“It is the truth.”

A wolfish moment of eye contact. “Be careful what you give of yourself, Ethan. My wolf can be a possessive beast.”

“I am yours.”

Her pupils flared and inside him the scalding heat of her was a dangerous kiss.

Ethan walked into the burn.

Gold in her eyes, Selenka cupped his jaw. “So much passion, so much emotion.” A husky murmur. “Are you sure you’re an Arrow?” Not waiting for an answer, she tugged him close for a kiss that was soft and slow and deep and lava in his veins.

The Scarab power shoved against his shields for freedom, and he was caught between the craving to press his body to her own and never let go—and the need to take a step back so he could strengthen his shields. But Selenka was an alpha with a grieving pack. And a small moment was all she’d allow herself.

They continued on, eventually entering a large room that appeared to be a meeting area. Seven people stood within, all of whom bristled with power. The bearded male with tattooed arms—Gregori—was there, along with the one Selenka had called Ivo. Ethan also recognized Margo Lucenko and Artem Güvenc from the security team at the symposium, but that was all he had time for before the world blazed at the edges.

He halted in the doorway, slammed by a massive wave of energy that had no form he could identify. It hit him with the force of a punch to the solar plexus and he might’ve doubled over if he hadn’t suffered far worse in Arrow training.

As it was, Selenka swung around to look at him, her hair streaks of color in the air. He kept his expression calm though his heart pounded and perspiration threatened to break out over his skin. He couldn’t permit the latter—the wolves would scent it, and his job was to be Selenka’s shield and sword, not divide her already strained attention.

His mate’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she continued on to her lieutenants without calling him on what was happening. “Ethan, you know Margo.”

Artem, fine boned with pale skin and piercing hazel eyes, his height around the same as Ethan’s, raised his hand. “We met at the symposium.”

With a nod, Selenka introduced the others. “Alia.” A tall woman with generous curves fluid with muscle, her skin a soft brown, her eyes a deeper shade of the same hue, and her hair black curls pulled back into a loose bun.

She smiled at Ethan, her welcome open despite the sadness in her eyes.

The woman next to her, on the other hand, her skin ebony and her eyes strikingly, unexpectedly electric blue, the tight coils of her hair cropped close to her skull and body small and sleek, gave Ethan a short nod when Selenka introduced her as Dinara. It should’ve felt like suspicion, but Ethan was dead certain Dinara was barely holding back a scream within. He wouldn’t know what she actually thought of him until after she came out from under the weight of grief and anger.

“You saw Gregori and Ivo earlier.”

Both greeted him aloud, Gregori’s voice deeper than Ivo’s more lyrical one.

“Kostya was in wolf form at the time.” She indicated a man of medium height with a compact body and slate-colored eyes against skin that barely held the sun’s touch, his hair a deep brown.

“Skin contact okay?” He held out a hand but didn’t push it forward until Ethan nodded. His skin was warm and rough, his handclasp firm without being crushing. A man confident in his skin, and with a sense of contentment to him that came through despite the sorrow that had carved grooves in his cheeks.

“My lieutenants,” Selenka said, before taking position in the circle created by her people, her legs in a wide stance and her arms folded.

Ethan would’ve stood at her back, except Artem shifted to make a space next to Selenka, and so Ethan stood by his mate’s side.

“Tell me what you have,” she said.

“Forensic team confirmed the presence of the jetcycle.” Kostya’s steady voice. “Nothing on it after we lose the trail as it heads out of the territory.”

“Weapon?”

Margo stirred. “Standard piece you can buy off the street if you know the right people. Markings filed off, but there’s no doubt it was the murder weapon.”

A strange element of hesitation that Ethan perceived even through his overloaded senses.

“Spit it out.” Selenka’s voice was a growl. “You don’t have Emanuel anymore. None of us do. We have to learn how to have the hard conversations without him.”

Dinara folded her arms, her voice edged with razor wire as she said, “Kiev was meant to be teaching a class to our senior trainees at the den. He was already twenty minutes late when Emanuel was shot—what the fuck was he doing at that location?”

Chapter 16

Son, your pup is a gift, strong and courageous and beloved by her packmates. She’s young yet, but already, I see signs of the adult wolf she’ll become. Cherish her, be the one to whom she can turn in the years to come. Do not allow this seed of bitterness to fester in you, or it will destroy what matters most.

