Kaleb left at once, no doubt aware that, to treat Silver effectively, the medics needed to know the type of poison she'd ingested. Because while Valentin could tell something was toxic, he couldn't separate out individual poisonous scents--not when he'd never made it a point to learn those gradations.
He saw the half-full glass on the counter, realized he'd interrupted Silver at breakfast. He didn't need to lift the glass to his nose to scent the toxins swirling in the coffee-colored liquid. If he'd been here, he would've smashed that glass out of her hand before a drop touched her lips.
Jaw grinding, he handed the glass to Krychek when the other man returned. The third time Krychek came back, Valentin had found a second contaminated jar of nutrient mix. "It was the third from the front on the right-hand side," he said, knowing the location of the poisoned jars might be important. "The nutrient bars were clean." He'd ruthlessly opened each and every packet, exposing them to the air and to his nose. "Silver's going to be mad I trashed her kitchen."
Kaleb took the jar, examined the label, then teleported out with it. When he returned, he said, "That was ordinary nutrient mix available at any Psy grocer."
"You thinking product tampering?"
"It's a possibility--those of my race are not universally liked."
That was a vast understatement. Many of the Psy might be attempting to regain their emotions after more than a hundred years of training themselves to feel nothing, but their previous rulers had done massive damage, killed and tortured and created a deep vein of ill will.
Both humans and changelings had long memories.
"The other option is an assassination attempt." Krychek's cardinal eyes took in the mess Valentin had made of the food. "I trust in your sense of smell, but I'll get everything tested regardless."
Valentin felt no insult. This wasn't about pride. It was about Silver's life. "Do it. Now tell me where she is."
Kaleb slipped his hands into the pockets of his pants. "Silver hasn't mentioned a friendship."
"I'm working on it." Had been doing so since the day he'd walked scowling into a meeting and come face-to-face with a woman who made him think of hidden fire and cold, distant, searingly brilliant starlight. And, let's be honest: skin privileges. Naked skin privileges. Wild-monkey skin privileges. He couldn't be around Silver and not have his body react. Her own body, it was slender, but with all the right curves. And she was tough, tough as a female bear out for blood.
Never once had she backed down against his deliberate provocation.
His bear liked that. A lot.
Enough to throw her over his shoulder and carry her off to his lair if only she wouldn't fry his brains for daring. He was tempted to chance it anyway. He had a hard head, could probably take it so long as she wasn't trying to kill him.
That mind of hers . . . He'd never met its like. Silver Mercant forgot nothing, and she had a steely presence that made even rowdy bears sit up and take notice. Woman like that, she'd make one hell of a mate. Too bad she refused to even consider the idea: Silver wasn't budging on the whole emotionless Silence thing.
"My people chose Silence for a reason," she'd said to him three visits earlier. "While parts of that reasoning have proven false enough to topple Silence for many, other parts still apply. I am and always will be Silent. That means I will never be ready to 'run off ' and experience 'shenanigans' with you."
No matter. Valentin had a plan.
Because she damn well was going to survive. "Don't even try to stop me from seeing her, Krychek," he said to the cardinal, who still hadn't spilled Silver's location. "I'm bigger and meaner than you."
Krychek raised an eyebrow. "Bigger, yes. Meaner? Let's leave that an open question. However, since she's alive because of you, I think you can be trusted with her whereabouts." He told Valentin the name of the hospital.
It happened to be a short ten-minute run from here. Normally, Valentin would've covered that distance without hesitation--his bear would've barely stretched out by the time he reached the hospital. He could do vehicles, but he didn't really like them. They were all too damn small as far as he was concerned. But this wasn't a normal day. "Can I hitch a ride?"
The other man didn't say anything, but less than a second later, Valentin found himself standing in an antiseptic white corridor, the floor beneath his feet a chilly gray-blue. The chairs on one side were attached to the wall, the seat cushions darkest navy. On the right of the chairs was a door inset with a small square of glass.
