by Nalini Singh
Ethan’s fingers curled into his palms, his skin tight. The lips she’d claimed burned. He killed with light but she lived in it, and until he went slowly, inexorably insane, he’d chance the brilliance with her.
“I have to disappear for a while.” An edge of gold in her eyes once more, her next words a promise—or a threat. “I’ll find you afterward.”
“I’ll be waiting.” Ethan had made his choice, picked his loyalty.
* * *
—
SELENKA strode in the direction Valentin had indicated.
It didn’t matter if her mind was a place of howling wolves, her body clawing with craving; the safety of her pack came first. The symposium attacks had happened in her city—that made the situation her problem to handle.
Being alpha is more than a position. It is more than a responsibility. It is a joy and a weight and it is who you are.
Her grandfather’s words were still ringing in her brain when she ran into Margo in the otherwise empty external corridor—her best friend bounced off her, Selenka was moving so fast. Realizing she was far more shaken than she’d consciously accepted, she gave herself half a minute to bend over, put her hands on her knees, and exhale hard.
Her head rang, her veins kissed by cold night.
Margo, of medium height, with large breasts Selenka had envied as a teen, sleek muscle, and the thickest, silkiest blonde hair in the universe, said, “Whoa.”
“Yes,” Selenka agreed. “Whoa.”
“Have you met Mr. Tall, Dangerous, and Smoldering before?” Margo put a hand on Selenka’s shoulder, the contact instinctive between packmates. “It’s a serious breach of the girlfriend code to hide snacks like that.”
Listening to her, you’d never know Margo was Selenka’s security specialist and so lethal even the bears didn’t pick fights with her. The pushy, often aggressive creatures gave her a wide berth—and constantly sent drinks and hopeful looks her way when she went out for a night. The last time it had happened, Margo had deigned to dance with the six-foot-tall bear soldier who’d sent her a cocktail.
The other woman had looked scared but delighted.
Ethan wasn’t scared of Selenka. Not even for a second.
Rising to her full height on a wave of primal satisfaction, the wolf smug in its choice of a mate, Selenka shook her head. “I’d barely spoken to him before it happened.” Though physical attraction had never been in question. The embers glowed, hot and dark, deep in her belly, ready to engulf her at the slightest encouragement.
Getting naked with her mate was not going to be an issue.
Margo’s eyes widened, her hands flying to her mouth. “O Bozhe! You’re just like Chantelle and Ridge from Hourglass Lives!”
Selenka groaned. “Stop it.”
But her tough-as-granite security specialist was all but dancing on her work-booted feet, her blue eyes bright. “I can’t! A real-life mating at first sight?! All my fan-forum buddies will just die!”
Narrowing her eyes, Selenka pointed a finger at her best friend and only then remembered little Zhanna had decorated her nails with tiny stickers of big-eyed cartoon cats. “This goes nowhere near the forum.”
“Fine, spoilsport.” Margo’s smile didn’t dim in wattage. “Do you feel different?”
“Yes. He lives in me now.” What she couldn’t explain to Margo was the sense of wrongness tied to the mating, the static she couldn’t hear but could feel—as if the bond was skewed slightly out of time. “We’ll talk more later. I have to go deal with the assailants.”
Margo transformed from soap opera addict to ruthless security specialist in the blink of an eye. “I made sure that area is secure. We’ve also checked everyone for weapons and verified that the only ones with them are part of the security team. Hall and surrounds are secure.”
“You have enough people to escort the Es to their hotels?”
“With the bears”—a roll of her eyes—“the Arrows, and that team of Krychek’s, we’ll be fine. I’ll handle all peripherals while you deal with the major issue.”
“Thanks, Margo.” Selenka deliberately brushed against her friend as they passed; she needed the touch of pack.
Margo waited till she was halfway down the corridor before whispering at a volume only Selenka’s wolf ears would pick up, “I’m going to speak to your Ridge.”
