by Nalini Singh
The Silent will be an intelligent, controlled people who do not waste their energies on battles or wars or interpersonal aggression. They will be perfection.
--Arif Adelaja's first speech to the Psy Council on the matter of the Silence training proposed by the Mercury group (late twentieth century)
VALENTIN KNEW SILVER expected her statement to be the final word on the subject, but, while he was conscious he could never make Silver Mercant do anything she didn't want to do, he also knew she'd never been up against an alpha bear who was fascinated by her on every possible level.
"You sure you have all the information?" Catching an apple Chaos threw over, he bit into it with a crisp crunch.
Silver's eyes went to his mouth, flicked away as fast. "I'm very good at research."
Valentin's cock wanted to react, react hard.
Chewing and swallowing the bite he'd taken as he fought his hunger for this smart woman who smelled more delicious than his favorite honey, he pulled out his pocketknife and began to cut a slice from the part of the apple he hadn't bitten into. All the while attempting not to fall into erotic daydreams of licking honey off his Starlight's skin.
He'd die and go to beary heaven should that ever come true.
"I don't doubt your skills," he said. "But you're not the kind of woman who lets other people make her decisions for her."
"You're being extremely subtle for a bear."
Valentin smiled inside because he was certain he could almost hear aggravation in her tone. Right now, he'd take any emotion. And aggravation was a good one. Mates to bears often got aggravated.
He held out the slice of apple.
When she accepted it, he had to stop himself from beating at his chest like a gorilla. Or a bear who'd succeeded in feeding his mate. Watching as she took a testing bite, her lips derailing his honey fantasy for another one that was all rough heat, Valentin had to scramble to find his brain cells again. "All I'm saying is, how can you possibly have all the data if you've never let go of your Silence to see what happens?"
"I wasn't born Silent."
"I get that." Though he still couldn't understand how anyone could train emotion out of a child. Children were huge, wild creatures full of promise and hope and dirt and mischief. How could anyone crush them into a box?
From what he'd heard, it had been an act of desperation, even an act of love, but it remained difficult for him to comprehend. At the same time, it gave him a painful insight into how bad the situation must've been for the choice to be made.
But Silver wasn't a child.
"No child has control over their urges," he pointed out. "Human, Psy, changeling, doesn't matter the race--cubs need rules and boundaries for a reason."
Silver finished her slice of apple, accepted another from him. This time, his bear stayed quiet, finally getting with the "sneaky like a cat" program. Today an apple, tomorrow ice cream, the next day licking honey from her body, it was all about strategy . . . and stubborn bearish hope.
"Agreed," the woman who fascinated him said after a long pause.
Valentin wasn't about to back off now. "After a child grows up, they begin to make their own decisions. I often do things my mother wouldn't have permitted while I was a cub. I use sharp knives, I go out alone in the dark, I drink too much." Of course, the rare times when he did the latter, his grandmothers still threatened to box his ears.
His mother was alive but . . . gone, lost to them in a way Valentin couldn't stand to think about too hard. The wounds on Galina Evanova's soul were too grievous to allow her to fully exist in this world. He and his sisters did their best to reach her, but their mother preferred to roam StoneWater territory in her bear form. The last time he'd spotted her, she'd been asleep under the dappled shade of a poplar.
She'd looked so peaceful that he'd left without disturbing her.
"Valentin."
Realizing he'd gone silent, Valentin dug up a grin. "I think you're an adult, Starlight, and adults make choices a child never could."
Silver's eyes looked at him with a perceptiveness that threatened to strip him bare. "And I think you, Alpha Nikolaev, are far better at keeping secrets than anyone knows."
Valentin stopped playing. He locked his gaze with hers, let the bear rise to color his voice, his eyes. "To understand my secrets, you have to understand emotion."
The air shimmered with the words he didn't say, the challenge he'd laid down. Silver didn't look away. And his blood--it grew so hot it scalded.
*
AN hour later, Silver walked back alone to the stream where she'd seen the cubs playing in the water. She knew Valentin had an ulterior motive for his oh-so-rational argument. He'd made no attempt to hide his desire for her.
