by Nalini Singh
She could feel him staring after her as she strode back to the vehicle. She and Gregori didn’t speak again until they were out the gates and on their way back to the pack.
“That never came up in the background check,” Gregori murmured. “The brother-sister relationship, I mean.”
Selenka had caught that, too—there was a familial thread to Blaise’s and Nomani’s scents, the kind of thread formed by blood. “It’s interesting that he hides the relationship.” The two had been careful till now not to be seen together around BlackEdge wolves. “Might be another way to track his past.”
“I’ll pass on the details to Ivo and Margo. I also want a constant patrol out here until we decide to move on them—I have a feeling they’re stockpiling things we don’t want them stockpiling.”
“I’ll alert Valentin and Krychek.” Her fellow alphas needed to know of the possible threat in their region.
She made the notification as soon as she was back in the den. Both agreed to let BlackEdge handle it, and pledged assistance should the pack need it. Meanwhile, Gregori went off to liaise with Ivo to see what information they could unearth about Blaise now that they knew Nomani was his sibling.
Selenka did what an alpha needed to do—which included a visit to look over their captives—and she did it while fighting a keening need to go to her mate.
The Architect
To be a true architect, one must accept that sometimes, the foundations have to be demolished. Anything built on a shaky footing will fail. So raze it to the earth, and begin anew.
—Renowned architect Vance Oum (d. 2017)
THE ARCHITECT’S MIND flexed and stretched, growing ever stronger. Even though she’d discarded the Scarab alert, she’d kept an eye on her expanding powers, watching for signs of madness or a critical lack of control. She didn’t find them. Perhaps it had to do with her decades of discipline—because she did spot such signs of instability in another mind to which her own was drawn.
It was easy enough to find his name: Ezra Ree.
It was equally easy to unearth where he lived, his work status, and personal details. What interested her the most, however, were the lightning bolts she could see in his mind. She saw the same bolts in her own mind.
Signs of a glorious awakening.
In contrast to her, however, Ezra didn’t appear to be coping well with his new gifts—he’d called in sick two days in a row, though she could find no evidence of his having consulted a medical professional. After examining his mind one more time, she decided to take a risk. If she failed, well, he’d be far from the first threat she’d eliminated.
Calling in one of her private teleport-capable Tks, she had the male transport her to Dunedin, New Zealand, but had him drop her off a number of blocks from her destination. She had no cause to doubt the Tk’s loyalty, but better not to take risks—teleport-capable Tks weren’t exactly simple to source. “Wait for me here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Even as she walked, spiderwebs of power spilled over from her mind to spread throughout the Net. The Architect watched it happen with what the emotional would’ve called happiness. She saw it as her birthright.
She was the new coming of Psy, the next wave of power.
Chapter 33
Your grandmother was the shyest wolf in the den when I began courting her. How I figured out she reciprocated my interest was when she began to bake small treats for my lunch. Just one. Just for me.
—Yevgeni Durev to Selenka Durev (14)
AN ENTIRE DAY passed with Selenka spending two hours with Ethan and the rest on pack business, including the hunt for the assassin. Oleg, too, was needed in the den. So she made the call to bring in one more person. Gregori and Ethan had formed a connection, and she didn’t think her mate would mind the other man holding the watch.
And because Ethan’s physical status affected her on a deep level, she also told Margo and her other lieutenants what had happened, calling it a “psychic flatline”—but she asked them to give her and Ethan privacy. “I know I can trust all of you,” she said on a surge of fierce love for her men and women, “but Ethan isn’t used to being part of a pack yet. He won’t be comfortable with being surrounded by wolves while he’s down.”
Kostya had spoken for all the lieutenants when he said, “A mate knows a mate best.” His tone held the knowledge of a wolf who’d mated two years earlier, to a woman he’d known since childhood. “You do what Ethan needs, Selya. We’ll take care of the rest.”
As for Gregori, he’d stepped in without hesitation. “Knew something was up,” he’d rumbled. “Ethan’s not the kind of mate to disappear on you that way.”
No, Ethan was the kind of mate who stuck.
Her grandmother found her soon after she returned to the den. “Selenushka,” Lada Durev said with a soft hug, the scent of spring flowers lingering in her hair. “My sweet girl.” Cupping her face, she drew Selenka down to press a kiss to her cheek. “Where is your mate?”
“He was injured.” Never would she lie to her grandmother. “He’ll be fine, but he’s resting right now. I’ll bring him to your table when he’s up and moving.” Her babushka most often showed her love with food.
Her grandfather’s stories of his careful, so careful courting of her always made Selenka smile. She’d never quite understood how her loud, blustery grandfather and her quiet, shy grandmother could live together in harmony, but they did. It was a life Selenka had been afraid to hope for, for herself. Now she had a quiet, intense mate who trusted no one but had given himself over to her.
“Ah,” her grandmother said and gave her another hug. “Your mate will understand that you must still be alpha, especially in such times.” Her smile was luminous. “As long as he knows he is first in your heart, as I have always known with Yevgeni.”
