by Nalini Singh
The other man had more reason than anyone to fight for the tenets of Trinity. His daughter was both Psy and changeling, the first such child born in a century; and he, like Valentin, had a number of humans in his pack. "Can you imagine me negotiating with the kretiny Lucas deals with on a daily basis?" Making a gun of his thumb and forefingers, he pressed it to his temple, set it off with a "bhoof" of sound.
Not responding to that, Ena Mercant sat down in one of the visitor chairs against the wall. Next to her, he stayed upright, alert. "No other windows into Silver's room?"
"No. I'm running a telepathic scan so I'll know the instant anyone teleports in."
So would Valentin, his sense of smell hyper-focused. No one was going to hurt his Starlight. "So, Grandmother, you think it was product tampering?"
Ena's response was indirect. "Silver always has six jars in the cupboard. She starts on the left, pulls the second jar on the left forward once she's finished the first, and so on. It's interesting you found a second tainted jar in the position you did."
Valentin's claws, long, curved, and deadly, threatened to erupt from his skin. "'Interesting' is not the word I'd use." If the poisoner was uncertain of Silver's system, that person would have doctored a jar on each side. Not the first one, so it'd be harder to pin down exactly when the jars had been tampered with, but the second in each row. "She was targeted."
Ena stayed silent for long enough that he managed to talk his bear out of surging to the surface. Now was not the time to rampage in fury. Because "deranged grizzly" tendencies or not, Valentin was also an alpha to the core of his soul; he had the capacity to control his primal urges.
Medical calls came and went over the intercom, and a nurse rushed by in response to an alert, but inside Silver's room, it stayed quiet.
"What do you know of my family?" Ena asked at last.
He noted the possessive. Yes, this woman was an alpha, too. A matriarch like the bear Valentin had succeeded in StoneWater eight months earlier. Zoya was as tough--though far less reserved in her responses. That just made his former alpha a bear and Ena a Psy. It said nothing about either woman's power.
"Not much," he admitted in response to her question about the Mercants. "My sister Janika knows a lot of people"--half of Russia it sometimes felt like--"so we've picked up things here and there, but we've made no effort to dig into Psy politics." They had no Psy in their clan and thus no reason or ability to have a direct line of information. Of course, that would change once he convinced Silver to throw in her lot with him. He'd need the information to make sure she was safe.
As she hadn't been in her own apartment.
Inside him, his bear rose up on its back paws, a massive creature enraged that Silver's home had been violated. Home was safety, was where they raised their cubs and nurtured the bonds of family. Home was warmth and love and play. It was never an acceptable target, no matter what the war.
"I don't need anyone to tell me that you personally are a power," he said, his voice dropping into a deeper register as his bear continued to pace inside him. "You wear it like a second skin. It's so obvious even a snow-blind polar bear couldn't miss it. Added to that, Krychek respects you."
While StoneWater and Krychek had had a rocky road to a wary trust that was still a work in progress, Valentin had never doubted the other man's smarts. "He knew you'd be able to protect Silver."
A glance up, Ena's expression impossible to read. "Brash and astute. An unexpected combination."
Valentin shrugged. "Element of surprise." Many people took the bearish approach to life as evidence that bears were dense and unintelligent. Bears made no effort whatsoever to dissuade the idiots.
As Stasya had put it: "Why should we school the stupid out of them when it means we have a huge advantage in almost any negotiation?"
Too bad Selenka's wolves had long ago figured out the truth.
"My family is powerful," Grandmother Mercant said, her eyes on the wall in front of her. "We are the primary shadow players in the Net, the family everyone wants to court to gain intelligence, have our machinery at their back while they climb to power."
Surprised at her candor, Valentin listened in alert silence. One of the things Nika had picked up through her ability to make all kinds of friends--it was as if she'd been adopted from a pony herd or something--was that the Mercants kept their mouths sealed shut when it came to the family.
"Killing Silver would cripple us for at least a decade," Ena added, the reminder of the attempt to end Silver's starlight making Valentin see red all over again, his shoulder muscles bunching tight as he crossed his arms.
