“His name is Ezra Ree, and he’s not in a good state,” Aden told Ethan when he arrived. “But we can’t wait any longer—the continual surges in the PsyNet have destabilized sections to the extent that it’s become impossible to stitch them back together.”

“Why me?” Ethan was no interrogator.

“We can’t get a response from him—since you have some type of affinity to Scarab sufferers, I’m hoping he’ll react to you out of instinct.”

Nodding, Ethan stepped into the secure hospital room. A man with brown hair and white skin flushed with pink, his body formed of large bones, sat on the bed. His expression was vacant as he rocked slowly back and forth.

A cessation of movement, Ezra’s eyes focused on Ethan. “I know you. I felt you chasing me. You’re a bloodhound and you chased me until I couldn’t breathe.”

Ethan took advantage of the middle-aged male’s moment of lucidity. “Why were you cooperating with others to cause power fluctuations in the Net that strain its integrity?”

“The spider.” Arms wrapped around himself, Ezra began to rock again.

Ethan grabbed his shoulder. “What is the spider?”

“Spider is friend,” Ezra mumbled. “Spider says what to do. ‘Ezra, push energy into the Net. It will give us power.’”

“How can a broken PsyNet give you power?”

Ezra blinked at him.

Ethan tried again. “Who is the spider?”

“Spider is spider.” The rocking began again, faster this time. “Eensy, weensy spider . . .” The faint words faded. “Eensy, weensy spider . . .” Ezra tried again and again.

From that point on, however, he wouldn’t react or respond to either Ethan or anyone else—including Memory. That night, he suffered a severe seizure with no apparent medical cause and entered a coma from which he never woke.

“I hope you’re not feeling guilty,” Selenka said when the news came through, the two of them alone in their quarters.

Wearing only black boxer briefs, Ethan took her wrist, touched the pad of his finger to the pulse below. “No. Ezra was lost the instant Scarab took hold of him.” Patient Zero had apparently had enough awareness to seek assistance, but according to Memory, Patient Zero was a powerful telepath trained in critical thinking.

Not everyone had that advantage.

“But I still mourn a life lost.” Ethan felt the beat of her pulse inside him, as strong as her wolf’s presence. “It’s important to me, to mark these losses. Ezra Ree didn’t choose the Syndrome, didn’t choose to lose himself to it—by all accounts, he was a good man just finding his feet in the post-Silence world.”

Face softening, Selenka nipped at his jaw. “Empath.” Affection flowed through the bond, and because she lived inside him—was welcome inside him—he let that affection bathe him in a growly kind of softness. Because his lover was a wolf and her love had teeth. “Zolotse moyo,” he said. “You are my light, the star I can always follow to find my way home.”

“Good—or I’d have to track you down and haul you home,” said his alpha mate, before she pulled him down into a kiss. “I love you, Ethan Night, and I’m never letting you go.”

Ethan gloried in the chains of her claim.

Never again would he be alone in the dark.

The Architect

THE ARCHITECT SAW it now, saw what she was—a creature of boundless power.

A Scarab.

Taking a computronic pen, she drew a large red cross across the latest Scarab information sheet. The weak would no doubt turn themselves in like sheep, but the strong would become her army, her people. As for the Consortium, it was something to consider later, when her mind wasn’t stretching this strongly.

Her biggest problem was going to be the memory loss that seemed entwined with this new power. It was possible she could create a telepathic tracker, one she could rewind to capture glimpses of what she did while in her most powerful state. If this was the cost of power without limits, it was one she was more than willing to pay.

Krychek and the others would not, could not win.

Opening her hand, she looked at one of the tiny glowing creatures she’d seeded on the PsyNet. It didn’t register that she was viewing it on the physical plane, a construct that couldn’t exist outside the psychic space. Her mind said it was there, and so it was.

This was it. How the future would begin.

With extermination.

Vanguard

Lioness: I have our DNA profiles! It looks like we’re related! A couple of generations back maybe? Or could be a different branch of the same original tree. We can find out the specifics later, but we’re family!

EN: That explains why our two empathic specialties dovetail, while being dissimilar to all others in the Net. And also probably why your presence kept setting off my ability before I had the proper filters and shields.

Lioness: Yes, we’re oddities from the same Odd Tree. It’s nice. Right?

EN: Yes. Though I appear to be the most bloodthirsty E of all. Ivy Jane says my designation on the squad’s rolls should be changed to E-Arrow even though that’s a nonexistent subdesignation.

