"Female." Putting his fingers to his mouth, Valentin let out a sharp whistle.
All three turned toward them, with the romping cubs making excited sounds and jumps, while the adult settled down into the water, the gentle flow parting around her large form as her fur turned water dark. As if now that Valentin had arrived, she could break from her careful watch.
Attention diverted by her move, the cubs tried to climb onto her back. Silver was almost certain she saw the adult bear give a long-suffering sigh. Laughing at the cubs' antics, Valentin jogged down the slight incline and waded into what had to be ice-cold water after kicking off his boots and socks. He splashed the cubs, laughed when they splashed him back. Running so they could chase him, he turned abruptly and chased them back, to their unhidden joy.
Silver took a seat on the grass. When the female bear looked her way, she inclined her head in a silent greeting. The bear did the same, then they both watched an alpha bear play with two energetic cubs, his hands holding rough care for their small bodies.
By the time Valentin made his way back to her, he was drenched and his eyes weren't human in any way. When he spoke, his already deep voice was so low it felt like thunder against her skin. "Couldn't resist," he said, pushing back his wet hair with one big hand. "If you weren't in recovery and if I wasn't in terror of Nova's wrath, I'd have invited you. The small monsters wanted to play with you."
Silver didn't get to her feet. "Can we stay here a little longer?" It was patent that Valentin had an extremely high tolerance for the cold, but he might want to dry off.
"Sure," he said and, moving away several feet, shook off the wet.
Fine droplets settled on the skin of her cheek, but she didn't flinch at the unintentional tactile contact. She also controlled her urge to reach up and touch the water where it lay against her skin. There was no reason to do that, and Silver was alive because she only did things that were rational.
Settling beside her, Valentin waved at the cubs as their guardian led their tired forms toward a path in the trees that was at the same level as the stream. "Gentler climb," Valentin told her.
"They seem too exhausted to make it to Denhome."
"It's all an act--they're hoping for a ride on their aunt's back." His tone held the same fond affection she'd heard when he spoke of Dima. "It'd take more than a few minutes' play in the water to wipe out those two."
The cubs had played with Valentin for almost a half hour. "They're hyperactive?"
"They're baby bears."
Silver watched as those baby bears turned toward her and rose up on their back paws, as if in challenge. A stern sound from their caretaker, and they dropped down and scrambled to catch up with her. Their bodies disappeared into the trees as dusk began to turn from orange to shadowy gray.
Beside her, Valentin sprawled out, bracing himself on his elbows. His drenched T-shirt clung to the ridged muscles of his abdomen, pulled tight across his pectoral muscles, shaped itself over his shoulders. His jeans weren't much better, outlining the raw muscle of his thighs.
Valentin Nikolaev was a man of violent physical strength even in human form. Yet he clearly had iron control over it; when he'd played with the children, they'd displayed zero fear of their alpha.
To be alpha is to protect.
Words Lucas Hunter had spoken once, according to a media report. It explained much about the dynamics she'd witnessed: Valentin was the most dominant individual in StoneWater by far, but his clanmates understood his strength would only ever be used to protect the clan, never to harm it.
He was like Silver, like Ena.
"You thought about where you're going to live when you escape the bears who've kidnapped you?"
When she raised an eyebrow at him, he grinned. "Fringe netter with his own Internet channel sent out a breaking report last night. Pasha--who obviously needs more work duties--made up a fake account and posted a comment swearing to have seen you being pulled into a black van by six burly bears in bear form."
"You don't seem too concerned." Amber eyes and deep voice, he remained very much a bear in human form.
"Well, according to this 'eyewitness,' the getaway driver was in bear form, too. Must've been tough for him to steer with one paw since he was drinking a beer at the same time."
"Bears," Silver said, making Valentin throw his head back and laugh that huge laugh that wrapped around her.
Hit by the last rays of the setting sun, he was . . . magnificent. It was the only word that applied.
