by Nalini Singh
As for what the polished and sophisticated male had been doing in that cell, he apparently had terrible taste in men. So terrible that he hadn’t even seemed to care that his designer shirt was torn and his stylishly cut hair mussed. No, he’d been sitting there with a dreamy smile on his face, his head pillowed on the shoulder of one of the most troublemaking bears in Valentin’s clan.
As her dedushka had said to Selenka on the occasion of her first unrequited crush: Love is cruel—you could fall for a goat. Imagine having half-goat children. They’d baaaowl instead of howl.
The poor Mercants apparently had a habit of falling for bears. She’d said a prayer for their clan before leaving her drunk packmates in jail to sleep it off. Surviving a night in a small area resonant with bear snores had made all three vow to never again trust a bear who promised to show them a fun time.
Now she leaned one shoulder against the wall and folded her arms. “I’m with Silver. Empaths tend to flinch if they accidentally step on an insect. Killing other sentient beings is a whole level up.”
Aden echoed her position on the other side of the corridor, but with a martial tension to him that reminded her of her mate. Cold night and jagged pieces and hers. Gripped by a sudden possessive fury that had her eyes semi-shifting, she almost missed Aden’s reply. “Natalia didn’t read as unstable to my senses, but I’m no specialist. It does appear that she suffered extreme physical abuse under Silence.”
Selenka’s lip curled. Abused submissives in a wolf pack didn’t often strike out, but when they did, the results tended to be catastrophic. In a healthy pack, any sign of abuse was picked up long before it got to that point. But the PsyNet hadn’t been a healthy place for empaths for over a century. “She’s angry.”
“In a way I’ve never before seen in any empath. While her Empathic Collective psychological profile did note an anger issue for which counseling was strongly suggested, no one had reason to be concerned about violence.”
“We think we know empaths,” Silver said, “but they may as well be a new designation, so much information has been lost. We have a single expert in Alice Eldridge and we can’t expect her to know each and every facet of an entire designation.”
Aden nodded. “Ivy’s planning to speak to Alice, see if she does have any insights into Natalia’s behavior.”
“Seems simple enough to me.” Selenka shrugged. “A creature with its paw caught in a trap will gnaw off that paw to escape—and a wounded animal maddened by pain will bite any hand that comes near.”
Valentin’s face was thunderous, but the words he spoke were calm. “Odd that two of them decided to strike at the same time.” He leaned into Silver’s body when the telepath aligned herself against his side. “I can see targeting the symposium to make a big splash, but two at once? Not coincidence.”
“I agree,” Aden said. “However, the two don’t appear to have any kind of a connection. Natalia seemed genuinely confused when we asked her about Emilie—her only goal was to make the shot.”
Selenka’s wolf prowled against the inside of her skin. “She was aiming at Ethan,” she said. “Why? Did he hurt her?” Even asking that question made her stomach roil and her mouth bloom with the taste of betrayal.
Aden shook his head. “She’s never met him, but she heard through a trusted source—a source she refuses to identify—that he was guilty of similar actions against other victims across a period of years.”
Selenka’s claws pushed so hard at the insides of her skin that she had to clench her teeth to keep them from slicing out and gouging into her own body. There was no fucking way she could ask the next logical question.
It was Valentin who broke the silence. “Chance Natalia’s information is correct?”
“Less than zero.”
“I know you trust your man.” Silver’s clear tone, with her razor-sharp ability to cut through bullshit like a knife. “But you can’t guarantee where he was twenty-four hours of the day for years.”
Aden hesitated for a second before saying, “Actually, I can.”
Selenka’s wolf bared its teeth, her vision acute and predatory. “Did you have him tagged?” Like an animal in a pen, its freedom only an illusion.
“I don’t believe in tagging individuals as if they’re cattle.” Aden’s voice never rose, his tone steady, but his anger was a cold wind against her. “Ming LeBon had different ideas.”
