Free Shield of Winter (Nalini Singh) by Nalini Singh Page A

tiptoe, she pressed kisses along his jaw. “Would you ever cause either pack harm when I call them family? Together, they are, after all, a dangerous aggressive force.”
    Realizing he’d lost this battle, he decided to be seduced instead. Later that day, when they arrived at the meeting, he was ready for Sascha Duncan to ask him and Sahara to lower their surface shields. He’d have drawn the line at that—no one had the right to intrude on his and Sahara’s bond.
    As it was, the cardinal empath asked nothing of the kind, yet her smile made it clear she’d sensed enough to ease her concerns. It gave Kaleb an acute insight into how deeply integrated an empath’s abilities were to her ordinary senses. “Any team with an E on their side has a tactical advantage in a negotiation,” he said to Sahara when they returned home. “Political, social, or business.”
    Sahara frowned. “I never considered that an E might work in a business capacity, but it makes perfect sense. If both sides have an E at the table, it balances out the negotiation.” Kissing him with an affection that was still a surprise, she smoothed her hands down the black of his suit jacket. “But we can talk about that later. You don’t want to be late for this next meeting, and I have a paper to write.”
    A minute and a much more thorough kiss later, Kaleb teleported onto the roof of a New York skyscraper to talk to a man who might hold the secret to the Psy race’s future survival. “I appreciate you responding so quickly to my request.”
    Turning to face Kaleb, the city at his back and the wind tugging at the rich brown of the tailored coat he wore over a business suit, Devraj Santos raised an eyebrow. “It’s not every day the most powerful telekinetic in the PsyNet asks to speak to one of the Forgotten.”
    Not simply one of the Forgotten. Dev Santos was the leader of the people who had once been Psy but were now something else, having defected from the Net at the dawn of Silence and intermingled heavily with the human and changeling populations. As a result, their psychic abilities ranged from zero to potent—and according to Kaleb’s sources, for those Forgotten who did carry psychic abilities, the biofeedback from a neural network remained a necessity for survival.
    “The PsyNet,” he said to the dark-haired male, “is undergoing certain changes.”
    Santos slid his hands into the pockets of his open coat, an amused glint in his eyes. “That may be the understatement of the century.” Not waiting for a response, he continued, “You want to know how we survived without Silence.”
    “Yes.” The ShadowNet, as the Forgotten apparently called their network, was the most analogous construct to the PsyNet in the world. Yet, as far as Kaleb had been able to determine, the Forgotten network carried no infection. Furthermore, the percentage of serial killers among Santos’ people was comparable to that of the humans and changelings, farless than that in the Psy population pre- or post -Silence. “I need to know why you survived, and are now thriving.”
    Expression darkening, Santos said, “We didn’t. Not at first.” He shifted to face the city, his gaze on the skyscrapers piercing the snow-heavy sky and beyond them, the turbulent water of the East River.
    Kaleb joined him, waited.
    “My ancestors,” the other man said into the quiet, “formed the ShadowNet in desperation when it became clear the only way to escape Silence was to defect, but they brought with them the problems that led the rest of the Psy to choose the Protocol.
    “We had foreseers who fell into their visions and never returned, telepaths whose shields splintered until they couldn’t block out the noise, telekinetics who broke the necks of the people they loved when their abilities spiraled out of control.”
    Kaleb attempted to imagine what it must’ve been like for the defectors, alone and cut off from the vast resources of the PsyNet. “Yet the ShadowNet is