Not many people could do that, changeling or not. Yet Silver had never flinched, her dominance his equal. Thunder in his heart, man and bear both in her thrall.
“The one thing that is often forgotten in the discussion about Silence,” she continued in that same quiet tone, “is that terrible as it was for the many, for a small minority, it worked exactly as intended. I am one of that minority.”
Chapter 20
To be Silent is to be without emotion. This emotionless state allows for a statistically significant increase in psychic control while having the opposite effect on any tendency or inclination to be violent.
The Silent will be an intelligent, controlled people who do not waste their energies on battles or wars or interpersonal aggression. They will be perfection.
VALENTIN KNEW SILVER expected her statement to be the final word on the subject, but, while he was conscious he could never make Silver Mercant do anything she didn’t want to do, he also knew she’d never been up against an alpha bear who was fascinated by her on every possible level.
“You sure you have all the information?” Catching an apple Chaos threw over, he bit into it with a crisp crunch.
Silver’s eyes went to his mouth, flicked away as fast. “I’m very good at research.”
Valentin’s cock wanted to react, react hard.
Chewing and swallowing the bite he’d taken as he fought his hunger for this smart woman who smelled more delicious than his favorite honey, he pulled out his pocketknife and began to cut a slice from the part of the apple he hadn’t bitten into. All the while attempting not to fall into erotic daydreams of licking honey off his Starlight’s skin.
He’d die and go to beary heaven should that ever come true.
“I don’t doubt your skills,” he said. “But you’re not the kind of woman who lets other people make her decisions for her.”
“You’re being extremely subtle for a bear.”
Valentin smiled inside because he was certain he could almost hear aggravation in her tone. Right now, he’d take any emotion. And aggravation was a good one. Mates to bears often got aggravated.
He held out the slice of apple.
When she accepted it, he had to stop himself from beating at his chest like a gorilla. Or a bear who’d succeeded in feeding his mate. Watching as she took a testing bite, her lips derailing his honey fantasy for another one that was all rough heat, Valentin had to scramble to find his brain cells again. “All I’m saying is, how can you possibly have all the data if you’ve never let go of your Silence to see what happens?”
“I wasn’t born Silent.”
“I get that.” Though he still couldn’t understand how anyone could train emotion out of a child. Children were huge, wild creatures full of promise and hope and dirt and mischief. How could anyone crush them into a box?
From what he’d heard, it had been an act of desperation, even an act of love, but it remained difficult for him to comprehend. At the same time, it gave him a painful insight into how bad the situation must’ve been for the choice to be made.
But Silver wasn’t a child.
“No child has control over their urges,” he pointed out. “Human, Psy, changeling, doesn’t matter the race—cubs need rules and boundaries for a reason.”
Silver finished her slice of apple, accepted another from him. This time, his bear stayed quiet, finally getting with the “sneaky like a cat” program. Today an apple, tomorrow ice cream, the next day licking honey from her body, it was all about strategy . . . and stubborn bearish hope.
“Agreed,” the woman who fascinated him said after a long pause.
Valentin wasn’t about to back off now. “After a child grows up, they begin to make their own decisions. I often do things my mother wouldn’t have permitted while I was a cub. I use sharp knives, I go out alone in the dark, I drink too much.” Of course, the rare times when he did the latter, his grandmothers still threatened to box his ears.
His mother was alive but . . . gone, lost to them in a way Valentin couldn’t stand to think about too hard. The wounds on Galina Evanova’s soul were too grievous to allow her to fully exist in this world. He and his sisters did their best to reach her, but their mother preferred to roam StoneWater territory in her bear form. The last time he’d spotted her, she’d been asleep under the dappled shade of a poplar.
She’d looked so peaceful that he’d left without disturbing her.
“Valentin.”
Realizing he’d gone silent, Valentin dug up a grin. “I think you’re an adult, Starlight, and adults make choices a child never could.”
Silver’s eyes looked at him with a perceptiveness that threatened to strip him bare. “And I think you, Alpha Nikolaev, are far better at keeping secrets than anyone knows.”
Valentin stopped playing. He locked his gaze with hers, let the bear rise to color his voice, his eyes. “To understand my secrets, you have to understand emotion.”
The air shimmered with the words he didn’t say, the challenge he’d laid down. Silver didn’t look away. And his blood—it grew so hot it scalded.
AN hour later, Silver walked back alone to the stream where she’d seen the cubs playing in the water. She knew Valentin had an ulterior motive for his oh-so-rational argument. He’d made no attempt to hide his desire for her.
He was also an alpha bear. Challenge was part of his psyche.
Yet none of that negated his point: she hadn’t ever attempted to live without Silence as an adult in full control of her abilities. Was it possible she could safely use the “sharp knife” of emotion?
Silver.
Arwen, she said, her eyes on the water that sparkled under the morning sunlight, what did you find?
Nothing, but I’ve finally convinced Grandmother I’m definitely not the one who tried to kill you.
I’m sure Grandmother never believed otherwise; she was simply being cautious.
Ena had once told Silver that the family had been changing in subtle but terrible ways before Arwen’s birth. “Without your brother,” Ena had said, “and given the powerful influence of the Psy Council and their mandates, we could well have crossed the line from ruthless to cruel. He is our conscience and our soul.”
Whoever did this, her brother said now, they wanted clean hands. Distance.
You know that only further implicates the family. Mercants were experts at sleight of hand.
Arwen didn’t reply with agreement—none was needed at the self-evident fact. I’m assisting Grandmother in every way possible, but so far, there is not even a hint of a smoking gun.
No unusual financial or other transactions?
I dug deep. Nothing.
It’s possible there are no external factors to find. It could’ve been a purely internal job. A power play.
On current data, that probability is medium to high. But why would anyone in the family want to harm you if they hadn’t somehow been turned by outsiders? Anger and frustration vied for supremacy in his voice. No one else has your skill and financial expertise—lose you and the family fortunes would dive.
Silver’s skin grew suddenly sensitive, her head turning without her conscious volition. I’ll speak to you later, Arwen.