“I can’t not help you. Don’t ask that of me.” He picked up a fortified roll and thrust it at her, even knowing she’d probably be furious with him for doing it. He couldn’t help it, not with her shoeless and sleep-mussed and looking at him with those big cardinal eyes, her face devoid of makeup.

But what she said had nothing to do with the food. “This is your home.” She sounded … appalled.

Appalled.

His chest expanded, fire in his blood. She hadn’t stepped back, hadn’t told him to stop taking care of her. No, she was glaring at him as if he’d lost his goddamn mind. Canto wanted to fucking dance. “Yes.”

Everyone in his family would lose their shit when they discovered what he’d done. But if Canto knew one thing, it was that he had to be the naked and defenseless one in this first step into pure trust. Payal didn’t have that capacity and he couldn’t ask it of her. While Canto might’ve had a cold bastard for a father, he’d then been embraced by a pack of Mercants who’d gut anyone who dared lay a finger on him.

Payal had never had anyone.

Well, fuck that. She had him now, and he’d show her until she accepted that indelible truth.

“You just gave a teleporter access to your home.” Appalled was morphing into furious. Grabbing the bread roll, she shook it at him. “Do you know what I could do with that information?”

Canto shrugged, fighting a grin. “Teleport in and murder me.” Unless he did major renovations—including blocking out the view beyond the automatic balcony sliders—she could now enter his home as she wished.

“Why?” She spread her arms on either side of her body, and the sun speared through the white of her tee to reveal the protrusion of her rib cage.

“Eat.” It came out a growl and he didn’t fucking care; he couldn’t concentrate when he knew she was hurting herself. “You’ve lost weight.”

Glaring, she took a deliberate bite of the roll, chewed.

Mollified, he huffed out a breath. “You planning to use this information to cause harm to me or mine?”

“No,” she snapped, nothing muted or distant about her. “But you couldn’t have known that. You shouldn’t just trust people, Canto.” Her emotions were brilliant and dazzling, a crackle of energy in the air.

This was the wild heart she kept caged. It was a shine in her eyes, a rapid jerkiness in her movements, a hyper energy that had her pacing.

He was as compelled by this side of her as he was the other. “I know an empath—he says my instincts are generally good.”

“Empaths have a tendency to get in trouble because they trust the wrong people.” Payal took another feral bite of the roll, chewed, and swallowed, before adding, “The last time we hired a commercial empath, I had to run interference the entire time because they kept going into rooms with unauthorized people who are controlled by Lalit.”

She waved the roll in the air. “At least they had the sense not to want to be alone with him.”

“Too late now.” He fought the urge to thrust a chocolate drink at her. “I’ve given you the key to my home. I’ve burdened you with my trust.”

A hard look from glittering eyes. “I won’t reciprocate.” She still held half the roll.

“I know.” This wasn’t about quid pro quo. “Have something to drink.” Great. That restraint had lasted exactly ten seconds. He truly was channeling a bear now. The last time he’d visited Denhome, they’d plied him with so much food he’d asked Silver if her packmates thought Psy had prodigious appetites.

His cousin had given him an amused look. “No. They just like you.”

Now Payal gave him the same look he’d probably given those bears. But she did deign to curl up on the sofa. It happened to be his favorite seat, and seeing her there … Good. It was good. After moving his chair to the other side of the low coffee table, he nudged across a sealed bottle of chocolate-flavored nutrients.

She took it, before freezing and staring at the partially eaten roll in her hand. “I ate this.”

He didn’t get it for a second. Then he did—it had been unsealed, could’ve held poison.

Payal lived in a world where food was a weapon.

Canto gritted his teeth. Anger was a familiar friend from his childhood, a hot flame that scalded from the inside out, but that wouldn’t be helpful here. “Throw it to me.”

When she did nothing, he held out his hands. She finally chucked it over. Holding her gaze, he finished it in two bites. “If I wanted to kill you,” he muttered, “I’d just shoot you. I wouldn’t waste handmade fucking rolls.”

A sudden intense burst of laughter from her that turned him to stone, it was so bright and sharp and beautiful.

Chapter 23

Yesterday, someone I was assisting yelled at me to stop being so damn naive, to stop expecting the best of people! I had to inform them it was congenital—and that it wasn’t a bug but a feature. Never, my fellow Es, let anyone tell you otherwise. One by one, we’re going to change hearts and minds … and the world.

—Ivy Jane Zen, President, Empathic Collective, in a letter to the Collective membership

SNAPPING HER MOUTH shut, Payal swallowed and blinked hard. “Do you see?” It came out a rasp. “I’m manic. My shields are down and I’m like a bullet that keeps ricocheting.”

Canto made himself breathe past the shock of hearing her laughter for that one dazzling moment, made himself listen. He needed to talk to Arwen, find out more about how a mind like Payal’s worked—without ever mentioning Payal. But for now, he just wanted her in any way she wanted to be with him.

Payal drank from the chocolate drink, gave it a long look afterward. “Too rich. I like the fruit ones better.” Putting the drink aside with a rapid movement, she teleported a fruit drink from the table to hover in front of her.

Tilting her head to the side, she made the bottle tumble end over end while they both watched. Grabbing it without warning, she twisted off the lid and took two gulps before meeting Canto’s gaze again. “Do you see? I’m unstable.” It was a challenge. “No one normal acts this way.”

“What I see is a telekinetic with fine control over her ability,” he pointed out. “You’re also having a fully rational conversation with me.” He had his suspicions about why she had such a negative view of her natural emotional inclinations, but he didn’t have enough information to know if he was right.