Ena continued to speak. "We would withdraw, regroup, become strong again. But we would've lost the person I trust to lead the Mercants into the future."
Her voice never altered, her tone flat, but Valentin knew without a single doubt that Ena Mercant would kill to protect her granddaughter, her love a fierce thing. Ena wouldn't call it love. Neither would Silver. Didn't change the fact that the loyalty tying them together was a bond of the heart any bear would recognize.
"She's also the only one who knows EmNet inside and out," he said, drawing in fine traces of Silver's scent through all the antiseptics and medicines that hung so heavy in the air.
His bear clawed at him, wanting out, wanting to nuzzle her, cuddle her close. Valentin had some trouble getting it under control since he wanted the same thing. "Even if we take her link to Krychek out of the equation," he said, "Silver is a target on multiple fronts. The Consortium"--a greedy, dishonorable group that Lucas Hunter had warned him about--"is anti-peace and EmNet is the flag bearer for Trinity." For the hope of a permanent worldwide peace.
"Yes." Again, Ena said nothing else for so long that he thought the conversation was over. But then she stirred. "Someone got into the most secure apartment building in Moscow. Then they got into her apartment. All without tripping security."
"It's not that hard to get into her building," Valentin told her, furious at the security people. "I climbed in through an open window on the third floor." He couldn't climb for shit in his animal form, his bear too big, but in his human form with his claws out? He hadn't found a wall he couldn't scale.
Not that the alpha of StoneWater made a habit of climbing up apartment buildings. He only did that for his icy Starlight.
"Most people," Ena responded, "including most changelings, don't have the kind of claws sported by bears. You're also heavily muscled and, I'm guessing, extremely strong."
"Teleporters don't need claws or physical strength."
"No, but Silver has worked with a cardinal telekinetic for years. She had scent filters put in, motion sensors. Kaleb tested the precautions to make sure they'd work against someone with his ability. She should've known the instant an intruder entered, but it's clear she registered no such intrusion."
Valentin's bear froze. "You think the poison was added by someone she let in." Easy if the guest was a person Silver trusted, a person she would've left alone in the living area while she went to fetch something from another room or maybe excused herself to take a private call. The kitchen was only steps away.
Ena inclined her head. "If this individual was smart, he or she wouldn't have dosed the jar Silver was using at the time."
"That's what I figured." His bear head-butting him in a stubborn refusal to sit down and behave until it had seen Silver, Valentin thought back to her kitchen cupboards and to the second tainted jar. "How long does a jar last?"
"One month if used nonstop, which Silver doesn't do. Two to three months if interspersed with other sources of nutrients like the bars and protein supplements."
"We need to go through all the visitors she's had in the time since she began using the jar before this one." Even though Silver had just opened this jar, they'd have to go back at least four months to be on the safe side.
"No, Valentin," Ena said, interrupting him midthought. "That is not your responsibility."
Valentin's bear roared in outrage.
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He clenched his jaw, frustratingly conscious that he had no rights here. Silver wasn't his, hadn't even let him through her front door yet. Today didn't count, and even his bear wouldn't argue that it set a precedent. Starlight had to invite him in for it to count.
"Your job," Ena said, "is to give her safe harbor."
The bear stopped midroar, stunned into silence.
"I'd like nothing better," Valentin said through his surprise, "but Silver won't accept a bodyguard." And he was alpha, his time bound to the clan, a truth Ena had to understand. What she couldn't know was just how badly his clan needed him right now. His short visits to annoy and court Starlight had been the only breaks he'd taken since becoming alpha eight months earlier.
"I know," Ena replied. "I also know she won't go far from her center of work. But she can't continue to live in a place where anyone can walk in and poison her."
Valentin's fur ruffled inside him, his bear's attention caught. "The poison is important." His next question was pure instinct. "Is it a Mercant weapon?" Shadow players would strike with stealth rather than in open aggression.
Ena's response was telling. "I can't offer her any of our safe houses. They're keyed to all Mercants."
