Selenka was caught between the urge to snuggle Ivy until the E felt better and the instinct to growl at her. Empaths were often as idealistic as pups, stars in their eyes and a belief in the innate goodness of people. Many had no self-protective instincts. It was enough to push an alpha into adopting the whole lot of them just to keep them safe.
Just as well the Arrows had already done that. Probably for the same reason.
“It’s a good thing that Ethan was here.” Ivy Jane swallowed. “I don’t think anyone else could’ve stopped a massacre with almost no harm.”
Ethan.
Tasting the name, Selenka couldn’t decide if it fit or not. “He’s one of yours,” she said to Aden, more to see if she could get any further information on the Arrow than because she had any doubts about his status as a member of Aden’s squad.
“Yes.” Aden’s tone made it clear no other information would be forthcoming.
Selenka had to respect him for that; an alpha protected their people.
Stirrings around them, as more and more of the fallen began to wake. Separating without further conversation—there was nothing to discuss until they could interview the two assailants—the five of them moved to help where they could. The paramedics had already carried out the attendees with broken bones or who’d taken knocks to the head.
She’d just crouched down to help up a dazed E when the hairs on her nape stirred, her nostrils flaring as she caught a brightly cold scent. Brutal sexual attraction or not, there was something about Ethan . . . something that didn’t fit, an intensity that was a scrape of claws against her skin, a resonance that made her want to haul him close and just listen until she figured him out.
“Two broken wrists and a wrenched shoulder,” he said on reaching her. “No major head injuries.” He sounded as if he was reciting a grocery list, but inside her, her wolf lay down with its head on its paws and closed its eyes. And regardless of her awareness that he wasn’t quite right in a way she couldn’t pinpoint, her mind painted a vivid picture of her lying naked and sated in bed just listening to him talk.
She wasn’t the only one who noticed him, either. The other changelings nearby who’d caught his voice had all looked up, heads cocked and expressions appreciative—especially after they caught a glimpse of the speaker.
Selenka smiled at them.
The smart ones became interested in other things. Two bears tried to stare her down, but she was expecting that and held their gazes without blinking until the man and woman both dropped their heads with low, complaining grumbles.
Her wolf was very clear: Ethan was hers to play with—or to punish.
That wolf’s fur brushed against the inside of her skin again as it stretched luxuriantly, happy now that it had marked its territory, made its claim clear. It wanted a closer sniff of this Arrow who had labeled himself a threat and described himself as damaged.
We’re all damaged in one way or another, Selenushka.
It was BlackEdge’s senior healer, Oleg, who’d spoken those words to a distraught fourteen-year-old Selenka. She’d been a wounded child then, was a grown woman now, but Oleg’s words remained apt. Damage meant nothing except that the person had lived life and taken a few knocks along the way.
After dusting off the empath she’d been helping, she sent him on his way and turned to Ethan. Pale eyes locked onto her own with a focused intent that had her wolf growling softly in her chest. “Careful, zaichik,” she whispered, touching clawed fingers to Ethan’s chest. “I’m not an E. I bite. Hard. And you’ve told me that you’re a threat.”
The Arrow took a step closer, allowing her claws to prick him through his uniform.
No fear. No hesitation.
Her breasts tightened, her thighs clenched, but Selenka was no green pup. “Skin privileges with you might be delicious, but this attraction won’t protect you if you’re a danger to those I’ve sworn to protect.” She dug her claws in deeper. “Will you come as sweetly if I’m about to rip out your throat?”
Eyes not moving from hers, the Arrow angled his head.
Selenka’s wolf lunged to the surface.
Chapter 4
Discipline, Selenushka. Discipline. You’re already too powerful a wolf to strike out or react without thought. Today, you almost took off a packmate’s arm in a fit of anger. Tomorrow, you may claw out someone’s throat. With discipline, you are an asset to the pack. Without it, you are a liability.
—Alpha Yevgeni Durev to his granddaughter, Selenka (12)
SELENKA LEANED HARD on the self-control it had taken her years to develop. Passion and emotion were her greatest strength and greatest weakness—as alpha, her pack adored her for loving them so ferociously, but the flip side to that was a stormy temperament that had turned her into a brawler as a teen.
