Either Krychek or Aden must’ve had a direct telepathic contact for her, because she appeared in the PsyNet moments later. “What are THOSE?” Her shudder was in her words, a fact Ethan wouldn’t have believed if he hadn’t heard it. As it was, he was simply glad someone else could see the creatures. For all he knew, it was possible to take a telepathic snapshot of a hallucination.

“You see them?” he asked, to be certain.

“The creepy crawlies munching on people’s minds? How can anyone miss them?”

“We’ll discuss that later,” Kaleb said. “For now, are you able to clean the Net of them?”

A long pause before Memory shuddered again—or that was what it felt like to Ethan when she spoke. “As long as I don’t have to touch them. Let me get my brush.”

He didn’t understand the reference, but he saw the PsyNet ripple with a midnight rainbow not long afterward, and when the rainbow passed some time later, the area was clean of the parasites.

“What about the one we trapped?” Ethan pointed out the miniature psychic vault. “It’s still alive.” He could feel it, a tiny itch at the back of his head.

“Yes, it is.” Memory sounded tired. “You want me to—”

“No,” Krychek said. “We’ll keep it as a test to confirm who can see such parasites and who can’t.”

“Make sure you contain it,” was Memory’s order before she dropped from the Net.

Kaleb’s obsidian power encased the vault.

Inside Ethan, the mating bond pulsed with a wolf’s growl, his mate sensing his disquiet. Pride at being hers spread through his veins, and he went to drop out of the PsyNet so he could return home . . . but then all hell broke loose. Krychek’s mind disappeared, only for his voice to blast into Ethan’s skull a second later: We have a second site. PsyNet coordinates as follows. Check for parasites.

Ethan raced to the location beside Aden, their minds riding the slipstreams of the PsyNet in a way he couldn’t explain except to say it was like riding the wind. He came to a screeching halt a short time later, slamming a blade of light across Aden’s path to stop him, too. Their minds weren’t anchored in this area and thus probably safe from the contagion, but there was no point in taking an unnecessary risk.

Aden stayed back. “Parasites present?”

“A massive number.” Crawling on minds like ants on an anthill . . . and all at once, he saw the shape of them, understood the truth. “They’re shaped like scarab beetles.”

Aden was silent, likely receiving data from multiple sources.

“What’s the situation on the ground?” Ethan asked the leader of the squad.

“Three self-inflicted fatalities before Kaleb was able to get there, and the chaos is increasing despite our efforts.”

“I’ll—”

“No, Ethan,” Aden said. “I can tell your power is fading and I need you to attempt something else before you stop to recover. Memory’s already close to flameout and we can’t have her totally out of commission—so as you’re the only other person who can currently spot the parasites, I want you to see if you can affect them.”

Ethan had nothing against making the attempt, but they had a practical problem. “My ability only works with light.”

“There is light here.”

Looking at the night sky of the PsyNet, Ethan saw it anew. The soft golden glow of the Honeycomb. The burn of all those living minds. Even the flickering pulse of the parasites. Accessing the part of his mind that created the light that stunned without doing harm, he imagined sweeping it across the psychic plane.

Only at the last minute did he think to warn Aden to close his psychic eye.

Light blazed against the black of the PsyNet and he had a moment to think, I can create beauty, before the flash faded into nothingness.

The parasites had stopped moving—stunned, as his targets would be in the physical plane. So stunned that they fell off their unwitting hosts, stopped burrowing through shields, and just lay in the fabric of the PsyNet.

Ethan, his own power close to redlining, used a fine blade of light calibrated to kill to sweep across a section of the creatures. The bugs died, not disappearing as they had with Memory, but burning up to nothingness. Tiny flashes along his light blade, the Net clean in the aftermath.

Mind aching though the surges had finally stopped, he used the last vestiges of his power to eliminate the rest of the creatures. It took pinprick strikes for the final few, but he made sure to sanitize the entire area. “I need to get back to Selenka.” His body was close to shutting down.

Krychek was waiting for him when he dropped out of the PsyNet and, after one look at his face, teleported him directly to Selenka. She was in the middle of a huge stand of trees, had a clawed hand slicing toward Kaleb before she spotted Ethan. The telekinetic ’ported out even as she halted her strike.

And Ethan’s vision faded.

“Ethan!” His mate’s voice was the last thing he heard before his body hit the leaf fall on the forest floor.

Chapter 31

Ethan’s flamed out. Initiate safeguards.