"As for the question of my residence," she said when he stopped laughing and turned to look at her with his cheeks still creased. "I've decided my apartment has some technical issues that require maintenance."
Valentin nodded. "Clever."
"There are a number of secure buildings in the city I can relocate to in the interim."
Valentin made a dubious sound. "Your building was secure, too--and all the negatives your grandmother pointed out still apply."
Unfortunately, Silver agreed with him. "You have an alternative suggestion?"
"There's a changeling complex that might work," he said. "Your relatives won't be comfortable enough to drop by, and it gives you an easy cover story. No need to set up fake long-term repairs in your apartment."
"That I'm further immersing myself in changeling culture to better run EmNet?" Silver guessed. "That means I'll eventually have to live in a human group to ensure no ill feeling across the races."
"Good trade-off for safety. You could reach out to the Alliance to set up a future stay in a mostly human enclave to head off any cries of favoritism . . . even though we bears are your favorites."
Silver didn't react to his wink; that would only encourage him, and Valentin Nikolaev didn't need positive reinforcement. "Is it the BlackEdge complex you're suggesting?"
A rumbling sound from deep in his chest, his hands suddenly sprouting lethal claws that dug into the earth as he sat up, palms braced behind him. "Yes. You'd be surrounded mostly by wolves, and that's enough to make anyone deranged, but there's no chance of a stranger getting to you without someone noticing."
"Are there bears in the complex?"
"A few poor souls." Valentin's tone was mournful. "Nowhere else suitable in the city for those strange clanmates who want to work in city-based professions. Like that rebel cousin of mine who's convinced he loves being a prosecutor."
Valentin's "rebel" cousin was actually one of the best young Enforcement prosecutors in the city--and Silver knew full well Valentin had taken him out to celebrate after big victories, the proud older cousin and even prouder alpha. "I've always thought the larger and more predatory changelings must find it difficult in the city." The most dangerous predators lived for wild places.
"That's why the BlackEdge development was so important."
"Don't you mean the BlackEdge-StoneWater development?" At Valentin's sharp look, she said, "I have my own spy files."
A scowl that was all dark eyebrows and bear arrogance. "The wolves and leopards out in California gave us the idea," he said in a grudging tone. "Wolves are mangy and they probably give my clanmates fleas, but we decided a while back that there are certain things it makes sense for us to work on together."
"Ah, this must be the source of your deep and abiding friendship."
Scowling deeper at her reference to his comment the morning he'd come to her apartment, he shuddered. "I don't know how Lucas Hunter does it. Then again, he's a cat. They find the strangest things funny. Maybe he thinks an alliance with wolves is a hysterical joke."
Silver wondered how much of the bear antipathy for the wolves--and vice versa--was real and how much was habitual. "I'd have to check if the complex has any openings." It wasn't built like a Psy or human apartment building--the homes were spread out amidst a large amount of green space; raised pathways that doubled as elevated runs meant every residence, even those sized for single individuals, had a personal exit directly onto a path.
"I already checked. One apartmen
t available on the third floor of a four-story building. Wolves and bears around you. My rebel cousin would be your neighbor."
Silver realized that this was a neat trap into which she'd been gently nudged, but since it happened to be an excellent idea, she had no reason to protest. However, her relocation would be only until they'd unearthed the traitor. She'd permit no one to force her out of her home.
The two of them sat in silence for long minutes, the water flowing below and the birds raucous as they finished their business for the day.
Valentin was the one who broke the quiet. "If you want to go for a run after you feel better, Starlight, I can show you a running track through the woods. I know you go running on Moscow streets after dark."
"It's quiet then, the streets comparatively empty."
"Being around so many bears must be driving you crazy."
"No, I'm having no difficulty being in Denhome." Silver had expected to feel suffocated, but she'd forgotten to factor in an important variable: she'd grown up in a tightly integrated extended family unit, had spent her entire childhood sharing quarters with others.
The bear setup didn't stress her on any level.
