“It wasn’t their fault,” Memory said through a thick throat, because that was important, had to be known. “The darkness wanted the Arrows to kill us, but Yuri and Abbot and Amin wouldn’t.”
The tension in Aden’s body didn’t appreciably alter, his features grim.
“Memory?” A husky, broken voice as Cordelia finally lifted her head. Her greenish-brown eyes were blurred, her pupils hugely dilated. “Yuri hurt himself.”
“Yes.”
“Is he . . .”
“I don’t know.” All connections severed, it could have only one meaning, but Memory didn’t want to think about that, didn’t want to imagine a world where she’d never again take a walk with her friend. Eyes burning, she brushed Cordelia’s hair back from her sweat-damp forehead. “Do you want to go to your cabin?”
“No.” Cordelia sat back, began to look around. “The other Arrows are sad deep inside.” Her hazy gaze cleared on a wave of intense worry. “We should help.”
This, Memory thought, was courage, was heart. She was so proud of her designation at that moment because Cordelia wasn’t the only E who was making their way to an Arrow. Memory made sure Cordelia was up and moving under her own steam, then went to Alexei.
He was shirtless, his chest covered in a dusting of golden fur and a fine spray of red on his skin: Abbot’s blood. She didn’t protest when he put an arm around her shoulders and maneuvered them so that part of her back rested against the warmth of his chest, his hand splayed over her abdomen.
“It wasn’t your Arrows,” she reiterated to Aden. “We all know that. I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did earlier.” In her need to protect Cordelia and the others, she’d struck out at the wrong people, and the shame of it lay heavy on her heart. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” the leader of the squad said. “I needed to know. Our proximity at that time could’ve panicked your peers.”
She swallowed and asked the question she didn’t want to ask. “Yuri and Abbot?”
Alexei tucked her even closer to his chest as Aden’s gaze went to the dark patch of grass where Yuri had fallen. “Abbot’s in surgery. Yuri . . . he breathes, but we must make the decision on whether to pull the life support.”
Memory pressed a hand over her mouth, a sob catching in her throat.
Wrapping his arms around her, Alexei said, “There’s no hope? Judd?”
Memory didn’t understand how a telekinetic former Arrow could help, but Aden obviously did. “He’s in the surgery suite, but it doesn’t appear that there’s anything he can do.” Aden looked to Memory, every line of his body held with such precise control that it hurt her to see—he was in as much pain as his men and women.
“Yuri sustained a significant brain injury,” Aden told her. “He wouldn’t want to live this way. We are his family and must honor his wishes.”
Tears rolling down her face, Memory nodded. “The children . . .”
The tendons on Aden’s neck stood out against his skin. “Yuri breathes,” he repeated.
And Memory knew Aden would put off the final decision until there was no more time and he had to let Yuri go forever. There was nothing Memory could do to help her friend, but she could give Aden and Alexei information on the menace that had tried to steal Yuri’s mind and turn him into a murderer. “You need to know about the intruder.”
Alexei’s breath brushed her temple. “You okay to talk?”
“Yes.” For whatever reason, her shields had held, her mind had held. Perhaps because she was a different kind of E, perhaps because her shields were unique—Sascha had designed them for Memory alone, and Memory had built them from the foundations.
“An unknown power invaded the compound today.” Grief a rock on her chest, she used one hand to wipe away her tears. “I saw it take hold of Abbot, then Cristabel, then Amin.” Frowning, she struggled to articulate what she knew. “Not a vision or telepathy. It’s . . . like when I work with Amara.”
She straightened against Alexei, his forearm warm and hard with muscle under her palm. “There’s a connection. Amara can’t read my mind, but I seem to learn pieces of her.” It was the only advantage nature seemed to have given her—with Renault, she’d spent so much time fighting his coercive tactics that she’d never consciously realized it.
“The invader’s mind brushed up against mine while he was scanning for another target, and I knew he was crushing the Arrows’ minds in an attempt to force their actions.” A sudden shock of knowledge before the instant was past.
“He?” Aden’s voice shimmered with frost.
“Yes, I’m sure.” The intruder’s sense of identity was strong. “A man who’s powerful in some way—there was an innate confidence to him.”
“He have what you call the nothingness inside him?” Alexei’s voice was a rumble she felt against her back as much as heard, the rough reality of it her anchor.
Memory parted her lips to reply yes, of course, then paused. “No,” she said slowly, her eyes widening. “He isn’t devoid of emotion, and he felt no pleasure during the attack . . . but there is a strange ‘wrongness’ to him. An image seen through cracked glass.”
“Insanity of another flavor?” Aden asked in that same winter-frost voice Memory hoped his mate would be able to thaw.
It was Jaya who’d told a disbelieving Memory that the leader of the squad was happily mated to a “kick-ass” Arrow assassin. “She’s terrifying—but only to people who dare hurt her people—and she has a huge heart and Aden worships her.”
The echo of her friend’s smile had Memory blinking back tears as she continued. “What I sensed was . . . determination.” Yes, that was the right word. “No malice. A soldier taking down the enemy.”
“Not a very organized one.”
