It made her want to vomit, to tear out her own mind. No wonder F-Psy had chosen the coward's way out and surrendered to the clean commerce of Silence.

"The worst possible way to snap out of the Protocol." The renegade cardinal's face softened. "I think emotions are the key to why your shields are failing. Psy in the past would probably have fought fire with fire, shoving up blocks powered by the depth of their horror at the acts."

Faith was startled by the echo of Vaughn's earlier comments. "Go on."

"It's speculation on my part, but I know my shields cracked because I was crushing emotion when emotion was my strength."

Faith didn't ask more about Sascha's abilities. Faith was linked to the Net. The PsyClan did monitor her. On top of that, the Council was now paying her an unusual amount of attention. "But my ability isn't based on emotion."

"I think you're wrong. If emotion wasn't at the heart of foresight, F-Psy would never have seen the things they once did, never have seen murder and disaster. They saw those things because they were people who cared about others, who were driven to try to stop the evil."

Faith couldn't begin to imagine the strength it must've taken to be a foreseer in the time before Silence, to see death and pain in an endless sequence of what could be. "You're saying it's possible that Silence left the section of my mind that has the capacity to see darkness, the emotional center, unprotected. To even accept the existence of such a center would go against the conditioning. Following that logic, I can't shield that which doesn't exist." Leaving her totally exposed to the malicious power of a killer in need of an audience.

"Exactly." Sascha's eyes flashed bright and Faith almost imagined she saw colors. Impossible. "I think that's why Vaughn can pull you out - his touch awakens that buried center."

Faith's stomach clenched at the mention of the cat who'd somehow become integral to her life. "Even if you're right and I find that area of my brain and reinitiate the protections, it won't stop the visions, just make them easier to escape, correct?"

"Faith." Sascha sighed. "If you continue to try to block your gift as it's been blocked for twenty-four years, you'll destroy yourself from the inside out."

And go insane, Faith finished silently, hands clenching into rigid balls under her thighs. "If I accept these visions, it'll be the same as accepting emotion and I won't be able to hide that for long. I'm too closely watched. The end result will be the same - incarceration in a mental health facility." Another trap with no way out.

"You always have choices. The question is, are you willing to see them?"

Or are you a coward hiding behind the convenient shield of Silence?

Words Sascha would never say, but Vaughn would in a heartbeat. He wasn't gentle like the cardinal beside her. He was a predator and he went for the throat. And she watched the forest for him until he appeared for her in a flash of gold and black - a jaguar circling her, protecting her, perhaps caging her. She should try to run, try to escape, but of course, there was nowhere to go.

Not when the real threat was inside her own mind.

Vaughn did another sweep of his range and confirmed that the second sentinel in the area, Dorian, was keeping to the outer boundary. Only Vaughn was allowed so close to Faith. Even having Dorian in the same wide range made him want to react with brutal violence. The jaguar suddenly understood the extreme possessiveness that gripped DarkRiver males during the mating dance, understood why some of them turned close to feral.

Because the same violent fury was riding him now.

He roared and everything in the forest went silent. Brooding but ever watchful, he began to once again consider how to seduce the object of his hunger. He wasn't a fool. He knew sex would amp up the electricity between them, not turn it down. But if he didn't have her soon, he might gnaw off a paw.

The cat was frustrated with the man. Take her, it said; pleasure will crush her fear. The man wanted to agree. It would be so easy. Except that it would be a lie. No one raised as Faith had been, in the privacy-less box she called a home, would so quickly be able to adapt to the ferocity of his needs. And a Psy? Impossible.

Sex might actually send her into the very seizures she'd been conditioned to expect.

But she felt him on the psychic level, an intimacy he'd never expected. That she could pick up only his most erotic thoughts delighted him. It gave him the best of both worlds - his privacy and the ability to seduce her without subjecting her to touch, which might send her over the edge.

Sensual hunger beating in every surge of blood, he began to think of Faith and all the ways in which he wanted to take her. The jaguar, being a jaguar, wanted to enter her from behind. A view nothing could match, the man agreed. So much to explore, to stroke, while she lay helpless. His body reminded him of the sharp bite of pain that had been her response to his earlier provocation. Maybe not so helpless, he grinned inside. But this was his fantasy and here she was his - submitting, asking to be touched, to be kissed, to be mounted.