Selenka couldn’t face that depth of vulnerability, couldn’t stare full frontal at the reality of what was growing between her and Ethan. The mating bond was a primal connection, but love . . . that required the participation of the human heart, a heart that had been kicked hard in childhood and carried the bruises to this day.
“Babusya!”
They both looked down to see Zhanna tugging at Lada’s skirt, her face bright. Selenka’s grandmother smiled and crouched down to cuddle the little girl. “And you, my darling Zhannochka of the big ears and cheetah feet, what mischief are you causing?”
Giggling, the pup threw her arms around Lada. “Party! It’s Tzi’s birthday party! Come!”
And for a while, the Warren was a place of innocent joy, the pups excited about cake and games and the adults delighted by them. Selenka wouldn’t admit it even on pain of torture, but her pack had learned to celebrate so openly from the bears. The bears threw a party for everything. New packmate? Party! A clever juvenile getting into a top learning institution? Party! A beautiful spring day? Picnic party!
Selenka’s wolves didn’t take it to that extreme, but after spotting how much fun the bears had with impromptu events, they’d been known to throw the odd party and picnic here and there. Which she would never, ever tell Valentin. The bear would laugh and then invite himself. Because he was a bear. As if she’d conjured him up by thinking about him, her phone rang as she entered her office a while later, his name on the display.
“Problem?” she asked.
“No. My Starlight told me your mate is psychically hurt.”
Selenka had expected the information to flow from Silver to Valentin. Mates didn’t keep secrets from one another. “He’ll be fine.”
“I know, but I called to drink beer with you over the line. The aggravation of not being able to protect our mates on the psychic plane is enough to drive an alpha to the brink.”
Selenka had never thought she’d be so in sympathy with a bear, but she nodded. “I want to wrap him up in cotton wool and put him somewhere safe, but doing th
at would destroy him.”
“My Silver thinks nothing of making herself a target by being the face of EmNet. I have to channel my bear through the mating bond to scare off everyone in the PsyNet.”
Selenka was interested. “Does it work?”
“She says our bond sends out a ‘go away if you don’t want to die’ signal,” Valentin responded proudly.
Selenka’s wolf immediately began channeling more “touch my mate and I will eviscerate you” thoughts down the mating bond. “Arrows say that even with Ethan flamed out, he has an inexplicable non-Psy shield around him.”
“Hah!” Valentin’s laugh was a boom. “As if we’d leave our mates vulnerable.”
“As if,” Selenka agreed.
Then she and Valentin had a ten-minute-long session groaning about how difficult it was to keep their Psy mates safe, especially as they insisted on doing dangerous things. At one point, Valentin invited Selenka to have a beer sometime, and she agreed. It wasn’t until after she’d hung up that she realized what she’d done.
“Govno. I just agreed to have a beer with Valentin,” she told Margo when the lieutenant walked in as Selenka hung up.
Her best friend snorted coffee out of her nose. After wiping it up and getting back her breath, she said, “I’ll bail you out of jail.”
“Some friend,” Selenka muttered. “He’s a changeling alpha with a Psy mate. We have things in common.”
Her phone buzzed. She still had it in her hand from her talk with Valentin, so raised it to glance at the name on the screen. “It’s Aden,” she said to Margo, who gestured for her to take the call and mouthed, We’ll talk later. The lieutenant pulled the door shut behind her.
“How is Ethan?” Aden’s voice was impossible to read, but that he’d called told Selenka everything she needed to know.
“Still unconscious.” Her hand tightened on the phone. “My healer says his vitals are steady, and there’s no need for any other intervention.”
“He’s correct.” Aden’s confirmation had her inhaling silently. She trusted Oleg with her life and her pack, but Ethan was Psy, and Oleg himself had told her that Psy bodies didn’t always read the same as human or changeling.
“If he hasn’t shifted from unconsciousness to a more natural sleep by tonight, however, contact me,” Aden said. “I can do a telepathic scan to ensure he’s healing as he should.”
Selenka didn’t agree—to do so felt like tempting fate. “How’s he looking on the PsyNet?”
“No signs of instability. The shield-like construct around his mind has become stronger and stronger in the interim—a nearby E is of the opinion that it has ‘claws.’”
Selenka smiled grimly. She’d share that with Valentin and with any other changeling she knew who was mated to a Psy who remained in the Net. Looked like they could protect their mates to a certain extent. “I’ll call you when he wakes.” She wouldn’t make another alpha wait for news of one of his people. Because while Ethan might be hers now, he was also Aden’s, and her mate needed those bonds of brotherhood he was just coming to accept and embrace.
“Selenka.” Aden’s voice stopped her when she would’ve hung up. “I’m glad for Ethan that he has you. Of all my men, he was the one I most feared I’d lose. You’ve held him to the world long enough for him to find his way out of the darkness.”
Selenka frowned after she hung up, wondering if that was why her wolf had lunged so precipitously at Ethan. Because it knew its mate was hanging on an edge and needed to be hauled in before he fell.
It crushed Selenka’s chest to imagine a world where she’d been too late and Ethan had fallen. She’d never have known him, never have felt this terrifying emotion inside her. She would’ve never known what it was to belong to a man who meant it when he said he was hers.
