Hostage to pleasure psy.., p.1
Hostage to Pleasure (Psy-Changelings, Book 5), page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
EPILOGUE
“NALINI SINGH IS A MAJOR NEW TALENT.” —Christine Feehan
Praise for Caressed by Ice
“Craving the passionate and electrifying world created by the megatalented Singh? Your next fix is here! . . . One of the most original and thrilling paranormal series on the market . . . Mind-blowing!”—Romantic Times (41⁄2 Stars, Top Pick)
“A sensual, dangerous adventure not to be missed.”
—New York Times bestselling author Lora Leigh
“Nalini Singh continues to dazzle and ensnare new readers with each addition to the Psy-Changeling series.”—A Romance Review
“A compelling read with wonderfully developed characters and the strong world-building that has made Singh a star. Readers will revel in this latest installment with two of the most riveting secondary characters from the previous novels.”
—All About Romance
“With a truly inspired mix of passion and danger, this story will keep you on the edge of your seat. [It] will surely earn itself a place among your favorites.”—Romance Reviews Today
“Delivers increasingly inventive world-building, intrigue-filled plotting, and a complicated and satisfying love story—and will leave readers eagerly anticipating the next installment.”
—BookLoons
“A mesmerizing series.”—The Road to Romance (Reviewer’s Choice Award)
“This is a wonderful story and I cannot recommend it highly enough!”—ParaNormal Romance Reviews
“Ms. Singh is sure to win new readers with this release. I highly recommend the series and Caressed by Ice to all fans of paranormal romances.”—The Romance Readers Connection
Praise for Visions of Heat
“Breathtaking blend of passion, adventure, and the paranormal. I wished I lived in the world Singh has created. This is a keeper!”
—USA Today bestselling author Gena Showalter
“This author just moved to the top of my auto-buy list.”
—All About Romance
“Brace yourselves because the second installment of the Psy-Changeling series will set all your senses ablaze and leave your fingers singed with each turn of the page. Visions of Heat is that intense!”—Romance Junkies
“Visions of Heat is penned with an intensity that only Nalini Singh can give to a story . . . If you’re a paranormal reader, this is one book that you have to read!”—Romance Reader at Heart
“The phenomenal sequel to the equally phenomenal Slave to Sensation . . . Nalini Singh proves without a shadow of a doubt that she is an absolute master at world-building with this gem! . . . Don’t miss out on this series as it is a definite keeper!”
—CK2S Kwips and Kritiques
“A page-turning sexy read that fans of paranormal romance are sure to devour . . . I highly recommend Visions of Heat to one and all, especially if you love a great story, exciting characters, and a new world to explore! . . . This is one book that is sure to find it’s way onto your keeper shelf!”
—The Romance Readers Connection
“A fantastic paranormal romance series! Singh puts her own unique spin on psychics and shape-shifters.”—Fresh Fiction
“In a genre filled with talent, Singh really stands out. Book two of her original and complex series has all the necessary ingredients for an outstanding story. She breathes life into her characters, filling them with passion and strength. This is one of the best paranormal series out there!”—Romantic Times
Praise for Slave to Sensation
“I LOVE this book! It’s a must read for all of my fans. Nalini Singh is a major new talent.”—New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan
“An electrifying collision of logic and emotion . . . An incredible world where fire and ice mix to create an unforgettable sensual eruption. Slave to Sensation is a volcanic start to a new series that’ll leave you craving more.”—Romance Junkies
“AWESOME! . . . A purely mesmerizing book that surely stands out among the other paranormal books out there. Slave to Sensation is captivating from beginning to end. It’s a must read for any paranormal fan!”—Romance Reader at Heart
“Superb science fiction romance . . . Readers will enjoy Nalini Singh’s excellent futuristic thriller and demand more tales from this fascinating realm.”—Midwest Book Review
“You won’t want to miss Slave to Sensation, the tremendous first book in the new Psy series by Nalini Singh . . . I highly recommend this book and suggest you make room for it on your keeper shelf.”—Romance Reviews Today
“A sensual romance set in an alternate-reality America with just a bit of mystery to keep readers flipping pages. Character-driven and well-written, it’s not easy to put down at bedtime; it kept me reading well into the night.”—Fresh Fiction
