A man with disheveled dark blond hair exited in their wake, jogged to catch up with Amara. Samuel Rain. No one came after him, the nurses still inside.
Valentin and Ena had both risen to their feet at the first sign of the doors being opened. "How is she?" Valentin's bear wanted to rampage through those doors, grab hold of his Starlight.
"Stable." Ashaya's answer made him stagger inside.
"Then why aren't you smiling?"
Blue-gray eyes held his, sadness swirling in their depths. "I'm sorry, Valentin, but there is a close to hundred percent chance that her Silence will be flawless when she wakes."
"She's alive." That was what mattered. "And she still has her telepathy?" Silver would rather die than lose that.
"Unless there are unforeseen complications," Dr. Bashir said, "her telepathy should remain unaffected."
A single curl escaped the bun at Ashaya's nape to dance against her cheek. "The operation didn't go exactly as planned."
Ena stirred. "Explain."
"We couldn't cut the link between her audio telepathy and her emotions, couldn't even see the pathway that appeared to exist in the scans," Dr. Bashir began, the silver threads in his dark hair glinting in the overhead light. "As a result, we had to isolate the part of her that feels emotion."
"Dr. Bashir based his surgical intervention on the neural information Amara and I collected during the creation of the chip," Ashaya added, a fine tension to her jawline. "I just hope we weren't wrong."
"There's no reason to believe that," the surgeon said firmly. "The logic of the surgery is sound. We effectively sealed off every conduit going from the emotional center of her brain--it's now an island unconnected to any other part."
Ashaya's eyes never left Valentin's, the understanding in them stark. "Since the--albeit limited--data we have supports the assumption that audio telepathy does not exist in the absence of emotion, I feel confident in saying it's been neutralized."
"She's safe?" It was the only question to which he needed an answer.
Ashaya and Dr. Bashir both nodded.
My mate, my heart's sun, is safe.
It was Ena who spoke, and she spoke to him. "We knew it was a possibility that Silver might lose her emotions."
Valentin told her with his eyes that it was all right; he'd do everything in his power to help Starlight through this new part of her life. Even if it was one that meant leaving him behind.
Valentin didn't know how to stop loving someone.
Ena inclined her head very slightly in acknowledgment.
Ashaya's voice broke the silence filled with an unspoken understanding between an alpha bear and an alpha Psy. "The possible total loss of her emotions is why we discussed a remedial option with her."
The surgeon was more blunt in his response. "I seeded her brain with fine biofusion tendrils . . . though I think filament is the better term in this case, because these aren't offshoots of a larger biofusion implant."
Valentin didn't like the sound of any of that. "Why?" It came out so deep, he saw Dr. Bashir wince.
"The filaments integrate into the brain," Ashaya said, "become fused to it. Samuel and Dr. Bashir both saw the effect in the brain of another patient."
"You two need to be clearer," Ena said, her tone flat.
"In the course of his continuing work on creating a prosthetic--"
"--for Vasic Zen," Ena interrupted. "I assume the experimental biofusion gauntlet left the Arrow with artefacts in his brain that make ordinary options difficult. Why does any of that matter in Silver's case?"
"Because," Ashaya said, not taking Ena to task for having that privileged information, "Samuel inadvertently made a breakthrough that means his new second-generation filaments respond to conscious commands."
Valentin would be the first to admit he was no scientific mastermind, but he could put two and two together. "These things will let Silver, what, create new conduits?"
Dr. Bashir gave a hard nod, his dark eyes shining with a scientific fervor that told Valentin he'd enthusiastically embraced the fall of Silence. "With how untried the filaments are, the risk wouldn't be worth it to most people, but Silver's situation is unique--and she was adamant."
Valentin had no doubts at all about the latter. His Starlight knew her own mind. Always had. Always would.
"For example," Dr. Bashir continued, "if we did inadvertently damage her telepathic channels, she should be able to reintegrate them." The older man drew in the air with his hands. "We seeded her entire brain with the filaments--she has the materials to create bridges wherever necessary."