“What about the rumored drug leash?” Silver asked, as Valentin wrapped an arm around her waist and held her possessively against his chest.
To those who didn’t understand changeling bears, didn’t know Valentin, that would’ve appeared to be nothing but a male asserting his right over a woman. Selenka knew the truth was far more complicated—Valentin was really, really angry at the idea of a man being leashed in such a way, and was cuddling up to his mate in an effort to take the edge off his temper.
Bears rarely lost it, but—so long as it had nothing to do with a territorial skirmish—Selenka had made sure her wolves knew to give the ursine changelings a wide berth should it ever happen. It’d take three wolves to take down an enraged bear of Valentin’s size in a sudden fight—and they’d all come out with broken bones and shattered teeth.
Wolf rage was a quieter, harder, deadlier thing. Wolves didn’t smash up rooms and swipe out heedlessly. Wolves planned. Selenka planned. If she wanted to attack Valentin, she’d think out every step ahead of time—and when she closed her jaws over his throat, it’d be precisely over his jugular and carotid.
That cold rage sharpened her senses now, had her hearing a distant door closing as Aden said, “The drug leash wasn’t foolproof. In particular, there was no way to know its effect on those with incredibly rare abilities. There is no one like Ethan. Ming wouldn’t have risked ruining him.”
Ruin, Selenka thought, could have different meanings.
I am permanently damaged in ways that affect my psychic balance.
“What I’m about to share is highly confidential,” Aden said, white lines bracketing his mouth. “I’m only doing so because you can’t have any doubts about Ethan. This information cannot be shared with any others.”
“As long as it isn’t relevant to the safety of others, we have no reason to share it.”
Aden waited until Valentin and Selenka both nodded agreement to Silver’s statement before he continued. “Ming tagged Ethan. Dr. Edgard Bashir deactivated that tag three months ago once he’d worked out a way to do it without damaging Ethan’s organs.” Flat, hard words. “The device was placed inside him when he was a child and it grew tendrils around his heart in the time since. It can’t be removed, but it’s dead.”
Selenka’s growl echoed against the walls. The idea of being watched that way, until nothing you did was private, it would’ve driven her insane. That Ethan wasn’t locked up in an institution was an indication of his strength, another piece of the dangerous enigma that was her mate.
“I was able to confirm that, at the times concerned, Ethan was in lockdown deep inside a bunker Ming used as a secret satellite base.”
Selenka’s claws thrust out of her fingers as, inside her, the cold night that was Ethan twisted with broken shards. She didn’t even flinch as those claws sliced holes in her jacket, woman and wolf both hungry for vengeance. “Did you tell the E who shot at him?”
A nod. “She’s too tied into the delusion of righteous vengeance to see reason.”
“What I find interesting,” Silver murmured while placing her hand over her mate’s where he had it splayed against her abdomen, “is how someone managed to manipulate two empaths into an attack. I can’t understand the motive. If the empaths fall, so does the Honeycomb—and by default the PsyNet. Even the Consortium can’t have any wish to see the PsyNet fail.”
“None of it makes any sense.” Aden glanced at the sleek black comm device on his wrist. “Both Natalia and Emilie are under me
dical review and inaccessible to further questioning for the time being. However, I’ll set my people to tracking those of their communications that took place via non-telepathic channels.”
Meeting over, Selenka tracked Ethan, his scent a shining thread to her wolf. Her beautiful, dangerous stranger of a mate was leaning against the external wall beside the main door, a stray at his feet, its tail wagging.
Pale eyes locked with her own.
“You need to see your healer,” he said with no indication that he felt any sense of intimidation in her presence. Arousal licked through her—but her stubborn mate wasn’t finished. “The numbing agent in the gel will have long worn off.”
Her wolf curled its upper lip at the demand in his tone but grudgingly accepted he was right. Her back hurt. “Yes. I messaged him just before. He’s already at the pack’s city HQ, so we’ll meet him there.” She looked at the dog—now quivering, but staying staunchly at Ethan’s side. “That your dog?”
