Last Guard

by Nalini Singh

  “I’ll get you home.” He opened the buttons of his shirt so the cub could lie against his skin—such contact was important to changelings, especially such a small and scared one. “You know you’re safe.” He couldn’t yet recognize most bears in their bear form, but he knew the child must’ve met him when he’d visited Denhome.

  Even a lost, scared changeling child wouldn’t have run so joyfully toward a stranger. Kid must’ve caught his scent by the house, come toward it out of panic.

  “Come on, let’s go call your pack.” It came out rougher than he’d intended, but the cub didn’t flinch. Used to grumbling bear voices, it snuggled closer to the vibration of his chest and dug small claws into his chest to hold on—but the child was careful not to pierce his skin. This was someone’s baby; they’d been taught their manners.

  Spotting the food at that instant, the cub made hungry sounds but didn’t pounce.

  He put the cub on the sofa. “Sit here. I’m getting something.” He was aware of the cub getting to its feet and watching him over the top of the sofa as he went into the kitchen. All the counters in the space were hydraulic, so they could be raised or lowered at will. Mostly, they stayed set to the levels he preferred, but the system gave him the flexibility to accommodate Arwen—his cousin loved to cook. Not that a lack of customization had ever stopped Arwen; for Canto’s last place, he’d just gone ahead and bought himself a riser that he’d placed on any surface where he wanted to work standing up.

  Stubborn empath.

  Now Canto grabbed the jar of hazelnut-chocolate spread that same stubborn empath had bought him. He’d tried it once and nearly died from the sugar overdose.

  But the cub jumped happily when he held it up.

  Satisfied he was handling this in a way that wouldn’t traumatize the kid, he went back around and shifted himself from his chair to the sofa. The cub immediately snuggled itself to his side, where the child waited patiently while Canto put the spread on a piece of toast.

  The cub ate neatly after Canto offered it to him.

  He was about to dig out his phone when a much larger figure jumped onto his deck.

  Chapter 24

  Dear Canto,

  Attached is a drawing Dima made for you. He tells me it’s of you if you were a bear. He thinks you would make a good bear. He wanted me to make sure you noticed the stars in the bear’s eyes, because it’s a cardinal bear.

  He’s frowning because he didn’t get your bear-sized wheelchair exactly as he wanted, but he is very proud of the rocket he put on the back—so you can “go zoom faster.” He is on tenterhooks awaiting your response.

  Love, Nova

  —Note from Dima’s mother, Nova, on his behalf

  CANTO WAS READY to strike out with his mind, the protective urge pure instinct born of a time when he’d protected another child, but one glance and he stood down. He didn’t much know what to do with small bears, but the man who entered the living area the next second was an expert.

  The cub beside Canto abandoned its half-eaten toast on the table and jumped toward Valentin. The bear alpha caught the desperate cub close to his bare chest, his body devoid of clothing. He must’ve been in bear form before shifting to climb up to the deck—Valentin was huge as a bear, and Canto was fairly sure he couldn’t climb in that form.

  The alpha bear was currently growling out a stream of Russian. Canto had a good command of the language, enough to know the words were a mix of reassurance and rebuke. The cub clung to Valentin.

  Canto, meanwhile, got back in his chair and went to find something Valentin could put around himself. Changelings were confident naked, since they came out of the shift in that state, but Canto hadn’t yet been around them enough to be nonchalant about it. He settled on a large bath towel.

  “Spasibo,” Valentin said when Canto emerged with the towel. Leaving the cub to cling to him—the child had half climbed onto his shoulder by this point—Valentin grabbed the towel out of the air when Canto threw it, and wrapped it around his waist.

  After which, he kissed the cub on its furry face, then pulled it around to sit on his lap as he took a seat on the sofa. “Eat,” he said, picking up and passing over the half-eaten toast.

  Only after the cub was eating with careful paws did Valentin say, “This troublemaker’s family went for a morning walk together, but he decided to wander off while his parents were distracted pulling his twin from a mudhole she’d somehow managed to discover. All my life I’ve lived here and I’ve never found a mudhole that big.” Valentin shook his head. “The cubs have radar.”

  When Canto tapped the side of his nose, not sure if he should ask the question aloud, Valentin said, “He’s too young—and he decided to cross a few streams after getting disoriented.”

  So his parents couldn’t track him, and the cub’s own sense of smell wasn’t well developed enough to lead him home. Yet Valentin had found him. Because whatever it was that created a pack alpha, it included a wild kind of psychic bond. “His parents must be frantic.”

  “Can I borrow your phone? I need to call them. They’re searching, too.”

  Canto passed over the device and Valentin made the call. The cub’s ears pricked up at whatever he heard from the device, because Valentin pressed the phone to one furry ear afterward.

  The sounds the cub made were—okay, fine, they were cute. Though Canto would go to his grave never saying that word aloud.

  Valentin ended the call by assuring the boy’s parents he’d bring their boy to them.

  The cub went through two pieces of toast loaded with the spread before curling up against Valentin’s chest and falling fast asleep.

  Small snores erupted from his furry body.

