Last Guard

by Nalini Singh

  In point of fact, all her public-facing records listed her as a Tk.

  Canto Mercant shouldn’t have the data on her true status. She certainly hadn’t known the Mercants had an anchor in their midst. Not only an anchor but a hub, born to merge into the fabric of the PsyNet. Chances were Canto Mercant was a cardinal.

  Non-cardinal hub-anchors were rare inside an already rare designation.

  Setting aside her organizer on her desk, she used her intercom to contact her assistant: Ruhi, bring me our files on the Mercants.

  Before

  Severe behavioral and psychic problems that manifest in physical disobedience. No medical issues found to explain sudden bouts of uncoordinated motion, loss of balance, and apparent migraines that lead to blackouts.

  Full re-education authorized by legal guardian.

  —Intake Report: 7J

  THE BOY FOUGHT against the psychic walls that blocked him in, made him helpless. His brain burned, a bruise hot and aching, but he couldn’t get through, couldn’t shatter the chains that caged his child’s mind.

  “Stand!” It was a harsh order.

  He’d long ago stopped trying to resist the orders—better to save his energy for more useful rebellion—but he couldn’t follow this one. No matter how hard he tried, his legs wouldn’t move, wouldn’t even twitch anymore.

  He’d been able to drag himself through the corridors earlier that day, even though pain had been a hot poker up his spine, and his legs had felt as numb and as heavy as dead logs. Now he couldn’t even feel them. But he kept on trying, his brain struggling to understand the truth.

  Nothing. No movement. No sensation.

  Each failure brought with it a fresh wave of terror that had nothing to do with his tormentor.

  “You think this is a game? You were warned what would happen if you kept up this charade!”

  A telekinetic hand around his small neck, lifting him up off the schoolroom floor and slamming him to the wall. The teacher then walked close to him and used an object he couldn’t see to physically smash his tibia in two.

  He should’ve felt incredible pain.

  He felt nothing.

  Terror might’ve eaten his brain had he not become aware that the man who’d hurt him was stumbling back, clutching at his neck, while children screamed and small feet thundered out the door. Thick dark red fluid gushed between the teacher’s fingers, dripped down his uniform.

  As the man stumbled away, the child crumpled to the ground, the trainer’s telekinesis no longer holding him up.

  No pain, even now.

  He should’ve been scared, should’ve worried. But his entire attention was on the wild-haired little girl who’d jumped up onto a desk to thrust a sharpened toothbrush into the teacher’s jugular. “Run!” he cried. “Run!”

  Chapter 2

  “The boy has encompassed the newborn in his shields.”

  “Is the infant under threat?”

  “Unknown.”

  —Ena Mercant to Magdalene Mercant (February 2054)

  CANTO HAD NO way to confirm if Payal Rao had read—or even received—his message. He’d embedded a subtle tracker in the e-mail so he’d know when it was opened, but it had been neutralized at some point in the process. It had been a long shot regardless—Payal wasn’t the head of the biggest energy conglomerate in Southeast Asia and India because she was anything less than icily intelligent.

  Two of the other hub-anchors he’d contacted had already responded to him, wary but interested. But for this to work, they needed Payal. Canto and the other hubs on his list were outliers in their designation because of how functional they were in external spheres. Payal, however, was the one who’d automatically garner immediate respect from the most ruthless players in the Net.

  He looked once again at the image of her he had onscreen, though he’d told himself to stop obsessing years back, when he’d first done a run on her. She was of Indian descent. And she was a cardinal. Those were the only two traits she shared with 3K. That small girl had been a storm of emotion and passion, nothing about her contained and sophisticated.

  Children changed, grew up. But for 3K to be Payal Rao, she’d have to have had a total personality and temperament transplant. No, she wasn’t the one for whom Canto searched—and fuck, yes, he knew 3K had to be dead, but he couldn’t stop looking. She’d saved him. How could he just abandon her?