Ethan looked down at the hopeful, scared, loyal animal. “It appears we are equally damaged.” He didn’t try to shoo the creature away as it walked with them . . . its body trembling the entire time.
Impressed by its courage, she caught the animal’s eyes. It froze. She didn’t crouch—that would just confuse it. She just bent and patted its head. “I’m not going to eat you.” The dog knew it stood next to a wolf, a predator that could rip it to shreds.
Ethan said nothing after she drew back, but his new pet wagged its tail like a metronome. She found her gaze drawn to Ethan’s throat again, to the strength of the cords, to the steady beat of his pulse against the warmth of his skin . . . and had her teeth sunk into his flesh before she realized she’d moved.
A growl filled her chest, the scent of him in her blood. And the deadly Arrow she’d just bitten didn’t lift a finger to defend himself. He just placed his hand on her hip, holding her close to the muscled strength of his body.
Growl turning into a low rumble, she released her bite, then licked her tongue over the indentation in his skin—she’d been careful even in her lack of control, hadn’t broken skin.
His breathing altered. The sharp intake of it had her jerking away.
What the hell was she doing? She’d just bitten a man she’d only met hours earlier . . . and she was very, very satisfied to see she’d marked him. Even now, she couldn’t help but brush her fingers over the mark. “This isn’t normal.” It came out husky.
Ethan looked at her with unflinching intensity. “I’ve never been normal. But you’re my mate now and I’m not going to give that up.”
Selenka had no idea who this man was—but that he was her mate was unquestionable. The bond, jagged and cold and subtly out of tune, hummed in her blood, her wolf craving skin privileges. But the dissonance in their bond sharpened her instincts and gave her the clarity to say, “Tell me about why you’re a threat.”
Ethan’s pupils spread outward, until his irises were a sweep of obsidian.
Patient Zero
Your current psychic readings are a cause for concern.
—Dr. Maia Ndiaye, PsyMed SF Echo, to Pax Marshall, CEO, Marshall Group
PATIENT ZERO.
That’s what Dr. Ndiaye and the others on the Scarab team called him.
It was to maintain his anonymity, but also because it was true. He was the first known case of Scarab Syndrome in the post-Silence world, a powerful man anchored to sanity by two slender threads.
Sporadic contact with an empath as unique as he was a patient.
And a bond with his twin that not even Silence had been able to break. She worried about him despite the fact that he’d let her down in so many ways.
“You have that look in your eye,” Theo said now, leaning in the doorway of the suite that was her own in this sprawling apartment that consumed an entire floor of the building.
For so long, Pax had protected her by making her irrelevant. Those days were done. He was now the head of the family and he protected her by making it clear she was never to be prey in the vicious game of politics and power that was their family—anyone who came after her would be putting themselves front and center in his crosshairs.
And Pax was not a man known for mercy.
Yet with Scarab in his head, he’d also planned for the future. Whatever happened to him, his twin would never again be without protection. Money could buy a lot of things—including the safety of a sibling who had always been the better half of their broken pair.
“What look?” He turned, hands in his pockets and suit jacket unbuttoned. “You couldn’t even see my eyes from where you’re standing.”
“I feel it.” Quiet, intense words. “The power calls to you.”
It did and always would, whispering a siren song beyond all he’d ever known. “It’s madness,” he said. “I wouldn’t exchange my sanity for power.”
She looked at him with those sky-blue eyes for a long time before retreating back into her suite and shutting the door. The last thing he saw was the sunlight glinting off the golden strands of her hair. She was his twin, but they hadn’t been truly bonded for a long time. Still, she wouldn’t let him fall.
Patient Zero could not be permitted to terrorize the world.
No matter how sweetly the sirens sang.
