Valentin’s bear pounded its paws in primal frustration. “Can Nova knock you out?”
“I’ve considered it, but drugs have unpredictable effects on Psy senses—they could smash open my remaining shields.” She took a deep breath and wiped away her tears. “I can hold on.”
So fucking strong.
He rose with her, kissed tiny kisses all over her face until her lips tugged up. “You handled Sergey like an alpha bear.”
No doubt the irritable older bear and Valentin would still butt heads, but the other man had come to him, and Sergey wasn’t two-faced about anything. He’d been blatant in his distrust, and now he’d be as open in his choice to trust Valentin.
“You need to scream, you scream,” he told his Starlight. “This is a bear party. Everyone will think you’re having a great time.”
Silver’s smile deepened, lit her up. “Perhaps I will be rowdy tonight. I am now mated to a bear, after all. It’s required.”
“Exactly.” She was so beautiful in her strength, he wanted to go to his knees, wanted to worship her. “Now let me show you how bears party.”
Pain lingered in the fine lines that had formed at the corners of her eyes, but as he watched, she took a deep breath, lowered her lashes, and when they lifted back, her pain was gone. Shielded. Hidden. Except from Valentin. Inside him, he felt all of her, all her glory and all her hurt.
They walked out to join the party hand in hand. It began in a muted form as reunited friends and family cried and hugged, but then the beer began to flow—along with champagne for the fancy ones in the clan—and the laughter started.
Clanmates caught up, they danced. The small bears were allowed back into party a little past their bedtime, before being laid down on makeshift sleeping nests around the party area. The cubs fell contentedly asleep despite the chaos, happy being in the heart of clan.
Valentin joined in the celebration.
He laughed, he talked, he even entered a beer-drinking contest, but all the while his mind was on the woman with hair of moonlight who had fit so naturally into StoneWater.
When it came time to dance, he danced with her first, tucking her close to his body so she could go limp and abandon her teeth-gritting control for a fragment of time. He held her as she shuddered in pain, the movement hidden by his body and the energetic dancing all around them. “I’ve got you, moyo serdechko,” he whispered, because she was his heart, the idea of a life without his Starlight by his side a nightmare beyond bearing. “I’ve got you.”
He said the same things that night, as she slipped into unconsciousness after putting herself out using a psychic technique. And he held her all night long, his bear’s heart tearing itself into a million pieces.
Chapter 38
I have often been asked what gave me the courage and the hope to continue the peace negotiations in the face of so much terror and bloodshed. The answer is love.
Even in the depths of the wars, even in the deepest horror, I saw lovers kiss and parents hug their babies, I saw brothers and sisters laugh together and I saw enemy soldiers raise an orphaned child as their own.
Love, this maddening, joyous creature of light—it refused to die. So how could I give up?
THE CALL CAME at six forty-five a.m. the next morning, while they were still in bed. Silver was awake and curled into him, her hair a cool moonlit river over the arms he’d wrapped around her.
This call, however, had to be answered.
Ashaya Aleine’s face was drawn with fatigue, but her eyes were crystal clear. “We think we’ve come up with a solution that has a chance of long-term success.”
Valentin closed his hands over Silver’s shoulders from behind, the two of them speaking to Ashaya via Silver’s organizer, which she’d propped up on a shelf at the right height. “How dangerous is your solution?” Valentin asked.
“Dangerous,” Ashaya said flatly. “Silver could die on the operating table.”
His entire being rebelled, his claws threatening to erupt from his fingertips.
“I’d like the details.” Silver raised one hand to close it over his.
“Frankly, it’s experimental.” Ashaya folded her arms, her upper body clad in a light blue shirt with long sleeves. “You’re the first and maybe only ever patient.”
“Not if it works,” Silver responded, sounding far calmer than Valentin felt. “If this works and if audio telepaths are identified soon enough, they can be saved.”
Ashaya pursed her lips, then shook her head as if shaking off an unwanted thought. The dark curls of her unbound hair bounced around her head. “Samuel Rain was the one who put us on this path.”
“What did he suggest?”
“It wasn’t so much what he suggested as that he brings a wild card into the situation that makes me and Amara both think in new ways. In this case, that’s led us to consider rerouting your neural pathways.”
The scientist brought up a diagram. “Since we’re working on the assumption that emotion and audio telepathy are linked—and it is still an assumption notwithstanding the data we’ve been able to gather—it follows that if we disconnect the two, the Tp-A part of your brain may simply stop working.”
Silver’s next question made Valentin want to wrap her up and hold her close where nothing and no one could ever hurt her. “I’d still be able to feel?”
Ashaya’s expression was grim. “I don’t know. Despite hundreds of years of research, the exact mechanisms of psychic power aren’t well understood. It could be that one can’t exist without the other. You’ve done enough research on your own to know the other risks.”
“Yes, there are myriad possible complications.” Silver still sounded far too calm.
Not calm at all, Valentin gave in to need and wrapped her in his arms from behind. “Explain them to me.”
“It’s possible that in rerouting my pathways,” Silver said, “they could damage my primary telepathic ability.”
“The brain is a complex mechanism.” Ashaya unfolded her arms, her expression pensive. “Things are linked in ways we don’t fully understand. The operation could succeed in permanently shutting down Silver’s audio telepathy, erasing her ability to feel emotion at the same time—or it could give her audio telepathy a far larger pathway.” She paused. “The latter risk is low given all we know, but it is present.”
Valentin’s bear rose inside him, agitated and angry. “Cutting the link between Silver’s secondary ability and emotion seems like a simple solution. Why hasn’t anyone else ever thought of it?”
“My family considered it long ago,” Silver told him. “But the risk at that time was catastrophic and, with my shields working to block my audio channels, I had no need to take that risk.”
“The technology just wasn’t there,” Ashaya added, before bringing up more detailed diagrams of the proposed operation. “As you may be aware, Silver, I’m Designation M.”
“With the ability to manipulate DNA itself.”
Ashaya’s lips tugged into an unexpected smile. “Of course a Mercant would know that. This would be much safer if I could manipulate your DNA, but I have no idea which part of your genetic code to target, given the mysteries that still surround psychic abilities.”
“I understand.” Silver inclined her head. “When can you operate?”
Ashaya shook her head. “I’m no neurosurgeon. We’ve lined up a brilliant one whose discretion is unimpeachable, but I’d like to take several further scans, keep you under close observation for—”