Nalini Singh: Hostage to Pleasure

Unless she had gone blind, her eyes were closed, possibly taped shut, though she didn’t have the senses to verify that. Closed eyes meant a medical facility of some kind, either a clinic room or the morgue.

Her body wasn’t picking up the sensation of cold or warmth, so she couldn’t verify that either.

Her hearing wasn’t working.

Her nose wasn’t working.

Her mouth wasn’t working.

That was when claustrophobia nibbled at the edges of her consciousness. She was buried in the most final way—inside her own body. Her limbs were all completely useless, making escape impossible. No, she thought, dragging her thoughts back under control before they eroded the cold Silence that had kept her alive this long. She wasn’t human or changeling. She had another world open to her. Inside her mind, she felt for the link to the PsyNet. There it was, strong and unwavering. Whatever had gone wrong, it hadn’t affected her psychic abilities.

Following the link, she cautiously lowered her shields and swept her psychic eye across the area she now occupied. Familiar minds began to appear within seconds. She withdrew at once. That was the problem with the PsyNet. Though her initial position was based upon her physical location, because the PsyNet was a psychic construct, the instant she lowered her shields, it began to shift to accommodate her—as if each version of the Net was unique to the individual.

It made no logical sense because the PsyNet followed no laws of physics or math. No one had yet found out what rules it did follow, but one thing was clear—Ashaya couldn’t venture into the Net again without taking precautions to ensure none of her “knowledge” of others leaked out. She knew it could be done, even knew some of the mechanics of how—Amara had taught her.

She began moving and shifting her mental shields, devising fail-safe upon fail-safe. The next time she opened her psychic eye, she saw everything through a dull haze. Her shields were so bulky as to hinder any attempt to actively surf the Net, but that was fine. Right now, it meant she was an invisible dot among millions of other dots. If she “knew” no one, no one knew her.

Taking a chance, she slit a tiny gap in her shields and listened to the chatter of the Net. Thousands of pieces of information filtered through, but as none of it was relevant, she forced herself to return to the shell of her mind, the claustrophobic prison of her body, wondering how much it would hurt when she ripped the tape off her eyes. Pain was a relative concept. Losing Keenan had taught her that more clearly than even Amara’s cruelty.

Tape.

She could feel it now, sticky and abrasive on her lids. Focusing, she began a step-by-step checklist of her body. On the first pass, she found her feet dead but her calves waking up, while her torso remained numb. By the second pass, both her legs were cramping excruciatingly and her stomach felt as if it was trying to crawl out through her throat.

The third pass—her entire body a mass of searing pain.

Agony sloughed away the lining of her gut, flayed the skin from her flesh. And still she forced herself to lie unmoving. She wasn’t a trained soldier, hadn’t been tortured so she could learn to withstand pain. She lay frozen for one single reason—she wanted to see her son again.

Because if she was alive, then there was a chance that Keenan, too, had made it out alive.

A psychic brush.

Amara.

Ashaya withdrew deep into Silence, fortifying her mind behind another wall of ice, even as her body punished her for the sting of death. The speed with which Amara had tracked her was no surprise, but the connection between them was the weakest it had ever been. Ashaya intended to keep it that way.

She didn’t know how long the pain lasted.

When it was over, she lay stock-still and let the world filter in through her senses. She was on a cold steel table. So not an examining or a patient room. A morgue facility of some sort. Air whispered over her body.

Naked. She was naked.

This deep in Silence, that didn’t disturb her. She took in the antiseptic smell in the air, the absolute quiet. But tempting as it was to move, she didn’t. There had to be cameras. Her body would never have been left unguarded. They had to have scanned her by now. Since she wasn’t cut up, it meant that either the chip’s protective coating had worked, or something had delayed the normal autopsy process.

Her mind snap-shot to a piece of data she’d absorbed during her peek into the PsyNet.

A virulent flu had swept through several sectors without warning, raising fears of a pandemic.

Unless she’d caught an extremely lucky break—unlikely—it seemed that Zie Zen had gotten the note she’d smuggled out and been ready for her to act. That left the cameras—she’d have to take the chance that the morgue itself wasn’t monitored. Why should it be? But just as she was about to attempt to move, she heard footsteps. A door opened, smooth, silent, but for the whish of air. A single pair of feet, boots clicking against the plascrete floor. They came to stand beside her. She lay immobile… then realized she was breathing.

“Ms. Aleine, are you conscious? I know you’re alive.”

It had all been for nothing. Refusing to show any reaction, she raised her hands to her eyes and peeled off the tape, blinking against the stark white light. The russet-haired woman who’d woken her was already taking things out of a small pack and putting them beside her. Clothing, shoes, socks.

She rose to a sitting position. Swallowed. “Liquids?” Her voice was gravel and dust with a topcoat of broken glass.

The woman put a bottle in her hand, nothing but cool efficiency in her brown eyes. “Zie Zen sends his regards.” She opened her palm to show Ashaya a small gold coin stamped with the Chinese character for “unity.”

There are only ten. Each carried by an individual worthy of trust.

Ashaya didn’t need any more proof. “He got my note.”

A short nod. “You have a limited window of time,” the woman said. “The panic we created with a viral bioagent is starting to die down. Councilor LeBon will be here very soon to take charge of your body.”

Finishing the juice, Ashaya got off the table, holding herself steady with her hands flat on the table. Her head swam, and she knew without a doubt that she was about to throw up. Staggering to the sink, she slotted in the plug just before her stomach revolted. What came out was mostly juice, but the spasms felt like muscle tearing and ripping.

“Are you all right?” The stranger passed Ashaya a box of tissues and another bottle—this time of water.

“Yes.” Her voice came out husky. “Give me a minute.”

As the other woman turned away, Ashaya focused on the contents of the sink and, to her relief, found the chip she’d swallowed—her digestive tract had shut down with the rest of her body, leaving the chip in her stomach. Rinsing it clean as she washed out the sink, she wrapped the priceless object in a piece of tissue and went back to the table.

The stranger had laid out an outfit, and Ashaya wasted no time in pulling it on—underwear, jeans, and a long-sleeved white T-shirt followed by a short-sleeved navy blue one. Spring was heating into summer, but the nights could be cool depending on the location. Putting the chip into a pocket, she braided her hair and stuffed it under the black beret her rescuer held out.

Contact lenses came next. Her pale blue gray eyes were unusual for her dark skin tone. Now they turned brown. That done, she pulled on the socks and sneakers laid out on the morgue slab. Remnants of the poison continued to send twinges through her body, and her stomach was a raw mess, but it was nothing compared to when she’d first woken.