Biting back a harsh word in his native tongue, quite certain both Babushka Caroline and Babushka Anzhela would clip him on the ear if they heard he'd uttered that particular word in the presence of an elder, he ran a hand through his hair. "You think one of your own went after Silver."
"Our entire family is built on trust."
"Like a bear clan." Betrayal was a dagger to the heart, and it hurt. Valentin knew. He'd felt it stab him to the core, was still bleeding and bruised because of it, his bear dejected by the unexpected blow.
"Why not ask Krychek for a place?" Valentin forced himself to ask; he wanted to haul Silver deep into his territory where no one could hurt her, but these were the same questions she'd ask--better he and Ena have her boxed in before she woke.
The bear inside him snorted at the idea of playing fair when it was Starlight's life at stake.
"Since Silver won't abandon her work by moving to a totally different region, the only possibilities Kaleb can offer her will be in central Moscow. She'd remain accessible to her enemies."
Valentin unfolded his arms, a smile starting to tug at his lips. "Are you asking me to kidnap your granddaughter?"
"Let's call it an enforced move out of the field of danger."
He was fluent in English, thanks to his Canadian polar bear maternal grandmother, but it still took him a second to work out that yes, Ena was in favor of Valentin kidnapping Silver.
Chapter 3
Blind uniformity is a fool's goal.
--Ena Mercant (circa 2072)
ALREADY PLOTTING THE kidnapping, Valentin said, "Silver knows a lot of teleporters." Even the deadly and secretive Arrow Squad, who Nika said were the bogeymen of the Psy, responded to a call from the director of EmNet.
"Given the nature of this incident, she'd ask no one but Kaleb, and Kaleb understands the problem."
Her words confirmed what he'd begun to suspect--Krychek wasn't simply a telekinetic for whom Silver had worked for years prior to taking up the reins of EmNet; the other man had become tightly bonded to the Mercants. "Why trust me?"
"You could've let her die. You didn't. That means you and Kaleb are the two people I can trust without question right now."
"I need to talk to my clan." Valentin was alpha, his word law, but no bear clan would function well with an autocrat at the helm. Clan was about family, about respect, about loyalty.
Pain lanced through his bear's heart as terrible memories rose on the heels of that thought, the wound as fresh today as the day it had been made.
Ena rose to her feet. "I will sit with my granddaughter while you confer with your people."
Valentin pulled out his phone the instant she was inside the recovery room; he'd picked up the sleek black device almost automatically before he entered Silver's kitchen to hunt down the poison. He pressed a familiar code.
"What did you break now?" were Stasya's opening words.
Ignoring the greeting only a big sister would think to offer her alpha, he said, "Security threats if we bring a Psy into Denhome." Like beads on a necklace that tumbled this way and that, Denhome was a mazelike collection of interconnected dwellings dug out of a mountain. It was sprawling and snug and, most of all, safe for the occasionally uncoordinated and always troublemaking balls of fur that were their cubs.
"Which Psy?" Stasya asked with her usual no-nonsense directness.
"Silver Mercant."
"Very funny, Mishka," she said, using his childhood nickname of "little bear"--sisters never forgot anything and they told everyone they knew until a man had to remind people his name was actually the very adult-sounding Valentin Mikhailovich Nikolaev.
"I know you have a thing for her, but abducting women is against the law." She said the last very firmly. "Even for bears. Get that into your head."
"No joke." He wished it had been play, that he'd given in to his primal instincts and thrown Silver over his shoulder--she'd have reacted badly, but she wouldn't now be lying unconscious in a hospital bed. "She needs a safe place to lie low, and we're the best available."
"If you're messing with me, I'll put toothpaste in your hair while you sleep," his second-in-command warned. "You know Silver Mercant is a threat as big as an elephant on steroids. She'll have visuals of our den, of our little ones, will pick up our security system, could use it all to mount an attack. It might not be physical, but an economic attack could cripple us as badly. Especially now, with our resources split."