  But whoever 3K had been, her family had scrubbed her from the system with such brutality that even the might of the entire Mercant network hadn’t been able to locate her. Canto might have begun to doubt his memories and believe her a ghost—but he had a scar over his left tibia that was a physical reminder of the warped “school” that had been his home for five hellish months that had altered the course of his life.

  Payal Rao, in contrast, had been educated at a private girls’ school in Delhi. Because he was obsessive, he’d checked the records, even located the class photographs.

  There she was on the attendance rolls and in the images. The photos from her earlier years were blurry and of low-resolution—that had raised his suspicions until he’d looked back and seen that all the school’s uploads from that period were of the same low quality. Her name had also shown up on athletic and extracurricular lists.

  According to Canto’s grandmother, Payal had even been considered for a Council position at one point. “Nothing official,” Ena had said. “But Santano Enrique noticed her intelligence and ambition. In the end, the Council decided that Gia Khan and Kaleb made the better candidates. My guess is it’s because Payal appears to have a black-and-white view of the world. Gray isn’t her strong point.”

  And politics in the time of the Council had been all about the gray. Canto could do gray—he was a Mercant, after all—but not only did he prefer the shadows, Payal had a presence about her that couldn’t be counterfeited. She took over a room, was a cold burn of determination.

  Canto wanted that icy flame on their side.

  He wasn’t planning to give up if she didn’t respond. This was too important.

  “Mercants never give up,” Valentin had rumbled to Canto once. “You just get sneaky.” A scowl on the bear alpha’s square-jawed face. “Sneaky-cat Mercants.” Then he’d smiled with unhidden delight. “Beautiful sneaky-cat Mercants. My sneaky-cat Mercant.”

  Canto hadn’t needed to turn to see that Silver was walking toward them. Valentin Nikolaev made no bones about the fact that he was madly in love with his mate. To most people, Silver probably appeared cool and standoffish in return. Most people didn’t know Canto’s younger cousin.

  Silver would cut out the heart of anyone who dared hurt Valentin.

  It had been unexpected to see her fall—yet not at the same time. Because Canto knew about Arwen, about the Mercant who’d altered the course of the Mercant family . . . altered the shape of Canto’s heart.

  Without 3K, he’d be dead.

  Without Arwen, he’d be a bitter, twisted monster.

  He’d protected Arwen in turn, paid back that gift. He’d never been able to do anything for 3K, and it would haunt him till the day he died.

  “Fruitless obsession will lead you to your grave, Canto,” he muttered, repeating words his grandmother had said to him.

  Ena had also added: “Mercants have a gift for obsession. It’s led to prison sentences, epic heroism, great works of art, and madhouses. Choose your path.”

  Turning to the screen to the left of his workstation with a scowl, he brought up the Trinity Accord Convention newsfeed. As he watched, Silver delivered her speech with poise and confidence. She gave no indication that she was in any way intimidated by being in a physical forum filled with the intelligentsia of all three of the world’s races.

  Psy. Changeling. Human.

  Neither did she appear the least ruffled by the knowledge that her speech was being bro
adcast to every corner of the globe. As director of EmNet, the worldwide Emergency Response Network, she’d learned to live in the spotlight and use it to advance the aims of EmNet.

  “We will fail if we permit petty squabbles and power plays to divide us. There are those who are counting on your minds and hearts being small and mean and without generosity. They intend to break the world by putting pressure on those fracture points. Do not allow it.”

  She walked off the stage on that crisp order.

  Pushing away from the main workstation, Canto rolled back the wheels of the chair designed for his long and solid frame. It had a hover function for those times when access was otherwise impossible—but as he’d wanted a streamlined chair devoid of armrests, those controls, as well as his backup computronic brake controls, were on a small side panel on the right-hand side of his seat.

  Black on black, the panel mimicked the curve of his wheel and looked at first glance to be nothing more than a design feature. As it was, Canto rarely used the hover mode, far preferring to manually operate the chair.

