by Nalini Singh
Her grandmother's gaze took in the placement of Silver's hand. "Ask."
"Whatever happens, Akshay Patel's children are not to be harmed." She made her tone as implacable as Ena's had been. "He can keep on believing the same, but you are not to follow through on your threat."
"Ena Mercant is not known for making toothless threats."
"It was my life he tried to end," Silver said. "I make the call."
Valentin's head turned toward her, his muscles unbunching under her touch.
Ena looked at her for a long time. Silver didn't flinch. Finally, her grandmother inclined her head. "So be it. I won't harm the man's children. But should he step out of line, his life is forfeit. Does anyone disagree with that decision?"
Silver held her silence. Valentin didn't. "Silver Fucking Mercant," he said. "Granddaughter of Ena Fucking Mercant." A grin at Silver. "Do I want to meet your mama, Starlight?"
"Those particular genes skipped a generation," Ena said coolly. "I have no argument with the Arrows knowing of the chat room, but the information about how we came by that data needs to be kept within a very small circle. The fewer the number of people who know Akshay Patel is ours, the lower the chances someone will let it slip."
"I haven't shared it with our own tech team," Silver said. "They don't need to know to chase the communication channels."
"Lucas Hunter and Aden Kai need to know," Valentin said. "None of us would be aware of the Consortium without them."
The resulting discussion was over quickly, the highly selective short list arrived at after mutual agreement. It was at the end of the meeting that Ena said, "Walk with me, Silver. Show me this complex."
Silver had no trouble standing up to her grandmother when required, but she also understood that certain orders were to be followed. "Of course, Grandmother. You're welcome to stay the night here, if you wish," she added.
"I may do that." Ena looked at Kaleb as they all rose. "Thank you for the assistance."
Kaleb nodded, then glanced at Valentin and Silver. "Sahara," he said, "has invited you both to dinner next Friday."
"You look like you'd rather chew nails," Valentin remarked with a very bearish gleam in his eye.
"My mate, as changelings term her, is insistent I learn to socialize."
"How's that going for you?"
Kaleb slid his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. "It makes Sahara happy."
The simple answer had Valentin holding out a hand. "No further explanation needed."
Kaleb, who rarely made physical contact with anyone aside from Sahara, shook it. He was gone the next second, a cardinal telekinetic of such power that teleportation took less than a heartbeat. But despite Kaleb's power, it was Valentin's wild charisma that made Silver's body hum with a primal awareness.
He tugged on a strand of her hair. "I'm going to see the clanmates who live here." His irises were onyx again, but rimmed by amber.
And he looked at her as if he wanted to eat her alive. The hurt she'd seen in his eyes, it was gone, erased by an emotion so huge, it demanded that she feel in return. His bear's fur rubbed inside her skin.
Her heart slammed into her rib cage, memories that had once been flat suddenly taking on color and texture and depth. She wet her throat. "We'll talk later."
"Kiss me later," he dared in a whisper for her ears alone. "Prove you can keep your distance. Prove you're Silent."
It wasn't a playful challenge. It was deadly serious.
*
ENA didn't say anything until they were outside, strolling along one of the gently curved walkways. "You made a request of me for Valentin's sake."
"He's my mate." The possessive claim was instinctive . . . and it ran bone-deep. "I've decided to have children with him."
Her grandmother took her time answering. "An intelligent choice. It will strengthen your position as the head of EmNet. Pity Valentin doesn't have human blood, or you'd have the trifecta."
"Grandmother, you have human blood. As do I."
Ena came to a full stop, looked at Silver with an unblinking expression. "Of course, I do," she said after almost thirty seconds. "And the reason for glossing over that fact no longer exists." She began to walk again, her calf-length coat a camel shade that suited the copper of her tunic and wide-legged pants.
"I will allow it to leak that your great-grandfather was a human engineer who chose to remain with his wife even after Silence came into effect, and she did everything in her power to subjugate her emotions. The idea of true love running in the Mercant line will further boost your credibility with the emotional races, while your track record will reassure the Silent."
