As a teen, Silver had been intrigued by the report, but she hadn’t actually understood the gift of love and the sacrifice of her ancestors’ lives. That she did today told her a lot about her own emotional state . . . and the choices she had to make.
Her grandmother’s voice broke into her thoughts. “I was never told that. It would’ve been erased from any official record.” A heartbeat before Ena spoke again. “You should digitize the relevant parts of the diary if you haven’t already. Your great-grandparents’ love story will make excellent media fodder.”
“I’ll get you the whole diary.” Silver saw nothing wrong with Ena’s request or with how mercenary it sounded—her grandmother had been protecting the family for decades. All her thoughts were about how to achieve that aim. “Grandmother?”
“Yes?”
“Now that Silence has fallen, are you ever tempted to experience emotion?”
“Temptation is an emotion,” Ena said, her voice as difficult to read as always. “I would, however, choose to experience it for the simple reason that information is power. Ignorance is the opposite. The problem, of course, is that emotion and Silence are not things that can be switched on and off. To become Silent is a long and arduous process. Emotion is naturally chaotic.”
The words made Silver think of the foam balls that had been thrown around the play area that day, of how the cubs had gleefully attacked Valentin. She wondered if the exhausted cubs had curled up into furry snoring balls on the ride back with Anastasia and Yakov, or if they’d found a second wind and the ride had been full of noise and belly laughter.
“I have a request of Valentin,” Ena said without warning. “Let us speak to him.”
Dangerously ready to see Valentin again, despite how problematic he was to her equilibrium, Silver accompanied her grandmother to the central green space. The wolves had all left—perhaps because there were too many bears, or perhaps so the bears who lived in the city could be free with their alpha. Silver had noticed that though the two sides were never friendly, they were respectful. It was the only way a complex like this could work.
“It appears we have a problem.” Her grandmother came to a stop on the edge of the path, just before the grass.
Silver went to ask what, then realized it. “Oh, Valentin is that very large one with the scar on his left ear.” She pointed him out where he sat in the center, his clanmates around him—the physical description had been for Ena’s benefit; Silver knew Valentin whatever his form. “The bears here don’t see him as often as those in Denhome.”
“I will take but a moment of his time.” Her grandmother stepped onto the grass and walked straight toward Valentin, ignoring the other large bears in her path. They, in turn, lumbered out of her way when she would’ve otherwise had to go around them.
As Valentin had said more than once, Silver’s grandmother was an alpha; she demanded respect by her simple presence. Silver, too, was an alpha personality, but when she stepped onto the grass to make her way to Valentin so she could hear what her grandmother intended to ask him, the bears didn’t get out of her path.
They came to her instead.
One midsized bear leaned up against her, would’ve pushed her over without meaning to if she hadn’t set her feet apart to steady her balance . . . and if she didn’t already have another bear on her other side, his warmth heavy against her. Her hands rose, rested on their fur. They leaned a little deeper into her.
She stroked.
It was her responsibility as Valentin’s mate to see to the welfare of clanmates who needed contact from their alpha pair.
When she lifted her gaze, she found the largest bear in the clan looking at her. The sense of pride that burned in those eyes was a rough kiss.
The connection broke only because Ena had reached him. He turned to her grandmother, listened to whatever she had to say, then gave a single nod. Ena inclined her head in return and began to walk back. When she reached Silver, she said, “I will be accompanying Valentin to Denhome. I wish to see where my grandchildren will spend much of their time.”
“Much? I don’t think Valentin would trust his cubs out of his sight.”
“He will when they are with me.”
Silver had no argument to that—her grandmother’s ethics might not be Valentin’s or Silver’s but she knew how to protect children of the family. “I’ll come with you,” she said, without having thought about what she was about to propose. “My deputy has things well under control, and I need to reconnect with my clanmates.”
Her grandmother made no comment on Silver’s choice. “I will walk until your mate is ready to leave.”
The bears who’d been pressing into Silver stepped away, as if aware she needed to walk with her grandmother. She and Ena didn’t speak much as they walked, but they reached an understanding nonetheless. When Valentin drove them to Denhome, the ride was quiet, the words Silver had to say to Valentin a heaviness that pulsed.
It was time to end this.
Chapter 50
The choice we make at the fork in the road can define our very existence.
“TELL ME OF your family, Valentin,” Ena said from the backseat of Valentin’s large vehicle. “It is surprisingly difficult to research changeling clans. You keep your records off any major network.”
Silver saw Valentin’s shoulders bunch, went to head off her grandmother, but he caught her eye, shook his head. And then, he told Ena the dark secret of his clan. He contained his pain behind a gritty control until he spoke of his mother. “She wanders the wild, a bear who will never be at peace.”
A hard swallow, his hurt so apparent to Silver it was as if he were inside her. “When Nova had Dima, I spotted her lingering close by, brought him out for her to see, but she disappeared into the trees before I could reach her. I’ve seen her near the den recently, but for all intents and purposes, she is lost to us.”
Ena asked penetrating questions. Valentin answered all of them. “What will you do with our secrets, Grandmother?” he said softly at the end.
“What do you think, Valentin?”
He smiled through the echo of a terrible series of events that had scarred his huge heart but not changed its warmth or its ability to love. “I think you’ll bury them in the same deep, dark hole where you bury Mercant secrets. We’re family now and family protects. It never harms.”
“I have always appreciated your intelligence,” Ena said regally. “Now, tell me about this Pavel individual who is distracting Arwen from his duties.”
Chuckling, Valentin shook his head. “I’m not touching that with a ten-foot pole.”
“Neither am I,” Silver said before Ena could ask. “If you wish to poke into Arwen’s private life, Grandmother, you are on your own.”
Valentin’s hand lifted as if to play with her hair, his fingers curling into his palm halfway as he pulled back. It didn’t matter. The raw power of his presence, his dare an invisible visitor between them, it wrapped her up in possessive arms. She felt as if she were vibrating within by the time they arrived at Denhome.
She walked into the Cavern to find it relatively quiet. It was soon apparent why. An exhausted ball of cubs—some in bear form, some in human—lay in the center, snoring in short bursts. Clanmates walked around them, throwing them the odd smile, but otherwise not worried about their choice of sleeping position. Someone had managed to get a thick rug under them, so they were well cushioned at least. She saw Nova bend down to pet one, causing the cub to smile in her sleep.
That was when the healer saw Silver. Welcome lit up her whole face. “Silver!” She ran over, her feet clad in deep blue heels, her dress a vibrant cerise, and her hair precisely curled. “It’s so good to see you.” A hug before Nova jerked back. “Oh, I forgot—”