Valentin rubbed a clenched fist over his heart. "I'm dead certain I can make a deal where nothing she learns would ever be used against us." Raw animal instinct told him that Ena Mercant wasn't a woman who gave her word lightly; if he had it, his clan would be safe.
Also, Starlight was his to protect. Yes, she'd argue about his claim, but he liked arguing with Silver. She might be pure frost, but she never shied away from picking up any of the gauntlets he'd cunningly thrown down in an effort to break through her defenses. Though perhaps "cunning" wasn't the right word when he'd been as obvious as Anastasia's elephant on steroids.
"Good," his sister said now, "but the threat isn't as bad as my first-level assessment." Her voice was crisp, direct. "Silver is linked to Krychek, and we know from Nika's many spies and friends that Krychek can teleport to places by locking on to faces. So if he wanted to get into Denhome, he could. But we have an agreement with Krychek--that means if Silver betrays us, she dumps her boss in it."
"I don't think Silver will be betraying us." His cool blonde Starlight was working mercilessly hard to make EmNet a truly cohesive entity; she couldn't afford to alienate one of the two largest changeling groups in Russia. "I'm bringing her in."
"You realize certain bears will probably have a problem with her being here."
"They'll deal, or I'll crack their skulls together until they find their brains." Valentin might not want to handle Trinity negotiations on a day-to-day basis, but he understood the need behind the accord--their world had been divided too long, the fractures running deep and causing wide veins of anger and mistrust.
The defunct Psy Council had done horrific damage in the past, had murdered and stolen and broken, but the monstrous bastards had no claim on the future. Psy, human, or changeling, all three races had to take responsibility for the world they would leave their cubs. Here, in this city, it would begin with a Psy being welcomed into a bear clan.
"I'll prepare a spare cave."
They didn't actually live in caves . . . Okay, they did, but they were very nice caves. He wondered what Silver would think of Denhome. "Spasibo, Stasya."
Hanging up, he entered the recovery room after a quiet knock, making a deliberate effort to keep his eyes averted from the bed on which Silver lay so quiet and still. His bear didn't fight him. That primal part of him understood extrem
ely well that getting on the bad side of a female bear's pride was a very bad idea--and as far as Valentin was concerned, Silver was a bear under the skin.
Strength and wildness and a relentless--sometimes obstinate--will.
None of that was a negative. Valentin could be obstinate himself. He needed a mate who'd refuse to take any of his shit. She'd also drive him insane, of that he was certain, but bears were lunatics anyway. It'd be fun.
All he had to do was convince Silver of that.
His bear grunted inside him, confident of its charm and ability to court the woman who spoke to both parts of his soul. Valentin decided his animal had the right idea: go in guns blazing and charm at full blast. And he had to be sneaky so she didn't think to put up her defenses until it was too late. Not bear sneaky. Cat sneaky.
That began with making sure she ended up in his territory.
"Silver is welcome in Denhome," he said to Ena. "Can she work remotely until the danger is past?" He was already making a list in his head of the tech she'd need. A cat would be sneaky like that, would give the woman he was courting what she needed before she even asked for it.
"I'll talk to her," Ena replied, "make sure she understands that family is not safe for her."
Valentin left soon afterward, aware exactly how much it must've cost this proud, strong alpha to say those words.
*
SILVER woke to walls that were a crisp white and a ceiling that had a crosshatched pattern that struck her as a design artefact from at least six decades earlier. Her apartment didn't have that type of a ceiling, was smooth. It wasn't white, either, rather a pale gray. Her walls were gray, too. She hadn't chosen the colors. They'd come with the apartment, and as the colors didn't distract her or cause any unexpected reactions in her brain, she'd left it.
Her neighbor in the apartment next door, a human executive who was only in Moscow approximately three months of the year spread out over tens of short visits, had already had her place repainted three times in the space of four years. The last time, she'd knocked on Silver's door and asked her favorite of three shades of cream.
Silver had stopped pointing out that she was Psy, didn't spend time on such matters, didn't have favorites. To satisfy the other woman, she'd just pointed to a random shade. Inevitably, it was the one Monique Ling wasn't "loving."