"I did some research as a teenager." Silver stopped herself from looking over to where Valentin was no doubt roughhousing with their clanmates. "I believe your parents did indeed experience true love. They were together since they were fifteen, and she was twenty-five when Silence went into effect, too old for Silence to ever truly take." Ena had been, for that time period, a late-in-life baby.
"My parents were never disciplined for breaching the Protocol," her grandmother said. "I certainly never witnessed anything of the kind."
"Yes, but when I dug through the physical archives below your residence"--a place Silver had spent a lot of time in as a teen, Ena the only one in the family who could teach her the telepathic skills she needed to know--"I found an old diary kept by a human relative who maintained bonds with them throughout her life."
"That would be my aunt Rose, my father's youngest sister. She bequeathed me her estate."
"I always wondered how the diary ended up in the archives," Silver said before continuing on with her original topic. "Rose wrote that though the two followed the rules of Silence in the hope it would help their violently psychic children, they shared the same bedroom all their lives."
Ena nodded thoughtfully. "For me, that was simply the way it was in the family. I never thought to question it through the lens of Silence. I know for certain they slept in twin single beds, a foot of distance between them."
"Yes," Silver said, "but, according to Rose, when they died"--Ena's parents had died at the same time, though only her father had suffered a long illness--"they were discovered holding hands, as if they'd reached out to one another in their final moments."
As a teen, Silver had been intrigued by the report, but she hadn't actually understood the gift of love and the sacrifice of her ancestors' lives. That she did today told her a lot about her own emotional state . . . and the choices she had to make.
Her grandmother's voice broke into her thoughts. "I was never told that. It would've been erased from any official record." A heartbeat before Ena spoke again. "You should digitize the relevant parts of the diary if you haven't already. Your great-grandparents' love story will make excellent media fodder."
"I'll get you the whole diary." Silver saw nothing wrong with Ena's request or with how mercenary it sounded--her grandmother had been protecting the family for decades. All her thoughts were about how to achieve that aim. "Grandmother?"
"Yes?"
"Now that Silence has fallen, are you ever tempted to experience emotion?"
"Temptation is an emotion," Ena said, her voice as difficult to read as always. "I would, however, choose to experience it for the simple reason that information is power. Ignorance is the opposite. The problem, of course, is that emotion and Silence are not things that can be switched on and off. To become Silent is a long and arduous process. Emotion is naturally chaotic."
The words made Silver think of the foam balls that had been thrown around the play area that day, of how the cubs had gleefully attacked Valentin. She wondered if the exhausted cubs had curled up into furry snoring balls on the ride back with Anastasia and Yakov, or if they'd found a second wind and the ride had been full of noise and belly laughter.
"I have a request of Valentin," Ena said without warning. "Let us speak to him."
Dangerously ready to see Valentin again, despite how problematic he
was to her equilibrium, Silver accompanied her grandmother to the central green space. The wolves had all left--perhaps because there were too many bears, or perhaps so the bears who lived in the city could be free with their alpha. Silver had noticed that though the two sides were never friendly, they were respectful. It was the only way a complex like this could work.
"It appears we have a problem." Her grandmother came to a stop on the edge of the path, just before the grass.
Silver went to ask what, then realized it. "Oh, Valentin is that very large one with the scar on his left ear." She pointed him out where he sat in the center, his clanmates around him--the physical description had been for Ena's benefit; Silver knew Valentin whatever his form. "The bears here don't see him as often as those in Denhome."
"I will take but a moment of his time." Her grandmother stepped onto the grass and walked straight toward Valentin, ignoring the other large bears in her path. They, in turn, lumbered out of her way when she would've otherwise had to go around them.
As Valentin had said more than once, Silver's grandmother was an alpha; she demanded respect by her simple presence. Silver, too, was an alpha personality, but when she stepped onto the grass to make her way to Valentin so she could hear what her grandmother intended to ask him, the bears didn't get out of her path.
