“How we use him will require careful thought, but this is the closest we’ve come to the Consortium since they shied away after making initial contact with me,” Ena said. “Silver, you’ll undertake tracking their communication methods.”
“I’ve already sent word to our people.” Three of her family had trained in covert online operations. “They’re working on it now, but the setup is clever, and the Consortium could switch to a different chat room without warning—should the individual behind the group once again utilize physical letters to achieve that aim, we’ll be right back where we started.”
“Understood.”
“We should ask for Arrow assistance,” Kaleb said. “Unearthing the Consortium is a shared goal.”
“I’ll contact them,” Silver said without asking her grandmother; Ena had long ago given Silver carte blanche over network operations. But that wasn’t the topic at the forefront of her mind. “Grandmother, you must make a promise.” Even as she spoke, she ran her hand down Valentin’s back, over the rigid knots of his muscles.
Her grandmother’s gaze took in the placement of Silver’s hand. “Ask.”
“Whatever happens, Akshay Patel’s children are not to be harmed.” She made her tone as implacable as Ena’s had been. “He can keep on believing the same, but you are not to follow through on your threat.”
“Ena Mercant is not known for making toothless threats.”
“It was my life he tried to end,” Silver said. “I make the call.”
Valentin’s head turned toward her, his muscles unbunching under her touch.
Ena looked at her for a long time. Silver didn’t flinch. Finally, her grandmother inclined her head. “So be it. I won’t harm the man’s children. But should he step out of line, his life is forfeit. Does anyone disagree with that decision?”
Silver held her silence. Valentin didn’t. “Silver Fucking Mercant,” he said. “Granddaughter of Ena Fucking Mercant.” A grin at Silver. “Do I want to meet your mama, Starlight?”
“Those particular genes skipped a generation,” Ena said coolly. “I have no argument with the Arrows knowing of the chat room, but the information about how we came by that data needs to be kept within a very small circle. The fewer the number of people who know Akshay Patel is ours, the lower the chances someone will let it slip.”
“I haven’t shared it with our own tech team,” Silver said. “They don’t need to know to chase the communication channels.”
“Lucas Hunter and Aden Kai need to know,” Valentin said. “None of us would be aware of the Consortium without them.”
The resulting discussion was over quickly, the highly selective short list arrived at after mutual agreement. It was at the end of the meeting that Ena said, “Walk with me, Silver. Show me this complex.”
Silver had no trouble standing up to her grandmother when required, but she also understood that certain orders were to be followed. “Of course, Grandmother. You’re welcome to stay the night here, if you wish,” she added.
“I may do that.” Ena looked at Kaleb as they all rose. “Thank you for the assistance.”
Kaleb nodded, then glanced at Valentin and Silver. “Sahara,” he said, “has invited you both to dinner next Friday.”
“You look like you’d rather chew nails,” Valentin remarked with a very bearish gleam in his eye.
“My mate, as changelings term her, is insistent I learn to socialize.”
“How’s that going for you?”
Kaleb slid his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. “It makes Sahara happy.”
The simple answer had Valentin holding out a hand. “No further explanation needed.”
Kaleb, who rarely made physical contact with anyone aside from Sahara, shook it. He was gone the next second, a cardinal telekinetic of such power that teleportation took less than a heartbeat. But despite Kaleb’s power, it was Valentin’s wild charisma that made Silver’s body hum with a primal awareness.
He tugged on a strand of her hair. “I’m going to see the clanmates who live here.” His irises were onyx again, but rimmed by amber.
And he looked at her as if he wanted to eat her alive. The hurt she’d seen in his eyes, it was gone, erased by an emotion so huge, it demanded that she feel in return. His bear’s fur rubbed inside her skin.
Her heart slammed into her rib cage, memories that had once been flat suddenly taking on color and texture and depth. She wet her throat. “We’ll talk later.”
“Kiss me later,” he dared in a whisper for her ears alone. “Prove you can keep your distance. Prove you’re Silent.”
It wasn’t a playful challenge. It was deadly serious.
ENA didn’t say anything until they were outside, strolling along one of the gently curved walkways. “You made a request of me for Valentin’s sake.”
“He’s my mate.” The possessive claim was instinctive . . . and it ran bone-deep. “I’ve decided to have children with him.”
Her grandmother took her time answering. “An intelligent choice. It will strengthen your position as the head of EmNet. Pity Valentin doesn’t have human blood, or you’d have the trifecta.”
“Grandmother, you have human blood. As do I.”
Ena came to a full stop, looked at Silver with an unblinking expression. “Of course, I do,” she said after almost thirty seconds. “And the reason for glossing over that fact no longer exists.” She began to walk again, her calf-length coat a camel shade that suited the copper of her tunic and wide-legged pants.
“I will allow it to leak that your great-grandfather was a human engineer who chose to remain with his wife even after Silence came into effect, and she did everything in her power to subjugate her emotions. The idea of true love running in the Mercant line will further boost your credibility with the emotional races, while your track record will reassure the Silent.”
“I did some research as a teenager.” Silver stopped herself from looking over to where Valentin was no doubt roughhousing with their clanmates. “I believe your parents did indeed experience true love. They were together since they were fifteen, and she was twenty-five when Silence went into effect, too old for Silence to ever truly take.” Ena had been, for that time period, a late-in-life baby.
“My parents were never disciplined for breaching the Protocol,” her grandmother said. “I certainly never witnessed anything of the kind.”
“Yes, but when I dug through the physical archives below your residence”—a place Silver had spent a lot of time in as a teen, Ena the only one in the family who could teach her the telepathic skills she needed to know—“I found an old diary kept by a human relative who maintained bonds with them throughout her life.”
“That would be my aunt Rose, my father’s youngest sister. She bequeathed me her estate.”
“I always wondered how the diary ended up in the archives,” Silver said before continuing on with her original topic. “Rose wrote that though the two followed the rules of Silence in the hope it would help their violently psychic children, they shared the same bedroom all their lives.”
Ena nodded thoughtfully. “For me, that was simply the way it was in the family. I never thought to question it through the lens of Silence. I know for certain they slept in twin single beds, a foot of distance between them.”
“Yes,” Silver said, “but, according to Rose, when they died”—Ena’s parents had died at the same time, though only her father had suffered a long illness—“they were discovered holding hands, as if they’d reached out to one another in their final moments.”