—Alpha Yevgeni Durev to Kiev Durev (2059)

“BLYA.” SELENKA SHOVED a hand through her hair, her shoulders falling for an instant before she squared them again. “We all know my father does things like this for no reason except that it’s Wednesday and he’s feeling pissy.

“It probably means nothing, but you follow up on it.” She nodded at the lieutenant who’d spoken. “I know I let too much slide with him, but not this. You get his explanation for why he was in that area.”

Dinara nodded, but her face was pinched. “Selya.” It came out husky, nearly broken. “I shouldn’t ha—”

“It’s all right.” Selenka walked close enough to hug the petite woman close.

Wrapping her arms around Selenka, Dinara just held on.

“This isn’t on you,” Selenka added after dropping a kiss on her packmate’s hair. “It’s on him.”

“If it was anyone else,” Gregori said, the tattoos on his arm standing out in sharp relief as he fisted his hand, “I swear, I’d take him out. The way he talks to you—it’s not how a wolf should address his alpha.”

Ethan was in full agreement with the male and from the looks on the faces around him, so were the rest of Selenka’s lieutenants. Alia was the most difficult to read, her serene expression a mask, but Ethan had no doubts about her loyalties. There was something about the statuesque lieutenant . . .

Releasing Dinara but staying beside her, Selenka put her hands on her hips and addressed her entire team. “Treat my father like any other senior packmate who’s out of line—and that’s an order from your alpha. Any problems, you come to me. One of our own is dead; no one gets to slide on anything that could lead to his murderer.”

The lieutenants all nodded, and despite the feral energy that kept scraping against Ethan, doing damage to his shields that he couldn’t seem to fix, his senses were crystal clear and one thing he knew—each and every person in this room would die for Selenka. For that reason, Ethan would do everything in his power to protect them.

Gregori, Margo, Alia, Artem, Dinara, Kostya, and Ivo would act as her defense after he was gone. Because he would go. Scarab Syndrome could be held at bay in certain circumstances, but as Dr. Ndiaye had made clear, the end result was inevitable: madness leading to death. His only hope for even a short reprieve lay with Memory Aven-Rose.

“What else?” Selenka looked around the circle of dominant wolves. “Tell me we have something.”

“No defensive wounds,” Margo said, her jaw held so tight that her skin was white over bone. “Emanuel was taken by surprise. No other way to explain it, not as fast as he was.”

“He’d have heard the cycle unless the attacker was already there, lying in wait,” Ivo said, his own anger a sense of intense tightness of the body, as if he held back a hurricane. “The question of it all is why.”

Ethan might be a less than optimal Arrow, but he was an Arrow. “A mistake,” he said.

Eight pairs of eyes turned to him, with Margo the one who said, “Explain.”

“Was your packmate on a routine patrol?”

A shake of the head from Artem. “I saw him before he left—he was just going for a run. Planned to be back in a few hours, had a date and wanted to dress up.”

Another punch of wild energy against Ethan’s senses, clawed and angry and unforgiving. Not Psy in any way. It had to be an artefact of the mating bond—Selenka was attuned to the emotional tone of the room as a result of her connection with her lieutenants, and Ethan was getting the overflow.

That it was so significant despite the fragmented nature of their bond gave him hope that the bond would find a way around the roadblocks presented by his abnormal psyche and he’d get to be with his mate in the deepest sense, without static or broken shards or wisps of lingering fog.

Riding out the painful blast, he said, “My theory is that your packmate stumbled into something he wasn’t supposed to see.” Ethan’s mind kept on moving the available pieces, and this was the only scenario that fit. “It’s possible your father may have escaped death by a very fine margin. Had he been the first to arrive, Emanuel could’ve found him instead.”

He looked at Selenka, his loyalty to her making him hesitate on voicing the other option. But her lips tightened. “It’s possible that what Emanuel saw,” she said, “was my father doing something he shouldn’t.”

Margo sucked in a breath. “Forensics tested his hands. No signs he shot the weapon.”

That, Ethan knew, didn’t equal a lack of involvement.

Selenka’s expression made it clear she was well aware of the same. “Debrief my father personally,” she ordered Margo. “Don’t accuse him, but push hard.” She flexed, then tightened her hand just as Ethan’s gauntlet vibrated gently against his skin—a discreet indication that he’d received a message.

He glanced at it as Selenka said, “Ivo, what did our surveillance pick up?”