  The bear alpha shook his head, his eyes still the amber of his bear. “Canto, never ever have cubs. They will drive you insane, I promise you this. I am swearing off them.” The words were a verifiable lie, because the alpha then pressed his lips to the top of the sleeping boy’s head.

  “Will he be all right?” Canto hated seeing children afraid.

  “A little scare won’t keep this future tiny gangster down for long.” A petting stroke of the boy’s back. “But he is going to be grounded for a while to teach him that cubs have to follow rules set for their own good. He’s barely beyond a baby, far too young to go roaming on his own.”

  Bear eyes held Canto’s, the power in them a primal thing that made his skin prickle. “It’s good you’re here. To have a friend on our public border, it’s something we appreciate.”

  “Like you said, we’re family.” Canto’s grandmother had famously said that trust to a Mercant was a “complicated thing” that required “years of acquaintance, several background checks, and a probationary period.” The bears had flown way over that barrier—and not simply because Silver was mated to Valentin, and Arwen was tangled up with Pavel.

  “It’s because of their innate goodness,” his grandmother had said to Canto after she first visited Denhome. “I know they’re big and tough and that Valentin could bloody us both in battle—and yes, there might be some with evil in their hearts, but that isn’t their natural inclination.

  “Now that Silver is part of their pack, they’ll defend her with their own lives without hesitation—and they will love her with every cell of those big hearts. We must honor that—for one of us to betray one of StoneWater would be a grave insult against the integrity and loyalty that is at the core of our family.”

  Canto hadn’t understood then. Then he’d met the bears, seen the openness with which they embraced the world, and wanted to put up a fence around their entire territory so no one could ever hurt their huge hearts.

  Valentin’s was the biggest of them all.

  Mercants, in comparison, were cynical and skeptical when it came to dealing with anyone outside their family unit. Now Canto and the others had taken on the task of being cynical o
n the bears’ behalf, too. He felt the same protective urge toward Payal, but it was deeper, stronger, more primal.

  “I better go,” Valentin said, but it was only once they were downstairs and by the front door that he added, “Canto, I scented a stranger in your living space. Is all well?”

  “A friend. A teleport-capable Tk.” It was too simple a word for what was going on with Payal, but it’d do as a placeholder. “I didn’t think you’d consider it a security risk on this part of the border, but after this . . .” He nodded at the cub.

  “This doesn’t alter the security situation,” Valentin said. “To have a cub stumble so far out without being spotted by a sentry is so unusual that this is the first time it’s happened in my memory. You can feel free to invite your friends.” He raised an eyebrow, a faint smile edging his lips. “A woman, yes?”

  Canto scowled. “I hate changeling noses.”

  Valentin’s laughter was a boom that made the cub in his arms startle awake and try to join in, its voice far higher-pitched. And goddamn it, adorable. Chuckling, Valentin kissed the cub’s head before handing him over to Canto and dropping the towel aside. He shifted in a shower of light.

  When Canto next looked, a huge Kamchatka bear stood where the man had been. It shook its body as if settling its fur into place. Waiting until the bear glanced at him, Canto placed the cub on his back, where the boy took a solid grip. Valentin left with a nod, a predator who could move with lethal speed despite his size.

  Canto watched after him, still with that inexplicable sense of protectiveness in his gut. Sometimes danger didn’t come from the biggest and most obvious predators. Sometimes it came from the quieter, deadlier ones.

  He knew Payal was one of those quieter, deadlier threats.

  He also knew that she’d fight with vicious fury to protect the innocent. It was part of her core, unalterable and forever. His 3K was still alive beyond the carapace Payal had created to protect her bruised and abused heart.

  His wrist unit vibrated discreetly. A surveillance alert. Lalit Rao had just made an interesting financial maneuver. Canto’s eyes narrowed. He knew what the other man was doing—attempting to box Payal out. He wouldn’t succeed, but he might make things difficult for her if he got enough others on his side.

  He tapped out a message to Payal with the info.

  * * *

  • • •

  PAYAL didn’t teleport to her apartment after leaving Canto’s house. She went to the desert oasis. Her brain was a place of jittery chaos; she needed to find her cool, calm center again. Locating an area in the garden she hadn’t already mathematically balanced, she began to move things around.

  As she restructured and reconfigured under the brilliant desert sun that almost hurt the eye, she didn’t try to think, just let herself be.

  Until at last she could breathe, her heartbeat no longer irregular and her skin temperature even.

  You’re not a child anymore.

  Canto’s words reverberated in her soul. She’d never considered that there might be another way, that controlling her aberrant tendencies didn’t have to be a brutal crushing hammer, that a more subtle approach might work as well.

  Nothing but a false hope, whispered another part of her. It’s a thing of madness you carry inside you. That’s why your father put you in that place.

  “No.” Payal would not permit that old voice to rear its ugly head. Yes, she’d been unstable, but she’d also had a brother who’d tortured her, until the only way she could fight was to lose herself and turn into a berserker.

  This was a far different situation.

  She wasn’t a child—and the empaths were brilliant lights in the world. They hadn’t been permitted to exist openly during her childhood, and even if they had been, her father would’ve never taken her to see one. Too high a risk of exposure, he’d have said, too high a chance she’d become known as defective.