"My family has a version of Denhome," she found herself telling him. "On a much smaller scale, of course."
"Ena?"
Silver nodded. Her grandmother's home was a place where they were all welcome, and where they gathered multiple times a year.
"Look." Valentin nodded up. "Stars are starting to appear."
Her vision wasn't as acute as his. She couldn't see the stars against the gray of the sky, but she could feel the cooling air, hear the rustling of the trees. "I've never been in this type of environment."
*
VALENTIN took in her profile, bear and man both deeply contented at being here, beside her. "There's beauty in the night, in wild spaces filled with life." It sang to his soul; he could tolerate the city, but sooner or later, his heart began to keen for the primal forests that were his home.
They kept those forests as natural as possible, but Denhome itself wasn't in any way backward. Having watched and learned while he was Zoya's first second, Valentin had purchased a satellite for his clan as soon as he had the power. It meant their communications weren't reliant on any outside party.
Of course, that satellite was more irritating than a smug wolf when it bounced him calls at moments when he'd rather be left alone. Like right now. Glancing at the screen, he saw Pavel's name. "What is it?" he asked, aware the other man was on sentry duty.
"I have a very pretty dude here claiming to be your Starlight's brother. Silver eyes, black hair, supermodel bones, is giving me a death stare."
Sitting up, his bear at attention, Valentin looked at Silver. "You have a brother?" How had he never unearthed that fact?
A pause, her head angled as if listening. "Arwen is here," she said. "He says he wasn't giving anyone the death stare--that's his normal expression."
"Must run in the family."
Silver's response was a look that was all ice.
Wanting to kiss her so bad it hurt, he told Pavel to guide the other man to a particular section of the territory, one that wasn't too close to Denhome. It was one thing to trust Silver and Ena not to betray them, quite another to trust a brother he'd never seen.
It took them twenty minutes to reach the location.
Pavel leaned against a sleek black vehicle while another male stood nearby. Valentin recognized him at once--he was a regular visitor to Silver's apartment. But the color of their eyes aside, the two had little in common physically speaking.
Arwen Mercant looked to be shorter than his sister, maybe five seven or five eight. That black hair Pavel had already noted, straight and smooth and cut with CEO ruthlessness, not a strand out of place; a skin tone that was more olive than golden; the "supermodel" bones that equaled high cheekbones and a square jawline.
While his eyes were the same shade as Silver's, they were tilted sharply at the corners, giving him a silkily feline appearance.
Right now, he looked about as suited to these primeval forests as a peacock. His suit was dark gray and flawlessly fitted, his tie a stylish black.
"Arwen."
Valentin heard a subtle warmth in Silver's tone that had him listening hard.
"Silver." Walking forward, her brother stopped a foot from Silver.
Silver didn't make contact, either. It wasn't how changelings would greet each other, and it definitely wasn't how bears would greet a sibling who'd been hurt, but Valentin didn't make the mistake of thinking they weren't close.
Back when he'd noticed all those visits by Arwen in the surveillance files Pavel kept on all the major players in the area, he'd been jealous until he'd gotten a close look at the other man's eyes and figured out he was family. Now that he knew their relationship, the visits took on another meaning.
Chapter 14
The E-Psy, or empaths, as they are called in the vernacular, are something of a peculiarity. The powerful among them can heal the most devastating of emotional wounds. Folklore says they can cure insanity. That has never been proven. What has been proven is that they can certainly help people through difficult emotional times, absorbing negative emotion in a way that defies even psychic explanation.
--Introduction to The Mysterious E Designation: Empathic Gifts & Shadows by Alice Eldridge (Reprint: 2082)
"WHAT ARE YOU doing here?" Silver asked her brother, keeping the conversation on the audible level so as not to be rude to her hosts.
Right then, however, Valentin moved away to speak to Pavel. The distance was such that neither bear should be able to hear this conversation if she and Arwen maintained a low volume.