Beyond that glass lay an operating theatre where white-garbed doctors and nurses worked with frantic efficiency to stabilize Silver. He couldn't see her, but regardless of the powerful hospital smells in the air, sharp and biting, he could scent the ice-cold starlight and secret fire of her.
"I thought you'd take her to a private clinic." This public hospital was an excellent one, but Silver was critical to the fragile balance of their fractured world--and Krychek could teleport anywhere in the blink of an eye.
"The lead doctor working on her is one of the world's foremost specialists in toxins and poisons and their impact on the Psy body."
"You download that information from the psychic network you're all part of?"
Krychek nodded.
"Useful." Valentin couldn't imagine a life in which his mind was connected to a limitless vastness that included millions of strangers, but as a bear whose clan was his heartbeat, he could understand it. "You didn't leave her here alone." Krychek had been delayed returning to him the first time around. Long enough to bring in someone to watch over Silver.
"No, he didn't." The woman who'd spoken had just walked over from where she'd been getting a glass of water not far down the corridor. Her language of choice was English, and she had a scent that was almost no scent. But to a bear, everyone had a scent, and she hadn't quite managed to erase every thread of hers. The subtle memory of soap, the natural body scent that was uniquely hers, a touch of roses.
He didn't have to ask her identity; this woman was Silver in fifty years. Her hair pure white and her eyes the same as his Starlight's, her facial bones fine, she was clearly a Mercant. And, if the rumors Valentin's third-eldest sister had heard were true, then she was probably the Mercant.
He took a chance. "Grandmother Mercant," he said in the same language she'd used, inclining his head slightly in acknowledgment of another alpha.
Silver's grandmother didn't display any surprise at his greeting, so regal, she clearly took it as her due that she'd be recognized--this despite the fact the head of the Mercant family preferred to stay firmly out of the limelight. Yes, the Mercant women were as tough as steel.
More than tough enough to handle bears.
"You have me at a disadvantage," was her polite but in no way warm response.
"Valentin Nikolaev," he said. "Alpha of the StoneWater clan."
"He was with Silver when she collapsed."
Grandmother Mercant's eyes bored into Valentin's on the heels of Krychek's words. "If my granddaughter survives, it'll be because of your quick actions." She shifted her attention to the cardinal who was the third point in their triangle. "Any response from the lab?"
"No," Krychek said, then paused. "I have the report. I'm sending it through."
Beyond the square of glass, Valentin saw a doctor lift up her head. She nodded once toward the window to acknowledge the telepathic message before beginning to issue orders to her staff.
Minutes turned to an hour, more.
Still, they waited.
The Human Patriot
HE DIDN'T CONSIDER himself a bad man. He wasn't in any way like the other self-centered bastards in the Consortium. They wanted to sow division and foster chaos because it would be better for their bottom line. He was disgusted by their greed, had accepted the Consortium's overture only because he intended to use the group to achieve his aims, aims formed of conscience and hope and love for his people.
To him, the Consortium was a tool to help him mount a righteous revolution. Yes, h
e made ruthless decisions when called for, but that was in business. In life, in politics, he acted on the conviction of his heart, and that heart was telling him the Trinity Accord would lead to the destruction of all that he held dear.
His beloved children, his accomplished and beautiful wife, they'd all be destroyed by this "proto-Federation" agreement being touted as a force for unity. Psy, humans, changelings, people of all three races would be equal, all have a say in the direction of the world.
"Bullshit."
He closed his hand into a tight fist on the aged cherrywood of his desk, the top inlaid with fine gold and semiprecious stones. It was a status symbol, this desk. Worth hundreds of times the yearly income of the common man on the street, it reminded him every day of what he'd achieved through determined intelligence . . . and the genetic luck of the draw.
Without the natural shield that protected his mind, he would long ago have become another casualty of Psy arrogance, another human psychically raped and violated by the emotionless, soulless bastards, his ideas and his freedom stolen.