“A fresh, intriguing, and thought-provoking mythology and a very appealing cast of characters . . . I look forward to the next installment from this talented writer.”—BookLoons
“A must even for those uninitiated in the paranormal genre. The story ends much too quickly, and the author’s magical writing conjures up sensual images and intense emotions that linger long after the last word is read.”—Romantic Times
Berkley Sensation Titles by Nalini Singh
SLAVE TO SENSATION
VISIONS OF HEAT
CARESSED BY ICE
MINE TO POSSESS
HOSTAGE TO PLEASURE
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
HOSTAGE TO PLEASURE
A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley trade mass-market edition / September 2008
Copyright © 2008 by Nalini Singh.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form
without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in
violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
eISBN : 978-0-425-22325-3
BERKLEY® SENSATION
Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
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I grew up lucky—in an extended family where the written word was everywhere. This one’s for all of you who gave me a book as a child, took me to the library, or saved a well-loved story to share. Thank you for those priceless gifts.
CHOICES
When, in a desperate attempt to save their people from the twin scourges of murder and insanity, the Psy race decided to embrace the Silence Protocol and eliminate emotion from their lives, it was by no means an easy decision. Blood was shed. Innocents and guilty alike died. Hearts were destroyed, and the pain of it split the PsyNet into two.
But perhaps the cruelest aspect of Silence was that it forced people to choose. Acceptance or rebellion, parent or lover, sister or child. There was no middle ground. Those left inside the Net would never again reach out to the ones who walked away. And the exiled would live forever with the heartbreak of knowing that those they loved were being taught to devalue love itself.
It hurt.
Like a bruise that would not heal, pulsing with the pain of memory, of loss.
Now, in the year 2080, the hurt has faded, the choices have been made, and those in the PsyNet live a life of cold Silence. Love is no longer something they understand, much less desire. Because to love is to be flawed.
And the Psy do not allow the flawed to live.
CHAPTER 1
To survive, you must become more Silent than the Council, your heart ice, your mind a flawless prism. But never forget—prisms bend light, change the direction of what is known, generate fractures of beauty. Ultimately, prisms create their own truths.
—From a handwritten letter signed “Iliana,” circa June 2069
In the end, the retraction was deadly simple. The sniper had been given the precise coordinates the car would travel along the sleepy rural road, knew exactly how many people were in the vehicle, where the child was sitting. According to his information, the child was blindfolded, but the sniper still didn’t like doing this with an innocent in the vehicle.
However, if left in the hands of his captors, that child would become the unwitting instrument of the worst kind of evil. And then he would die. The sniper didn’t kill lightly, but to keep a child safe, he would do much worse.
“Go,” the sniper said into the air, the sound picked up by his earpiece and transmitted to those below.
A slow-moving truck veered out of the opposite lane without warning, crashing into the side of the target car with a smooth expertise that forced the vehicle off the road, but would do little damage to the people inside—they couldn’t afford to harm the child. More than that, they refused to harm the child. But it wasn’t the child the sniper found in his sights as soon as the car came to a halt.
A single precise shot and the windshield shattered.
The driver and his adult passenger were dead within the next two seconds, a clean bullet hole in the center of each of their foreheads. The bullets were designed not to exit, thereby minimizing danger to the backseat passengers.
An instant later, the rear doors slid back and two men jumped out, one of whom stared straight at the sniper’s location high up in the spreading branches of an ancient pine. The sniper felt a blunt force graze his mind, but the guard had left his telepathic strike for too late. A bullet lodged in the Psy male’s throat with fatal accuracy even as he focused his power. The fourth man went down with a silent bullet wound through his chest, having failed to locate the sniper’s partner.
