by Nalini Singh
In his gaze had been an unhidden need that clawed at her, his love worn openly, though she might yet kick at it. He wasn't budging in that love, wasn't building walls behind which he'd be safe, wasn't doing anything but inviting her back into his warmth, despite the pain she'd caused him.
Alpha bear he might be, but he had no self-protective instinct when it came to the people he loved. If he wouldn't protect himself, she'd do it for him. That was why she'd hunted out Pieter.
"Valya? I'm guessing he'll be back in two hours." Hazel eyes watched her, Pieter the most difficult to read of all of the seconds. "Why?"
"I need you to take me to Galina Evanova."
No change in Pieter's expression. "Why do you think I can track her?"
"You're one of Valentin's best friends," she said, gaze resolute. "You keep an eye on her because it matters to him and his sisters."
Folding his arms, he looked bear-stubborn for a second before admitting, "We all do--Inara spotted her a hundred meters from Denhome earlier today." Flinty eyes. "If you get hurt, Valya will tear off my head and stomp on it."
"I'm a high-level telepath, Petya. I can smash back a rampaging bear." It'd stun the bear, but it wouldn't do harm unless she literally sought to kill. Psy couldn't breach changeling shields, but they could kill changelings with a massive psychic surge.
"A-hem."
"And, of course," Silver added at that pointed cough from the bear in front of her, "I'll have your big, strong self with me."
Scowling at her, Pieter nonetheless snuck her out of Denhome and into the trees. "You won't be able to approach her," he said in the soft dark green of the trees, the sky above dotted with stars. "She doesn't even let Dima close, and he's her only grandson."
"Leave that to me." Silver had things she wanted to say to Galina Evanova.
A glance from Pieter, his eyes glowing a faint amber in the darkness. "You could wipe the floor with me, couldn't you?"
"What do you think?" she asked, steel and ice in her tone.
"I think," he said with unexpected solemnity, "my alpha chose well." He raised his hand a second later, then put his finger to his lips.
Nodding, Silver tried to walk in his footsteps, so she'd avoid crunching a branch or making any other noise. He stopped five minutes later and, hunkering down, pointed into the darkness. Silver didn't have changeling night vision--it took her a full minute to see the outline of a bear seated under the branches of a tree with a large canopy.
She put her hand on Pieter's shoulder, whispered so low she could barely hear herself. "I need privacy."
He looked outraged. Putting his hand to his hair, he pulled up the strands and drew a line across his throat, demonstrating what Valentin would do to him if she got hurt. Having half expected that response, Silver dug out the earplugs she'd requisitioned from the medical supplies while Nova was away from the infirmary.
Pieter scowled when she held them out, but put them in his ears. Now he'd be able to see her, but not hear her conversation with Galina. She rose to her feet, stepped forward, deliberately making a noise. The sleeping bear woke, her head jerking up.
She began to lumber to her feet seconds later.
"Do not run," Silver said flatly. "I'm an extremely strong telepath. I will slam you into unconsciousness as many times as it takes." It wasn't that easy, of course, but Ena had taught her that sometimes, belief was all about projection.
She set her feet apart and stared into the wild amber eyes facing her, daring the other woman to defy her.
When the bear rumbled at her, she folded her arms. "Try it," Silver said softly. "I will put you flat, then I'll tie you up and drag you to Denhome."
The bear just stared at her. As well it might. Silver was currently a tiny percentage of its overall weight. But it was listening, and it hadn't run. Nostrils flaring, it suddenly jerked forward before stilling. Behind her, she felt Pieter ready himself, but he held back when the bear froze.
"Yes," Silver said softly. "I'm your Mishka's mate." She used the pet name deliberately as a reminder of the boy whose heart this woman was breaking every day that she wandered out here. "I've also had enough of this bullshit." She spit on the ground for emphasis, the act not natural to her, but in a negotiation, every move counted.
"You're in pain, I understand that," she said in the same hard tone. "But that does not give you permission to brutalize your children's hearts." Never again did Silver want to see that pain in Valentin, his big body held so fiercely rigid as he contained his emotions. "Get out of sight, or come in," she said flatly. "Those are your only choices."