He was also an alpha bear. Challenge was part of his psyche.
Yet none of that negated his point: she hadn't ever attempted to live without Silence as an adult in full control of her abilities. Was it possible she could safely use the "sharp knife" of emotion?
Silver.
Arwen, she said, her eyes on the water that sparkled under the morning sunlight, what did you find?
Nothing, but I've finally convinced Grandmother I'm definitely not the one who tried to kill you.
I'm sure Grandmother never believed otherwise; she was simply being cautious.
Ena had once told Silver that the family had been changing in subtle but terrible ways before Arwen's birth. "Without your brother," Ena had said, "and given the powerful influence of the Psy Council and their mandates, we could well have crossed the line from ruthless to cruel. He is our conscience and our soul."
Whoever did this, her brother said now, they wanted clean hands. Distance.
You know that only further implicates the family. Mercants were experts at sleight of hand.
Arwen didn't reply with agreement--none was needed at the self-evident fact. I'm assisting Grandmother in every way possible, but so far, there is not even a hint of a smoking gun.
No unusual financial or other transactions?
I dug deep. Nothing.
It's possible there are no external factors to find. It could've been a purely internal job. A power play.
On current data, that probability is medium to high. But why would anyone in the family want to harm you if they hadn't somehow been turned by outsiders? Anger and frustration vied for supremacy in his voice. No one else has your skill and financial expertise--lose you and the family fortunes would dive.
Silver's skin grew suddenly sensitive, her head turning without her conscious volition. I'll speak to you later, Arwen.
It was no surprise to see Valentin heading toward her, his big body at ease in this primal landscape. Because he was as wild, civilization a thin skin that he could shrug off without hesitation. Thrusting a hand through his hair, he came to a standstill in front of her.
"Do you own a comb?" she asked, her eyes on the incongruously silken strands.
Valentin shook his head, sending the strands flying. "There," he said afterward, "it's neat now." He sounded absolutely serious.
Silver lifted her hand. He went motionless. Her fingers were a centimeter from pushing back the tumbled strands when data blasted her mind, picked up by the monitoring alerts she had in place.
Explosives. Unknown casualties. Multiple strikes.
In front of her, Valentin's gaze turned grim. "What's happened?"
"Attacks in Shanghai, in Berlin, and in Melbourne. Identical characteristics to the Moscow attack. Majority human casualties forecast, with limited but not zero Psy and changeling casualties."
Heart thumping in an uncontrollable physical response to the deluge of information, Silver nonetheless already had her phone in hand. "I have to activate EmNet, get in touch with the people on the ground."
"What do you need?" Valentin asked as they moved quickly back to Denhome.
"A larger computer would be useful. At least two screens. A comm I can take over for the duration."
"Follow me."
/> Silver began to make calls at the same time, alerting the nominated EmNet contacts in the affected areas that she was aware of what had happened and was about to initiate the emergency network. "Send me local data, as much as you can," she told them. "It'll help me mobilize the right resources."
Once inside Denhome, Valentin led her down several corridors to a medium-sized room set up with cutting-edge tech. "We use this for comm conferences. It should have everything you need."
Settling in and hooking up the system to EmNet's servers, Silver discovered the StoneWater system was higher spec than her EmNet office. She was able to handle the triple emergencies with comparative ease, technologically speaking. The only issue was that she and her assistant were only two people. This needed at least five.
Creating an EmNet team would go to the top of her list after this was over.
When hot nutrient drinks appeared at her desk through the hours that followed, she drank them. In a distant part of herself, she realized that this, too, was different. No one fed her when she was caught at home during a situation. She worked alone and in silence.
Though no bears interrupted her today, she was aware of Pavel and Nova looking in on her. The bear male had silently added another screen to her system after seeing the amount of data she was handling, while Nova had left a high-energy nutrient bar on her desk.
"You want my help?" Pavel asked at one point. "I'm not on shift for another four hours."
