Tethered by Pippa Jay Read Free Book Online

nightmare plastering the fine fabric of her shift around her. Too tight. Too constricting. Far too hot.
    With a growl, she tore it over her head, hearing the material rip before she tossed it aside. Naked, she slid from the bed and paced her room. Her ability to see auras gave her a form of night vision, the confines of her room outlined in gray due to the dead energy from the shielding. A chill washed over her skin, and she hesitated. The Monitor system must have been back on. It had detected her high body temperature and moved to compensate with a cooling surge. Sudden goose bumps rose over every inch of her flesh.
    An ache seized her chest, and she sank onto the bed, gathering the blanket around her shoulders. Damp and chilly, she shivered uncomfortably inside her shroud. Her head still felt a bit fuzzy. Probably the last traces of those damn neurosonics. How stupid she’d been, a reputedly expert assassin like herself falling for another’s trap. Allowing her irritation and unease to rule her thoughts had made her sloppy. She should’ve been treating this as another assignment, keeping herself in combat mode.
    Her fingers and toes still prickled, but something else nagged at her psi senses. A presence. Familiar, and yet not. She flexed her shoulders as if trying to shrug it off, and then tensed. Someone was in the room with her.
    She snapped into combat mode and dropped silently into a crouch, the blanket sliding off her back. She stilled her breathing to listen. Yes, there. Someone else breathing, slow and deep. A relaxed sound.
    Bewilderment held her frozen. She tried to Mist out in order to drift upward, but either the attack or the drugs used to compensate had made her body’s response sluggish. She couldn’t hold her incorporeal form, and frustration seethed under the surface. Instead, she shifted forward to lean on her hands, the soft fibers of the carpet pressing between her fingers as she edged around the corner of her bed. A shape, vaguely humanoid, slouched in the depths of the sofa.
    Without hesitation she pounced, wrapping arms and legs around the figure and pulling them both to the ground. Her victim let out a gasp then a groan as she rolled them over to sit astride him, gripping his windpipe hard enough to strangle. Instead of Misting out, she increased her molecular density to a crushing weight.
    “’ree!” he wheezed, and she loosed her grip in that instant.
    “Zander?”
    She sat back and he coughed, moving one hand to massage his throat. “I see you have recovered somewhat,” he managed at last, the beautifully smooth voice rasping from her attack.
    Tyree forced herself back into neutral mode, and embarrassment flamed through her body. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize...” The heat of him beneath her burned into her thighs, and a strange confusion of physical desire and deepening shame rippled through her. She scooted off to the side, but didn’t attempt to cover herself.
    He levered himself up to a sitting position. “Mute lights.”
    A soft yellow glow banished the darkness. To her surprise he was smiling, although he still rubbed at his throat. Livid red marks showed where her fingers had dug in, ready to crush and throttle.
    “I’m glad to see there are no long-term effects from the attack,” he said.
    “You were lucky. If I’d been at full capacity—”
    “You would have known sooner that I wasn’t your enemy.”
    Tyree bit back a retort. True, if the neurosonics hadn’t fogged up her senses, she’d have realized it was Zander the moment she woke.
    “You seem to know a lot about Su reflexes and perceptions.”
    “I do.”
    Although he was smiling, he kept his eyes fixed very firmly on her face and Tyree could sense his unease. Could read it in his aura.
    She grinned suddenly. Always the diplomat, huh? Never showing what he really felt, and yet right now she knew exactly what he was feeling and trying so hard to deny behind those smooth manners and that easy voice.
    Slowly,