Something "pinged" against his mind.

He went predator-quiet as he tasted the touch. Ever since Sascha had discovered the Web of Stars that linked the sentinels to their alpha, they'd been experimenting with its tactical uses. Sascha alone had so far been able to send language - to Lucas - but both Vaughn and Clay had proved able to "knock" in a crude sense.

Vaughn could also sense emotion sent by Sascha but he'd never before "heard" anything else. Sascha remained the sole person who could receive everyone, though it looked like Lucas might be able to train his mind to do the same. As a result of their work with the Web, Vaughn had learned that his packmates' mental scents were the same as their physical ones. And he knew what they all tasted like.

Definitely not woman and hunger, need and fear, passion and musk.

The cat wanted to purr. Encouraged, he continued with his erotic fantasies, playing with a woman he'd decided was his. Faith might not agree, but Vaughn had never lost marked prey. Now he imagined curving his hands over her hips, stroking that tempting cream and gold skin, the warmth and woman-softness of her. He'd pet her first, he thought, gentle her as he might a stubborn feline. Then he'd lean down and lick his way to her neck, indulging his desire to taste her skin until he reached the savage beat of her pulse.

Another mental push. Much harder. He took it with an inward growl of pleasure. He wasn't underestimating Faith - a cardinal might not be able to easily manipulate a changeling mind, but she could rip it open and kill him. However, he knew she wouldn't, knew something she wasn't yet ready to accept. The consequence of that truth was that Faith couldn't hurt him.

In his fantasy, he closed his teeth over her pulse. He could maul her very badly, but that he never would, gave her the power. That was something she had yet to learn. As his hand closed over her breast and his fingers found her nipple, he bit down a tiny fraction harder, just enough to mark, to brand.

The next shove at his mind was tinged with desperation. Aware he'd pushed her too far, though it wasn't anywhere near far enough for him, he let her body fade from his mind and forced himself to think thoughts she couldn't see. Not knowing the reason for their connection was probably driving Faith nuts. Good. She needed to experience the unruliness of the wild or she'd never break free of Silence. And she had to smash through those walls. She no longer had a choice.

Lucas arrived to pick up Sascha sometime after two in the morning. Watching the vehicle disappear into the darkness, Faith began waiting for Vaughn. She could feel him inside her where no one should've been able to go, knew he was close by. She was proven right. He walked out of the forest on human feet a split second after the last whisper of sound from the departing car.

He was naked.

Her fingers clenched on the porch support post, her whole body filled with jagged bursts of lightning screaming for escape. It had been her intention to tell him to stop thinking of her with such brazen heat, to stand her ground against this predator who considered her body his in a way she barely understood.

But all she could do was watch him walk to her. There was nothing but lethal grace to him, his every move declaring that he was not human, not Psy, not anything civilized. His hair was loose around his shoulders, setting off those wild, not quite human eyes, and his body was pure lithe muscle.

Her own eyes refused to obey her commands and continued to skate down his body when she knew it was a mistake. He'd see it as an invitation. But still she lingered over the fine hair that dusted his chest and reappeared in a darker shade at his navel. That thin line led downward in flagrant challenge - she told herself to look away but it was already too late. He jutted out thick and hard.

A whimper exiting her throat, her hand spasmed around the post. He was magnificent. Never before had she seen a man so unapologetically nude and at ease. Her heart thudded violently enough to hurt. She had to run. She had to watch. Then he was standing a step below her and even then he was taller, stronger, fundamentally, irrevocably male.

Those half-human eyes captured her own. "What do you want?"

"I don't know." The answer was raw, ripped from the secret core of her, the unknown part that had the capacity for both chilling horror and the most exquisite hunger.

"You can touch." His voice was a purr that rolled over her like the softest, most sensual stroke of living fur. "I've touched you - this is your chance to get even."

Touch?

It was a very bad idea. Would in all probability completely fragment her mind and leave her a splintered mess. "I can't."

"Only as far as you want," he coaxed. "I'll give you free rein." Raising his arms, he closed his fingers over the edge of the overhang that protected the porch. "Promise."

Trust a cat? She'd have to be crazy. "I have to go back," she whispered, but her eyes were on the sensual fullness of his lips, her mind awash with echoes of his erotic thoughts.

"Not for a few hours. Plenty of time to play."