As Selenka’s dedushka would say, this E wasn’t hanging noodles on her ears. Her pain was true, as was her shock, and desire to help others by ending what she believed must be their own pain.

Not that Selenka would trust the E anywhere near her pack. Emilie needed intensive therapy and constant supervision until multiple specialists were certain she was no longer suicidal. For now, she remained a threat to both herself and others. “Tell me.” This time, Selenka put an alpha push into her voice.

Emilie crumpled. “It was a man I met on the PsyNet.” Her head fell, her hair crescent wedges against her cheeks. “He was so kind. We talked a lot and I told him how I hurt and he . . . After a while, he understood. He said I could make the pain end for myself and for others, that it would be the kindest thing to do.”

Selenka’s claws pricked the insides of her skin at the same time that Ivy Jane’s pupils flared outward, white lines bracketing her mouth. Someone had taken a hurt, broken E and, rather than helping her, had groomed her to be an assassin. Tempering her anger because Emilie might be functional enough to feel it, Selenka petted the other woman’s hair, the strands slick and thick under her touch.

Looking up with wet eyes and quivering lips, the empath made a small movement.

The instant Selenka closed the small gap between them, Emilie leaned up against her while continuing to maintain a death grip on Ivy’s hand. Having no anger inside her for this healer who had been abused by a person she trusted, Selenka murmured words of comfort she’d use with a submissive packmate in a similar situation.

Only once the E had stopped trembling, her eyes heavy but dry, did Selenka nod at Ivy and say, “Emilie, it’s time to go.”

Having put her tea aside by then, Emilie rose without hesitation, her eyes huge as she looked first to Ivy, then to Selenka, for approval. Ivy murmured, “That’s good, Emilie, you’re doing really well,” while Selenka pressed a kiss to the empath’s temple.

For a wolf, touch said more than any words.

Outside the room waited a blue-eyed Arrow with black hair.

“Abbot.” Ivy’s tone was soft, her hand holding Emilie’s. “We’re ready.”

The Arrow teleported out with Ivy and Emilie a second later.

“Will she get help?” Valentin’s square face held the same anger that bubbled inside Selenka, bear and wolf in perfect harmony on the ugliness of the violation of Emilie’s trust.

“Yes. She’s one of Ivy’s people.” As Ethan was now Selenka’s. He should’ve been more hers than any other person in the world, but that silent static, it hung murky and disjointed between them.

Chapter 7

Loulou27: Mating at first sight is so fake.

RidgesGirl: I know, right? Like do the writers do any research?

MagsW: I think it’s romantic. It’s as if their souls are destined for one another.

Loulou27: Ugh, let’s see what happens the first time he leaves towels on the floor.

MagsW: He’s a billionaire wolf. Towel pickup is not a problem.

RidgesGirl: Mags has a point. But damn, now I’m imagining Ridge in a towel, water beading on his chest.

MagsW: Swoon.

—Forum: True Fans of Hourglass Lives

GOOD. THEY SHOULD’VE known better than to harm a pup.

Selenka’s unforgiving words rang in Ethan’s head as she strode away from him and toward the exit from the symposium hall. Her primal grace was hypnotic. She reminded him of fellow Arrow Zaira. Zaira was as confident, and as committed to protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves. Damaged Arrows gravitated toward Zaira.

Most anyway.

Until today, Ethan hadn’t gravitated toward anyone. Despite knowing that Aden had been a child like him when Ming’s torturers sought to methodically destroy Ethan from the inside out, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to trust the Arrow leader. It was nothing against Aden.

Ethan didn’t trust anyone.

Except Selenka. She’d saved his life. He was now hers.

A part of him tried to argue that such obsessive devotion wasn’t a rational or healthy response to her actions, but Ethan hadn’t considered himself sane for a long time. Rationality meant nothing to him. He would far rather live in this world of primal compulsion and need than in the numb gray where he’d felt nothing.

Deadly wolf gold was now the color of his existence.

The woman who walked into the mostly empty hall not long after Selenka disappeared carried the same edge of danger. Her hair was a mass of shiny blonde curls, her height five-six or so, her lips plump, and her body deceptively soft and curvy-looking. Deceptive because no one moved that smoothly without significant muscle on their bones—and intense martial training.

Threat assessment: red.

He noted all of that at the same time that he noted she was not human.

He didn’t know how he knew that, but he knew. Ethan always knew.

Her eyes, a hazy blue, landed on him at that instant. Expression altering in a subtle fashion he couldn’t name, she crossed the echoing space to face him. “I hear your name is Ethan.”