  The constant physical motion helped keep his upper body strong. Not that he relied only on that. He’d set up a full gym in another section of his home, complete with a robotic physiotherapy device that helped him exercise the legs that were a part of his body, but that he couldn’t feel.

  He had, however, long ago rejected the full-body robotic brace designed for bipedal motion. Of a far more streamlined design than in its original iterations, the brace worked well for many. Canto wasn’t one of those people. The few times he’d tried it, he’d felt as if he had insects dancing on his spine and buzzing in his brain.

  “Electro-biogen-feedback loop,” the robotics expert had muttered. “Might be caused by the innovative wiring in your spine.”

  Whatever the cause, Canto far preferred his sleek black chair with its highly maneuverable wheels. Heading to another area of his large, windowless, and temperature-controlled office area—a place Arwen had termed his “computronic dungeon”—he picked up his phone and sent a message to Silver: You were brilliant.

  Pride was a conflagration inside him.

  Canto had said “fuck it” to Silence long before its official fall. That was what happened when a child empath lived inside your airtight anchor shields, and the PsyNet flowed through your mind in an endless river, bringing with it the flotsam and jetsam of the lives of millions of people, powerful and weak, brave and cowardly, good and bad.

  Then there’d been his childhood—the school had been the final part of a play that had run since his birth, and it had nearly broken him. Without 3K, without the example of her stubborn fury and refusal to surrender, he might have given up. But if she, so small and physically far weaker, could fight on, he had no excuse. But the fight had burned any hope of Silence right out of him—he’d run on pure rage.

  Sometimes, in his dreams, he still heard 3K laugh, though he’d only ever heard it once in real life. In a moment when their teacher had turned his back and Canto had made a face mimicking the man’s bulging eyes and puffed-out cheeks when he laid down the rules.

  Bright, brilliant laughter, unafraid and wild.

  She’d been the strongest of them all. And the people in charge had hurt her for it.

  Not expecting a quick response from Silver, he was turning his attention to one of his multiple screens when his phone chimed. He glanced at it to see: Zdravstvuyte, Canto. Silver’s talking to the brains. She was dazzling, wasn’t she? My magnificent Starlight who takes no prisoners.

  Temperamentally, Valentin was at the opposite end of the spectrum from Canto. “You now hold permanent grump status,” Arwen had declared of Canto a month ago. “Silence falls, no more threat of psychic rehabilitation hanging over us for daring to feel, and instead of choosing sunshine, you decide to ramp up the surly. Repent now or I’ll never visit again.”

  Canto had scowled. Arwen had groaned. And continued to drop by with ferocious regularity. Empaths. Once they decided you were one of their people, it was like trying to shake off a tick.

  Arwen had grinned when Canto muttered that, then returned to opening up the box of new shirts he’d bought as a gift: “Because your definition of acceptable clothing offends my eyes, Canto. That shirt isn’t frayed—it’s a sorry bunch of threads held together by nothing but fear of your bad mood.”

  Yet Canto and Valentin got along fine. More than fine. Strange as it was, they were becoming friends. Yes, he replied to the bear. It’s good you’re with her. There are problematic ripples in the PsyNet. Eyes looking her way.

  Silver wasn’t the only target of those eyes, either, and he’d received the vague impression that she and the others being watched were in the way of some larger goal. But it was all foggy and without edges, much like the fortunes peddled by weak F-Psy who set themselves up as high-Gradients in order to scam the gullible.

  That was the trouble with having so much of the PsyNet running through his mind; he didn’t always catch anything but the merest wisp of information. Even then, he had to fight hard to hold on to it, the rush of the Net a massive waterfall that pounded at the back of his brain every instant of every day.

  He dreamed of thunder in his sleep and woke to an avalanche.

  We have her protected on all sides, Valentin reassured him. Physical and psychic. Now I have to go and remind two idiots that she is mated and they should stop making cow eyes at her. We will talk again soon.

