“Will it put you in danger?”
“No, it wasn’t an official Council project. Even if they did secretly support the experiments, the Council is gone, and the Arrows are no longer bound to protect their secrets.”
“Ming LeBon is still alive,” he said, referring to the brutal Councilor who’d made more than one changeling enemy. “So are Nikita Duncan, Shoshanna Scott, and Anthony Kyriakus.” No one knew what had happened to Tatiana Rika-Smythe—the Councilor had disappeared off the face of the earth.
“I’ll be sure I don’t make any waves that could attract dangerous attention.”
“No risks, Starlight.”
“Mercants are used to getting information. Trust me.”
“Do you think you ever have to say that?” he grumbled at her, his bear scowling inside him.
“Are you sure you’re not a grizzly?”
“Grr.”
They were quiet for a long time after that, Silver’s fierce, unconditional love healing broken things inside him.
“Even if the Psy broke my father,” he said at last, “there must’ve been a seed in him to turn him into a murderer.”
“No,” Silver said. “That’s partly why the program was shelved—because the results were so unpredictable. Messing with a changeling brain takes too much effort, and the results are nonlinear. If they did this, they broke a fundamental part of him.”
Valentin had been so angry with his father for so long. Today, for the first time, he hurt for the man who may have been murdered, too. “If I accept that possibility, Starlichka,” he said, his tone raw, “I also have to accept that maybe he was born that way.”
Accepting only the good and ignoring the bad achieved nothing. “I have to consider whether he was just really, really good at fighting his psychopathic instincts, good enough that he convinced himself he didn’t have them, burying them to the point where he was able to mate, have children, take up the position as alpha.”
Silver didn’t try to argue that he was wrong. “We Psy are our minds to a large extent, so we understand the mind better than any other race—it is an extraordinary organ and it has an ability to compartmentalize that can stun. Your father may have so totally compartmentalized away his psychopathic tendencies that even he may not have been aware of them.”
“Until the dam broke.”
“Yes.” A kiss on his neck. “It’s also possible his bear balanced out his psychopathic propensities in some way for most of his life. Psy have often studied changeling mental health patterns, and most haven’t been for nefarious reasons—it’s because changelings have so few serial killers. My race wanted to see if they could duplicate that result.”
“‘Few’ isn’t ‘none,’ Silver.”
“Let me do my research before you condemn him. Let me give you this closure.”
He released a harsh exhale. “No unnecessary risks. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
The next time she spoke, her words had nothing to do with psychopaths or serial killers. “Consider this, Valyusha: if the mating bond is so powerful, it might survive the excision of my emotions.”
“If it did, it would eliminate the whole aim of the operation,” Valentin pointed out, instead of bellowing his claim then and there as his bear rampaged to do. “The mating bond is a thing of primal emotion, no logic, no control.”
“We’re talking a physical operation to block my emotions, not a psychic shield. The mating bond would either break—and the pain would be violent for you—”
“I’d take any pain for you,” Valentin snarled.
“I know.” A hard bite on his shoulder that told him to stop growling at her. “But if it doesn’t break, it could provide a nucleus from which my emotions can regrow.”
“No.” It was a rumbling refusal. “I won’t risk the operation not working.” That operation was theoretical right now, but for Silver’s audio telepathy to be blocked and stay that way, she had to stop feeling. How could she do that if he were inside her, loving her with bearish ferocity? “You can’t leave the PsyNet, either, and you said it yourself—mating with a dominant changeling seems to pull Psy permanently from the Net.”
“It’ll be harder to do what I need to do from outside the PsyNet,” Silver said, “but I’ll adapt. There must be a way for non-PsyNet-linked mates to have access to the data in the Net.”
“No.” Valentin had to fight every one of his instincts to say that, but this was about Silver’s life. “It’s not worth the risk.”
“It’s not your choice, Valyusha.” The soft words were his only warning.
Silver dropped all her shields.
Man and bear both knew, felt the roaring openness of the connection deep inside him. Before he could fight the draw, before he could control his heart’s joy to protect her, the mating bond smashed into them, a slender hand reaching out and clasping his heart, as his hand cradled her own heart.
It was the most wonderful moment of his life.
It was the most horrific moment of his life.
He might just have killed her.
“Damn you.” It came out a harsh whisper.
Silver’s response was to hug him tight from the back, her breath hot against his ear. “I feel you deep inside me.” Her voice was as unrepentant as a bear’s. “So big and dangerous and mine. Always mine.”
Her ice and fire burned inside him like a steel candle, a flame his bear curled its big body protectively around. His mate was everything he’d ever dared dream. He scowled nonetheless, refusing to cuddle her back for at least a minute.
He lasted ten seconds before taking her hand and pressing a kiss on her palm. “Are you still in the PsyNet?”
“Yes.” Stunned surprise, followed by a pause. “It’s strange—I can see a bond to you, I know you’re at the other end, but it disappears into the fabric of the PsyNet like it’s entering a part of the psychic plane I can’t access.”
The terrible, disobedient Mercant who owned him body and soul kissed his neck. “People say the psychic plane is alive, that the neosentience that guards it makes more decisions than we know. Maybe it decided I needed to stay in the PsyNet.”
Valentin had nothing to add to that, but he did have certain things to say to his mate. Flipping over onto his back with a speed that meant he caught her before she tumbled off, he glared at her. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
A cool-eyed glance. “Yes, Valyusha. I’ve loved you.”
And damn his heart, it melted all over again. “You may have killed yourself.”
“No.” A single—and very alpha—word. “The chances of my survival are infinitesimal. I weighed all the factors and decided I’d rather know what it is to belong to you than reject that gift because it might gain me a little more time.”
He gripped her arms, shook her. Gently. Very gently. “Stubborn, willful, infuriating—”
“Stop calling yourself names.”
“Argh!” Driven to distraction, he hauled her down to his mouth and kissed her wet and deep and angry.
She took it, gave back as good as she got. His mate was Silver Fucking Mercant.
The Human Patriot
HE LOOKED AT the data HAPMA had sent him, saw the e-mail exchange with Bowen Knight, and felt his gut clench. Damn it. Bowen had always been a good man; he’d done more to raise humanity’s profile and increase their strength than anyone.
He sent HAPMA a quick reply: Do not harm him. He can still be saved.
He didn’t believe Bowen had been psychically compromised. The other man had an experimental chip in his brain that blocked psychic interference. No, Bowen was simply being led astray by Psy he thought he could trust. Yes, the empaths were probably trustworthy—they were the only Psy the Patriot had any time for—but the empaths were getting their information from others.