“I’m Ivina, one of the healers,” she said, purple shadows under her eyes. “Your dog needs a bath and inoculations.” She bent to pet the dog and when the animal didn’t shy, Ethan nodded. “I appreciate the assistance.”
Smile sad, Ivina patted her thigh, but the dog didn’t follow her until Ethan said, “Go.”
Then he stood alone . . . until a small girl walked over to stare at him. She was perhaps four, though he had no confidence in his assessment. He wasn’t much good at gauging age in non-adults.
Her silky black hair was cut in blunt bangs above her uptilted dark brown eyes, her brown-skinned face round with the impression of cheekbones that might or might not sharpen as she aged. She wore a blue dress with a scalloped edge that came to her knees, along with shining shoes of black buckled over white socks with ruffled edges. In her arms, she clutched an item he recognized as a doll. That doll looked like the child, and it wore an identical dress in miniature.
“Hello,” he said, when no adult appeared with her. “Are you lost?”
She shook her head.
Figuring another wolf would come by for her soon enough, he returned to his vigil. But it proved startlingly difficult to ignore a child staring at him with big brown eyes. Her stare scrubbed the sandpaper over his brain even harder.
Chapter 15
I can’t give you a definitive diagnosis. We have no real diagnostic tools yet, but from all that you’ve disclosed, especially the sense of their powers expanding, I am ninety percent certain that this individual is showing the first indications of Scarab Syndrome. That sense of power, of expansion, appears to be a uniting factor across the confirmed cases.
As it seems the individual on whose behalf you’re inquiring is currently rational and able to think logically about what’s happening in their brain, I would urge they get in direct contact with me. Their assistance could be invaluable in helping us understand the Syndrome, and such clarity of thought does not last long once the Syndrome takes full effect—this individual may, at best, have only a week or two of clear thought.
It’s possible a specialist empath could help the affected individual maintain rational thought for longer, but that is not guaranteed—it appears dependent on the individual. At present, there is no cure. I am sorry.
—Dr. Maia Ndiaye’s reply to an anonymous and untrackable communication sent directly to her private inbox
“DO YOU NEED something?” Ethan asked in desperation, as that was why people mostly requested his presence.
A jagged nod, silky black hair gleaming in the light.
“What?”
In answer, the child closed the distance between them, so close that he had to bend his head to see her. She stood right by his leg, staring up at him, as if expecting him to know what to do. As he didn’t, he told her so.
A wrinkling in her brow, before her lips parted at last. “You smell Lenka,” she said, and the way she formed the words told him he’d overestimated her age.
“I am bonded to your alpha. I may carry her scent.” The idea made the madness in him rise and rise, a smashing anvil against his shields.
Gritting his teeth, he held back the attack as the child gestured for him to bend down. As he saw no threats that required him to stay upright, he obeyed, crouching down so they were eye-to-eye.
“I sad,” she said. “Pack sad.”
“Yes.” The numbness shredded, he could feel their sorrow as black rain against his senses.
His priority right now, however, was the little wolf child. He’d undergone “child management lessons” alongside all other adult Arrows—the new squad would care for their children as no one had cared for them.
At the time, he’d sat through the classes robotically. Today, he realized that he’d been wrong to believe such lessons had no value to him, that he didn’t care. He would care if something or someone hurt the Arrow children—because as with this child, they were innocents who’d done nothing to deserve pain or scorn.
No child had ever caused him harm.
No child had ever looked at him and seen a monster to be put to the leash.
No child had ever called him broken or aberrant.
Dredging up the lessons he hadn’t thought about since he attended them, he said, “Do you know why everyone is sad?”
“Yes,” the child said, her lower lip quivering. “Ema gone.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “No come back.”
Ethan looked around for help but the corridor was empty of all other life. Remembering what Zaira often said about defaulting to kindness if lost in how to deal with a child, and since this child was changeling, he awkwardly opened one arm. It was as if she’d been waiting for that the entire time. Burying her face into his shoulder, she didn’t argue when he wrapped both arms around her. He rose to his feet with her held close, a ferocious kind of protectiveness stealing his breath.
He would kill to protect her and all children. His desire not to be a murderer wasn’t as strong as his need to protect. That need had him raising one hand to stroke the child’s hair, the silk of it cool water.
She sniffled against his shoulder, the doll pressed between their bodies.