—Aden Kai to the Arrow Squad

SELENKA’S WOLF WAS still snarling from Krychek’s sudden appearance when Ethan went down and she didn’t fucking care about anything else. She’d been a fraction too far to catch him and now he lay unmoving on the carpet of leaves, the early evening sunlight casting dappled shadows on him through the canopy.

She’d hooked into the news networks after Ethan teleported out with Kaleb and figured out where he must’ve gone. It had been obvious he wouldn’t return quickly. So she’d spoken with Memory about getting in touch again the instant Ethan was back, then returned to den territory—quite aside from the hit apparently out on all her lieutenants, Emanuel’s death was an open wound, and her pack needed her close.

And her mate was an Arrow. She’d known he’d find her. She just hadn’t expected him to hitch a ride with the most dangerous telekinetic in the world. She and Valentin were both well aware the cardinal could lock onto faces as well as places, but Krychek was a smart political operator and had never before used that ability to violate their territories.

In this case, however, Selenka would forgive any trespass.

Crashing to her knees beside where Ethan had fallen onto his side, she caught the scent of wet iron, but it wasn’t his nose that was bleeding. A crimson tear had beaded at the corner of one eye, while the bead from the eye closest to the forest floor was already trailing down his face.

Wolf shoving at her skin, she checked his pulse, found it thready but steady. Her mate had suffered a psychic wound, one with which she couldn’t help. But . . . Ethan could’ve asked to be taken anywhere. Kaleb had brought him here because Ethan had wanted to come home. To his mate.

Overwhelmed by a piercing tenderness, she bent down to press a kiss to his temple, then used the end of her T-shirt to wipe the blood from his face. It did something to her to know he trusted her to see him at his most vulnerable. She realized then that she’d make the same choice in the same circumstances—Ethan would watch over her and never see weakness in her vulnerability. As she saw the deadly Arrow even now.

“I’m here, Ethan.” Throat thick, she checked his pulse again, then sat down next to him so some part of her body was always touching his as she took out her phone and made a call—she needed foundational information before she contacted the squad.

“Selenka, what can I do for you?” Silver said in that crisp, clear voice of hers.

“I think Ethan’s fried his brain helping with the recent outbreaks. What do I need to do to help him heal?”

“Is your mate unconscious?”

Selenka didn’t bother prevaricating; Silver was the mate of an ally and an ally in her own right—she wouldn’t give Selenka bad information. “Yes. Bloody tears in both his eyes.”

“That may not be as bad as it appears.” Silver’s cool practicality was calming. “It sounds to me like he’s flamed out—that’s when we push our minds so far that we flatline on the psychic plane. He may have burst blood vessels in his eyes depending on the pressure involved.”

Selenka had a feeling the tears had to do with another type of pressure altogether. “Is he vulnerable on the PsyNet?”

“Flameout does leave us vulnerable to psychic intrusion, but as he’s an Arrow, I’m certain he must be safe. Give me a moment.” She was gone for several seconds. “I’ve spoken to my Arrow contact for EmNet. He was not cooperative in the least until I stated I was asking on your behalf. You’ll be receiving a direct call soon.”

Selenka’s phone indicated a second incoming call—from the official call code the squad used for Trinity. “I’ve got it. Spasibo, Silver.” Hanging up, she took the call.

“My name is Axl,” the male voice stated. “I and our squadmates have surrounded Ethan’s mind on the PsyNet. No one will get through our shields.”

Selenka’s tight chest didn’t ease up. She hated being unable to protect him herself. But Axl wasn’t done. “There is an unusual shield immediately around Ethan’s mind that doesn’t appear to be Psy and is sending very aggressive ‘come closer and you’ll die’ signals.”

A smile curved Selenka’s lips. Her wolf was standing guard over her mate. “Is there anything I can do to make this easier for him?”

“Keep his body safe and ensure you give him plenty of nutrient fluids and bars when he wakes. He’ll be extremely enervated. It may take up to forty-eight hours for him to recover his psychic strength. He should, however, wake well before that.”

Selenka had wiped away the bloody tears but she kept on scenting her mate’s blood, kept on seeing his hurt. “Spasibo.”

“I am happy to be able to assist.” Perhaps it was her imagination, but Axl’s voice seemed a touch rougher. “Contact me if you need any further data, or should you need a Psy medic. I’ll message you my direct call code after we hang up.”