His eyes went to the photo of his wife on his desk. So much light in her eyes. That had been before. She still laughed, she still loved, but she hadn't been the same since that horrific day when she'd come up with an invention a Psy coveted. The monster had stripped her clean before the man who loved her to the core of his being could find a way to protect her.
She no longer created, knowing it could be taken from her at any instant.
But they were supposed to believe the Psy were turning over a new leaf, that they'd suddenly begun to respect the sanctity of the human mind?
Throwing down the pen he'd picked up to sign a contract, he rose to his feet and, stepping out onto the balcony attached to his home study, looked down at the cool paradise of their white-tiled courtyard with its fountain in the center. His children's laughter drifted up from below, their small bodies hidden by the black plum trees that hung heavy with fruit.
"Papa! Papa!" His boy ran out from under the trees, held up a toy truck. "Come play!"
He smiled, his heart so full he could hardly bear it. "In a moment," he called down. "Let Papa finish his work first. We'll play afterward."
Happy with the promise, the boy returned to his play while a little girl jumped into the fountain in laughing delight. Wild, his daughter was, and the apple of his eye. How could it be otherwise when she was so like her mother? And his son, oh, he loved his son, too.
So much.
Enough to fight for a future where they wouldn't be used and discarded. Because if his informant was right, the Psy race desperately needed to harness human minds for some reason the informant hadn't yet been able to unearth. And whenever the Psy needed something from humans, the powerful psychic race just took it.
No more.
If that meant he had to become a monster himself, had to circumvent loyalties and buy betrayal, even order the death of a brilliant woman who--on the surface--appeared to have no bias in sending aid to various humanitarian crises around the world, so be it.
Silver Mercant and EmNet were one of the foundation stones on which Trinity was built. But that foundation stone was set to break, alongside several others.
Soon.
Chapter 2
Betrayal is a rusted sword that wounds long before the first cut is made.
--Lord Deryn Mercant (circa 1502)
THE DOCTOR--AN M-Psy--emerged two hours after Krychek had sent through the telepathic message about the details of the poison; Valentin was pacing the hallway, his bear shoving at the inside of his skin, its fur thick and heavy.
"She'll make a full recovery. No complications foreseen."
Valentin's lungs filled with air again, his chest expanding.
"Did you have to remove any of her organs?" The question came from Grandmother Mercant.
"No." The short, dark-haired doctor took a whisper-thin organizer from a nurse who'd just come through the doors at the other end of the corridor. "We pumped out her stomach, gave her the antidote, but because of the complexity of the poison, we had to monitor her responses and calibrate the antidote drop by drop."
A glance up from the medical file on the organizer. "She was lucky. The nutrients weren't close to digested, and she didn't get the full dose."
Valentin thought again of that half-full glass and of how long it had taken him to climb up to an open window on a lower floor of Silver's building. From there, it had been relatively easy to avoid the security cameras and get to Silver's floor. If he'd been just a minute too late . . . "When can we see her?"
The doctor didn't question his right to be there--apparently, being with the head of the Mercant family and Kaleb Krychek gave him instant credibility, even if he was dressed in ripped jeans and an old white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. That shirt had a drip of blue paint on one shoulder. He'd thought--once--about dressing up for Silver, but he figured if he was going to coax her to the bear side, he should go full bear mode.
No point in false advertising.
He couldn't wait for those cool eyes of hers to give him their usual critical once-over. Last visit, she'd offered to supply him with the name of a good seamstress who could patch up the holes in his jeans. The visit before that, she'd pointed out that most people stopped wearing their T-shirts long before the color faded to a "shade that can be best described as rag gray."
"According to these updated readings," the doctor said, her eyes on the organizer, "she should be conscious in ninety minutes to two hours. We'll be moving her into a recovery room shortly."
The three of them waited in silence while Silver was ensconced in a private room. Valentin watched her grandmother go inside to sit with her, made himself stay outside, though bear and man both wanted to thunder inside. He didn't even look through the partially open blinds on the window beside the door, as he hadn't looked when she was moved from the operating theatre to the recovery room.
