by Nalini Singh
Ethan’s dog growled at the leader of the squad until Ethan said a firm, “No.”
What followed was an interaction Selenka found fascinating, there was so little outward emotion in it—yet a cadre of heavy, dark elements moved beneath. “If Operative C isn’t aware of your defection, don’t alert him,” the leader of the squad said. “We may be able to use him to get to bigger players in the Consortium.”
Ethan inclined his head, his eyes having faded back to their pale hue. “You have my apology, Aden. I didn’t think of the impact on the squad when I did this. It was never my intention to cause you disrepute.”
Aden Kai looked down at the ground for a long second before glancing up. “I failed you, Ethan. We all failed you. That you wished for vengeance is understandable.”
Selenka felt Ethan’s confusion even through their muddled bond. “He didn’t want revenge,” she told Aden. “Trust me on this.”
Aden’s responding glance quickly turned into a frown as he looked from her to Ethan . . . and seemed to focus on the bite mark on Ethan’s neck. “I see,” he said. “In that case, may I request that you not mention an Arrow connection when you share this Consortium play with other alphas? Distrust between changelings and Arrows will cause far more harm than good.”
Selenka had already come to that same conclusion. “Don’t worry. I’m not about to give the Consortium what they want.” Division, distrust, fragmentation, that was the Consortium’s goal. “Especially over such a stupid plan.” As if alpha changelings were children, to be maneuvered and swayed by a single person when they carried their entire pack on their shoulders.
“You may disavow me if you wish,” Ethan said to Aden.
Aden’s response was absolute. “Never. You’re one of us, Ethan, and you always will be.”
“Will you not always distrust me?”
“If Selenka hasn’t torn out your throat, then you’ve told us the truth,” the Arrow leader said quietly. “A mate can scent betrayal.”
Selenka’s smile was feral. Because Aden was right. Even the static in her bond with Ethan couldn’t hide the truth of him from her—her mate was intense, dangerous, and honest as a blade. “Other than alerting the others to a possible plan to gain their trust via miraculous rescues and other such,” she said, “this is now a private matter between Ethan and me.”
“Accepted.” Aden stepped back . . . but didn’t leave. “Just remember this, Ethan—you’re an Arrow. We may have let you down for too many years, but we will never again do so. Call us and we will come.”
Selenka kept her silence till after the squad leader had returned inside the building. Then she gripped Ethan’s jaw and pulled him down for a kiss that was all tongue and possession. He was breathing heavily in the aftermath, his lips wet and a touch swollen from the ferocity of her kiss. “Will you ever betray me or mine?” she asked.
The answer was a storm of devotion so violent that it came through despite the interference and jagged edges of their bond. “No,” he said while her head rang from the strength of his response. “I am yours in every way. You own me.”
Selenka’s wolf growled in exultation, but the human half of her struggled. Not because he’d given her his allegiance—the mating bond was a powerful force—but because of the lack of boundaries in it. “I’m a stranger to you,” she said, the taste of him yet in her mouth. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll use you to spill blood?”
“For you, I will.” No hesitation, no blink.
Ethan had chosen and if the mate he’d chosen wanted to use him until he broke, he’d permit that to happen. He knew no other way to be, had no fail-safes except for the gray fog—and never would he return to that.
Selenka’s response was a growl and another kiss that scalded him. “I have no idea what I’m going to do with you.” It was a snarl.
“Do it later,” Ethan said, unable to contain the words any longer. “Your back wound needs attention.” He’d been fighting the urge to push at her about that wound since he began telling her about Operative C. “You can tear out my throat later if you wish.” He angled his head to the side to show her that vulnerability, make it clear he wouldn’t fight her.
Another growl lifted into the air, the brush of hot breath against his skin as she licked over the mark. “We’re going to have to share skin privileges soon, or my wolf is going to strip you naked on the street.”
“After you see the healer,” Ethan insisted.
Selenka’s laughter was edgy. “Come then, mate, let’s go do this.”