An adult wolf entered the corridor at last. Seeing Ethan with the girl, he said, “Our little Zhanusya. She’s very attached to Selya—she probably escaped her parents and followed Selya’s scent trail to you.”
A pat on the child’s back, before the other man was gone. But Ethan was no longer lost. He knew the child in his arms was content to be there. Even as he held her, he worked on his shields. It was difficult. Things kept cracking and breaking, his mind feeling as if it were bleeding from the constant barrage.
“I no cry now.” Sitting up against his arm, Zhanusya—an affectionate diminutive for Zhanna if he had it correct—rubbed at her eyes. “Vika sad, too.” Holding up the doll.
The doll wasn’t sentient, but Ethan could see that to Zhanna, her invisible wounds mattered. “Yes,” he said, because it wasn’t hard to know what to say to a child—Zhanna was wide open in a way that only heightened his protective urges. “You should wipe her tears.”
After doing so with soft little fingers while murmuring soothing words, Zhanna cuddled her doll close. “Lenka man?” A pointed look at him.
“Yes.” Pride was a roaring lion inside him. “I’m hers.”
Smiling, the child leaned her head against his shoulder.
“Nice dress,” she whispered a moment later, as if telling him a secret. “Don’t dirty. Party.” Her face fell. “Don’t wanna party. Pack sad.”
Ethan cradled her distressed body against him again, rocking gently in a way that seemed to soothe her. Whatever plans this pack’d had for today, they lay in ashes. It was a time of pain and sorrow—and though the weight of those emotions in the air was exacerbating his lack of control and the rising Scarab power, he wouldn’t leave the den.
He wouldn’t leave Selenka.
Not until he had no choice.
Not until he lost the battle against Scarab.
His telepathy wasn’t strong enough to reach outside Russia, but it was more than strong enough to touch base with Axl. Even with what had happened earlier, his acceptance that Axl wasn’t a villain, the engagement caused him intense discomfort. Scars didn’t fade overnight.
The senior Arrow responded at once, his own voice crystalline—Axl was a Gradient 9.7 telepath. Ethan, what is it?
I’d like to request time off for the foreseeable future. It was the first time since his escape from Ming that he’d made a request for leave. I also promised to cover Nerida’s shift tomorrow.
I’ll take care of it, Axl said. Is there a problem?
No. This is a personal request. Words he’d never thought he’d utter. I’ll speak to Aden about the long term. Though it wouldn’t be necessary; Aden would know some of it at least the instant he saw Ethan’s request to meet Memory Aven-Rose.
Understood. Leave actioned.
Thank you.
“Itchy head,” Zhanna said, screwing up her nose.
“Your head is itchy?”
“No, you itchy head.”
Ethan realized belatedly that she must’ve sensed something while he telepathed. He’d never come across that before, but he didn’t exactly have a wide social circle. “Perhaps you have a Psy ancestor.”
Zhanna smiled. “You funny talk, Lenka man.”
The door opened on those words and Selenka walked out. When Zhanna lunged for her, she brought up her arms to gather the child close. “I should’ve known I’d find you here,” she said with a nip of Zhanna’s nose that, from the way the child burrowed into her, didn’t seem to cause any pain.
Eyes rimmed with red met his. “My Zhannochka is trouble.” A kiss pressed to the top of Zhanna’s head, love in the arms that held her.
Ethan had never comprehended love, but today, it was as bright and glowing a knowledge as his awareness of Axl’s sincerity and Aden’s dedication to his squad—including Ethan. This, how Selenka held Zhanna, how Zhanna petted her alpha’s cheek with a soft hand, it was love.
“Let’s go talk to my senior people.”
“Anything you want.” Always.
Selenka found a word or a touch for every grieving packmate they passed.
Ethan stayed by her side but a step back; this was her time to be alpha and his to be her support. And though he had an excellent spatial sense, even he had to concentrate to remember the route after they’d turned several times.
“Here’s your stop.” Selenka snuggled Zhanna close for another long moment before handing her over to a woman with the same hair and eyes who stood in the doorway to what must be a family apartment.
The child went without argument, a wolf heeding her alpha’s decision. “Bye, Lenka.” She made her doll wave, too. “Bye, Lenka man.”
Selenka’s lips twitched slightly as they left, a ray of light piercing the heavy darkness. “How do you like being Lenka’s man?”