Chapter 11
A sharp blade
Thrust deep
Bloody droplets in the snow
—“Love Song” by Adina Mercant, poet (b. 1832, d. 1901)
ETHAN KNEW THAT he was about to put his life and his mating with Selenka on the line. The temptation to lie and lessen his complicity in the plan whispered at the back of his mind, but the claws that raked his insides were a warning—to lie would be to poison their bond in its very infancy.
He had to speak the truth—and if his mate chose to rip out his throat for it, so be it. “The gas attack was a setup,” he said, and saw the wolf come into her eyes. “I was meant to save you.”
The growl that filled the air was a thing of withheld fury that made the dog at his side freeze. “Why?”
“So you would then be more inclined to trust me and I could work my way deeper into your confidence. Their aim was to control you through me.”
Selenka’s reaction was not what he expected. After staring at him with golden eyes for a long moment, she bared her teeth in a feral smile. “What mudak thought this up?”
“He calls himself Operative C and he’s part of the Consortium.” Off-balance and unsure of the meaning of her reaction, Ethan stuck doggedly to the truth. “I’ve managed to track down part of his identity—he’s in computronic distribution—but I don’t have his name yet.”
Selenka gripped his chin. “Why did you decide to betray all that the Arrows stand for and align yourself with a man who would use traumatized empaths for his own gain?”
Once more, Ethan fought the urge to diminish his role in this. “I felt nothing when he came to me, was trapped behind a gray fog where nothing penetrated. I wondered if being a traitor would incite a spark in me.” Such a strange, inexplicable decision, and yet it had made sense in that time and place. “I will say one thing in my defense.”
Selenka raised an eyebrow.
“I didn’t know that he’d be using empaths.” Never would he have agreed to anything that meant another sentient being was twisted and used. “I believed empaths couldn’t be pushed to violence, and it’d be a member of the security team with Consortium sympathies who’d be the assailant.”
Grip tightening, Selenka growled again. “What if we hadn’t mated? Would you have gone through with it?”
“The entire operation was off the instant they drew blood.” Ethan shoved back the dark power that bulged against his shields, fed by his cold rage. “I was clear on that—no blood was to be spilled.” He’d been forced to be a murderer most of his life; if he killed again, it wo
uld be by choice and not because he’d been manipulated into it.
Selenka was caught between twin urges: to bite her mate for taking such a traitorous step, and to hold him close—because the amount of hurt that would cause a child to create a “gray fog” between himself and the world that lasted into adulthood was a thing of horror.
Incendiary rage might’ve still burned them both to a cinder—except that he was standing here, laying out all of it and making no attempt to hide his involvement. “You realize it wouldn’t have worked?” Trust so deep that it began to affect an alpha’s decisions took a long time to grow.
“I didn’t care,” Ethan said bluntly. “I had zero investment in the scheme itself. The only thing I wanted out of it was to know if it would erase the numbness.” Midnight eyes awash in darkness. “I set up a time-release communication to go to Aden should I be killed by Operative C. I didn’t stop the clock in the aftermath, so Aden will receive the information in the next minute.”
Truly, her mate was an enigma. “I’ll have to share the possible gambit with others in Trinity.” Though she would conceal Ethan’s identity—he was her mate now, hers to protect . . . or to destroy if he was a monster. That was the brutal reality that came with a mating between dominants.
Some couldn’t do it even if their mate turned to evil or became a bloodthirsty rogue who forgot their human self. In that case, it was the alpha who took care of the problem. But when you were an alpha, the responsibility for your mate was wholly in your hands. Selenka would not delegate it to anyone else.
If Ethan proved monstrous, she would be the one to end him—even if it tore her wolf apart.
“You should know that Operative C appears to be running this as a test,” Ethan said. “Its spectacular failure should halt any further attempts.”
Because instead of Ethan infiltrating BlackEdge, BlackEdge had stolen Ethan. Wolf still smug about that despite everything, Selenka released his chin just as Aden exited the symposium hall to make a beeline to them.