She used the short walk to calm down some, get her head in the right space. The compulsion for skin privileges, however, wouldn’t die. Her wolf was insistent that she deepen her physical connection with her mate, its insistence so frantic that it was making it difficult to think.
Growling low in her throat as they passed a narrow alleyway swathed in shadows and devoid of any watchful eyes, whether real or computronic, she pushed Ethan up against the wall. “Skin privileges, yes or no?”
“Does that mean skin contact with you?” His eyes were going black in front of her as he spoke, his breathing speeding up.
“Yes.”
“Yes,” he answered so quickly that it tumbled over her response. “Yes.” Raw, unadorned need.
He reached for her as she slid her hand around his nape, the kiss that followed so primal that she made a deep sound that came from her wolf. Instead of backing off, he moved his hand to her hair and held on as she deepened the kiss . . . before echoing her moves. The Arrow was a quick learner.
The thought fired up another in her brain.
Tearing her lips from his, she said, “Are you a virgin?” Psy under Silence hadn’t indulged in skin privileges—a little fact that wasn’t common knowledge but was right there to see if you looked at the available information.
A society based on eliminating emotion from their people wouldn’t be big on sexual contact—it was damn hard to stay detached while you were tangled up with a lover, even if that emotion was sensual pleasure untouched by any other emotion.
“Yes,” Ethan said, and kissed her again.
Selenka groaned and bit down on his lower lip, but the Arrow didn’t retreat. Her hands went to his jacket, and she had the front fastening open before she’d consciously thought about it. Snarling when she discovered he was wearing something underneath, she used her claws to tear it . . . and flattened her palms on hot skin over taut muscle.
Ethan made a deep sound in his chest and pushed into her touch, both his hands now tangled in her hair and his arousal rigid against her. Breaking the kiss, she ran her mouth over his throat, licking over the bite mark in the process. He shuddered, his powerful frame a slave to her touch.
It was erotic as hell.
Unzipping her jacket, she took one of his hands and put it on her breast. Even through the bra, the contact had her arching her spine. Then her Arrow bent his head and kissed the plump upper curve, all tongue and wetness, and she wanted to push him to the ground and ride him until they both came so hard they saw stars.
But beneath the feral need was a potent tenderness.
They both needed to let off a little of the steam, but she wouldn’t have his first time be a frantic coupling in a Moscow alley. The possessive tenderness was enough to temper even her wolf’s strangely violent need; that tenderness should’ve felt wrong being directed at a man who was part of a squad of deadly assassins, but in this, he was a novice.
So even as she pulled his head back up for another kiss, she was stroking her hand down his chest in a gentling caress. Nuzzling his throat when they broke the kiss to catch a breath, she said, “We’ll finish this later, when we can properly taste each other.”
His hand was on her waist, skin to skin, and it tightened for a moment before he released her. “Consent is key,” he said, as if repeating a rote statement.
Selen
ka ran her nails down his chest. “That’s true. Who taught you?”
“An empath who gives the squad lessons in how to interact socially.” Rough words, his breathing erratic. “But I knew the one about consent before her lesson.”
Because the right to give or refuse consent had been stolen from him over and over again.
Biting back her snarl, she pressed a gentle kiss to his chest before stepping back and zipping up her jacket—she was aware of his hot eyes on her skin as it was covered inch by inch, and if she hadn’t been so determined to properly introduce him to pleasure, she’d have jumped him then and there.
“Sorry about the tee,” she said, seeing the mess she’d made of the black fabric.
He looked down. “I have more. I would rather you touch me than protect my clothing.”
Overcome by a wave of wolfish affection, Selenka pulled the sides of his jacket together and began to seal it up the front, hiding the torn tee. He stayed still under her touch. “What I did, will it poison us?”
Need no longer clouding her mind, Selenka looked into those pale eyes that had gone acute with concentration . . . and made a decision. “You chose to participate in a Consortium plan before you met me. Our relationship began from the point we first spoke, and you’ve said you won’t betray me or mine now.”