The sniper was already moving by the time the last body hit the ground, his rifle in hand. He left behind no trace of who he was and when he reached the car, he touched nothing. “Did they get out a psychic alert?” he asked the unseen watcher.
“Likely. Road’s still clear, but we need to move fast—reinforcements will be here in minutes if the Council has teleportation-capable Tk’s on hand.”
The sniper looked through the open doors and saw the final remaining passenger. A tiny boy, barely four and a half years old. He wasn’t only blindfolded. His ears had been plugged and his hands tied behind his back. Near-total sensory deprivation.
The sniper growled and became a man named Dorian again, his cold control falling away to expose the deeply protective nature of his beast. He might have been born lacking the changeling ability to shift into animal form, but he carried the leopard within. And that leopard was enraged by the callous treatment meted out to this defenseless child. Reaching in, he gathered the stiff, scared body in his arms, his hold far gentler than anyone would’ve believed. “I have him.”
Another vehicle appeared out of nowhere. This one was sleek, silver, nothing like the now abandoned truck, though the driver was the same man. “Let’s go,” Clay said, his eyes a flat green.
Getting into the backseat, Dorian ripped off his face mask and put away the gun before cutting through the boy’s bindings with the pocketknife he carried everywhere. Blood slicked his fingers and he drew back so fast, he sliced open a thin line on his own palm. But when he looked closer, he realized he hadn’t accidentally cut the child—the boy had been struggling against his bonds for what must’ve been hours. His wrists were raw.
Biting off a brutal oath, Dorian slid the knife back into his jeans and took out the plugs from the boy’s ears, removing his blindfold a second later. Unexpected blue gray eyes looked into his, startling in a face with skin the color of aged gold, a dusky brown that almost glowed. “Keenan.”
The boy didn’t say anything, his face preternaturally calm. So young and he’d already begun the road to Silence, begun to learn to suppress his emotions and become a good, robotic Psy. But his calm facade aside, he was too young to hide his bone-chilling fear from the changeling who watched him, the sharp bite of it insulting to Dorian’s senses. Children were not meant to be bound and used as pawns. It was not a fair fight.
The car came to a stop. The opposite passenger-side door opened and then Judd was sliding inside, his gun strapped to his back. “We have to do it now or they’ll track him through the PsyNet.” The other man’s eyes were a cold brown when he stripped off his own mask, but his hands careful as he touched the boy’s face. “Keenan, we have to cut the Net link.”
The boy stiffened, leaned into Dorian. “No.”
Dorian put an arm around his fragile, breakable body. “Be brave. Your mom wants you safe.”
Those astonishing eyes looked up at him. “Will you kill me?”
Dorian looked to Judd. “It gonna hurt?”
A slight nod.
Dorian held Keenan’s hand, the boy’s blood mixing with his own where he’d sliced open his palm. “It’ll hurt like a bitch, but then you’ll be okay.”
Keenan’s eyes widened at the vulgarity, exactly as Dorian had intended. In that moment of distraction, Judd closed his eyes. Dorian knew the Psy male was working furiously to unlock the child’s shields and get inside his mind—so he could cut Keenan’s link to the PsyNet, the psychic network that connected every Psy on the planet, but for the renegades. Bare seconds later, the boy screamed and it was a sound of such brutal suffering that Dorian almost killed Judd for it. The sound cut off as abruptly as it had begun and Keenan slumped into Dorian’s arms, unconscious.
“Jesus,” Clay said from the front, merging onto a busy highway even as he spoke. “The kid okay? Tally will kill me if we get a scratch on him.”
Dorian brushed back the boy’s hair. It was straight, unlike his mother’s curls. She’d had it tamed into a braid the one and only time he’d seen her—through the scope of his rifle—but he’d been able to tell. “He’s breathing.”
“Well”—Judd paused, white lines bracketing his mouth—“that was unexpected.”
“What?” Dorian took off his jacket and covered Keenan in its warmth.
