The alpha had made Pieter's sister's life so untenable that the family had made the decision to move. That alpha had soon been toppled by a far better bear, but Pieter's family had never returned to their old clan. They were violently loyal to StoneWater, which had taken them in with open arms. Pieter, in turn, was violently loyal to Valentin.
"Your heart's too big, Valya," his childhood friend said. "No one has the right to stomp on it just because you have a capacity to forgive that shames the rest of us."
Valentin squeezed his friend's shoulder, his heart full of love for this man who was his brother in every way that mattered. "The time is coming. Until then, I need you to help me watch over them."
Pieter said nothing on that point. It was understood that he'd always be there for Valentin and vice versa. "What about the girls?"
"They're wounded, too." This wasn't ordinary teenage rebellion and angst. "Let me see them before I decide what needs to be done." The instant he did, he realized battle fury was riding them yet. Changeling bears didn't often fight among themselves, but when they did, they were bloody-minded about it.
Three girls sat on one side of the forest clearing, four on the other. They glared daggers at one another. All their eyes were different shades of amber, their claws out and raking furrows in the earth. "Eyes here," Valentin said in a tone that rumbled with his bear's presence.
Seven heads snapped toward him, the girls getting to their feet and coming to attention. Not a word escaped their lips, though he could all but see the hot air building up in their brains, ready for an explosion. "Follow me," he said without warning. "Petya."
"I have the rear."
Valentin took them on a run so grueling that by the time they returned to the clearing, every single girl collapsed into a limp heap. The anger was gone, extinguished by the burn of their lungs and the whimpers of their muscles. Someone moaned. Valentin ignored it, well aware of what these girls could take--they were dominants, every single one. Even more, they were all extremely physically fit.
Hunkering down in front of them afterward, he said, "We're clan. We're strong only when we're clan. When we're one."
Mina looked at him with tears swimming in her eyes. "But they left us," she whispered. "My own aunt and her family. They left us."
Her erstwhile opponent, Olive, put her arm around Mina's shoulders. "I'm sorry," she said, her throat working as she swallowed. "I didn't mean what I said. I'm just mad because your aunt took Temur with her."
Temur was a teenage boy with whom Olive had been flirting up a storm before his family made the decision to move. As Valentin watched, Mina sniffed and patted Olive's knee. "I'm mad at them, too, but they're my family. I have to defend them."
"I know."
Valentin ran his hand over Mina's hair, then Olive's. "I'm working on the situation." They had a right to know what was going on. "There's still time." Not much, but it wasn't all over.
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."
Silver struggled to think past the lethargy invading her body and mind. "You appear on highly friendly terms with the security chief of the Human Alliance." She had a good working relationship with Lily Knight, the Alliance's EmNet liaison, but Bowen Knight was a man who tended to keep his own counsel.
"We're family now," Valentin said. "Bo understands what that means to a bear." A gentler touch. "It means the same thing to a Mercant."
Silver could find no reason to argue with him. "HAPMA's targets make no sense," she said after forcing her eyelids open. "The victims were mostly human."
Valentin dug into a particular spot. Endorphins flooded her bloodstream.
He was so warm. How could he be so warm and still want to wear clothes?
"Letters said HAPMA was sad to cause harm to their own people"--Valentin's chest vibrated against her as he spoke--"but that if Trinity succeeds, humans will be eradicated or enslaved. HAPMA is just giving everyone a sneak preview of how humans will be treated as disposable under this new totalitarian regime."
"Fanatic logic."
"No logic involved, Starlight. The Alliance put out a statement disavowing all knowledge of, or support for, HAPMA."
"Anything else I need to know? Moscow?"
"Is safe. Kaleb, Selenka, and I had a security meeting before dinner."
The three alphas.
Suddenly, despite the heaviness in her limbs and the fog in her brain, she understood something that had escaped her till now. "Though you and Selenka take responsibility for changeling access, neither of you consider the city part of your territories, do you?"
"We keep an eye on it, but it's Krychek's territory. Not much use to bears or wolves, so we let him have it."
Silver wondered what her lethal boss would think of that interpretation of things. "What did you three decide?"
"To let loose all our various spies with only one aim: find the HAPMA terrorist cell in Moscow if one exists."
Silver had no doubts that they'd succeed.
"They hit Moscow first for a reason--I think it was meant to show up EmNet in the city where its director is based." Anger rolled through the deep timbre of his voice.
Silver found herself patting his thigh. "They failed." The muscle bunched under her touch.
Breath no longer even, Valentin moved his hands to her upper arms. "Okay?"
At her nod, he leaned close to her ear and whispered, "Imagine, Starlichka, how much better this would feel if you were naked."
