“I agree,” Aden said. “However, the two don’t appear to have any kind of a connection. Natalia seemed genuinely confused when we asked her about Emilie—her only goal was to make the shot.”
Selenka’s wolf prowled against the inside of her skin. “She was aiming at Ethan,” she said. “Why? Did he hurt her?” Even asking that question made her stomach roil and her mouth bloom with the taste of betrayal.
Aden shook his head. “She’s never met him, but she heard through a trusted source—a source she refuses to identify—that he was guilty of similar actions against other victims across a period of years.”
Selenka’s claws pushed so hard at the insides of her skin that she had to clench her teeth to keep them from slicing out and gouging into her own body. There was no fucking way she could ask the next logical question.
It was Valentin who broke the silence. “Chance Natalia’s information is correct?”
“Less than zero.”
“I know you trust your man.” Silver’s clear tone, with her razor-sharp ability to cut through bullshit like a knife. “But you can’t guarantee where he was twenty-four hours of the day for years.”
Aden hesitated for a second before saying, “Actually, I can.”
Selenka’s wolf bared its teeth, her vision acute and predatory. “Did you have him tagged?” Like an animal in a pen, its freedom only an illusion.
“I don’t believe in tagging individuals as if they’re cattle.” Aden’s voice never rose, his tone steady, but his anger was a cold wind against her. “Ming LeBon had different ideas.”
“What about the rumored drug leash?” Silver asked, as Valentin wrapped an arm around her waist and held her possessively against his chest.
To those who didn’t understand changeling bears, didn’t know Valentin, that would’ve appeared to be nothing but a male asserting his right over a woman. Selenka knew the truth was far more complicated—Valentin was really, really angry at the idea of a man being leashed in such a way, and was cuddling up to his mate in an effort to take the edge off his temper.
Bears rarely lost it, but—so long as it had nothing to do with a territorial skirmish—Selenka had made sure her wolves knew to give the ursine changelings a wide berth should it ever happen. It’d take three wolves to take down an enraged bear of Valentin’s size in a sudden fight—and they’d all come out with broken bones and shattered teeth.
Wolf rage was a quieter, harder, deadlier thing. Wolves didn’t smash up rooms and swipe out heedlessly. Wolves planned. Selenka planned. If she wanted to attack Valentin, she’d think out every step ahead of time—and when she closed her jaws over his throat, it’d be precisely over his jugular and carotid.
That cold rage sharpened her senses now, had her hearing a distant door closing as Aden said, “The drug leash wasn’t foolproof. In particular, there was no way to know its effect on those with incredibly rare abilities. There is no one like Ethan. Ming wouldn’t have risked ruining him.”
Ruin, Selenka thought, could have different meanings.
I am permanently damaged in ways that affect my psychic balance.
“What I’m about to share is highly confidential,” Aden said, white lines bracketing his mouth. “I’m only doing so because you can’t have any doubts about Ethan. This information cannot be shared with any others.”
“As long as it isn’t relevant to the safety of others, we have no reason to share it.”
Aden waited until Valentin and Selenka both nodded agreement to Silver’s statement before he continued. “Ming tagged Ethan. Dr. Edgard Bashir deactivated that tag three months ago once he’d worked out a way to do it without damaging Ethan’s organs.” Flat, hard words. “The device was placed inside him when he was a child and it grew tendrils around his heart in the time since. It can’t be removed, but it’s dead.”
Selenka’s growl echoed against the walls. The idea of being watched that way, until nothing you did was private, it would’ve driven her insane. That Ethan wasn’t locked up in an institution was an indication of his strength, another piece of the dangerous enigma that was her mate.
“I was able to confirm that, at the times concerned, Ethan was in lockdown deep inside a bunker Ming used as a secret satellite base.”
Selenka’s claws thrust out of her fingers as, inside her, the cold night that was Ethan twisted with broken shards. She didn’t even flinch as those claws sliced holes in her jacket, woman and wolf both hungry for vengeance. “Did you tell the E who shot at him?”
A nod. “She’s too tied into the delusion of righteous vengeance to see reason.”
“What I find interesting,” Silver murmured while placing her hand over her mate’s where he had it splayed against her abdomen, “is how someone managed to manipulate two empaths into an attack. I can’t understand the motive. If the empaths fall, so does the Honeycomb—and by default the PsyNet. Even the Consortium can’t have any wish to see the PsyNet fail.”