"Since Silver is more than smart enough not to want her audio telepathy back, that connection shouldn't be made." Ena stared at Ashaya rather than the surgeon. "Exactly how experimental are these filaments in my granddaughter's brain?"
"No ordinary medic would ever think of using them," the scientist said frankly. "The only reason we even offered Silver the option was the minor but possible risk of damage to her telepathy."
Ena continued to watch Ashaya without blinking. But Ashaya Aleine was mated to a very dominant leopard for a reason. She had the same kind of steel as Valentin's Starlight.
Not flinching under Ena's icy regard, she said, "Samuel has been obsessively testing the new filaments since he discovered what they can do. To ensure their safety, Dr. Bashir didn't insert anything like a battery into Silver's brain, nothing that would create energy or reroute her own energy to the filaments."
She paused, her eyes going from Ena to Valentin. When neither one of them interrupted, she continued, "That means it'll take intense focus on Silver's part to use the filaments, but it also means that if they fail, they'll simply lie dormant."
"How sure are you of that?" Valentin demanded, fighting the urge to grab the surgeon and scientist both and shake them for offering Starlight such a reckless choice. Didn't the idiots know that his Silver was a risk-taker? She hid it well under that cool, composed exterior, but his mate had a wild streak in her.
Look how she'd ended up in bed with a bear.
Dr. Bashir took a step back, his excitement fading under the force of Valentin's silent fury. "The only risk," he managed to say, "is that long-term, their presence might cause a reaction in the brain. Silver knew that, accepted it."
Squaring his shoulders, the doctor cautiously returned to his previous position. "I've seen dormant first-generation filaments in another brain--Vasic Zen's, since Mercants apparently know everything, exactly as rumored," he added sourly. "I have no qualms in saying the danger is negligible. The brain doesn't seem to notice them unless they're active."
Valentin glared at the surgeon, even as hope bounced up inside his heart like a hyperactive puppy. "Let me get this straight--if Silver chooses to feel emotion, she could do it without risk?"
It was Ashaya who answered. "As she'll be able to sense and test her own psychic pathways in a way no surgeon can, she could conceivably reconnect the emotional network to the rest of her brain without reconnecting the audio telepathy."
"Like a road built around a swamp," Dr. Bashir dared put in. "It'd still be there, but safely isolated."
"Or that's how it's supposed to work." Ashaya, her face drawn, slid her hands into the pockets of her surgical smock. "It's an experiment, but it's the best chance we could give her."
"I can see her in the Honeycomb." Ena's frigid voice. "How is that possible?"
"Her brother ensured the connection didn't fail during the operation, though I don't know the technical details of how," Ashaya replied. "Once she's conscious, she'll know it's in her best interest not to resist it. It should ameliorate the danger of sociopathy arising from a total lack of emotion."
Valentin thought of Arwen's smile when Silver had hugged him right before the operation, of the puppyish way the slick Psy male hung on his sister's every word. He'd be devastated by the change in her, now that he'd seen who she could be with emotion. But, as it did to Valentin, Silver's life meant far more to Arwen than his own hap
piness or sense of loss.
The only reason he wasn't waiting with Ena and Valentin was because he was covering for Ena's unexplained absence.
"Spasibo," Valentin said to both Ashaya and Dr. Bashir. "You saved an extraordinary life today." Of a woman who was already changing the world, and who would grow ever more brilliant as she grew into herself and into her strength. Valentin's heart would burst with pride for her, even as it broke. "Can we see her?"
"The nurses are moving her into an isolation room using a connected lift"--a nod back toward the surgical suite--"but Arwen will alert her to come to consciousness as soon as Dr. Bashir judges that she's stable enough to be awake," Ashaya told him. "You can see her then."
That time came too quickly and far too slowly. Ena gave Valentin an extraordinary gift by permitting him to be the first inside Silver's room. His mate's face was pale but beautiful under the network of monitoring wires woven into her hair. They'd shaved that glorious hair in a small square patch that would be easy to hide until it grew back--that'd be important to his Starlight.
Not because of vanity, but because it was part of her armor.
