Now you're thinking like a Duncan. Nikita was clearly pleased. He can't argue with me for trying to protect the deal.
The deal, Sascha thought, not her daughter. Even though she should've been used to the heartlessness of the Psy after a lifetime of living with them, she felt a sharp stab of hurt. Then I'm free to concentrate on the development and keep you up to speed?
Yes.
With that, Nikita was gone. Sascha allowed herself a huge sigh of relief and dropped her head into her hands. Something was wrong. It wasn't paranoia. Why was Enrique suddenly so concerned with a failed cardinal most of the Psy ignored? Doubly troubling was the extent of Nikita's cooperation with the other Councilor.
Her gut twisted. She had a feeling she was being used as a pawn in a game for which she didn't know the rules. What worried her even more was that she didn't know the consequences of checkmate... or how to stop it.
Suddenly realizing she'd been sitting there staring into nothingness, she stood up and only then did the ridiculousness of her situation strike her. She'd just had conversations with two members of the Council while sitting on the closed lid of a toilet. The thought had her stifling giggles as she lifted the lid and opened the door.
When she checked her appearance in the mirror above the basin, she was surprised to find that nothing betrayed her slight case of hysteria. Her physical masks were holding, even as the mental ones broke down piece by piece. Glancing at her timepiece, she saw that she'd been in here for almost thirty minutes. The changelings would be full of questions and she'd better have answers for them.
Before heading out, she ensured that she looked exactly as she should - every hair on her head smoothed into a tight braid, the cuffs of her dark gray suit perfectly aligned, and her face so calm that she almost convinced herself her stomach wasn't tied up in knots.
Nobody was in the corridor but heads turned the instant she walked back into the room used by Clay Bennett and the others. One particular pair of green eyes tracked her every move. "I apologize for keeping you waiting," she said, before anyone could speak. "I was called into conference."
Lucas tapped at the side of his head with a finger. "That kind of conference?" His lips curved.
She wanted to tease him back so badly. "Yes."
"Strange place for one," Kit remarked, tongue in cheek. It was a measure of her distraction that it took the comment for her to notice the young male who'd entered the room in her absence.
She couldn't help herself. "In what way?"
Kit stopped looking through some papers on Clay's desk and stared at her. When she calmly stared back, he started to turn red, looking as young and adorable as the two cubs she'd been allowed to touch. "Um, well... d-don't you... I have to get these upstairs." He grabbed what looked like a random pile of papers and almost ran from the room.
"You should be more merciful - he's only recently grown out of being a cub." Lucas's chuckle held real amusement.
She fought not to let her lips twitch. "I was merely asking a question."
His eyes narrowed. "Sure you were."
"When do you consider your children full grown?" she asked, trying to get him to stop thinking about her impulsive decision to tease Kit.
An odd tension seemed to infiltrate the room.
"Sugar for sugar, darling." The Hunter marks were starkly beautiful against the stillness of his expression.
"We're considered adults when we turn twenty." Conditioning was officially complete at eighteen, though in reality, most Psy were fully conditioned by sixteen. Two more years were given to allow any slip-ups to come to light.
"There's quite a difference between being considered adult and being adult."
"You don't think twenty is old enough?"
"Our juveniles have to prove their maturity before they're accorded adult status." Lucas was convinced Sascha had meant to tease Kit. Her expression betrayed nothing, but he wasn't Psy and he didn't disregard his feelings.
As he'd suspected from the start, this Psy was different, very different. Different enough to be dangerous... unless her own people hadn't picked up on her uniqueness. It wasn't impossible - in some matters the Psy were quite blind, blinkered by their belief in their own superiority.
Lucas's gut said that Sascha was the key to everything. If he solved the mystery of her, he might come close to shattering the closed walls of the most inhuman of races.
"A harsh law," she said.
"Our world is harsh." Especially with the Psy in charge. Without changeling heart and human spirit, the world would've been hell.
Lucas called Clay into his office after Sascha had returned to Duncan headquarters. "What did you think?"
"She's smart. Those eyes miss nothing."
"That's a given with cardinals."
To his surprise, Clay shook his head. "Some of them are so cerebral that they barely notice anything physical."
"You've had contact with them." It was a statement, not a request for information. Clay's past was shrouded in mystery but Lucas trusted the leopard to tell him anything he needed to know.
"Some," Clay confirmed. "I'm no expert but the one thing I can tell you for sure is that something about Sascha doesn't fit."
The confirmation of his own instincts added impetus to his determination to solve the mystery that was Sascha. "What did the background check turn up?"
"She's what she seems - a cardinal Psy who hasn't been co-opted into their power structure." Clay rubbed at the stubble on his jaw. "That in itself's weird enough to make her stand out. Every other adult cardinal we've tracked works for the Council in some way."