A pulse along the mating bond, the jagged shards shifting and resettling.
Shoving back her chair, she headed out, unable to any longer fight the need to see him.
She ran into Artem near the doorway. The lieutenant had his party dress–wearing but barefoot daughter riding his shoulders—you’d never know from seeing him now that, three years ago, he’d been a grumpy loner who’d eaten submissives for breakfast.
“Blaise’s been trying to reach you,” he said, canines flashing in the fine lines of a face that wouldn’t look out of place in an aristocratic portrait. “I rerouted everything to me.”
“Good.”
“Senk! Senk!”
She smiled at the tiny girl on his shoulders, knowing that had been the baby’s attempt at saying her name. When she blew Inja a kiss, the pup blew one back with both hands and Selenka’s chest didn’t hurt as much.
“Go take care of your mate, Selya,” Artem said, his voice gentle. “We’ll watch over the pack.”
Selenka left with a brush of her hand over Artem’s, her wolf taking over as she ran surefooted across the forest.
Gregori had rolled up the sides of the tent as she’d done and was sitting with his back against a tree from where he could monitor Ethan. He was listening to music playing softly from the watch he preferred to wear over carrying a phone, but his head was angled toward her even before she stepped from the trees. “Ethan’s breathing changed not long ago. I think he’s in a natural sleep.”
Selenka knelt beside her mate, saw his color was better, his chest rising and falling in the deep breaths of heavy sleep. When she brushed his hair off his forehead, he turned into her touch. “You’re right.” It came out rough, tight.
Loyal leaned into her, the dog’s tail wagging.
“Did you feed him?” she asked, allowing Ethan’s pet to take comfort from her.
“Yes.” Walking over to her, Gregori placed a hand on her shoulder. “Your mate’s a tough bastard.”
Reaching up with one hand, she squeezed Gregori’s. “Thanks for doing this.”
“Anytime. What I feel between you two, it’s important. It’s real.”
Selenka turned to reply, but Gregori was already moving away, his shoulders big and his stride silent. Older than her by just over a year, he’d never come close to finding a permanent lover or a mate—and he wasn’t a wolf who was happy with uncomplicated skin privileges. As alpha, she had to watch him, ensure he got enough contact to keep his wolf from getting edgy.
Edgy dominants ended up in fights and their irritability incited others.
“You worry about him.”
Jerking back her head at that murmur, she looked down to see Ethan’s pale eyes open. “Hey, you.” Her hand trembled as she pressed it against his cheek. “I thought you were going to be out forever.”
Even as Loyal barked excitedly, Ethan watched her in that way he had, with unwavering intensity, while inside her, the mating bond pulsed like a beating heart. “My psychic ability remains compromised.” His gaze faded for a second before coming back into sharp focus. “My mind is surrounded by a dual layer of protection—one that comes from you . . . and the rest from members of my squad.”
She thought of the man she’d first mated, distant and disconnected. “They are your brothers-in-arms.”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation, even as he lifted one hand to pet his ecstatic dog. “As you’re my mate.”
Selenka nodded, her throat thick. She couldn’t talk about who he was to her yet, so she said, “How do you know I worry about Gregori?”
“What?”
“Your first words when you woke were that I worry about Gregori.”
“I don’t recall that.” The slightest impression of a frown. “Perhaps I was dreaming? Though I don’t remember that, either.”
Selenka didn’t think so—her mate had picked up a subtle emotional cue while on the edge between sleep and waking but was no longer aware of it now that he was awake. “You okay to sit up?” She stroked wriggling, excited Loyal on the back and said, “Down.”
The dog obeyed at once.
Ethan pushed up into a sitting position at the same time, so quickly that she would’ve fallen back if he hadn’t gripped her with one arm around her body.
“The injury was psychic. My physical body is fine.” His breath brushed her skin.
It was only a matter of a small movement to touch her lips to his, weave her fingers into his hair. But despite the violent craving that clawed at her, she pulled away after a bare taste and grabbed a bottle of nutrient drink from the food she’d stashed in one corner of the tent. “This first.”
Ethan obeyed the order without argument. To be cared for as Selenka was caring for him . . . he’d do anything she wanted. “The fuel will help with my recovery,” he said after drinking half the bottle, “but for the time being, I am akin to a device with zero charge.” For a psychic being to lose such an integral aspect of his nature, it was worse than losing a limb. “Everything is dull, seen through a thick haze. Everything but you.”
Her voice, her scent, her presence, it was a brilliant light in the dark.
As was her kiss when she put aside the empty nutrient bottle and touched her lips to his. An invitation to play from a wolf.
Chapter 34
Touch is our cornerstone
Cure for the heart
Medicine for the soul
—Anonymous changeling poet
ETHAN WRAPPED HIS arms around Selenka’s body . . . and only then did he sense the faint trembling that shook her frame. “Selenka?”
“It was as if you were in a coma.” Rasped-out words. “And your eyes bled.”
Burying his face against the side of her neck, he held her tight as she held him. And though the world was heavy and dull right now, his senses in a fog, the import of her words hit him like a hammer. Selenka had worried about him until she trembled from her relief. Ethan had never mattered that much to anyone.