by Nalini Singh
"You're a good man, Vasic Zen," Valentin murmured before gripping the rope and hauling himself up and out.
"We got a survivor?" one of the construction workers asked with a hopeful smile.
"We got a survivor!" He yelled it loud enough to carry to the engineer and others below. "The bride!"
A huge cheer went up. The construction worker who hadn't spoken wiped away a burst of tears. "Fuck, man," he said in American-accented English before switching to Russian. "There's just been too many dead."
Valentin clapped him on the shoulder. "Let's keep going. We don't know who else is trapped below." Even as he started to do exactly that, he had to battle the urge to check in on Silver.
His Starlight should've been in bed, resting. Instead, she was here, fighting to clean up a mess of violence, fighting to save lives. Because she was Silver Fucking Mercant, and she was as tough as any bear in StoneWater.
Including its alpha.
The Unknown Architect
THE ARCHITECT OF the Consortium looked at the raw footage feeding out of Moscow. It was being reported as a terrorist strike undertaken by a lone individual, for which no group had taken credit.
The Consortium didn't take credit for its actions, but they also didn't cause violence without significant thought as to the advantages of any such action. They weren't fanatics or ideologues. Their entire reason for being was built on cold, hard thinking that led to political or financial gain.
They weren't anti-Trinity, as often reported. That implied an ideological stance. No, it was the peace fostered by Trinity that was an impediment to their goals. From a purely financial perspective for certain members of the Consortium, there was far more profit in instability and war. For others, like the Architect, peace offered no path to power. War and panic did.
It was all about the cost-benefit ratio.
Whoever had hit the wedding reception in Moscow had undertaken no such rational calculation. If their aim had been to destabilize the city, they'd failed in a spectacular fashion. The media had highlighted Kaleb Krychek in the footage, as well as the problematic-to-the-Consortium Silver Mercant.
A changeling alpha, Valentin Nikolaev of the StoneWater bears, had also been identified by the media, along with wolves from the BlackEdge pack and nonpredatory changelings, including mountain ponies. Human medical staff, engineers, and Enforcement officers were working side by side with their Psy and changeling compatriots.
The rapid, coordinated response was a poster child for Trinity.
As it would be in the city called home by the director of EmNet and by the most powerful telekinetic in the world. Not only that, but the violently powerful StoneWater and BlackEdge changelings also had an open line of communication, offering no room for sowing discord. Moscow was simply not a good target for anyone who wanted to cause maximum damage.
Switching off the feed, the Architect turned their mind to their own business interests. The Consortium had nothing to do with the badly planned Moscow attack and, as such, the bombing needed none of the Architect's attention.
As for Silver Mercant . . . perhaps it was time to get an update on that operation. A shame to eliminate someone of her abilities, but she'd chosen her fate when she accepted the directorship of EmNet.
If the Architect had believed she could be turned, an approach would've been made. However, while the Architect had rethought the invitation to Ena Mercant after deciding the woman was too intelligent and might prove a threat to the Architect's role as the puppet master of this operation, the reason for not approaching her granddaughter was far different: Silver Mercant appeared to be taking the "equal treatment of all parties" aspect of her job seriously.
Unfortunate.
Chapter 18
Trust to a Mercant is a complicated thing. It usually requires years of acquaintance, several background checks, and a probationary period.
--Ena Mercant (circa 2074)
DAWN WAS A bare two hours distant when Silver made the call no one in her position ever wanted to make: The rescue effort was now a recovery operation. No survivors had been discovered over the past two hours, and the rescuers all agreed on a lack of signs of life: Psy with their telepathic scans, changelings with their peerless sense of smell and acute hearing, and humans with a high-tech imaging scanner that had been brought to the site by a local geology professor.
"No heat signatures," the black-haired woman with dark brown skin and softly uptilted eyes had said to Silver, lines of exhaustion bracketing her mouth as she stood with her back to the wreckage of the bar.