About to say no out of habit, Silver abruptly realized that would be foolish. "Yes," she said. "That screen over there--can you collate the emergency data coming in and give me a precis every half hour?"
"Summarize?" Pavel pulled up a chair, his eyes already on the screen. "I don't like to brag," he bragged smugly, "but I was the king of last-minute summaries for school essays."
She'd been concerned the gregarious bear would keep on speaking, but that was all he said, his focus on the work. She should've remembered that while bears could be rowdy, StoneWater wouldn't have become a power if they weren't also capable of intense concentration on things that needed to be done.
He turned out to be as good at winnowing the data down into manageable bites as he'd boasted. "Are you in the market for a permanent position?" she asked after the first hour.
"Yasha would cry if I left him." Pavel kept his eyes on the screen in front of him, even as he spoke. "But maybe if you throw in your scrumptious brother as my bonus."
"Arwen should be coming to see me again soon," Silver replied. "If you're half the bear you claim to be, you'll get his call code from him."
"Oooooh, that was a burn as cold as Siberia!" Pavel thumped his fist onto his chest, shooting her a dimpled grin over his shoulder at the same time. "I can melt a Mercant, just you wait. I'm a bear."
With that, they returned to their work and to the dark reality of an emergency that could have no happy ending.
Valentin didn't reappear after showing her to the tech room. It wasn't a surprise. She hoped he was catching some sleep but knew it was unlikely; as the alpha of a large and powerful pack, he had multiple calls on his time and attention. Which made it even more extraordinary that he'd come to see her at her apartment so many times.
Regardless of all that, part of her listened for him.
*
VALENTIN'S heart was a pulsing ache when he returned from the part of StoneWater territory the dissenters called home. No matter how many days passed, the pain remained as hurtful as the day he'd first felt it . . . the day a quarter of his bears had rejected him to walk out into the cold. But despite the freshness of his hurt, time had passed. He'd soon have to make a final decision.
His bear hung its head, its big body no shield against this wound.
"Mishka!"
Halting at the sound of that childish cry, he immediately tracked a fresh trail of scents to find three unsupervised cubs, ages six, six, and seven. All tiny gangsters. He scowled and folded his arms. "What is Arkasha doing?" he asked, nodding at the furry butt hanging out of a hole in a stone formation.
It was hard to keep a straight face as those little legs kicked and the butt wriggled.
"He's stuck!" Sveta cried. "We were going to explore the cave, but the hole's too small."
Biting the inside of his cheek to choke off his laughter, Valentin raised an eyebrow at the other miscreant. "Why is Arkasha so shiny and slick?" His fur looked like it had been slicked down with hair conditioner, but that wasn't what Valentin's nose was telling him.
Fitzpatrick Haydon William, tiny owner of a very long name, took his hand from behind his back to reveal a familiar wrapper. "We thought if we rubbed him with butter, he'd slide in," he admitted.
"Did you ask Chaos for that butter?"
Two shaking heads, while the butt went still, Arkasha in full listening mode.
"Hmm, we'll talk about that later." Valentin hunkered down by Arkasha's small body. Patting his furry back to make sure the boy wouldn't get scared, he considered their options. Despite his antics in hanging upside down on the tree the other day, Arkasha was too young to have fully mastered semi-shifting, or Valentin would have asked him to shift parts of his body to his smaller human form.
Which left only one option.
"I'm going to crack the stone," he told the boy. "Close your eyes and duck down your head. Kick your left paw when you're ready."
The kick came nearly at once.
Slamming the side of his fist against a section of stone that appeared the weakest, Valentin created a crack, then carefully wrenched off a piece. It left that edge ragged, and he had to act quickly to clamp his hand on Arkasha's side to protect him as the child wriggled free.
Plopping down on his back, the cub lifted his paws to his face . . . and sneezed.
Valentin couldn't hold in his laughter any longer. Cracking up, he sat down with his back against the hole and opened his arms. Arkasha crawled into them at once, Sveta and Fitz slamming their bodies against Valentin's the next second. He held all three, calming the butter-covered cub and his friends from their fright.