Bear faces might be hard to read, but Silver had been around them enough to know this one was as outraged as Pieter had just been. "If I see you lingering around Denhome but not coming in, if I so much as hear a report from a sentry that you've been spotted, I will track you, and I will put you down. Is that understood?" Of course, Silver wasn't about to murder Valentin's mother, but this was a hardheaded bear she was trying to reach. It required tough talk.
"Your children's wounds need to heal," Silver continued. "Each time they see you, and you turn away from them, it rips the scabs wide open. Enough." She sliced out her hand.
The bear actually scrambled back.
"If you want to wallow in your pain, you do that. But you do not get to hurt Valentin or his sisters." She took a step forward.
The bear backed away.
"The next time I see you," Silver said in her most icy tone, "you'd better be walking into Denhome."
Shifting on its paws, the bear turned and lumbered off into the trees.
"These earplugs don't work that well, you know," Pieter said softly from behind her.
She shot him a flinty look. "Say a word, and I'll bury you beside her."
A rare grin from this reserved bear. "You're the scariest woman I've ever met. I think I'm in love with you."
Bears. "Let's get back."
As they made their way through the forest, Pieter said, "You've taken a risk." It was quiet. "They hurt seeing her, but they also need to know she's all right."
Silver knew that. She also knew that StoneWater bears would've never called Galina Evanova on her behavior. Valentin, with his big heart, would've never been so pitiless. He looked after the people he loved. He'd looked after Silver even after she hit his heart with blow after blow. "She's a bear, Petya. You really think she'll listen to me if she wants to see her children?"
"Huh." He ran a hand through the sunset of his hair. "Never knew a mama bear to let anyone stop her seeing her cubs, but you did say some pretty harsh things."
"They needed to be said." She didn't think Galina was manipulating her children and clanmates on purpose, but she was doing it. If Silver had to face her down again and again until the other woman understood the damage she was doing, so be it.
No one was allowed to hurt Valentin.
Not even Silver.
Chapter 51
Love is no rose. It's a goddamn weed that digs its roots in so deep, there's no hope of getting it out.
--Nina Valance, human novelist married to a telekinetic (circa 1977)
SILVER AND PIETER made it back fifteen minutes before Valentin returned.
Having gone to her room to dress for bed, Silver waited another ten minutes before leaving that room and going next door to Valentin's. She pushed open the door without knocking because he was hers and she had every right to go in.
He was standing shirtless in front of the bed, his hands on his hips and his hair damp from a recent shower that scented the air with soap. Wearing blue jeans on his lower half, he was staring at three different shirts laid out on the mattress: one white, one black, the third a steely blue.
"Why are you getting dressed?" Silver asked, closing the distance between them.
He'd gone motionless the instant she entered, watched without moving as she picked up the blue shirt. "Put on this one." Shaking it out, she walked around behind him and helped him shrug it on, smoothing her hands ov
er the muscled breadth of his shoulders before she came around to the front. "You didn't answer my question."
"I'm planning our next date." He raised a hand, caught a lock of her unbound hair, tugged her gently closer. "I need to have a swanky outfit for that."
She didn't offer to button his shirt for him, though the strip of skin and crisp hair on his chest was highly distracting. "What are we doing that requires formal clothing?"
"A dinner date at a fancy restaurant."
"I would suggest we swap that date for a different one."
Valentin folded his arms, jaw set. "No trickery."
"Let's exchange naked skin privileges."
Valentin ripped off his shirt so fast she heard fabric tear. She was on her back on the bed the next second, a bear in human form looking down at her. "Done," he said, but froze with his hand halfway down her side. "Hold on--is this Silver-and-Valentin-wild-monkey skin privileges, or is this biological-exchange-of-fluids-so-we-can-create-a-cub skin privileges?"
She felt the tremor in his body, heard the hope twined with fear in his voice. And knew, no matter what, there was no turning back. Hurting Valentin was simply not acceptable to any part of her.