Valentin, his body and hair covered with dust and his mouth set in a grimmer line than she'd ever seen it, had just shaken his head. He'd found the final survivor, a young man he'd carried out of the rubble in his own arms after the teleporters had been called away to take three severely wounded survivors directly to the trauma ward. The doctors had asked them to stay and lift the wounded using telekinesis so that the victims' crushed bodies could be examined without causing those bodies any further harm.
No one had found anything since then.
Bathed in the hard white glow of the powerful lights Silver had organized early into the rescue effort, the ruins of the bar appeared a spotlit tomb.
While Valentin and the others began to do what they could to help retrieve the bodies, Silver sat and collated the numbers. She already knew them, of course. "Seventy-five-percent fatality rate," she said to the head of the on-site medical team, the man who'd triaged the victims. "Another ten percent are so badly injured that their chances of survival are low to negligible."
The doctor, his face stark, sat on the tailgate of an ambulance and stared out at the destruction. "I guess we got lucky there wasn't a secondary explosive."
"Yes." The changelings had reported no signs of any suspicious scents, and the Arrows had done a sweep for covert devices and unearthed nothing. "You should stand down your team."
The doctor glanced toward the exhausted group. They sat in silence in the cordoned-off part of the dusty street, their heads hanging. "It's hard, being a healer and not being able to do anything." With those quiet words, the human male left to pick up the pieces of his devastated team.
Silver, her own legs shaky from fatigue, nonetheless made time to personally speak to all the other team leaders, bar one. Valentin, she saved for last. As the most senior changeling, he'd taken charge of the other changeling responders--no one had disagreed with his leadership, partisan lines laid aside in this time of emergency.
She found him with Kaleb.
He greeted her with a scowl. "You planning to face-plant?" he asked in a low rumbling tone, his eyes suddenly ringed with amber.
"I wasn't planning to, no," Silver said coolly, though her entire body was warning her it had reached critical. "The recovery teams are en route, will be here in three minutes." She'd put them on standby an hour earlier. "I've cut all the rescuers loose--the retrieval teams have the right equipment to safely clear the debris and recover the bodies and body parts still trapped in the blast zone."
Valentin's expression didn't ice over at her cold recitation as changeling and human eyes so often did when she spoke. They thought that because she could be so calm, the loss of life meant nothing to her. Silver had never bothered to tell people that just because she didn't feel didn't mean that blood and death skated past her without impact.
So much potential had been lost this night, the vast majority of those inside the bar, people just starting out in their adult lives. That most of them had been human didn't change anything . . . or perhaps that made it even more of a tragedy. Statistically, humans tended to be at the forefront of cutting-edge technological and artistic advances--though under Silence, the Psy Council had often stolen their tech work.
The human ability to think outside the box was why the business arm of Mercant Corp. employed a significant number in its science and tech enterprises. Hiring good people and paying them well--and also protecting their minds with their own telepat
hic shields--was far more efficient than forcibly stealing ideas.
"Silver," Kaleb said, his tone as impossible to read as always. "Valentin is right. You'll set back your recovery by days if you keep pushing yourself."
"I'm well aware of that."
"You're finished here then?" Valentin angled his body slightly toward her, as if to break a fall he saw coming.
"Almost. I need to complete the handover to the recovery commander when he arrives. The Arrows have agreed to provide security during the recovery process, in conjunction with a team of BlackEdge soldiers Alpha Durev is sending in."
Valentin's face held the harsh echo of sadness, his alpha heart feeling too much, but his lips kicked up a fraction. "So we two idioti should shut the hell up and stop telling you what to do?"
"I knew the dust hadn't fogged up your brain." Silver walked away to the sight of his eyes burning a wild changeling amber.
*
VALENTIN opened the passenger door to his vehicle, having driven it closer now that the area was horrifically quiet, somber with resignation and the shadow of death. Silver got in, would've slipped if he hadn't caught her arm, given her a boost. She didn't say anything until after he'd gotten into the driver's seat and begun to back the vehicle in preparation for a turn.
