by Nalini Singh
He released the shield Sascha had created, the one that contained his empathy. He released it all the way, and he didn’t put it back up even when the first faint howls growled into his brain. For the first time in his life, he opened his soul . . . and in ran a wolf, the contact so hard and powerful and potent that his mind screamed in ecstasy.
He had told her he was keeping her.
* * *
—
ON the PsyNet, a new bond shimmered into life, a golden rope prickly with claws and entwined with oil-slick black shimmers that were almost impossible to see. That bond snarled at people to keep their distance and it emerged from a martial mind that was all but invisible.
Then the bond was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and the martial mind faded into the Net. Those who’d seen the bond’s split-second appearance were left with dazzled afterimages but could find no trace of either the mind or the bond in the moments that followed. It was as if the two had never existed.
Chapter 44
I do not wish to sacrifice any of my newborn children of power, but war and loss are entwined. To win the world, we must be ready to bleed.
—The Architect
ETHAN OPENED HIS eyes to find himself sprawled on the forest floor, facing Selenka. In human form once more, she had her eyes open and was breathing harshly. He could feel her inside him . . . and the static was gone, the channel between them clear of jagged shards. “I told you you were mine.”
A breathy laugh. “Stubborn Arrow.” A hard kiss. “Boom.” Falling onto her back, she smiled as he came over her. She was naked and he wanted to kiss every inch of her, but he also didn’t want to look away from her smile, so he satisfied himself with petting her with one hand while he braced himself on his elbow and looked into her eyes.
“How did you—” Her eyes narrowed. “You dropped all your shields, didn’t you? Sascha said you need proper filters.”
“Yes,” Ethan admitted reluctantly. “I’ll have to reinitialize my shields as soon as we leave this isolated area.” Or the emotions of the world would pour into him in screaming, howling chaos.
Selenka nipped at his chin. “Don’t be a grump. Now we know any static will be temporary—it’ll disappear once you’re no longer trying to suppress your abilities.”
Forcing himself to accept the logic of that, he checked the PsyNet—a place rife with lightning shadows. Fading imprints too weak to follow. “My Arrow shields have reinitialized, leaving me hidden in plain sight. Those shields are also protecting our bond.”
“I want everyone to see it.” Selenka scowled and gripped at his hair. “Make it visible.”
He nipped her on the chin, got a growl in response. “It’s a defensive skill. No one can find me on the PsyNet this way.”
Selenka considered that, seemed to decide it was acceptable. “I heard empaths give out sparks of color on the Net. How do you hide that?”
He looked, saw black shimmers that slipped secretively into the Net. “I’m not a normal empath,” he said, and for the first time, the word “normal” didn’t hold a terrible weight. “I think . . . I’m okay with being abnormal.”
“You know another word for that?” Selenka’s eyes dazzled, her wolf prowling at the surface. “‘Unique.’ You, Ethan Night, are unique. One of a kind.”
Unique.
Still heavy in the head and in the bones, he nuzzled his mate.
Wrapping an arm around his shoulders, Selenka tugged him down until he lay half on her, half off. When she pulled at his T-shirt, he got the message and took it off. She sighed at the skin-to-skin contact, and he felt the warmth inside him grow and grow and grow.
“I’m happy.” They were the last words he remembered saying before he fell into a sleep contented and at peace, his mate’s body soft beneath his and her fingers caressing his hair.
* * *
—
TWENTY-EIGHT hours later, Aden asked Ethan to join him as they attempted to speak to the man whose mind he’d pinpointed during the last attack on the Net. Their aim was to find out why those with Scarab Syndrome were turning on the Net.
“His name is Ezra Ree, and he’s not in a good state,” Aden told Ethan when he arrived. “But we can’t wait any longer—the continual surges in the PsyNet have destabilized sections to the extent that it’s become impossible to stitch them back together.”
“Why me?” Ethan was no interrogator.
“We can’t get a response from him—since you have some type of affinity to Scarab sufferers, I’m hoping he’ll react to you out of instinct.”