  Had Valentin not known Canto so well, that last line might as well have been a threat—the bear version of “talk again soon” was “we’re throwing a party and you’re invited!” Canto had survived one bear party so far—the one the StoneWater clan had thrown to celebrate their alpha’s mating to Silver. It had been . . . an experience.

  At one point, he’d ended up with a drunk bear changeling in human form on his lap. Dressed in sequined shorts and an equally dazzling top, she’d regaled him with stories of how she’d “slapped the smug” out of two bear males who’d thought they could beat her in a fight. She’d then fallen asleep with her head against his shoulder.

  Canto had taken her to one of Valentin’s sisters.

  Stasya had laughed and thrown her snoring packmate over her shoulder. “Sorry, Canto. You’re cute, no? Many of my packmates want to take you to bed, and they think they’re being subtle and flirtatious.”

  A subtle bear?

  Canto snorted.

  Not that he minded the bear tendency toward openness. For a man whose work was to trawl the darkest shadows, it was refreshing to interact with people who wore their hearts on their sleeves and made no bones about showing anger or fury, either.

  As for the rest—well, his hair was currently in a brutally neat cut, but given that he only shaved when his scruff got itchy, and his face was all hard angles, he’d never before been described as “cute.” But he accepted that there was a lot he’d never understand about bears and left it at that.

  When it came to the bed part of Stasya’s comment, Canto already had the PsyNet rushing through his mind each and every second of the day. He barely tolerated even the people he liked. He didn’t have the desire or the capacity to have anyone else that close to him for any appreciable length of time.

  Anchors were loners for a reason.

  Now he had to make them into a working unit. Or they would die. All of them.

  DRAFT FRAMEWORK OF FERNANDEZ-MERCANT FERTILIZATION AND CONCEPTION AGREEMENT: 7 MARCH 2044

  Preamble: The aim of this advice letter is to set out the main points of the proposed contract between Binh Fernandez and Magdalene Mercant for the procreation of a child for each party from their shared genetic material.

  Our firm has also been asked to do further research and provide a concluding opinion, which is appended to the end of this draft framework.

  Fertilization: Sperm will be provided by Binh Fernandez within three months of
the final agreement, at a mutually agreed-upon medical facility, under the supervision of Fernandez-and-Mercant-approved medics.

  Eggs will be extracted from Magdalene Mercant one week prior to the date above.

  Once both parties have provided their genetic material, one viable embryo will be created and implanted in Magdalene Mercant’s womb within a medically suitable time period. Given the current success rates of implantation, failure is unlikely, but should that occur, two more attempts will be made.

  Should all three fail, this genetic match will be deemed unsuitable, and all remaining genetic material destroyed. The fertilization and conception contract will then be voided on a no-fault basis except for Binh Fernandez’s financial obligations as follows.

  Financial Agreement: As this is a dual fertilization/conception agreement, neither party will pay the other a fee. Magdalene Mercant will carry each child to term. In recompense for that physical risk and task, Binh Fernandez will pay any and all associated medical expenses. This includes pre- and post-natal care, as well as the costs involved in egg extraction and implantation attempts. Failure of implantation will not discharge Binh Fernandez from such financial obligations.

  Issue: Binh Fernandez will have full custodial and parental rights to the first child carried successfully to term. Magdalene Mercant will have full custodial and parental rights to the second child carried successfully to term.

  Dissolution: The proposed contract will end:

  after the birth of the second child, at which point, Binh Fernandez will no longer have any financial obligations to Magdalene Mercant excepting any post-natal care prescribed by her physician up to six months post-birth; or

  after the failure to achieve a second pregnancy after three attempts*; or

  after the birth of the first child, if that first child displays physical or mental abnormalities—or if the child is stillborn. At that point, the genetic match will be deemed deficient, and both parties will be absolved of any further obligation under the contract excepting any post-natal care prescribed by Magdalene Mercant’s physician up to six months post-birth. Should the child be born alive, it will become part of Binh Fernandez’s family.