"This is Silver-tasting-Valentin all over again." Breasts aching and her core hot, she touched her hand to his cheek, things unfurling inside her for which she had no name. "This act, it's so raw, so primal, so intimate. I need to know if I have the capacity to process it along the new pathways in my brain."
*
VALENTIN'S heart pounded like a bass drum. Sliding his hand under Silver's head, he pressed his face against the side of hers as his body shook. She'd come to him. They'd rewired her brain, and still she'd come to him. He could work with that.
She wove her hand into his hair, wrapped her legs around him in an open possessiveness that gripped his heart tight. "Valyusha, you're shaking."
He kissed her, hot and deep and full of all the love he'd had to contain while she woke from her long sleep. He'd missed her so much. Crushing her to him, he told himself to slow the fuck down, to not rut on her like a damn feral bear. But then Silver licked her tongue against his, and he had no hope in hell of doing that.
He tore off her clothes.
She didn't give him a cool stare and remind him that clothes cost money. Her body arched under his, her skin flushing a creamy rose. He kissed his way down her throat, over her right breast, to her nipple. When he bit, she pulled hard at his hair. He shuddered, did other bad things to her.
His tongue in her pussy made her scream; his fingers digging into her butt had her fighting him for control; his stubble rubbing against her breasts had her locking her legs so tight around him that he felt owned. "Fuck, I missed you."
Silver didn't speak.
She scratched him, she bit him, and then she pushed at his shoulders until he let her be on top. He took the chance to squeeze her ass as she undid his pants. Drunk on her scent, he gave up on the momentary good behavior and hauled her up with a single powerful motion to press his lips to her pussy once again.
She gave another little scream.
Valentin was more than strong enough to hold her in place while he lapped her up like honey. She came so hard her body shuddered. He would've kept going forever if his cock hadn't been a stone rod in danger of snapping in half if he didn't get inside her.
Throwing her limp body onto the bed beside him, he tore off his pants and underwear and rose over her. One hand on her breast, he squeezed, fondled, branded. Mine, said the bear. He didn't realize he'd spoken the guttural word aloud until Silver's eyes, eyes gone that mysterious dark, locked on to his mouth.
Still fondling her breast, he kissed her. Not gentle and loverlike. Uncivilized and bearlike. Releasing her breast only so he could stroke down her body to grip her hip, he bit at her lower lip before rising above her. "Are you wet enough for me?"
She spread her thighs for him, her hands on her knees and her core slick.
His brain lost all thought. He sank into her in a single thick thrust, gathering her close and crushing her to him as he filled her body with his--but as her arms and legs came around him while her pussy clamped down on his cock, he was the one who was claimed. By Silver Fucking Mercant.
*
"IT wasn't the skin privileges," Silver said to him some time later, his well-satisfied mate lying with her head on his shoulder, her hair sweeping across him. He, of course, had his hand on her butt. Why the hell not when she was naked in bed with him, and he was sweaty from being totally and utterly wrung dry?
"Hmm?" he play-growled. "Sure felt like naked skin privileges to me."
Silver stayed lax against him, pure satisfied female. He smiled, smug. Okay, yes, he'd lost it and rutted on her exactly like a feral bear, but he'd also made her come three times. Not his best effort, but he planned to make up for it.
He slid his hand from her ass to between her legs, cupped her. "Are you sore?"
"You are rather well-endowed, but the ache is one I like."
He kept his hand right where it was. Possessive? Him? "What were you talking about before I got distracted by how soft you are"--he ran his fingers through her folds--"and how good you smell." Rolling over onto her, he nuzzled and bit at her neck.
Silver pulled at his hair again to make him pay attention. His displeased rumbling had zero effect on her. His mate would never fear him. His bear swaggered around like an asshole, pleased with his choice of this strong, sexy woman.
"I've been feeling more and more," she said, her eyes locked to his. "And I've been trying to justify my responses in various ways."
Valentin couldn't hide his hurt. "Why would you do that, Starlight?"