Nodding, Ethan stepped into the secure hospital room. A man with brown hair and white skin flushed with pink, his body formed of large bones, sat on the bed. His expression was vacant as he rocked slowly back and forth.
A cessation of movement, Ezra’s eyes focused on Ethan. “I know you. I felt you chasing me. You’re a bloodhound and you chased me until I couldn’t breathe.”
Ethan took advantage of the middle-aged male’s moment of lucidity. “Why were you cooperating with others to cause power fluctuations in the Net that strain its integrity?”
“The spider.” Arms wrapped around himself, Ezra began to rock again.
Ethan grabbed his shoulder. “What is the spider?”
“Spider is friend,” Ezra mumbled. “Spider says what to do. ‘Ezra, push energy into the Net. It will give us power.’”
“How can a broken PsyNet give you power?”
Ezra blinked at him.
Ethan tried again. “Who is the spider?”
“Spider is spider.” The rocking began again, faster this time. “Eensy, weensy spider . . .” The faint words faded. “Eensy, weensy spider . . .” Ezra tried again and again.
From that point on, however, he wouldn’t react or respond to either Ethan or anyone else—including Memory. That night, he suffered a severe seizure with no apparent medical cause and entered a coma from which he never woke.
“I hope you’re not feeling guilty,” Selenka said when the news came through, the two of them alone in their quarters.
Wearing only black boxer briefs, Ethan took her wrist, touched the pad of his finger to the pulse below. “No. Ezra was lost the instant Scarab took hold of him.” Patient Zero had apparently had enough awareness to seek assistance, but according to Memory, Patient Zero was a powerful telepath trained in critical thinking.
Not everyone had that advantage.
“But I still mourn a life lost.” Ethan felt the beat of her pulse inside him, as strong as her wolf’s presence. “It’s important to me, to mark these losses. Ezra Ree didn’t choose the Syndrome, didn’t choose to lose himself to it—by all accounts, he was a good man just finding his feet in the post-Silence world.”
Face softening, Selenka nipped at his jaw. “Empath.” Affection flowed through the bond, and because she lived inside him—was welcome inside him—he let that affection bathe him in a growly kind of softness. Because his lover was a wolf and her love had teeth. “Zolotse moyo,” he said. “You are my light, the star I can always follow to find my way home.”
“Good—or I’d have to track you down and haul you home,” said his alpha mate, before she pulled him down into a kiss. “I love you, Ethan Night, and I’m never letting you go.”
Ethan gloried in the chains of her claim.
Never again would he be alone in the dark.
The Architect
THE ARCHITECT SAW it now, saw what she was—a creature of boundless power.
A Scarab.
Taking a computronic pen, she drew a large red cross across the latest Scarab information sheet. The weak would no doubt turn themselves in like sheep, but the strong would become her army, her people. As for the Consortium, it was something to consider later, when her mind wasn’t stretching this strongly.
Her biggest problem was going to be t
he memory loss that seemed entwined with this new power. It was possible she could create a telepathic tracker, one she could rewind to capture glimpses of what she did while in her most powerful state. If this was the cost of power without limits, it was one she was more than willing to pay.
Krychek and the others would not, could not win.
Opening her hand, she looked at one of the tiny glowing creatures she’d seeded on the PsyNet. It didn’t register that she was viewing it on the physical plane, a construct that couldn’t exist outside the psychic space. Her mind said it was there, and so it was.
This was it. How the future would begin.
With extermination.
Vanguard
Lioness: I have our DNA profiles! It looks like we’re related! A couple of generations back maybe? Or could be a different branch of the same original tree. We can find out the specifics later, but we’re family!
EN: That explains why our two empathic specialties dovetail, while being dissimilar to all others in the Net. And also probably why your presence kept setting off my ability before I had the proper filters and shields.
Lioness: Yes, we’re oddities from the same Odd Tree. It’s nice. Right?