They came to her instead.
One midsized bear leaned up against her, would've pushed her over without meaning to if she hadn't set her feet apart to steady her balance . . . and if she didn't already have another bear on her other side, his warmth heavy against her. Her hands rose, rested on their fur. They leaned a little deeper into her.
She stroked.
It was her responsibility as Valentin's mate to see to the welfare of clanmates who needed contact from their alpha pair.
When she lifted her gaze, she found the largest bear in the clan looking at her. The sense of pride that burned in those eyes was a rough kiss.
The connection broke only because Ena had reached him. He turned to her grandmother, listened to whatever she had to say, then gave a single nod. Ena inclined her head in return and began to walk back. When she reached Silver, she said, "I will be accompanying Valentin to Denhome. I wish to see where my grandchildren will spend much of their time."
"Much? I don't think Valentin would trust his cubs out of his sight."
"He will when they are with me."
Silver had no argument to that--her grandmother's ethics might not be Valentin's or Silver's but she knew how to protect children of the family. "I'll come with you," she said, without having thought about what she was about to propose. "My deputy has things well under control, and I need to reconnect with my clanmates."
Her grandmother made no comment on Silver's choice. "I will walk until your mate is ready to leave."
The bears who'd been pressing into Silver stepped away, as if aware she needed to walk with her grandmother. She and Ena didn't speak much as they walked, but they reached an understanding nonetheless. When Valentin drove them to Denhome, the ride was quiet, the words Silver had to say to Valentin a heaviness that pulsed.
It was time to end this.
Chapter 50
The choice we make at the fork in the road can define our very existence.
--Lord Deryn Mercant (circa 1506)
"TELL ME OF your family, Valentin," Ena said from the backseat of Valentin's large vehicle. "It is surprisingly difficult to research changeling clans. You keep your records off any major network."
Silver saw Valentin's shoulders bunch, went to head off her grandmother, but he caught her eye, shook his head. And then, he told Ena the dark secret of his clan. He contained his pain behind a gritty control until he spoke of his mother. "She wanders the wild, a bear who will never be at peace."
A hard swallow, his hurt so apparent to Silver it was as if he were inside her. "When Nova had Dima, I spotted her lingering close by, brought him out for her to see, but she disappeared into the trees before I could reach her. I've seen her near the den recently, but for all intents and purposes, she is lost to us."
Ena asked penetrating questions. Valentin answered all of them. "What will you do with our secrets, Grandmother?" he said softly at the end.
"What do you think, Valentin?"
He smiled through the echo of a terrible series of events that had scarred his huge heart but not changed its warmth or its ability to love. "I think you'll bury them in the same deep, dark hole where you bury Mercant secrets. We're family now and family protects. It never harms."
"I have always appreciated your intelligence," Ena said regally. "Now, tell me about this Pavel individual who is distracting Arwen from his duties."
Chuckling, Valentin shook his head. "I'm not touching that with a ten-foot pole."
"Neither am I," Silver said before Ena could ask. "If you wish to poke into Arwen's private life, Grandmother, you are on your own."
Valentin's hand lifted as if to play with her hair, his fingers curling into his palm halfway as he pulled back. It didn't matter. The raw power of his presence, his dare an invisible visitor between them, it wrapped her up in possessive arms. She felt as if she were vibrating within by the time they arrived at Denhome.
She walked into the Cavern to find it relatively quiet. It was soon apparent why. An exhausted ball of cubs--some in bear form, some in human--lay in the center, snoring in short bursts. Clanmates walked around them, throwing them the odd smile, but otherwise not worried about their choice of sleeping position. Someone had managed to get a thick rug under them, so they were well cushioned at least. She saw Nova bend down to pet one, causing the cub to smile in her sleep.
