldn’t be. Not if she wanted to remain sane.
    â€œYou shouldn’t be seeing anything,” he said, standing so close she could feel his body heat. Alarm and need mixed in raw confusion. “Your brain pathways function completely differently from those of a Psy.”
    She went to thrust a hand through her hair and stopped. Her waist-length mane was gone, another thing Enrique had stolen. “Do you think he changed that?”
    Judd’s muscles rippled as he uncrossed his arms. “It would seem to be the logical conclusion. If you let me scan your mind—”
    â€œNo.”
    He inclined his head in a small nod. “Fine. But that makes it much harder to diagnose the problem.”
    â€œI know. But no.” No one would ever again crawl into her mind. For most victims, it was the last inviolate space. For her, it was a part that had been brutalized once and would never trust again. “Do you have any idea what it could be?”
    â€œNo.” He reached out to touch her neck. “How did you get this bruise?”
    Taken completely off guard, she found herself placing her hand over his. “A bruise? Maybe when I was sparring with Lucy.” Brenna might not be a soldier, but she needed to be able to protect herself…now more than ever. Because the truth that no one knew, the secret she’d successfully concealed since the rescue, was that Enrique hadn’t simply damaged her mind, he had destroyed her on a far more fundamental level, a level that threatened to obliterate her very identity. “Can you find out about my dreams?”
    His hand was big under hers, his fingers long. She was exquisitely aware of every millimeter of skin-to-skin contact. Touch might be second nature to her race, but predatory changelings didn’t let just anyone touch them. Only Pack, mates, and lovers had skin privileges. Judd fit none of those criteria. Yet she didn’t push him off.
    â€œI’ll put out some feelers.” He withdrew his hand, the roughness of his palm an unexpected shock. “But you have to accept that no answers may be forthcoming. You’re unique—the only one of Enrique’s experiments to have survived.”
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    He watched Brenna Kincaid leave Judd Lauren’s room from the shadows. It was all he could do not to leap out and choke the life out of her right there and then. The bitch was supposed to die months ago, but she’d clawed her way back to life. And now she’d