Since sending Margo a glare would only increase her friend’s determination, Selenka just wished Ethan good luck. Margo could pry tears out of a stone. It’d be interesting to see what she’d get out of Selenka’s Arrow. Because however their mating had come into being, and regardless of the fog or static or whatever it was that was messing it up, he was hers now.
Damaged. Not normal.
Her hand locked into a hard fist, and she had to force it open. She had no sympathy for anyone who would treat a child with such brutality that the child had to kill in self-defense. And now that child was a dangerous, beautiful man who spoke of himself as if he were a cracked object, broken and of questionable—if any—value.
Selenka bit back a growl as she turned the corner.
Valentin, who’d apparently paused when he heard her coming, lifted both eyebrows. “I pity your mate, if that’s your mood,” he said. “What did he do?”
Blin! Of course another alpha would’ve picked up what had happened. “Do not say a word to anyone until I have a chance to tell my pack,” she growled.
“What do you think I am?” Valentin grumbled back. “I can keep secrets. Except from Silver.” He grinned, utterly delighted with himself for having the director of EmNet as his mate.
Selenka would find it insufferable if her wolf wasn’t posturing back as hard. “My mate is an Arrow.”
“Silver could take him.”
“In your dreams.”
They reached the right area of the sprawling symposium center together. The two assailants had been put into different meeting rooms. Both rooms were internal, with no windows to the outside, and only a single door. Each door was guarded by a pair: an Arrow and a changeling.
Might seem like overkill, but Psy were their minds—this way, while the Arrow member of the team fought off any psychic attack, a changeling’s powerful mental shield meant they could get in the room and physically incapacitate the threat.
Aden, Silver, and Ivy were already in place outside the rooms.
Aden was the first to speak. “We’ll need to interrogate the two in teams.”
“An E and one other,” Ivy said at once. “I’ve had a close look at Emilie’s and Natalia’s records—while both seemed outwardly stable, the Collective’s internal psych team did note a latent element of psychological fragility. As if they stood on shaky foundations.
“No one was unduly concerned, because that’s not unusual with waking empaths—it can take an E time to find their feet,” she added. “The Collective offered them extra counseling, but of course the decision was theirs. It seems neither took up the offer.” She squared her shoulders and all at once, she wasn’t a gentle, warmhearted E; she was Ivy Jane Zen, president of the Empathic Collective.
An alpha willing to fight for her people.
In this case, however, she didn’t have to flex her muscles; the Arrows had thrown their weight behind the empaths and Aden said, “You’re the expert here.”
Taking a deep breath, Ivy looked around. When her gaze settled, it was firmly on Selenka. “You come in with me. Aden, you take Natalia—I’ve contacted Jaya to partner you.”
“What’s wrong with me?” Valentin folded his arms across his chest, face set in a grumpy scowl. “Your Es like me. I cuddled at least ten of them just before.”
“Your size might intimidate in a smaller space,” Ivy said in a tone designed to calm an irritable bear. “I’ll leave on a phone relay so you and Silver won’t miss anything.”
“If you need to know
what types of questions to ask,” Silver said, “I have a strategic brain.”
That was putting it mildly. Selenka was fairly certain Kaleb’s former aide could take over the world should she be in the mood. Kaleb’s choice of aide had, in fact, been an important reason Selenka had chosen to work with him; the man respected strength rather than being intimidated by it.
It was just as well Silver had decided to run the worldwide Emergency Response Network instead of turning megalomaniacal, or they’d all be in trouble. Of course, she’d also chosen to mate with a bear, so maybe there was a little crazy mixed in with the intelligence.
Though, Valentin’s courtship of her had been the best reality show on the planet as far as changelings were concerned—so much so that Selenka hadn’t even bothered to warn off the bear alpha for constantly coming into the wolf half of Moscow, where Silver had then lived. Margo and the rest of Selenka’s nosy pack would’ve never forgiven her for ending their entertainment.