Blin! She couldn’t believe her wolf had nearly lost control that way. She had to be more touch deprived than she’d realized. Well, she’d take care of that with this Arrow who offered his throat to an alpha wolf without fear—but she’d do so after she’d figured out whether he was a foe under the skin, and handled her responsibilities to the symposium.
Stepping away from Ethan, she caught an E who’d staggered to his feet but was none too steady. The empath, his eyes huge and guileless as a pup’s, dropped his head against her shoulder while wrapping his arms around her. Selenka didn’t hesitate to put her own around the heavily built male, stroking his trembling back. Empaths aroused the same protective instincts in her that she felt around submissive members of the pack. They were so damn helpless.
“You’re fine,” she said in a firm and reassuring tone.
He cuddled harder into her. Wolf sighing, she hugged him tight and nuzzled his hair—and narrowed her eyes at Ethan when he stirred as if to haul the E away. He’d get a swipe of claws across his pretty face if he tried. But he had brains, this Arrow, enough brains to stay in position until the E in her arms finally calmed enough to wander away to join a knot of other Es.
“You’re an alpha wolf.” Ethan’s voice wrapped around her. “Why did you permit such encroachment into your space?”
“We don’t usually eat helpless Es.” It’d be like kicking pups. “A good alpha knows when to hug and when to dole out a dressing-down.”
Ethan’s expression gave nothing away, but he said, “Why am I compelled to you?” He didn’t sound disturbed by the compulsion. “I want to put my hands on your skin, want to taste you.”
Another man may have come across as flirtatious or trying his luck with those words. With Ethan . . . it was cold, factual, unvarnished. The man wanted to strip her bare and put his mouth on her and he didn’t understand why.
But those unembellished words, in that voice . . .
Her wolf strained against her skin. If she hadn’t been aware Psy couldn’t influence changeling minds in such a way, she might’ve suspected telepathic coercion. “I have no answers for you except that sometimes, the body wants what it wants.”
Eyes hot with a need that burned dark and deadly, he said, “Would you like to have our discussion now? So you can decide whether to kill me or . . . allow me to indulge this compulsion.”
Selenka’s eyes went to his throat again, a strong column against the black of his uniform collar. That raised collar wouldn’t protect him from wolf teeth—especially when he didn’t want to be protected. “No. We’ll do that in private.” There were far too many big changeling ears here, and whatever Ethan had to tell her was specific to her—or he would’ve told her while she was with Valentin.
A growl built in the back of her chest as her wolf fought her in a way it had never before done. It wanted Ethan, and logic and reason be damned. Wrenching it under control with teeth-gritted will, she took another look at the Arrow across from her. He was watching her like he wanted to hunt her down—but she felt no sense of threat.
Because the cold Arrow looked as feral as she currently felt.
Whatever this was, it wasn’t an attempt at psychic manipulation. It was chemistry so violent that it had laid waste to both an Arrow’s and an alpha’s control. “Talk about something else,” she ordered, her voice harsh. “Tell me about your telekinesis. In as much technical detail as possible.”
“The theory is that I move and reshape available light.”
“Does that mean you don’t have the ability in a lightless room?”
A stillness fell over him. And she knew. Knew. He had survived a room without light . . . and he hadn’t put himself there. Because how better to control a man whose power was linked to light than to deny him fuel for that power?
Blood boiling, she sliced out a hand. “Never mind.” She would not expose Ethan here, in this place where others might overhear; some wounds were private, to be shown only to those you chose. “I see another E who looks lost.”
The woman all but burrowed into her. Ethan, meanwhile, stopped to assist a fallen empath to his feet. Selenka had met the teenage cardinal earlier that day, after he walked over and asked her about the colors in her hair. His own was cut close to his skull, the curls tight.
“I saw a boy with stripes shaved into his hair,” he’d said afterward. “I’m considering it. Ivy is my guardian at present, and she authorized it but said I had to be sure since my hair will take time to recover.”
Now the teenager blinked at Ethan. “I can’t see you.” His voice shook, his ebony skin devoid of its usual glow.
“I’ll call a paramedic to check your vision.”
“No.” The teenager grabbed his arm. “I can see you, but I can’t see you . . . No, wait.” A deep frown. “You’re not gone. You’re . . . lost. Don’t fade. Don’t throw away the broken shards. You just need glue.”
Releasing a motionless Ethan, the E patted him on the arm before weaving his way over to Ivy Jane Zen, who enfolded his taller form against her and pressed a kiss to his temple.