Silver would not thank him for seeing her when she was so vulnerable.
Except he already had.
He groaned, the bass sound coming from deep within. "She is never going to forgive me for having witnessed her collapse."
Beside him, Krychek glanced at his watch, the cardinal Psy's dark hair gleaming in the overhead light. "Given the current time and the fact Silver keeps to a firm schedule unless she needs to adapt to fit a developing situation, you interrupted her at breakfast, thus saving her life."
"You think she'll see it that way?" Valentin asked on an excited burst of hope.
The other man didn't even pause to consider it. "No. You're out of luck."
Valentin narrowed his eyes, wondering if Krychek was laughing at him.
The cardinal was the coldest man he knew--but unlike Valentin, Kaleb Krychek had a woman who adored him. Sahara Kyriakus made no effort to hide her love for her mate. Valentin had seen her kissing Krychek right in the center of Red Square, her joy a bright light. Krychek hadn't so much as cracked a faint smile the entire time--but a man had to have a heart to win that of a woman who wore hers on her sleeve.
So, yes, his bear decided, it was quite possible Kaleb Krychek was laughing at him under that frigid exterior. "Thank you for nothing," he grumbled to the other man, before propping himself up against the nearest wall.
"Do you want a return teleport?"
"No, I'll wait." Just until Starlight was awake. He needed to see her chest rise and fall, hear the frosty control of her voice, feel the laser focus of her intelligence.
"Don't let Silver spot you, or any hope you have of her choosing to forget this incident will go up in smoke."
Now Valentin was certain Krychek was laughing at him. "Go count your fleas, you mangy wolf," he said on a deep rumble of sound emanating from his bearish side, the latter words the worst possible insult among StoneWater bears.
Krychek teleported out so fast, Valentin wasn't sure he'd heard. It probably hadn't been the most diplomatic thing to say to a cardinal of such brutal power, but Valentin
wasn't the least sorry about it--which was why he tended to leave the Krychek contacts to Anastasia. His eldest sister and second-in-command was much, much better at this type of thing.
Valentin was a "big, deranged grizzly," while Stasya was an "intelligent and thoughtful panda."
That description had come from his second-eldest sister, Nova. Forget that he, Stasya, Nova, and Nika--his third-eldest sister--were all Kamchatka brown bears, and pandas were so "thoughtful" they often took an hour to reply to a question. Apparently it was a metaphor. At least Nova hadn't called him an actual snearzhnyi chelovek. An alpha had to have some standards--his included not being called a yeti.
Or a wolf.
His impolitic nature was the reason why it had taken him so long to meet Silver. He'd just never gone to any Moscow meetings. Now, he went to every one where he knew she would be present. Stasya had thrown up her hands when he dug in his feet on the matter--then she'd given him duct tape. To put over his mouth whenever he felt like being his "lumbering beary self." End quote.
Valentin didn't lumber. Not unless he'd downed a few beers.
And none of those thoughts were keeping his mind off the woman in the room beyond the closed door.
When that door opened at long last, he found himself the focus of a steely gaze. "My name," Silver's grandmother said, "is Ena. But you may call me Grandmother."
Valentin was well aware he'd been granted a privilege. When he'd first greeted her that way, it had been because it was the most respectful address that came to mind. This, however, was permission to take a familial intimacy. While he didn't know anything of Ena beyond the fact she was the head of a powerful family, he knew enough of Silver to know this was serious business.
Women like Ena and Silver did not offer such things lightly.
"How's our girl doing, Grandmother?"
Ena Mercant stared at him for long minutes. "You're extremely brash. Nothing like the leopard alpha who's representing so many changeling groups in the Trinity Accord."
"There's a reason Lucas is our public face." It hadn't been a hard decision to trust Lucas Hunter to look after StoneWater's interests in the fledgling accord that sought to unite their divided world.