“I won’t.” Agreement so positive it was a punch through the mating bond.
You own me.
Still disturbed by that statement, Selenka also saw it for the absolute commitment to her that it was. “Some choices are unforgiveable, no matter how far back in the past.”
Finishing with his jacket, she took a step back. “But some choices are missteps that we can correct if given the chance. This is your chance to be better than what others would make of you, Ethan. A better man, a better friend to your squadmates, and a man I would be proud to call my own.” He was her mate now, and she could do nothing but fight for him—especially against his own demons.
“You are not proud now?”
Selenka thought of her wolf’s smugness, placed it against the darkness of Ethan’s past, and knew he needed both sides of the truth. “The most primal part of me is proud of your strength and that you’re deadly.” She was a dominant wolf and such things mattered to her. “But to the rest of me, you’re a stranger. I don’t yet know the heart of you—and the heart is what turns a bond into a true mating.”
Ethan’s pale eyes drank her in with an intense possessiveness that might’ve terrified another woman. “My heart is unlikely to be normal, either.”
Gut cold with anger all over again for how his view of himself had been twisted, Selenka ran her claws over his jaw. “Then show me your jagged edges and your fractured pieces, your obsession and your need. Show me you.”
Chapter 12
Since you will not respect your father’s advice, consider this an edict from your alpha. Your pup will now live with Lada and me.
—Alpha Yevgeni Durev to Kiev Durev (2062)
OLEG’S VEHICLE WAS parked out front of BlackEdge’s city HQ, the white-haired senior healer hovering right by the front door. He pounced on her the instant she appeared. “What happened to you?” he demanded, spinning her around as if she was the child he’d helped birth and not the most dominant wolf in the pack.
Sixty years old, his skin dark as teak and his eyes a soft brown, Oleg had been a healer for longer than Selenka had been alpha. A gentle wolf by nature, he went crazy when one of his people was hurt. Selenka had learned to let him get it out of his system, her wolf’s affection for the healer a smile in her blood; Oleg would calm once he’d seen her injury and worked out the steps to deal with it.
She’d sensed Ethan’s sudden deadly motionlessness when the older man first reached for her, had immediately caught his eyes and scowled in warning. No one touched a healer in violence. Tension continued to hum in the air, the ice inside her cracked with fire, but Ethan didn’t attempt to get in Oleg’s way.
Ruffled fur settled.
A part of her had been braced for another reaction, even though nothing Ethan had said or done had indicated a lack of respect for women in power. That was her own shit to deal with, her own open wound.
“Inside, Selya.” Oleg pulled her in, using the version of her name most often used by packmates; Selenka’s mother hadn’t chosen a traditionally Russian name for her daughter, instead going for the name of a favorite singer, but that had proved no barrier when it came to the tradition of using diminutives in everyday life.
To her mother, she’d been Selenochka as a babe. To her packmates and friends, she was Selya. To her grandparents—and often to Oleg—she was Selenushka. And to the pups who were still learning to speak, she was whatever combination of syllables they could put together.
“You can come, too,” Oleg said to Ethan, “but the dog stays just inside the door until he’s had a bath.”
“Stay.” Ethan’s tone was absolute.
The stray sat down as Selenka followed Oleg into the small infirmary inside the HQ.
After taking off her jacket with a withheld wince—because now that she was no longer hopped up on primal sexual attraction, the injury fucking hurt—she jumped up onto the examining table and sat with her legs hanging over the edge while Oleg went behind her to uncover, then examine the wound.
Ethan, having followed them in, took a watchful position next to the doorway.
His pale eyes found hers.
And her wolf lunged at her skin, wanting out, wanting him.
Oleg’s hands hesitated against her skin for a second before the healer carried on in his work. That was the trouble with being changeling—her packmates could smell all kinds of things. That Oleg had scented her sharp, sensual response to the man who stood silently by the doorway meant that response was even more potent than she’d thought.
