“Gotcha,” he said, the bear in his eyes, a playful presence.
Silver couldn’t speak, her stomach suddenly so tight it was difficult to breathe. The laughter faded from Valentin’s face, a slow slide into something deeper, more tender. “Lyubov moya, solnyshko moyo.” A harsh whisper colored in unconcealed, primal emotion . . . before he was assailed by balls from every side, the cubs coming to her rescue.
Backing off with a lionish roar that delighted the children, he began to chase them again. Silver, her heart a drum, simply sat in place. Her ears caught the sound of the children’s laughter, Valentin’s growls of mock pursuit, the odd noise from other areas of the play center, but nothing unusual. Her audio telepathy was under control.
The rest of her, however . . .
“Siva?” A small body scrambled into her lap. “I’m tired.” Giving a big sigh, Arkasha collapsed against her.
She wrapped her arms around his body and said, “I think you need a drink of water.” Getting up with the tiny gangster trustingly holding on to her hand, she walked to the edge of the pool and they got out. Arkasha drank deep of the glass of water she poured at their table, his eyes on the play in progress.
He was back in the pool seconds later.
Silver should have gone, too. She’d promised to participate. But it was too dangerous to her sense of stability, her mind in confusion, caught between who she believed herself to be, and who she was becoming. Though it was impossible not to watch Valentin, not to hear his deep voice as he played with the cubs, she stayed by the table using the excuse of being ready to give the children any sustenance they needed.
That afternoon passed by in a heartbeat—and it stretched forever.
Lyubov moya, solnyshko moyo.
My love, sun of my heart.
Valentin didn’t touch her again, but when he dropped her off at the complex, the children having been picked up by Yakov and Anastasia, he said, “Remember who we were, Starlight. Choose us.” His voice was unusually solemn, his gaze amber.
Silver couldn’t reply, her blood a roar in her ears. She certainly wasn’t in the right frame of mind to receive a telepathic contact from Ena. I’m just leaving Alpha Nikolaev’s vehicle, she said when her grandmother asked if she was free to talk.
Valentin needs to hear this, too. Ask him if he is available to meet at your current home. Kaleb will bring me in.
Silver’s fingers curled into her palm, her body half-out of Valentin’s vehicle. “Grandmother is asking if you’re free for a meeting.”
His expression changed, became deadly. “Akshay Patel?” Not waiting for an answer, he said, “I’m free. Where?”
“My apartment.”
This time, she didn’t wait for him to reach her, jumping out of the vehicle and beginning the walk to her apartment before he’d opened his own door. It didn’t take him long to catch up to her, of course. He was a big and warm presence at her side, his energy so vibrant she could almost touch it.
“Valya!” The call came from across the grass and two floors up, the woman hanging out the window a beautiful blonde Silver had seen around the complex but never met.
The blonde blew Valentin a kiss.
“Careful, Irina,” Valentin called back. “My mate is the jealous type.”
Clearly unabashed, the woman blew Silver a kiss, too. “Any woman worth my alpha would be!”
“She’s clan?” Silver asked after the woman drew back inside the apartment.
“Half human, all bear.” He winked. “Fariad has the biggest crush on her I’ve ever seen a man have on a woman.”
“Oh? Does he knock on her door at the crack of dawn?”
A scowl. “I didn’t have a crush. I was courting you. There’s a difference.”
“Right,” Silver said, her shoulder brushing his arm as they walked.
Valentin pretended to bite her. “Grr.”
“I quiver in terror.”
“I’ll have you know I do make people quiver in terror,” Valentin pointed out with a sulky look on his face that made her want to—
Silver shook her head, attempted to calm her skittering pulse.
Searching for a distraction, she pointed out the sun-lounging area below. “Look.” Several bears—in that form—lay lazing about on the lush green grass. The wolves lay on the other side of an invisible line of demarcation.
Every so often, they’d give one another a dirty look, then get back to sun worshipping. The first snowfall was forecast to hit any day. It wouldn’t stop either bears or wolves from being outside, but they were making the most of the grass while it still existed.
Several bear heads went up at that instant, their noses turning unerringly toward Valentin. They began to rise; she knew they wanted to come to him, touch him, have that tactile alpha-to-clan-member contact all bears needed. But Valentin waved them down. “I’ll be back after I take care of my mate.”
His deliberately provocative response made several bears “laugh” before they settled back down. The wolves, too, were looking very interested. Apparently being mortal enemies didn’t mean you weren’t intrigued by gossip about the other party.
When she didn’t say anything in response to his words, Valentin gave her a distinctly wary glance. “What are you planning?”
“You’ll find out when you fall victim to it.”
Valentin’s smile was more real than she’d seen it since her operation, his bear right there in his eyes, so close to the surface that she could almost touch its fur. “You’re a scary woman, Starlichka.” Lifting a hand, he brushed tendrils of hair off her face.
Silver broke contact with a jerk that had those bearish eyes narrowing, a predator on the hunt. He closed the inches between them, until her sneakers brushed up against his boots. “Scared?” A challenge.
His body was a furnace, but Silver didn’t back off. This wasn’t the first time she’d tangled with this particular bear. “I don’t get scared. I’m Silent.”
“You sure you haven’t been willing those filaments in your brain to build bridges?”
Silver thought of the card she still hadn’t thrown out, of how she hadn’t washed the sheets on which he’d slept, of how she kept permitting him physical contact . . . and how she hadn’t ordered any food since she moved into this apartment. “Why would I exchange perfect efficiency for the messy chaos of emotions?”
“Wild-monkey skin privileges.”
Silver stumbled into him at the rough words spoken against her ear.
Valentin caught her. “Was it something I said?” This time, his eyes were laughing, his body a muscled wall that invited her to snuggle in.
And her stomach, it did that strange thing again. “Must be the uneven floor,” she responded, because to let him win this verbal battle would set a bad precedent.
Bear that he was, he’d think he could win all their arguments by bringing up physical intimacy. She broke contact, started to walk toward her apartment again. “Speaking of wild-monkey skin privileges—”
“Naked wild-monkey skin privileges.”
“As I was saying, speaking of naked wild-monkey skin privileges,” she repeated without a hitch, “are there changeling primates?”
“Nope. Nothing from that part of the animal tree.” He glared at her. “You’re trying to distract me from seducing you.”
“According to Wild Woman magazine”—to which she now had a subscription, strictly to further her understanding of changelings—“bear males have delicate egos. I don’t want yours crushed when I kick you out.”