"Spasibo."
Valentin wanted to grumble at her for letting herself get to this state, but Starlight had made her point earlier--Valentin wasn't about to lose her by being a rampaging bear, all wild emotion and no sense. Even if he wanted to yell at her, then cuddle her close, hold her safe.
Gritting his teeth, he found some human words. "What do you need once we're home? I'll tag Nova, have her on standby."
"I just need to rest. No medications, no other treatments."
"You eat at the site?"
"No, but I'm not sure I have the strength to chew right now."
Bear half-mad by now, Valentin made a call, asked Chaos to prepare a nutritious soup. "No need to chew," he said to Silver afterward.
He was expecting a smart comeback, but she stayed silent. Her profile was a clean line, her lips soft, her skin pale, and her eyes heavy. The vulnerability of her--the trust it exhibited that she'd chosen to come home with him when she could've asked for a teleport anywhere--it caught his bear's heart in a grip both soft and steely.
That grip was formed of pure starlight.
He got them to Denhome as fast as safely possible. Chaos hadn't let him down, despite the early morning hour, and had hot bowls of soup waiting. Silver barely got half a bowl into herself before she fell asleep, her head pillowed on her arms. Resisting the temptation to sneak a petting stroke of her hair was hard.
Better nature finally winning out over his bear's grumbling protests, he scooped her up into his arms to carry her to her room. First, however, he had to scowl at Yakov, who'd tried to beat him to the punch.
The other man shrugged. "I just wanted to touch her hair."
"Go pet Pasha's hair." Valentin snuggled Silver's sleeping body closer. "She's mine."
"She know that?"
"I'm working on it." Glaring away any other bears who might be tempted to come close, he got her into her room without further interruptions.
She was dusty from the site, no doubt sweaty, too, but he wasn't about to strip her. He told Nova not to, either, after his sister responded to his request to check on Silver and make certain that rest was indeed all she needed.
"I'm taking off her boots at least." Nova put those boots by the side of the bed, while Valentin pulled a blanket over Silver's body.
"Rest well, Starlight." His own body ached, but he was an alpha bear, could've gone on for another day if necessary. If he had his way, he'd spend that time watching over Silver. Ah, who was he kidding? Give him free rein, and he'd curl himself around her like a living blanket. He'd listen to the beat of her heart, feel the soft heat of her breath, the delicate strength of her bones.
"Come on, little brother." Nova wrapped an arm around his waist. "You need to finish your own meal, then you can grab some sleep and dream of your Starlichka."
Throwing an arm around her shoulders, he tugged her close, this sister of his who'd become the one he went to with his childhood hurts once his mother, Galina, stopped seeing him, stopped seeing all of them. At only a year older than Valentin, Nika had been as young and bewildered, while Stasya had been their fire, so angry for their shattered family that she'd picked a hundred furious battles with clanmates who couldn't see through her rage to her pain.
It was Nova who'd held them together with her healer's warmth, Nova who'd refused to embrace anything but love, Nova who'd made him his favorite snacks and told him she was proud of him when he did well at school. Their maternal grandparents had taken the adult role when it became clear Galina was barely hanging on, but it was Nova all three of them had turned to in their darkest moments.
Valentin often thought healers had the strongest hearts of any changeling. "I love you, Novochka."
A startled smile. "I know, Mishka." She patted his chest, her hand that of a healer, nails clipped short and devoid of the ornamentation she so loved on every other part of herself. "Your love is like a force of nature--even as a cub, once you decided a person was yours, you didn't let go." Smile fading, she said, "Tell me how it was at the site."
"Horrible," he said honestly. "So much death, so much loss. The only good thing about it was Silver." He forced himself not to look back at her room, more than a little afraid his bear would waltz right in and make itself at home. "You should've seen her at work. She's like a contained storm." Handling a hundred things at once with no sign of strain or stress. "People trust her to be competent because there's no way a woman that powerful and that in control would ever be otherwise."