“None of it makes any sense.” Aden glanced at the sleek black comm device on his wrist. “Both Natalia and Emilie are under medical review and inaccessible to further questioning for the time being. However, I’ll set my people to tracking those of their communications that took place via non-telepathic channels.”
Meeting over, Selenka tracked Ethan, his scent a shining thread to her wolf. Her beautiful, dangerous stranger of a mate was leaning against the external wall beside the main door, a stray at his feet, its tail wagging.
Pale eyes locked with her own.
“You need to see your healer,” he said with no indication that he felt any sense of intimidation in her presence. Arousal licked through her—but her stubborn mate wasn’t finished. “The numbing agent in the gel will have long worn off.”
Her wolf curled its upper lip at the demand in his tone but grudgingly accepted he was right. Her back hurt. “Yes. I messaged him just before. He’s already at the pack’s city HQ, so we’ll meet him there.” She looked at the dog—now quivering, but staying staunchly at Ethan’s side. “That your dog?”
Ethan looked down at the hopeful, scared, loyal animal. “It appears we are equally damaged.” He didn’t try to shoo the creature away as it walked with them . . . its body trembling the entire time.
Impressed by its courage, she caught the animal’s eyes. It froze. She didn’t crouch—that would just confuse it. She just bent and patted its head. “I’m not going to eat you.” The dog knew it stood next to a wolf, a predator that could rip it to shreds.
Ethan said nothing after she drew back, but his new pet wagged its tail like a metronome. She found her gaze drawn to Ethan’s throat again, to the strength of the cords, to the steady beat of his pulse against the warmth of his skin . . . and had her teeth sunk into his flesh before she realized she’d moved.
A growl filled her chest, the scent of him in her blood. And the deadly Arrow she’d just bitten didn’t lift a finger to defend himself. He just placed his hand on her hip, holding her close to the muscled strength of his body.
Growl turning into a low rumble, she released her bite, then licked her tongue over the indentation in his skin—she’d been careful even in her lack of control, hadn’t broken skin.
His breathing altered. The sharp intake of it had her jerking away.
What the hell was she doing? She’d just bitten a man she’d only met hours earlier . . . and she was very, very satisfied to see she’d marked him. Even now, she couldn’t help but brush her fingers over the mark. “This isn’t normal.” It came out husky.
Ethan looked at her with unflinching intensity. “I’ve never been normal. But you’re my mate now and I’m not going to give that up.”
Selenka had no idea who this man was—but that he was her mate was unquestionable. The bond, jagged and cold and subtly out of tune, hummed in her blood, her wolf craving skin privileges. But the dissonance in their bond sharpened her instincts and gave her the clarity to say, “Tell me about why you’re a threat.”
Ethan’s pupils spread outward, until his irises were a sweep of obsidian.
Patient Zero
Your current psychic readings are a cause for concern.
—Dr. Maia Ndiaye, PsyMed SF Echo, to Pax Marshall, CEO, Marshall Group
PATIENT ZERO.
That’s what Dr. Ndiaye and the others on the Scarab team called him.
It was to maintain his anonymity, but also because it was true. He was the first known case of Scarab Syndrome in the post-Silence world, a powerful man anchored to sanity by two slender threads.
Sporadic contact with an empath as unique as he was a patient.
And a bond with his twin that not even Silence had been able to break. She worried about him despite the fact that he’d let her down in so many ways.
“You have that look in your eye,” Theo said now, leaning in the doorway of the suite that was her own in this sprawling apartment that consumed an entire floor of the building.
For so long, Pax had protected her by making her irrelevant. Those days were done. He was now the head of the family and he protected her by making it clear she was never to be prey in the vicious game of politics and power that was their family—anyone who came after her would be putting themselves front and center in his crosshairs.
And Pax was not a man known for mercy.
Yet with Scarab in his head, he’d also planned for the future. Whatever happened to him, his twin would never again be without protection. Money could buy a lot of things—including the safety of a sibling who had always been the better half of their broken pair.
“What look?” He turned, hands in his pockets and suit jacket unbuttoned. “You couldn’t even see my eyes from where you’re standing.”
“I feel it.” Quiet, intense words. “The power calls to you.”