EN: Yes. Though I appear to be the most bloodthirsty E of all. Ivy Jane says my designation on the squad’s rolls should be changed to E-Arrow even though that’s a nonexistent subdesignation.
Lioness: Who cares! You’re an E and you’re an Arrow. As for the bloodthirsty, I have a little of that, too. If I’d had Arrow training, maybe I would be even more like you. But you know what Sascha says—Es aren’t a monolith. Our entire designation was buried over a century ago, and even before that, no one much studied us because we were meant to be nicey-nice. So maybe we oddballs have always been around.
EN: Or maybe we were created by the NetMind when it became clear the PsyNet was going to face a catastrophic Scarab threat. It is, after all, the guardian of the Net, and even if it’s not sentient in the same way as you and I, it did—before its current disintegration—have a certain level of thought. Instinct alone could’ve led it to manipulate strands of psychic energy to create certain outcomes in receptive unformed minds. We could be but the vanguard of a wave of unexpected abilities.
—Messages exchanged between Memory Aven-Rose and Ethan Night
ETHAN PUT DOWN his phone after sending that last message to Memory and considered the idea of having family. It was no longer so alien—not when he had an entire pack as well as a squad of Arrows on whom he could rely. And a mate who’d claimed him down to the bone. It was a state with which he was utterly content.
As for being family with Memory, it would be no hardship. According to Selenka, he already treated the empath like a sibling—and Memory apparently responded to him the same way.
“Ready?” Margo, dressed in yellow fleece shorts and a matching sweatshirt with a giant glittery rainbow on the front, her feet clad in nothing but fluffy pink socks, dropped down onto the sofa next to him. “Did you make the popcorn?”
“I’ve got it.” Selenka exited the break room’s kitchenette with a huge bowl, which Margo immediately claimed.
Loyal, his coat shiny and his ribs no longer showing, had jumped to his feet the instant Selenka appeared and was now nosing around her legs, as devoted to her as Ethan. She bent to pet him, giving him a scratch behind his left ear that sent him melting to the floor in a puddle of joy.
“I can’t believe you’ve hooked my mate on a soap opera,” Selenka said to Margo after a final pat of Loyal’s head. “It’s like sugar for the brain.”
“It’s educational,” Ethan argued, setting aside his phone. He’d share Memory’s data with Selenka tonight, while they were alone and naked. The latter was very important. Ethan was now addicted to tactile contact with his mate.
Coming down onto the sofa on his other side, she allowed him to put his arm around her shoulders as she settled into the crook of his arm. She, too, was dressed casually—but in jeans and a simple vee-necked gray tee that followed the shape of her body. Unlike Margo, Selenka had to head out of the den in an hour. She was meeting Valentin Nikolaev for a “no mates allowed” beer.
“Oh wait, before I start this.” Margo turned to him. “Ivo was all smug about something he got you. He wouldn’t tell me what.” Wolf eyes stared at him.
When he didn’t break, she bounced in place. “Pleeeeease tell me. I can’t not know! It’ll drive me insane.”
As Selenka laughed, Ethan said, “Turn off the lights and I’ll show you.”
Margo did it with alacrity, but the room wasn’t pitch black—he could see a blade of light from under the doorway, the dot of blue that indicated the power status of the entertainment comm, even the faint glow from where Margo had dropped her phone when she jumped up.
But it was dark enough for this demonstration.
Using the ring finger of his right hand, he reached across his palm to the subdermal implant Oleg had put in place yesterday. The healer had sealed up the small cut, and the remaining tenderness was minor. So it caused him no pain to press on the implant. A glow suffused his palm under his skin.
“Blin!” Margo came closer, leaning down to peer intently at it, Loyal wriggling in at her side. “You’ll always have a light source, no matter where you are!”
So you’ll never again be locked in the dark.
That was what Ivo had said to him when he handed Ethan the device he’d created. It ran on a tiny battery and would need to be replaced every year, but a five-minute visit to the infirmary once a year was no price at all for the gift of light. One day, Ethan hoped he could give a gift of such value to Ivo, something that helped him fight his own demons.