That was when the healer saw Silver. Welcome lit up her whole face. "Silver!" She ran over, her feet clad in deep blue heels, her dress a vibrant cerise, and her hair precisely curled. "It's so good to see you." A hug before Nova jerked back. "Oh, I forgot--"
Silver touched her hands to Nova's. "It's all right, Nova." The warmth of the other woman's skin against hers, it didn't feel wrong. And her heart, it felt so strange inside her chest. "I'd like you to meet my grandmother. Grandmother, this is Nova, the clan's chief healer."
"Grandmother," Nova said respectfully. "You are most welcome."
Ena received the same response no matter which part of Denhome she visited, until they reached Sergey; the older bear was helping build a bed in the area of Denhome set aside for carpentry and other such projects. He held Ena's stare without welcome. "Come to see how the lesser races live?"
"Your low opinion of your own race is not my concern," Ena said, cold as ice.
Sergey narrowed his eyes . . . then threw back his head and laughed a big bear laugh of which Silver wouldn't have believed him capable. "That'll teach me to poke a bear straight out of hibernation." He swept out his arm in a wave. "Would you like a tour of our workshop?"
Ena took her time answering. "I suppose," she said at last, "a bear of your years is apt to have at least some useful knowledge. You may proceed."
Silver felt a living warmth at her back as Ena and Sergey walked off deeper into the cavernous space. "He seems in a far better mood." Even though he had baited Ena, the man had given Silver a welcoming glance.
Curving his hand over her hip, his chest brushing her shoulders, Valentin said, "I'm his alpha--he needed to understand that and accept it. We had a discussion. It's done."
"By discussion, do you mean a fight?"
His chuckle vibrated against her, the heat of him sinking into her to warm parts she hadn't known were cold. "Since your grandmother has a guide, do you want to catch up with your clanmates? Nova and the others are making drinks so you can sit and chat."
Shifting on her heel, Silver looked at the hard edges of his face, touched her hand to that thick black hair he never bothered to comb, felt her heart squeeze. "Valentin."
He lowered his head, his hair rough and tumbled. "Starlight." A ragged word.
She touched her fingers to his lips, saw her hand was tremb
ling. "Who are you to me?"
"Yours," he said. "I'm yours."
*
AN hour later, Nova showed Silver into her old room. Ena had made the unexpected decision to stay at Denhome overnight, so Silver didn't have to return to Moscow--especially since she could hook into EmNet systems using her devices or the StoneWater network. The latter she knew she could trust; to these bears, she was half of their alpha pair.
No one would treat her as an enemy.
No one would spy on her.
No one would do anything but defend her to their last breath.
And Valentin . . . he'd die to keep her safe. She felt that knowledge in the very core of her being, as if she were inside his mind, inside his soul.
"I made sure all the clothes you left in Denhome stayed in good condition," Nova told her. "I figured you could change here, and then if you and Mishka . . ." A sudden pause, her smile fading. "I don't know what to do or say. Mates are usually for life unless one dies."
"He's still mine," Silver said at once. "He told me so himself."
A dangerous edge to her that Silver had never before seen, Nova said, "Don't break my brother's heart, Silver. He's a big lug, but where you're concerned, that heart of his, it's like glass. You could shatter it with a few careless words."
The visual was an unforgiving one, shards of glass crimson with Valentin's blood lying at her feet. "I would never hurt Valentin." The words came out hard, a rebuke as brutal as Nova's words.
Nova's eyes went amber, searched Silver's face. "You still love him," she whispered. "My God, Seelichka. Even though they cut into your brain, even though they rewired you, you held on to him. No wonder Mishka calls you Silver Fucking Mercant."
Silver didn't answer the healer, but after Nova left, she exited her bedroom and looked until she spotted Pieter. Making her way to the quiet male after ensuring Nova and Stasya were nowhere nearby, she said, "Petya."
A suspicious scowl. "Why are you calling me Petya? You always call me Pieter."
"You asked me to call you Petya."
"But you never do."
"I'm doing it now."
"Why?"
Bears.
Deciding not to go any further down that rabbit hole, she said, "Will Valentin return soon?" He'd made it a point to find her after dinner, tell her that he had to go speak with Selenka.