Alexei agreed with Aden’s icy judgment, but his mind was on Memory. It was as if she were two people. Her scent kept fluctuating between the sharp brightness of her own and an infinite and disturbing coldness. He could see how that would freak out empaths. Alexei was irritated because he hated that another man’s scent had become twined with her own, but he felt no repulsion, no sense of distaste.
“Do you believe this was true mind control?” Aden asked. “Did the intruder establish an access link? Are my people compromised?”
Fuck. Alexei hadn’t even considered that.
“No,” Memory said at once, her voice sure. “He shredded shields and just took—pure brute force.” A frown in her next words. “It doesn’t tie in with the stable confidence I sensed, but that’s how it was.”
Aden was silent for long seconds in the wake of Memory’s revelations.
“The attack didn’t succeed,” Alexei pointed out to this man who was as much alpha of the Arrows as Hawke was of SnowDancer. “If there’s a risk here, it’s to your people, not the Es.”
These wolves would not maul their charges.
“I can’t trust that this intruder won’t try again.” Aden scanned the compound, taking in the small groups of Arrows and Es who stood close to one another.
Almost all the Es were talking, their expressions earnest and anxious, while the Arrows stood with faces like granite . . . but the deadly soldiers didn’t move away. Neither did they reject or dislodge a touch when an E made tactile contact.
“My Arrows need to step down from security here until we uncover how anyone got through shields that should be unbreakable,” Aden said.
“SnowDancer and DarkRiver can step in.” Alexei had the seniority to make that call for his pack, and he knew the cats wouldn’t disagree. Not when their alpha was mated to a cardinal E.
Aden gave a curt nod and began to turn toward his people.
“Wait.” Memory released a shaky exhale. “You’ll let us know? About Abbot . . . and Yuri?”
Dark eyes held Memory’s. “Yes.” Unspoken was that the updates might not be anything Alexei�
�s lioness wanted to hear.
Chapter 32
There are indications that Silence had an impact on the power levels of more designations than just E.
—Report to Ruling Coalition from Research Group Gamma-X, Silence & Outcomes
HE OPENED HIS eyes to darkness and the awareness that his mind ached, as if he’d overstretched his psychic muscles. Staring out at the glittering black-and-white cityscape that had been glowing orange under the late afternoon sunlight when he closed his eyes to think over a business problem, he tried to remember the time in between.
Nothing. A blank slate.
Had he fallen asleep? He’d never before done that in the office, but when he turned his chair around to face his desk, his blood ran cold.
A hard-copy contract sat there, the pages partially flipped. When he flipped back to the front, he saw notes made in his own hand. Beside the contract was a half-eaten nutrient bar. He went to reach for it and saw he wasn’t wearing his suit coat and his sleeves were folded back halfway up his forearms. He stared at skin marked only by a small childhood scar.
Then he looked at his timepiece.
Four hours since his last memory.
Four hours of blankness. Four hours during which he’d taken off his jacket, folded up his shirtsleeves, eaten part of a nutrient bar, and interacted with the aide who’d brought him the contract from the changelings.
His head throbbed as he went to telepath his most senior aide, and then his mind flatlined. He stared unseeing at his desk. He’d flamed out, used so much psychic energy that he’d fried his brain.
It could take up to a day to recover.
The only bright point in this entire clusterfuck was that his mind wouldn’t have flashed red on the PsyNet, alerting enemies and opportunists that his defenses were down. His silent and secret connection to Theodora meant his shields were now feeding off her psychic energy.
Would she have noticed? He wasn’t certain. The link that tied him to his twin wasn’t one that scientists had ever studied. He wasn’t sure anyone but those like him and Theo knew it even existed—and they preferred to keep it private. Under Silence, their bond would’ve seen them stigmatized.
Now . . .
Rising, his psychic senses blank, he turned back to the window and the city spread out below. All his new power, the violence of it enormous, was gone. What had he done in those lost hours? Where had he expended so much psychic energy?
His breath turned shallow, a breach of Silence, but that was nowhere near his biggest concern. The PsyNet was closed to him until his psychic energy regenerated, but he grabbed a datapad and began going through the news sites.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
He threw it down.
What had he done?
Chapter 33
Possible sighting of Erasmus David Renault by Fisherman’s Wharf. Followed up within fifteen minutes. No sign of target. Bystanders in the area didn’t recall anyone matching his description.
—DarkRiver Security Log
TWO HOURS AFTER the attack and Alexei pulled on his favorite black sweater. He was already wearing a black tee, hadn’t needed the extra layer until his body began to cool down. Riaz’s strong and striking partner in life and love, Adria, had remembered to bring him down a change of clothes after she got assigned to the compound’s security team.
Alexei and that team had worked together with the cats to clear away every last sign of violence. Two brawny leopards had turned up with shovels and literally buried the blood that had soaked into the ground. Alexei had been concerned the Es would refuse to remain near the scene of such vicious aggression, but those of Designation E were tougher than they looked. Now that the first shock had passed, they were gritting their teeth and getting on with it.
“We can’t insulate them from the real world,” Ivy Jane Zen had said when she and Sascha arrived to deal with the fallout, her mouth bracketed by white lines. “Es have to be able to function around pain, around death.”