And his heart, it hurt a fraction less.
When he returned to the den with the gangsters--after first blocking up the newly enlarged hole with stones they wouldn't be able to move--he marched them to the kitchen to confess their butter thievery. Chaos, hands on hips, gave them his patented glare. "No dessert tonight for any of you."
"But it's gonna be medovik!" Arkasha said, his body clad in Valentin's checked shirt. The cub had destroyed his own clothes when he'd shifted from boy to bear, and hadn't wanted to be a "naked criminal." The sleeves Valentin had folded, but the tails dragged on the floor, giving him a woebegone look.
"Yeah!" his friends said. "We love medovik!"
Valentin loved the layered honey cake, too.
Remaining unmoved, Chaos said, "That's why it's a punishment." The clan's chief cook rubbed his jaw. "Or you can wash dishes all day."
Sveta gulped. "All day?" A big-eyed whisper.
"Yes. Or no cake."
All three cubs looked at one another, with Sveta the one who spoke. "We'll wash the dishes."
They swarmed Chaos, wrapping their arms around his legs. "We're sorry for taking your butter, Mr. Chaos."
Chaos's lips twitched above their heads at the attempt at formal address, his hands going down to rub the top of their heads. Valentin knew the imps would likely be asleep in a corner within ten minutes of starting their dishwashing sentence, and that Chaos would care for them with utmost gentleness. But every time they woke, he'd make them wash an unbreakable dish or two--in their cub minds, that would equal an entire day of hard labor.
It'd be the talk of the tiny gangster circle for months.
Right then, Arkasha tripped over the tails of Valentin's shirt and fell over onto his butt. "Ouch."
"Come on." Valentin hauled the cub up onto his back. "Let's go get you some proper clothes before you do your day in the salt mines."
"What's a salt mine?" Arkasha asked, while
Chaos put the two other felons to work at the sink. They had a bench to stand on--this wasn't the first time StoneWater had had to deal with miniature-sized gangsters.
Valentin explained the concept of salt mines to his felon, got him dressed, then--after a stop to grab a fresh shirt for himself--dropped Arkasha off to serve his sentence. His heart lighter, he was about to find Silver, aggravate her just so she'd play with him in that icy Psy way, when Pieter found him.
This time, the problem wasn't a laughing matter.
Chapter 21
To be alpha is to have a heart big enough to love every single member of your pack or clan. That is the one constant of all the strongest alphas I've ever met. They are men and women with an astonishing capacity to love and to forgive.
--Adrian Kenner: peace negotiator, Territorial Wars (eighteenth century)
VALENTIN DIDN'T NEED Pieter to lead him to the group of sullen teenagers; he could've followed their scents across the territory. He did, however, need his friend in other ways. "They're reacting to the fracture in the clan," he said to his third-in-command as they stalked through the forest.
Pieter had ordered all seven teenagers to stay where he'd left them, and he was dominant enough that they'd have obeyed. Now, the other man nodded, the sunset colors of his hair glowing in the late afternoon light. "Yes. It's messing with their heads."
The other man blew out a breath. "Mina apparently attacked Olive when words were exchanged about Mina's aunt's family being traitors. Friends of both jumped into the fray."
"Fuck." Valentin had tried to keep the problems to the adults, but while the cubs just asked after their missing friends, sad they couldn't play with them, the teens were old enough to understand this separation was shaping up to be permanent. "This isn't right, Petya."
"You know what I think." His friend's voice was hard. "They made their choice. You've been too patient."
Valentin rubbed a fist over his heart. "I can't let them go without trying everything. They're part of me." So many tiny threads, alpha to clanmate. "Cutting them loose will bloody us all."
"The dissenters did that when they made unfounded accusations." Pieter had never had any sympathy for the clanmates who'd turned against Valentin. Perhaps because Pieter's entire family had joined StoneWater when Pieter was a child of eight, after they'd left their previous clan because the asshole alpha had wanted Pieter's much older sister, and she'd said no.