But now, Selenka realized with a sinking stomach, she was going to be the reality show. Valentin was being all polite now, but he’d probably fall to the floor laughing when he was alone. Selenka wouldn’t blame him. What non–soap opera alpha mated to a man she’d only just met? A man about whom she knew next to nothing?
Govno! She’d done an even more impulsive thing than a bear.
She would never live it down.
“Telepath me if you think of anything that could help,” Ivy said to Silver, deep purple shadows already forming under her eyes. “I’m hoping that being an E will give me an advantage, but this isn’t a normal situation.”
Silver’s icy blonde hair shone in the light as she nodded. “I won’t interrupt unless absolutely necessary.”
Ivy called Valentin’s phone, then put her own in her pocket once he’d answered; the little rose-gold device would pick up all conversation in the room. “Her full name is Emilie Onruang,” Ivy told Selenka as they moved toward the door on the left. “A Gradient 6.3 E who chose to work totally outside her designation after completing her training. She’s in the Honeycomb but otherwise doesn’t use her empathy.”
Selenka couldn’t imagine having a gift and not utilizing it; it’d be like a wolf not using their claws. “That usual?”
“No. But it’s not unknown—about five percent of Es choose not to use their empathic abilities.” Ivy blew out a breath. “We also believe there’re a large number of undiscovered Es. My feeling is some are hiding consciously—maybe out of fear, maybe because after a lifetime of Silence the idea of dealing with emotion is terrifying.”
Selenka’s changeling brain couldn’t comprehend the latter—emotion was the lifeblood of a changeling pack . . . and of the primal bond that was at the heart of the entire pack structure. A bond that now burned a jagged and cold blue flame inside Selenka. She was mated. And her mate was an Arrow, trained and honed, who had reacted to the influx of emotion with an obsessive hunger that fed her own.
He appeared to have no mental block against it, unlike so many Psy.
I’m not normal.
Angry as those words made her, they held a critical truth: her mate did not respond in ways she could predict.
Ethan was a total unknown.
Chapter 6
An alpha’s greatest strength is their heart. Trust yours, Selenushka.
—Yevgeni Durev to Selenka Durev (2077)
HAVING REACHED THE door of the makeshift holding room, Selenka slipped inside ahead of Ivy Jane. The other woman might be an empathic alpha, but her default mode was compassion, and the person inside this room had already shown an inclination toward violence.
Then Selenka laid eyes on the captive. She knew then and there that whatever had driven Emilie Onruang, it was gone. A woman with the sleek build of a swimmer, she sat with her shoulders slumped as tears streaked down the pallid brown of her face, her hands bunched on the table. Her eyes were swollen, the whites bloodshot. She looked up at Ivy with an utterly lost expression on her face, a pup who’d done a bad thing and didn’t know what to do now.
Selenka had already clocked everything about Emilie, so she permitted Ivy to go around to her while ensuring she was close enough to intervene in a split second should Emilie make any hostile moves. She wasn’t concerned about a psychic assault—the Arrows would’ve tracked her down on the PsyNet by now, would react immediately to any threat.
Emilie was unlikely to survive any such intervention.
“Emilie.” Gentle voice, a face full of worry and sadness as Ivy wrapped the sobbing woman in a tender embrace and rocked her.
Emilie’s sobs intensified until the wolf inside Selenka strained at her skin. This woman wasn’t pack, had tried to kill Selenka, but part of what made Selenka a dominant wolf was an overriding desire to care for those who were weaker or hurt. Emilie’s anguish was nails on a chalkboard to her instincts.
It took a long time, but Ivy finally managed to bring the other E to a semblance of calm. Never dropping her guard, Selenka moved a chair so that Ivy could sit directly in front of Emilie. After a quick glance of thanks, Ivy took the other woman’s hands in her own, her gaze locked with Emilie’s puffy eyes. “Talk to me.” It wasn’t a command, but a request. “You can feel my emotions; you know I’m confused and sad, not angry.”
Emilie nodded in a staccato movement before turning to the cup of tea that Silver had brought into the room toward the end of the crying jag. One hand locked bloodlessly tight around Ivy’s, she picked up the insulated cup with her other and hugged the tea close before whispering, “It hurts.”