  Yet in the time since the Empathic Collective came into being, Payal had heard of no leaks of personal psychological information. None. The empaths of the Collective took their vow of privacy dead seriously.

  Canto had also offered to introduce her to an empath who would hold all her secrets, but if Payal did this, she’d choose her own E. Not because she believed Canto would point her toward anyone less than stellar, but because this had to be on her. She had to make the choice—as she’d made the choice as a child, to cage the screaming girl.

  Canto had trusted her.

  A sudden, panicked reminder of the act that had shattered her psychic distance, turned her manic.

  No one ever just trusted anyone.

  That wasn’t how the world worked.

  People maneuvered and negotiated and formed alliances for specified endeavors. As she, Canto, Arran, Suriana, Ager, and Bjorn had done on the anchor issue. As 3K and 7J had done in that long-ago past. It had been about survival; they’d clung to each other because they’d had no one else.

  But this, what had just happened . . .

  Was it possible that despite everything, he was setting up a cunning double cross? Had he researched her brain, figured out that this tactic would confuse and put her off-balance? The Mercants were known for their ability to get their hands on information, and Canto was a key player in that network.

  There was logic to her train of thought for a woman who’d grown up in a family where trust was considered a fatal weakness. It was easy to believe that Canto Mercant was playing a dangerous and finely balanced game.

  Eat.

  His care was a rough echo in her head. No one but Kari cared about Payal. Yet Canto had watched over her while she’d been at her most vulnerable; he’d taken no advantage. Not once.

  She’d shown him her madness, and he hadn’t been disgusted as her father had been disgusted with her as a child. He hadn’t gotten an avaricious gleam in his eye as Lalit had done when he realized he could push and manipulate his younger sister by activating particular emotional triggers.

  Canto had looked at her as he always did, with an amalgam of what she wanted to see as fascination and tenderness—mixed with a little aggravated frustration. The latter element made her memories seem more real, more quintessentially him. She could almost hear the gruff rumble of his voice.

  He’d also asked her to look within, see if she needed to stay inside the prison she’d built for herself. He hadn’t told her she was wrong, that her brain wasn’t strong enough to make such decisions. He’d just asked her to look again at a problem she’d solved in childhood, to check if she could structure a more elegant solution.

  Her head hurt, nothing fitting quite right.

  After one last look at this tranquil paradise, she teleported to her apartment . . . and to chaos. A scream echoed through the telepathic channel she used with the other As she’d met, and it was an agonized plea for help.

  Ager.

  Chapter 25

  Grandmother, I found her.

  Her? Oh. I see. Is she doing well?

  She’s Payal Rao.

  Well, Canto. You do like to keep my life interesting.

  —Conversation between Canto Mercant and Ena Mercant

  PAYAL RESPONDED INSTINCTIVELY, her body collapsing like a doll’s onto her bed as she threw her full energy into the Substrate. The oldest A of them all was being battered by massive waves of glowing blue cracked with fissures of bleeding black—as if the fabric of the PsyNet was tearing itself apart.

  Look for the answer, Payal! Canto’s piercingly clear voice. Suriana and I will help Ager!

  Payal didn’t take offense at the order. She saw it as a logical division of labor, given her detail-oriented mind and ability to see the grid in the Substrate. She found the part of the grid that correlated to Ager’s zone.

  It was contorted into a stomach-churning “ball” in one section—but there were no smooth edges. Only hard, jagg
ed “bones” that split the fabric of the Substrate and sheared off sections that bled viscous black. When she looked at the mirror section on the PsyNet, she saw an assemblage of minds that blazed so hot they were burning out one by one. Bright fires extinguished after a short flash.

  Scarabs who’d gathered in one location?

  Another mind appeared in the distance. Martial, with strange—almost invisible—shimmers of black fluctuating through it. Empath? If so, a very unique one. More likely, it was an Arrow with unusual shields.

  Then a mind of obsidian darkness: Kaleb Krychek.

  But they were too late. The dazzling minds burned out of existence one by one, all within a matter of split seconds. Seeing that Krychek and the unfamiliar mind were already working on the resulting hole in the fabric of the Net, she dived back down and told Canto what she’d discovered as she began to straighten the grid.

  The shards cut her psychic hands, but that couldn’t be helped. She worked on.

  Canto vanished from her vicinity halfway through. Ager?

  I’m well, young Rao. But Canto gave me too much of himself. He may have flamed out. He kicked Suriana out of the merge when she was teetering on the edge, but stayed too long himself.

  Panic fluttered in Payal’s throat, but she made herself finish the grid repair—she would not let Canto down. That done, she checked that Ager was well enough to hold their zone before touching base with Arran and Bjorn.

  The two had been dealing with a smaller riptide, had come through unscathed.

  Opening her eyes on the physical plane, she scrabbled for her phone and found the direct line for Silver Mercant. She had that number because EmNet had needed her cooperation to spread out in this region.

  The phone was answered by a mellifluous male voice. “Director Mercant’s office.”