Not that Oleg would do anything but be nosy. Arousal and skin privileges weren’t a thing of shame, but a joyful part of life. Even Selenka, with her constant awareness of the lack of discipline that might be in her blood, had never seen uninhibited skin privileges as a negative. Her problem had always been in finding someone to whom she was attracted and whom she wouldn’t break.
But now she had an Arrow for a mate. Though he was a stranger in many ways, she did know several critical facts about him. One of which was that beyond his Arrow skin, he was a protector with the capacity to feel empathy for those who were weaker. Ethan might not see it that way, but the man had just adopted a flea-bitten stray.
Her lips curved slightly.
Yes, she wanted this complex stranger in her bed, was looking forward to introducing him to pleasure that was slower and deeper than what they’d already shared. She’d keep her instincts in check and debauch him later.
“Did you take any injury?” Oleg asked Ethan even as he continued to work on Selenka. “I can’t smell blood on you, but not all wounds cause blood loss.”
“I am uninjured.” Flat, toneless, with no attempt to ingratiate or appear friendly.
Oleg, however, had wrangled too many snarly dominants to be that easily shut down. “One of our pack who’s helping out with security came in muttering about lights that had him seeing stars. Apparently that was you?”
Selenka wondered what her mate would or would not reveal.
“I am a telekinetic who can’t move objects. My power lies with photons—light particles.” Ethan’s eyes were on Selenka, not Oleg, the force of concentration in the paleness a sensual challenge that said her mate didn’t appreciate her reserve. “As far as anyone knows, I either manipulate or focus those particles. Akin to how a pane of glass focuses light.”
“Hmm,” Oleg said. “I’ve never thought of light as deadly, but of course what’s a laser but a blade of light?”
Selenka stilled at the realization of why Ethan was so many jagged shards inside her. She’d thought she�
��d understood but hadn’t grasped the full scope of it. He saw himself as a weapon. One who’d been forced by his trainers to kill and kill again. What did that do to a child already traumatized by a self-defensive strike that had left him an orphan?
Her mate had shattered into broken shards long ago, each shard edged with blood.
“I don’t have an official subdesignation.” Ethan continued to look at Selenka, his compulsion toward her unhidden. “I’m listed as an atypical Tk on the squad’s roll, though Aden has told me that I appear to work on the same microlevels as Tks who can move the cells in a body.”
Selenka’s phone chimed with an alert as she went to reply. Recognizing that pattern as the one she’d assigned Gregori, she pulled the phone out of her pocket and read the message. “Graffiti on Nat’s shop.” Her eyes narrowed. “Gregori caught the scent of one of Blaise’s wolves in the same spot.”
Oleg tut-tutted, his hands warm and gentle against her. “Those young wolves are too strong and dangerous to be outside of a pack—and Blaise might be a dominant wolf himself, but he’s no alpha. Neither is that lieutenant of his. What’s her name? Nomani, that’s it. Neither one of them dominant enough to lead.”
“Hmm.” The problematic and potentially risky setup was part of the reason why Selenka had agreed to her lieutenant Emanuel’s passionate plea that Haven’s Disciples be allowed to set up shop at the edge of her territory.
Emanuel had once been a wayward youth, but: “I had a pack that cared behind me. These youths don’t have that if they’ve hooked up with a charismatic charlatan. We have to help them before it’s too late and they’re forever twisted by their association with that mudak.”
To say that her lieutenant had strong feelings about Blaise was a vast understatement. Selenka agreed the Disciples’ “spiritual leader” was a slimy bastard who’d charmed the four nineteen- to twenty-one-year-old wolves into leaving their packs to become part of his congregation.
The four were strong and getting stronger. At that level of dominance, they only had two options: become loners or be part of a pack. To roam together in a group without a hierarchical pack structure would lead only to bloodshed. Both among themselves and against others unfortunate enough to cross their path.