Ethan didn’t respond except with a slight nod.

“Margo Lucenko,” she said, her shoulders relaxed and feet set slightly apart. “One of Selenka’s senior lieutenants.”

His attention sharpened. “Are you here to warn me off?” If so, she would fail. Ethan had chosen and he wasn’t about to budge. Should Selenka decide against him, she could tear out his throat. That was the only way he’d leave her before his time ran out.

A tug of Margo’s lips. “No one on the planet can warn mates off one another,” she said, so much amusement in her voice that even he had no trouble recognizing it. “No, gorgeous. I’m here to discover what’s so special about you that Selenka’s wolf picked you out of millions of others.”

Ethan had no answer for her.

Folding her arms, Margo tilted her head slightly to the side. “You have the body and the looks. And since you’re an Arrow, you might be able to go head-to-head with an alpha wolf of Selenka’s caliber and come out alive.” Lifting her hand, she tapped a finger on her lower lip, her nail polished a glossy pink. “But the emotions . . . now, that’s the interesting part.”

Again, Ethan stayed silent, as inside him built an inexorable pressure that pushed him to find Selenka, make physical contact, ensure she remembered him. People liked to forget Ethan. Shut him up in pitch-dark rooms and ignore his existence. Mates didn’t do that, he told himself, but the pressure didn’t stop.

“Don’t say much, do you. You’re a total Ridge.” Dropping her hands to her hips with that statement that didn’t make sense in either English or Russian, Margo Lucenko continued to speak. “Look, I love Selenka. Given the whole mating-at-first-sight thing, if you don’t know how to make her happy, ask me. I’d rather give you advice than warn you off.”

It was the one thing Ethan hadn’t been expecting, and his sudden acute attention snapped the crescendo inside his skull. “I appreciate the offer.” A true statement. He was a novice in this arena, Selenka a prize he intended to clutch at with greedy hands.

No, not a prize.

She was an alpha wolf, not an object or a being who could be owned or possessed. To keep her, he’d have to make her want to be with him. His only advantage was the mating bond—even a mating bond that was so badly damaged by his mental state that it didn’t appear in the PsyNet.

Look into the network and Ethan was connected to no one, a black star alone in the darkness. Even the empathic Honeycomb didn’t reach him. Aden had repeatedly told him how important it was that he link himself to an empath even if the link was thin and threadbare, that the connection would help protect his mind from the ravages of the disintegrating PsyNet, but Ethan hadn’t wanted to be connected to anyone.

Until an alpha wolf crashed into him, saving his life and driving an anvil through the dull nothingness that had kept him distant and separate from the world. He still didn’t want to be linked to anyone else. Just her. His mate.

In front of him, Margo narrowed her eyes. “You’re hard to read, but I can usually get a handle on dominance regardless. With you . . .”

“I can’t assist. I’m not changeling.”

“Hmm.” Frown creasing her forehead, Margo glanced at her timepiece. “I have to pick up a couple of juveniles from a mechanical class in town. Better head off—we’ll talk more later.”

“What is Ridge?” Ethan asked before she could turn around.

Her smile was suddenly . . . sparkly. “I’m so glad you asked.” She pressed her hands together. “Ridge is a man.” The last word was a drawn-out sigh. “I’ll introduce you two the next time you have a spare hour or three. Or, if you can’t wait, check out Hourglass Lives. Season two will be especially interesting for you—that’s where the mating-at-first-sight story line begins.”

She snapped her fingers. “And you know what? You should read a few special editions of Wild Woman. I’ll message you a list.” The lieutenant wiggled her fingers in good-bye as she left, but he saw her stop halfway through to talk to Nerida. The telekinetic and Margo appeared to know each other well, and Nerida was pointing at Margo’s eyes. Possibly to ask about the shiny particles that had dusted her eyelids.

Ethan had seen color on Selenka’s eyelids, too, a faint purple that just caught the light. Her fingernails had also been painted—and decorated with images of cats with very large eyes. Ethan had been pondering those cats for some time and decided he would ask Selenka about them when they met.

“Final security sweep complete,” Axl announced three minutes later, his big body in the center of the room and his light brown hair clipped so short to his skull that it had no movement.

Ethan’s spine tensed, the searing glow of shadowlight coating his fingertips. He had to use conscious effort of will to curl those fingers inward. Because forty-three-year-old Axl was the only current member of the squad whom Ethan had seen before he escaped Ming. It had been on the comm screen, a conversation between Ming and the senior Arrow while Ethan sat out of view of the camera.