"I needed to see you were all right." Her brother let his shields fall; on his face, she saw layer upon layer of deepest emotion.
Arwen's vulnerability was a rare thing in the world in which they lived.
"I'm fine." Of the two of them, Silver had always been the more ruthless and pragmatic. Arwen's Gradient 7.9 empathic abilities sometimes threatened to leave him wide open to the violence and chaos of the world.
She--all of the Mercants--had always known he was precious, had protected him from the cradle, but only now did they understand that he was likely responsible for the deep mental stability of the Mercants over the past twenty-nine years, give or take a few weeks. Arwen made them better.
Better people. Better Psy. Just . . . better.
"Are you sure?" her brother asked. "This environment . . ." Stepping closer, he lowered his voice to a whisper. "Are you aware you're wearing a monstrosity of a sweatshirt and canvas sneakers?" A scandalized look down at those sneakers. "I'm half-afraid you've been brainwashed."
"I'm adapting to my circumstances." Seeing below the frivolous comment to the concern that had brought him here, so far out of the city that was his comfort zone, she touched him on the arm. "Thank you for coming to check on me."
He froze for a second, the reaction an instinctive one for siblings who'd grown up under Silence. But he softened far quicker than any other member of the family would've done, lifting his other hand to place it over hers. As she'd learned to give Arwen what he needed to feel emotionally healthy, he'd learned to see through her Silence to the certainty that she'd die to protect him.
Silver didn't know how to love, but she knew how to hold on to her people.
"You look good." Relief colored his tone. "You're recovering?"
"It'll take a little time to get back to full strength, but I suffered no permanent damage."
"You're in a . . . a jungle with a clan of bears who don't even believe in proper roads. What if you have a relapse?"
"The StoneWater healer is fully qualified." Silver knew from the research she'd done into the clan that Evanova "Nova" Nikolaev was an M.D. as well as a changeling healer. "I'm in excellent hands."
Arwen sighed. "You're determined to stay here? It's so primitive."
While her brother was a sophisticate through and t
hrough.
Gentle and kind and the best Mercant of them all, but a snob when it came to his clothes and the cut of his hair. He'd lay down his life for a stranger in harm's way without thinking twice--but even as he died, he'd probably be judging the clothes and shoes of everyone around him.
Pavel looked over at that instant, winked at Arwen. Who turned right back to Silver. "If you're determined to remain in this den of savages," he said in a tone designed to carry to sensitive changeling ears, "I'll make sure to visit regularly so you don't forget civilization."
Used to him, Silver said, "Come, I'll introduce you." But by the time she reached Valentin, Pavel--whom she knew through her spy files on StoneWater--had melted away into the trees with unexpected stealth. It was a timely reminder never to forget that bears were dangerous predators under the skin. Even bears who wore spectacles and had dimples in both cheeks.
"You're Arwen." Valentin held out a hand in an action that said he'd noted their physical contact.
Arwen shook it. "Alpha Nikolaev," he said formally. "Thank you for offering Silver sanctuary until we get to the bottom of this."
"Progress?"
Arwen shook his head. "I did get access to the report on the poison. It has a unique composition." Slipping out his whisper-thin combined organizer and phone, he brought up the chemical breakdown and turned the screen to face them. "I can run through the components."
"No, I see it." Valentin took the cutting-edge device; his expression turned unforgiving seconds later. "At a guess, I'd say this is designed to badly disturb Psy neurochemistry."
"Valentin has a master's degree in psychology," Silver told her startled brother. Valentin's academic choice had always intrigued her; it seemed so opposed to his forthright nature. "As he was so academically proficient he was strongly urged to do a doctorate, I'm guessing he's aware of certain chemicals as they interact with the brain."
Valentin's expression softened, delight apparent in his eyes at her knowledge of his academic success. "Not something we studied in depth, Starlichka, but I know enough to make sense of this." Handing Arwen's prized piece of tech back to her brother, he said, "It's the combination that's the key, isn't it?"