The two senior empaths were staying the night and had already spoken to the trainees one by one. Memory alone wasn’t on their list. Sensing her emotional stability, they’d roped her into distracting those Es who’d appeared particularly shaky—she’d done so by showing her charges articles from the Wild Woman magazines she’d found on a bookshelf in her cabin.
Oddly, all the Es—his lioness included—had appeared fascinated by the articles, their heads huddled together as they discussed certain points in great detail. Now, at last, the rest of the Es were all settled in their cabins and Memory sat on her porch, a tough-as-a-wolf princess in an airy skirt and sparkling shoes.
Except her eyes held infinite darkness when he reached her. “Do you think it came here because of me?” she asked, her voice haunted.
Alexei told himself not to growl at her. “It wanted the Arrows, not you.” The growl really wanted to come out. “Have you eaten dinner?” It was nearly eight-thirty at night.
When she shook her head, he clenched his jaw. “Tell me I can go into your kitchen.” He would not enter her territory without her permission.
She shrugged and propped her chin on her hands, elbows braced on her thighs. “If you want.”
He returned after heating up one of the ready meals stocked in all the cabins. Then he scowled at her until she glared back and took a bite. After watching her take another bite, Alexei did what he’d been itching to do all night and pulled out the band corralling her curls.
They exploded around her head.
Shooting him another death glare, she pointed her fork at him. “Who said you had those skin privileges?”
“You did. We had a deal, remember?” He was no sly cat, but strategy was his middle name. “You reneging?”
A narrowing of her eyes. “Fine. But don’t think this’ll get you kisses.”
Despite his earlier thoughts, Alexei felt exactly like a damn cat as he tugged and released and generally amused himself with the wildness of her hair . . . and the ache inside him, the constant throb since he’d stopped being near her, it began to ease.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Yet he couldn’t walk away. Not tonight. Not when Memory was so alone in her uniqueness. “I love your hair.” The words just fell out of his mouth.
Pausing mid-bite, she shot him a dark look from under her lashes . . . but her lips tugged upward. The entire day got better. Going back into her kitchen, he made them both a coffee, then came to sit beside her.
His thigh pressed against her. It twisted him up how badly he wanted to touch her, how much that small contact meant to his wolf, but he didn’t create distance between them. Neither did she, her skirt fluffing out over his boot. Finishing her meal in silence, she put it aside, then picked up the coffee he’d adulterated with hot chocolate after spotting the new container sitting on her kitchen table.
The heat from the mug seeped into Memory’s palms, but it was the heat of Alexei’s body that held her captive. Her skin tingled where his thigh pressed into her, and as for her scalp, it felt electrified from his earlier playing. He’d had such a wolfish look on his face as he touched her in a way she’d allow no one else.
“Do you think the intruder will come back?” she said, forcing herself to think about the danger rather than the pleasure of sitting with Alexei under a starlit sky. She couldn’t face the subject of Yuri and Abbot again yet, but they were there always, at the back of her mind.
“You said he was out of control, so yeah.” He stared out at the night. “What I don’t get is why the attempt to turn Arrows? Why not attack Es directly?”
Memory sipped at the coffee . . . and tasted chocolate, too. Her stomach grew warm, her toes curling in her shoes. “I don’t know if logic played a part.” Shadows drifted across her thoughts once more. “The attack was a thing of chaos.”
Alexei’s phone vibrated before he could reply. Taking
it out, he glanced at the screen. “It’s Hawke.”
Whatever his alpha had to say to him, it had Alexei’s claws sliding out of his hands, his voice turning cold. His last words were, “Yes, I’ll tell Memory.”
Palms suddenly clammy, Memory wondered what fresh horror was about to descend upon them.
“You want to hunt Renault?” Alexei asked after hanging up.
The answer required no thought. “I want to destroy him, make it so he can’t hurt anyone else ever again.”
“Then get ready.” He wove his fingers through hers. “The bastard’s taken an eight-year-old empath named Vashti—he left a note at the abduction site that her parents should contact SnowDancer, that we had something that belonged to him.”
Nausea churned in Memory’s gut, but her dark rage overwhelmed it into submission. Jerking to her feet, she said, “We have to find her.”
“I’m going to let my team know what’s going on.” He broke their handclasp. “Bring what you need.”
After running into her cabin, Memory stripped out of her skirt. She had to be sleek and fast to hunt Renault. In its place, she pulled on jeans of such a deep and vibrant blue that they were midnight. She kept on her pretty top and her sparkly shoes because she refused to allow Renault to erase who she was becoming, who she’d always been.
As for Alexei’s jacket, she didn’t really want to give it back—being wrapped up in his scent was like a constant hug from his strong arms. Glancing out the window, she confirmed that none of the wolves were wearing jackets. Alexei had even shoved up the sleeves of his sweater. He and his packmates seemed all but impervious to the cold.
She kept wearing the jacket, but said, “You won’t be cold?” when they met again.
A quick shake of his head before he led her to an all-wheel-drive vehicle parked on the DarkRiver side of the compound. “Kidnapping took place in San Francisco. Cats had people in the area and they’ve gone in first.”
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