Her lashes lifted at that moment, the fuzziness of a psychic deep sleep rapidly replaced by acute intelligence.
"Hello, Starlight." He went to take her hand.
She curled it away from him.
A punch with a stone fist wouldn't have hurt more. His bear dropped its head, backed off. Swallowing the hurt, because she was alive, was breathing, he curled his own hand to his side. "You're okay?"
When Silver spoke, her voice was raspy but otherwise strong. "My mental acuity and telepathic reach are undamaged."
"The audio telepathy?"
"Dead." A long pause, her eyes on him. "I remember our relationship together," she said at last, "but I feel no compulsion to re-create it. I can no longer even understand why I acted in such an irrational manner." She stopped speaking only long enough to swallow, wet her throat. "I recall asking for biofusion filaments to be put in my brain."
The puppy inside him, the hopeful innocence, it trembled. "Dr. Bashir got them in."
"I won't be using them." Silver's voice was toneless in a way it had never been, not even when she was shutting her apartment door in his face. "I don't know why the woman I was wanted to feel emotion again--her memories are like those of another species altogether. Do you understand?"
"Yes, solnyshko moyo, I get it." It crushed man and bear both to hear her speak to him as if he were some random person on the street, but seeing her chest rise and fall, seeing her free of the agony that had brought her to tears, it was worth every second of heartache.
"I just came to see for myself that the operation was a success." Unable to resist, he sneaked a touch of a strand of her hair that was spread out on the pillow. "Remember what I said--if you ever need me, all you have to do is say the word."
Silver Mercant, the woman who was his and yet, paradoxically, who might never be his again, said, "I appreciate all you did for me, Alpha Nikolaev. Without you I may never have contacted Ashaya Aleine. I am in your debt."
He went to say there were no debts between them, decided to hell with that. Fighting fair wasn't on the agenda. Not today, not any fucking day until his heart physically gave up. His bear, wounded but determined, rose up on its feet, stared out of eyes he knew had shifted to amber. "Ten dates." He rumbled deep in his throat. "You owe me those."
"I'll keep my word," she said in the toneless voice that made him want to bellow in uncivilized rage, "but the outcome is guaranteed."
"Then you have nothing to lose by holding to our terms."
Chapter 40
Love will find its way
Through paths where wolves would fear to prey
--From "The Giaour" by Lord Byron, Psy, poet, lover, & soldier (d. 1824)
IT WASN'T UNTIL Valentin was on his knees in the forest a day after the surgery, a bearish roar erupting from his mouth, that he realized one critical thing: His heart was battered black and blue with bruises, but it wasn't broken . . . because the mating bond was gone and not gone at the same time.
What?
He froze in place.
Silver's frost and fire was missing inside him, but he didn't feel empty. He should. He poked at the wound. Blya, it hurt! But he wasn't numb, wasn't lost. He poked again, just to be sure. "Fuck!"
Sulking at the pain because it meant his mate wasn't with him, he sat there in the fallen leaves and tried to make sense of something that didn't make sense. Changelings who lost their mates through death or other causes, yet managed to hold on to life, were faded shadows of themselves. Valentin's mother wasn't whole even after all these years. She functioned, but that was it.
In contrast, Valentin was so angry and in pain and missing Silver as if he'd lost a limb, but he wasn't fundamentally broken. His bear wasn't anywhere close to insane. In fact, that bear was decidedly grumpy . . . but it remained firmly convinced that Silver was its mate.
That puppyish hope sat up again, wagging its stubby tail. If the mate bond wasn't broken, then Silver couldn't be totally Silent, no matter what everyone believed. They'd said it themselves--the brain was a complicated organ.
Valentin scowled at the puppy. He was a damn alpha bear; he wasn't a puppy. "Zatknis'!" But the stupid thing wouldn't shut up. "Yip, yip, yip!" It danced inside his heart. Getting up off his knees because it was annoying him, he threw back his head and made a loud sound that caused the smaller creatures in the forest to go motionless.
That shut the puppy up--for about a minute.
Then . . . "yip."