Her hand on his jaw, a petting caress. "Don't you understand, Valyusha? I was justifying it to be with you, to do things with you. I couldn't explain why when my emotions were meant to be gone."
"Bears are stubborn fools," he said with a baring of his teeth. "The mating bond wasn't about to let go." It was anchored in a part of the psyche so primal even the operation couldn't sever it.
"Neither was I. You're mine." Flat, no room for argument.
Hurt retreated under a wave of smug pleasure.
"I want no confusion about that." Silver's fingers gripped his jaw hard. "I want no one believing we might not be a unit. Not our clan, not your family, not mine. And never, ever you." Her gaze was pure steel. "If that means embracing emotion, so be it."
Happy as he was, Valentin worried. "Your audio telepathy?"
"Nonexistent, though I've clearly reaccessed my emotions far faster than anyone could've predicted." Playing with his hair again, Valentin's dangerous, beautiful mate said, "I've always had a sense of it at the back of my mind. That sense is gone."
"And physical contact?" he asked, remembering how she'd overloaded in his arms. "Not just skin privileges with me, but tactile contact with the clan. Since you and I, we're forever"--it was hard to breathe through the joy crashing through him--"we need to protect you from overloading."
"There's no need," Silver replied. "My time in Denhome taught me that I can manage the impact--our bears are baffled by but respectful of a clanmate who needs time alone now and then." Fingers still in his hair, her touch proprietary. "And I have a strong feeling the mating bond helps, too. We balance each other."
Valentin's happiness threatened to explode out of his skin. "I can't wait to grow old with you--and to see you turn into a hard-ass like Ena."
She didn't smile. "I hurt you. I'm sorry."
Not liking the pained guilt on her face, he shifted onto his back again and hauled her up on his chest so he could cuddle her close. "It was tough having you distance yourself from me, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."
He tangled one hand in her hair. "Partly because I was too fucking stubborn to believe you when you said you didn't want me, didn't want us, but mostly because you were always right here." He tapped a fisted hand against his heart.
Silver propped her chin up on her
hands, looked inside her mind. There it was, the primal bond that connected her to Valentin. It dared anyone in the PsyNet to touch it, just dared. She hadn't thrown a shield around it this time, and following her lead, neither had Arwen.
Silver had a feeling anyone who got too close would get a riled-up bear's welcome. "I don't know where our bond was hiding all this time," she murmured, "but I have my suspicions."
The lazy-eyed bear who was now stroking her back, all the way down to her buttocks and back up, demanded a kiss. She gave it, demanded another one herself. "The PsyNet is alive in a way most people don't understand," she told him afterward.
"Of course it is." Her bear rolled his eyes. "All those brains in one big psychic network. If it wasn't going to become a sentience of its own in some way, what else was it going to do?"
Silver narrowed her own eyes and moved until they were nose to nose. "You're much, much smarter than you like to make out, Mr. I. M. A. Medvezhonok." Not that she hadn't known that from day one.
Smiling at her in that smug bear way, he fondled the side of her breast. "Tell me more about this sentience in your PsyNet. What do you think it did?"
"I think the NetMind and its more erratic twin, the DarkMind, make decisions for the good of the entire network." The majority of Psy didn't know about the NetMind's dark twin, but Silver was a Mercant. "And--Oh." She scrambled up to sit astride him.
Hands firmly possessive around her hips, Valentin scowled at her. "Now my chest is cold. Aren't your pretty tits cold?"
"Focus." She glared at him, but her body missed his, too, so she snuggled back down. "I've just realized something."
"What?"
"We know the PsyNet must need changeling energy, too, even if at a lesser level than it needs humans." Their world had always been a triumvirate. "But we've been thinking that means pulling others permanently into the PsyNet."
She shook her head. "There would've been Psy like me in the past, Psy who needed to remain in the PsyNet. I see it, Valyusha. I see how it was meant to be." Excitement was a heated river inside her. "Bonds across networks were once the norm. The energy can flow from one to the other."
Valentin frowned. "I know I have a bond with my seconds and my healers that you'd probably see as a psychic network, but what about humans?"