"Your crush is getting worse." Nova patted his back, but when she looked up, her eyes were solemn. "I like Silver, but she's incredibly Psy, Mishka. No cracks that I can see."
Valentin knew what she was trying to say. "She's in Denhome now." In bear territory. "Anything's possible."
"Just take care of yourself, okay?" Nova leaned her head against him, her glossy dark curls tumbling around her head. "You're carrying too much on that heart of yours already." She pressed her free hand over his heart. "The weight shouldn't all be yours."
Closing his hand over hers, he shook his head. "I'm alpha, Nova." Meant to carry that weight. Meant to bleed to fix what was broken.
And meant to love a woman as strong as a fiery star.
*
SILVER woke to the feel of data at the edge of her senses, messages and information having built up against her mind while she slept. She held back the flood as she took stock of her body and mind. After she determined that though her body ached, she was otherwise healthy, she checked the time and realized she'd been asleep for almost twenty-two hours.
No wonder she was thirsty and hungry.
Pushing up into a seated position, she saw two notes on the bedside table. Both were propped up against a jug of water in which swam slices of fresh orange. Silver poured herself a glass, drank it down, then read the neatly folded notecard: Someone in Denhome is always up, so there's always food available. Don't worry about asking for it, no matter when you wake. Just ask to be directed to the kitchen.--Nova
The other note was a piece of paper torn from a notebook: Hope you had a good sleep, Starlight. Now go eat so much you want to burst.--Mr. I. M. A. Medvezhonok.
What kind of an alpha signed his message Mr. I Am a Teddy Bear? Only Valentin. Carefully placing the note under her phone, she pushed back her hair. Her hands came away coated with dust.
No one, she knew, had touched her after Valentin put her to bed. He wouldn't have allowed anyone else to handle her. He was incredibly possessive, and she was well aware he was trying to brand her as his in ways he probably thought were subtle; he wouldn't succeed, but she appreciated that he always protected her.
It was slightly disconcerting to realize she hadn't awakened, even when he'd
picked her up and brought her here. Then again, her trust in him was hardly inexplicable, she thought as she rose to her feet. Valentin Nikolaev had saved her life. More than that, she'd come to know that the rough-edged alpha of StoneWater was a man of blunt honor and unimpeachable integrity.
She was safe with him.
The thought sank deep inside her, an echo that reverberated through her bones. Telling herself the unexpected sensation was nothing but a sensory blip, she began to strip off her filthy clothing. She also needed to strip the sheets on the bed, but that could wait.
Getting out of the hot shower after a long twenty minutes that helped ease the lingering aches in her body, she prepared to leave her room. This time, she decided to leave her hair down.
Fresh underwear, a pair of dark brown corduroy pants, and a thin gray sweater was her choice of outfit. On her feet went socks and the half boots that were no longer covered in dust but shined to a mirrored gloss.
She paused with the left boot in her hand, staring at the gleaming leather.
She understood enough of the changelings' communal nature to guess that whoever had done it had done so for no reason but to be helpful. They wouldn't expect anything from her except a spasibo if she happened upon their name. Cooperation and a sharing of resources was the foundation of the changeling way of life.
Psy families were meant to work the same way. The Mercants did. But not even in her own family would anyone have cleaned her boots. They'd have checked her health status, made certain she had any and all medical help she needed, but this small touch of care wouldn't be on even Arwen's radar.
It was simply the way they'd been raised.
Pulling on the boot, Silver had to accept the realization that even her tightly knit family had lost something in Silence. But what had been lost could be regained. All it would take was a change in how Mercants raised their young. Making a mental note to speak to her grandmother about that, she got up to locate the kitchen. She would strip the bed after she'd eaten and caught up on the messages crowding her brain.
As for the ones stacked up on her e-mail, she began to download them onto her phone to see if there was anything urgent. While that was in progress, she scanned the telepathic messages.