"Grr!" Giving up, he found his phone, which he'd managed not to mangle--Silver might call him on it--and contacted Arwen.
Silver's brother had given Valentin his code before the operation, saying, "You love my sister. You'll hurt when she's Silent. Call me if you wish to talk."
Valentin had the feeling the other man was the one who needed to talk. Right now, Valentin wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone except his mate, but he needed this question answered. "Arwen," he said without explanation when Silver's brother accepted the call. "Can you still sense my bond with Silver?" Silver had told him she'd hidden it to protect it from curious eyes, but that Arwen, connected to her in the Honeycomb, could "see" it through his empathy.
"No." The empath's voice was carefully gentle. "It's gone."
No. It wasn't.
"It's there." Valentin set his feet apart, prepared to become an immovable wall. "I don't know how, but it's there."
"I wish I could say it was, because that would mean my sister was whole and herself, but it's not, Alpha Nikolaev."
Valentin's scowl grew deeper. "The audio telepathy? It's definitely dead?" That mattered more than his hope or Arwen's need.
"Oh, yes." Arwen's voice dropped. "My sister is . . . different, more Silent than the Silent. More Silent than I've ever known her to be." A long pause, the next words shaky. "I miss her."
So did Valentin. Every second, every minute, every hour. "You doing okay?"
"Yes."
"Stop lying. You're hurting." Bruised though it was, Valentin's alpha heart responded to the pain of a man who was now part of his family. "You know I won't betray you. Silver loves you. I'll protect you for that alone."
A shuddering breath. "Yes, I'm hurting." The answer was fractured. "I'm trying to contain it for my grandmother's sake, but it feels as if I've lost part of myself. Grandmother is as strong as always, but-- I shouldn't be speaking of family matters with you."
"You know I'm family, Arwen." No matter what, his soul was linked forever to Silver's. "Ena having a tough time?"
"Tougher than I expected. I thought she'd appreciate Silver's perfect Silence, but . . . she's sad that Silver's lost part of herself. Grandmother would never describe it as sadness, but I know it's there, like I've always known she would fight to the death to protect me and Silver."
"I'll talk to her."
"Grandmother isn't likely to appreciate it,
" Arwen said, his tone distinctly dubious.
"Don't worry, Arwen. I have a way with tough Mercant women." Hanging up to a strangled sound from the other man, Valentin headed to Denhome.
Sergey was the first person he saw. The other man gave him a stiff nod, followed by a scowl. "It's not my business, Valya, but where's your mate? Did you make her angry enough to leave you already?"
Had the question been asked in aggression, Valentin would've given him a response no one would've ever forgotten. But Sergey had spoken with unusual hesitation, with worry from a senior member of the clan to his alpha.
Valentin clamped him on the shoulder. "She's as dangerous as a bear when she's riled." The clan would understand a pissed-off mate. "I'm working on it."
A laughing grin. "In that case, I wish you well. I once had to chase my mate halfway across Siberia so I could beg her forgiveness. Worth the frozen balls."
*
TWO hours later, when Valentin got into the car to drive to the hotel where Ena was staying in Moscow, he wished this was as easy as Silver being angry with him.
Courting her the first time around wasn't exactly easy, he reminded himself.
He was an alpha bear.
He had balls big enough to handle rejection.
Even as he grinned, even as his bear postured inside him, his heart ached. Because he, more than anyone, knew that sometimes, love wasn't enough.
Sometimes, people changed so deeply that the change broke love itself.
PART 2
The Human Alpha
BO WAS RUNNING late for the early morning meeting with Krychek. The Psy telekinetic had messaged him only minutes earlier to ask if they could talk at a nearby building where he had another meeting; he'd asked Bo to bring Lily along, as he wanted to discuss a forthcoming Ruling Coalition media announcement.
Bo had tried to call him to see if they could reschedule for a little later in the day, but it had gone straight to voice mail. Given the importance of what Krychek probably wanted to discuss, he'd sent through a message that he was on his way. Halfway there, he got a confirmation message from the telekinetic: In meeting. Will be done by the time you arrive. I appreciate your time.