“What, sweetheart?”
“Living.” A broken sound brushed by a soft accent unlike Ivy’s own. “It hurts.”
Ivy smoothed Emilie’s hair back from her face, gently tugging away the strands stuck to her cheeks as a result of her tears. “Being outside Silence?”
Emilie began to rock back and forth just slightly. “I hurt before, too. Like my head was going to explode.”
“That was Silence crushing your empathic abilities.” Ivy continued to hold Emilie’s hand, and even though she wasn’t focusing her empathic power on Selenka, it was impossible to be this close to her and not feel the embrace of warm acceptance.
Healers. Selenka’s wolf shook its head in affectionate non-surprise. This was why, even in battle, changeling alphas never tried to stop their healers from helping enemy wounded. It’d be like asking a leopard to change its spots: an impossibility.
“What hurts now?” Ivy asked. “The emotions of others?”
“Yes. And my own.” Emilie squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t feel good. Ever.”
Selenka’s protective instincts snarled again at the young woman’s despair. This was it; she’d had enough. She closed the distance between her and Emilie on that thought, ready to stop the instant the empath showed any fear. But Emilie’s eyes just filled with water when Selenka placed her hand on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry.” Shaky, whispery words. “I just wanted everyone to stop hurting. The gas wouldn’t have caused anyone pain.”
Selenka’s brain was going a hundred miles an hour, but she spoke with conscious kindness. “What was it?”
Emilie looked up, gaze guileless. “Gas?” A rising intonation, a question that asked Selenka to confirm. “It’d have put us all to sleep forever.”
“Sleeping gas?” Selenka asked.
“Yes.” A big smile. “Sleeping gas.”
Selenka nodded, as if satisfied by the vague answer. “Did you make it?”
“Make it? No, I can’t—” Emilie sucked in a gulp of air, teeth sinking into her lower lip. “Yes, I made it. I did.”
“Emilie.” Ivy’s tone was chiding, though she changed nothing about the warmth and forgiveness she was projecting at her fellow empath. “I can sense your emotions. Your shielding has fallen.”
Emilie looked down on a
hiccupping breath, the tea still clutched to her chest. When she didn’t say another word, Selenka squeezed her shoulder again. “You’re safe. You didn’t hurt anyone.” Emilie might be psychologically unstable, but it was blindingly obvious that violence didn’t come naturally to her.
As Selenka’s dedushka would say, this E wasn’t hanging noodles on her ears. Her pain was true, as was her shock, and desire to help others by ending what she believed must be their own pain.
Not that Selenka would trust the E anywhere near her pack. Emilie needed intensive therapy and constant supervision until multiple specialists were certain she was no longer suicidal. For now, she remained a threat to both herself and others. “Tell me.” This time, Selenka put an alpha push into her voice.
Emilie crumpled. “It was a man I met on the PsyNet.” Her head fell, her hair crescent wedges against her cheeks. “He was so kind. We talked a lot and I told him how I hurt and he . . . After a while, he understood. He said I could make the pain end for myself and for others, that it would be the kindest thing to do.”
Selenka’s claws pricked the insides of her skin at the same time that Ivy Jane’s pupils flared outward, white lines bracketing her mouth. Someone had taken a hurt, broken E and, rather than helping her, had groomed her to be an assassin. Tempering her anger because Emilie might be functional enough to feel it, Selenka petted the other woman’s hair, the strands slick and thick under her touch.
Looking up with wet eyes and quivering lips, the empath made a small movement.
The instant Selenka closed the small gap between them, Emilie leaned up against her while continuing to maintain a death grip on Ivy’s hand. Having no anger inside her for this healer who had been abused by a person she trusted, Selenka murmured words of comfort she’d use with a submissive packmate in a similar situation.
Only once the E had stopped trembling, her eyes heavy but dry, did Selenka nod at Ivy and say, “Emilie, it’s time to go.”