In the interim, he spent time with the other lieutenant in a way he’d never before done with anyone but Abbot. They were becoming friends, two men who understood each other’s scars. “You can examine it more later,” he said, switching it off. “We have to catch up on the latest three episodes.”
“Oooh yeah!”
They soon had the comm going, Ridge and Chantelle’s story playing out onscreen in glorious color. “You two realize a billionaire alpha wolf is an oxymoron?” Selenka muttered, rolling her eyes. “Alphas are about pack, not—”
“Shh,” Ethan and Margo both said, with Margo adding, “He’s about to break down the door of the castle and rescue Chantelle from that awful Ruslan Barnett.”
Making a “hrrump” sound, Selenka settled down. It lasted three minutes. “She is an idiot!” Selenka cried. “Poor Ridge! Tied to this brainless embarrassment of a wolf who gets herself kidnapped every five seconds and is soooooo ‘terrified’ of her champagne-and-caviar-offering captor that she can’t even walk out when the door is fucking open!”
“That’s it.” Features set in severe lines, Margo pointed a finger at Selenka. “We’re going to kick you out of our viewing club if you can’t zip it.”
“Grr.” Arms folded across her chest, Selenka managed to stay silent until it was time for her to leave—though Ethan thought she’d explode from the pressure of keeping her opinions to herself.
Rising after the first episode, she bent down to kiss Ethan. “Do not, ever, in any circumstances, pick me up and throw me over your shoulder as a grand gesture. I will leave bite marks on your gorgeous butt so deep they’ll turn into tattoos.”
Ethan nipped at her lower lip. “I know my mate.”
Mollified, she left at last, but he and Margo waited until they got a message from Kostya telling them Selenka had exited the den before they sprang into action. The comm went off, Ethan stood, Alia entered the room with a full tuxedo in a garment bag, and Margo made the call to the kitchen.
The two women then stepped out, taking an excited Loyal with them, so Ethan could change at the speed of light, and by the time he exited in a perfectly fitted tuxedo—thanks to Alia’s skills—Manuil was standing there w
ith a carry bag that should hold ice-cold craft beer, dark chocolate, black cherries that Abbot had teleported for him just because Ethan asked, and a nonalcoholic cocktail since Psy didn’t do too well with alcohol.
Margo whistled at seeing him, as did Ivo, who was standing with his forearm braced on Margo’s shoulder. “He does scrub up pretty,” Margo said. “Though I’m not sure about the clean-shaven look.”
“It’ll grow back.” Ethan had said the same thing to Selenka this morning, after he shaved. She’d scowled, but she’d also petted his smooth face with curious hands, testing whether she liked it or not; since he’d ended up backed up against the counter while his mate had her way with him, he was pretty sure the verdict was positive. “Have I forgotten anything?”
Gregori paused in eating the bowl of ice cream with which he’d wandered over, a square bandage on the side of his neck over the site of a new tattoo. “Music?”
“I have it loaded onto my phone.” He also had a backup in a small device he’d borrowed from Ivo. “Call Valentin.”
Margo put the phone to her ear. “It’s time. Call off the meet.” She listened for a moment, then made a face. “Yeah, yeah, we owe you one. And I know damn well you won’t forget.” She hung up. “Bears.”
“I’ve alerted Dinara.” Alia held up her own phone. “She’ll redirect Selenka in the direction you want her to go once our alpha turns back into den territory.”
“Did she come up with a rational reason for the redirect?” Ethan asked, since Dinara had said, “I’ll think of something,” when he’d requested the assist.
“A love-struck date happening a small way away between two submissives who might get shy if they knew a dominant was around.” Alia’s soft lips curved as Ethan bent to rub Loyal’s head. “Our tough Dinara is a romantic.”
“You’ll take care of him?” he said to Margo; Loyal was used to going where Ethan went, but Ethan couldn’t take him today.