Lioness: Who cares! You’re an E and you’re an Arrow. As for the bloodthirsty, I have a little of that, too. If I’d had Arrow training, maybe I would be even more like you. But you know what Sascha says—Es aren’t a monolith. Our entire designation was buried over a century ago, and even before that, no one much studied us because we were meant to be nicey-nice. So maybe we oddballs have always been around.

EN: Or maybe we were created by the NetMind when it became clear the PsyNet was going to face a catastrophic Scarab threat. It is, after all, the guardian of the Net, and even if it’s not sentient in the same way as you and I, it did—before its current disintegration—have a certain level of thought. Instinct alone could’ve led it to manipulate strands of psychic energy to create certain outcomes in receptive unformed minds. We could be but the vanguard of a wave of unexpected abilities.

—Messages exchanged between Memory Aven-Rose and Ethan Night

ETHAN PUT DOWN his phone after sending that last message to Memory and considered the idea of having family. It was no longer so alien—not when he had an entire pack as well as a squad of Arrows on whom he could rely. And a mate who’d claimed him down to the bone. It was a state with which he was utterly content.

As for being family with Memory, it would be no hardship. According to Selenka, he already treated the empath like a sibling—and Memory apparently responded to him the same way.

“Ready?” Margo, dressed in yellow fleece shorts and a matching sweatshirt with a giant glittery rainbow on the front, her feet clad in nothing but fluffy pink socks, dropped down onto the sofa next to him. “Did you make the popcorn?”

“I’ve got it.” Selenka exited the break room’s kitchenette with a huge bowl, which Margo immediately claimed.

Loyal, his coat shiny and his ribs no longer showing, had jumped to his feet the instant Selenka appeared and was now nosing around her legs, as devoted to her as Ethan. She bent to pet him, giving him a scratch behind his left ear that sent him melting to the floor in a puddle of joy.

“I can’t believe you’ve hooked my mate on a soap opera,” Selenka said to Margo after a final pat of Loyal’s head. “It’s like sugar for the brain.”

“It’s educational,” Ethan argued, setting aside his phone. He’d share Memory’s data with Selenka tonight, while they were alone and naked. The latter was very important. Ethan was now addicted to tactile contact with his mate.

Coming down onto the sofa on his other side, she allowed him to put his arm around her shoulders as she settled into the crook of his arm. She, too, was dressed casually—but in jeans and a simple vee-necked gray tee that followed the shape of her body. Unlike Margo, Selenka had to head out of the den in an hour. She was meeting Valentin Nikolaev for a “no mates allowed” beer.

“Oh wait, before I start this.” Margo turned to him. “Ivo was all smug about something he got you. He wouldn’t tell me what.” Wolf eyes stared at him.

When he didn’t break, she bounced in place. “Pleeeeease tell me. I can’t not know! It’ll drive me insane.”

As Selenka laughed, Ethan said, “Turn off the lights and I’ll show you.”

Margo did it with alacrity, but the room wasn’t pitch black—he could see a blade of light from under the doorway, the dot of blue that indicated the power status of the entertainment comm, even the faint glow from where Margo had dropped her phone when she jumped up.

But it was dark enough for this demonstration.

Using the ring finger of his right hand, he reached across his palm to the subdermal implant Oleg had put in place yesterday. The healer had sealed up the small cut, and the remaining tenderness was minor. So it caused him no pain to press on the implant. A glow suffused his palm under his skin.

“Blin!” Margo came closer, leaning down to peer intently at it, Loyal wriggling in at her side. “You’ll always have a light source, no matter where you are!”

So you’ll never again be locked in the dark.

That was what Ivo had said to him when he handed Ethan the device he’d created. It ran on a tiny battery and would need to be replaced every year, but a five-minute visit to the infirmary once a year was no price at all for the gift of light. One day, Ethan hoped he could give a gift of such value to Ivo, something that helped him fight his own demons.

In the interim, he spent time with the other lieutenant in a way he’d never before done with anyone but Abbot. They were becoming friends, two men who understood each other’s scars. “You can examine it more later,” he said, switching it off. “We have to catch up on the latest three episodes.”

“Oooh yeah!”

They soon had the comm going, Ridge and Chantelle’s story playing out onscreen in glorious color. “You two realize a billionaire alpha wolf is an oxymoron?” Selenka muttered, rolling her eyes. “Alphas are about pack, not—”