He wasn’t about to give up on his divided clan.
And he was never going to give up on his Starlight.
His babushka Anzhela had once said to him that his middle name might as well be “obstinate.” He’d taken it as a compliment.
WHEN he finally saw Silver again near dinnertime, he had to bite back a rumbling growl. Purplish bruises under her eyes, lines of strain, it all spoke of exhaustion. She simply hadn’t given her body and mind enough downtime after the poisoning.
At least she appeared to be heading to her room.
“Have you eaten?” he demanded, unable to help himself. “Here.” He gave her a chocolate bar from his pocket before she could respond. “Think of it as fuel.”
“I did eat.” She didn’t return the chocolate bar despite her statement.
His bear settled. “Rumor is a group called HAPMA is taking responsibility for all four attacks.”
Silver blinked, her fingers tight around the chocolate bar. “What?”
“Inside, sit down.” He pushed open her bedroom door. “Do you block off all other data while you’re handling EmNet?”
She entered, took a seat on the bed without argument. Chert voz’mi, his Starlichka had to be exhausted to the bone if she was following his orders. Placing the chocolate bar on the bedside table, she began to take off the little ankle boots she seemed to love. Valentin had asked Nova where she’d bought them, had placed an order for Silver so she’d have her own pair.
“It’s the only way to handle the deluge,” she told him. “I have to focus on facts and figures, on numbers of responders, on medical triage.” One boot off, she worked on the other. “I do need a team, and I need it quickly.”
He bent down to pull off the second boot for her, barely restraining the urge to take her slender foot in his hands, work the tension out of it. “Nova’s mad at you for going so hard when you haven’t recovered from the poisoning.” He was mad, too, but mostly, he needed to take care of her.
Since she was letting him, he could forget the mad.
“I wish I could argue with her.” She rubbed at her shoulders.
Valentin’s hunting instincts came to full wakefulness, but he didn’t roar like a barbarian bear with no manners. Sneaky, he reminded himself, be sneaky and wily. “Want a massage?” Rising, he attempted to look like the harmless teddy bear he’d told her to call him. “I’ve got strong hands, and I promise to be a gentleman unless you ask me to tear off your clothes and kiss every delectable inch of you.”
Govno! Why had he added that last? That was not harmless-teddy-bear behavior. Neither was it the least sneaky!
Silver’s mouth opened on what he glumly figured would be a firm rejection. “All right.”
It took him a frozen second to realize Starlight had given him permission to put his big clumsy hands on her. Bear and man both wanted to throw back their head and howl like a deranged wolf. This made up for his entire hellish day.
“Over my clothing.” Silver was giving him a look that said she didn’t entirely trust his vow to be a gentleman.
Valentin smiled his most innocent smile, the one that made even hard-ass Babushka Anzhela kiss him on both cheeks and call him her “pretty little Mishka.” His paternal grandmother clearly had vision problems, but Valentin wasn’t stupid enough to point that out to her.
Silver’s eyes narrowed. “No skin contact.”
“You make the rules.” He kicked off his own boots in preparation to get on the bed behind her. “You must ache a hell of a lot if you’re allowing an uncivilized bear so close.” It was a tease to hide the thud of his heart, the raw need of his body.
Valentin was well and truly hooked on his Starlight.
SILVER watched Valentin walk toward, then behind her, a large predator who took up all the air in the room, felt the bed dip as he got on. The heat of him buffeted her back in a thick wave that threatened to melt the ice in her veins, ice she’d looked at today and found wanting.
In the short gaps between EmNet decisions, she’d thought about a single personal decision, come to a conclusion.
“I’ve decided you’re correct,” she told him as the warm, heavy weight of his hands landed on her stiff shoulders, their size and strength unmistakable. It caused a hitch in her breath. She had to consciously think to finish her statement. “I can only judge the efficacy of Silence if I test it now that I’m an adult.”
Valentin’s motionlessness reminded her once again that, playful or not, he was a bear alpha, could be deadly. “Just like that?” His voice was so deep it vibrated in her bones.
“There’s no point in hesitating when a decision must be made.”
Valentin began to knead at her with his hands. “Silver Fucking Mercant.” The words were the opposite of an insult, his tone drenched in primal admiration. “You’re an alpha under your pretty, soft skin . . . which I am not going to touch tonight.”
Silver heard the want in the naked roughness of his voice, but her attention was on his touch. It was strong but controlled, the “uncivilized bear” clearly tempering his strength; it mattered little—the heavy burn of him sank into her flesh, soreness kneaded out as he unerringly read her body language to zero in on the worst spots.
She could barely resist the temptation to close her eyes and just drift.
Because Valentin Nikolaev was safe, would never harm her.
“HAPMA, tell me about it?” She was too mentally tired to trawl the PsyNet.
“You need to sleep, moyo solnyshko, not think about this.” Again, Valentin’s rumbling voice reverberated through her entire body, a now-familiar sensation that felt oddly intimate.
“But,” he added, “since I know my Starlichka will go looking if I don’t tell her, I’ll give you the lowdown. HAPMA seems to have sprung up fully formed out of thin air.”
“Nothing this coordinated was thrown together in a few days.” The timing had been too precise, the strikes too coordinated. “The Consortium may have a hand in it, but even if it doesn’t, HAPMA can’t be a wholly new entity.”
“I agree with you, Starlichka.” The bear who was trying to seduce her brought his fingers perilously close to her neck, but didn’t cross the line between clothed and unclothed skin. “Some twisted mu— er, gad has been planning this for a while.”
“Valentin, I know every curse word in your vocabulary. Including mudak.” She pronounced the extremely impolite word exactly as she’d heard dockworkers say it while she was supervising the unloading of a shipment during one of her training placements.
“I was being a gentleman bear,” Valentin chided her.
“My apologies,” Silver said in a solemn tone that had him rumbling at her and muttering about “some telepaths being smart alecks.”
“HAPMA,” Silver murmured several minutes later, her body leaning back into Valentin’s without her conscious volition. Once she was in the position, the massive width of his chest a warm wall, she couldn’t make herself move forward again. “H and P in the same acronym,” she said after a yawn that caught her unawares. “Humans against Psy?”
“Humans Against Psy Manipulation,” Valentin told her. “That’s how the letters to the media were signed—e-mailed via public Internet access points, using throwaway accounts.” He dug deep; Silver’s bones felt as if they were liquefying. “Bo told me the Alliance was sent the same e-mails.”