Silver knew he was teasing her, the bear in him unable to maintain the good behavior. But she'd learned a few things after watching how the bears interacted with one another. "I've always been interested in sex, in why it causes such inexplicable and often irrational behavior."
Chapter 22
Regular sexual contact with another individual causes the formation of psycho-chemical bonds that are disruptive to Silence. It is recommended that all such intimate contact be eliminated from Psy life.
--Practical Application of the Silence Protocol, a study by Catherine Adelaja for the Psy Council (1976)
VALENTIN WENT STOCK-STILL behind Silver. "What?" It came out a strangled sound, his bear sitting dazed on its ass, like little Arkasha this afternoon.
"It seems important to humans and changelings. I want to understand it." Reaching back, she touched a part of her shoulder. "You missed this spot."
First she hit him with a virtual roundhouse punch, and now she was giving him orders exactly like the queen she was. Silver Mercant was Valentin's kind of woman. "You want to try sex?" he said, his bear's heart pounding like a drum and his eager cock in serious danger of prematurely spilling its seed, like a teenage boy faced with his first naked woman. "I volunteer as a willing sacrifice."
"Humans don't launch these types of attacks," she said, instead of responding to his generous offer to be her sex crash-test dummy.
Groaning inwardly, Valentin shifted his brain from his engorged cock to his head. "You're right." As a race, humans generally got on with the business of life while Psy and changelings engaged in a centuries-long power struggle. The revitalized Human Alliance was making waves, but they didn't do it with indiscriminate violence.
"So why now?" Silver murmured, her lashes shadowing her cheeks. "Oh."
Valentin was smug at having petted her into boneless laziness, but he knew that last utterance hadn't been of pleasure. "What aren't you saying, Starlight?"
"The information is classified. I was briefed only because I'm the director of EmNet."
Valentin wanted to rampage bad-temperedly around the room. Not because he didn't understand loyalty. But because he wanted Silver's. "You think your classified information is behind the surge of violence?"
"It would explain HAPMA's rhetoric." Silver knew the empaths had determined the PsyNet needed human connections if it weren't to collapse, but no one had worked out how to foster those emotional bonds, not after over a century of ill treatment of humans by Psy in power.
The vast majority of humans hated the Psy.
If HAPMA had gained access to the report on the need for human energy in the PsyNet, they could believe the Psy were planning to force the issue. The irony of it was that the bonds couldn't be forced. The Es were adamant the connections had to be organic.
"Secrets cause rot," Valentin murmured, a profound darkness in his tone that didn't fit the warmth of his nature. "They give fear room to grow."
Silver didn't take her hand from his thigh. "If this information were to go public, it could cause catastrophic panic." How could the Ruling Coalition or the Empathic Collective tell millions of people that the psychic network they needed to survive had a fatal disease without offering them hope of a cure?
Silver had been briefed so she could come up with a game plan for EmNet's response, if and when a leak did occur and the forecast panic led to riots or other chaotic incidents.
"Or,
" Valentin said, "you make this classified problem public and all those clever minds working on it might figure out a solution."
Silver gave up trying to open her eyes and turned a fraction to lean deeper into Valentin. "That decision isn't mine."
Apparently not the least discomforted by the physical liberties she was taking, Valentin said, "Then let's talk about the decision you have made. In case you've forgotten, it's the one to do with sex." Heat in his voice, his fingers working muscles that had turned to honey. "How about we start with kisses and ice cream?"
Silver mumbled her response. "Kisses aren't on the menu. Neither's ice cream."
"I thought you wanted to experience sex."
"Intercourse, yes."
"I think you have the wrong idea about intimate skin privileges, Starlight." His breath brushed her ear, his husky words a near-tactile caress. "We could do the physical act, but that'd teach you nothing about why sex can cause people to do insane things."
Silver made herself open her eyes, though she didn't shift from her position curled into Valentin--despite the fact that she couldn't recall pulling her legs up onto the bed, or moving her hand from his thigh to place it over the steady beat of his changeling heart. "Explain."
"Sex and emotion," he murmured. "That's the explosive combination. People kill for love, die for love. But even if it doesn't get that far, affection is a prerequisite to intimate skin privileges in my book. Kisses have to be on the menu, along with a million other small acts that build bonds no one can break."
Silver ignored the latter part of his statement; it was too dangerous. "I don't understand affection."
"Let me show you." A deep rumble. "Take a chance, Silver. If you're going to test your adult control, do it for real. Nothing halfway."
Silver was so drowsy, her muscles so relaxed, she was certain she was already breaching Silence. However, she couldn't bring herself to move away. The strength of Valentin's hands, the heat of him pulsing against her, it was . . . good. "You want to convince me to live with emotion."
"Never exactly hid that." His jaw brushed her temple, his stubble abrasive but not in any way painful. What was disquieting was her need to feel it again. Even then, Silver didn't withdraw.