Things calmed further and further as the hours passed.

Until it got to the point that there were no more ripples and night had fallen over Delhi. Alone in her apartment, the Substrate stable, she couldn’t fight the urge any longer. She teleported to Canto … and came face-to-face with an unknown male with skin of mid-brown who had to have moved with predator speed to get to her in the heartbeat since she’d teleported in.

She teleported to another area before the man could slam into her, only to realize he was frantically pulling back his punch and wobbling on his feet as he attempted to shift his center of gravity.

“Izvinite!” he yelled, his head swiveling to where she’d gone, before switching to English accented in the way of someone who normally spoke a Slavic tongue. According to her quick Net search, izvinite was “sorry” in Russian. “Didn’t know it was you.”

Payal had no major business interests in Russian-speaking locations and had never met this man with a compactly muscular build, his eyes a stunning aqua green behind wire-rimmed spectacles. Yet he knew her. She’d have asked him how except that her body swayed.

She’d miscalculated what the anchor work yesterday had taken out of her. This was what came of being irrational, of going with emotion.

Yet still, she said, “Canto?”

“Fine. He’s in the bedroom.” Shoving the mahogany-colored strands of his choppily cut hair back from his face, the stranger walked closer on cautious feet. “Put your arm around my shoulders.”

Because he’d asked instead of taken advantage of her obvious weakness, she did as he’d suggested, and he helped her walk to Canto’s bedroom doorway and look in.

Long lashes shaded Canto’s cheeks as his chest rose and fell in an easy rhythm.

“You want the other side of the bed?”

Startled, she looked at the stranger … and saw eyes that were glowing just a little behind the clear lenses of his spectacles. A ring of amber encircled the aqua green, shooting light through his irises. Wild. Changeling. Sense of smell. Knowledge of Payal in Canto’s space. It added up to a conclusion of intimacy for him. “No,” she said. “The sofa.”

He frowned but didn’t argue. He just helped her to that sofa and, after she lay down, found a blanket and opened it over her with gentle hands. Panic was metal on her tongue. “Who …”

“Pavel. Friends call me Pasha.” He crouched down to meet her eyes. “Bear. Madly in love with a Mercant who’s leading me on a dance.”

Madly in love with a Mercant.

He wouldn’t hurt Canto.

By extension, he wouldn’t hurt Payal—because he thought she belonged to Canto. And still the panic threatened to strangle her. He was an unknown, a threat. Heat built under her skin, her breathing turning jagged.

She had to stay awake.

A brush across her mind, a sense of Canto wrapping her up in his arms. Sleep, she heard on a level beyond telepathy. I’ll keep you safe.

I’m going mad, but it’s a beautiful madness was her last conscious thought before she slipped into sleep.

PAVEL got a call from Silver not long after Payal’s arrival. “Stay home,” he told his alpha’s mate. “You just pulled a big day with that EmNet meeting and I’m set here.” Silver had already dropped by that morning to check on her cousin—and bring Pavel a change of clothing.

Food wasn’t an issue; Canto had an open-cupboard policy for hungry bears.

“Pasha,” she said very precisely, “there’s an unfamiliar cardinal telekinetic in Canto’s house.”

“She’s asleep. Super scary.” He grinned at the sound that came down the line. “Seriously, Siva,” he said, using the name Dima and the other cubs called her, “she was more worried about Canto than anything. You rest. I’ll keep you updated.”

Silver argued for two more minutes before she interrupted herself with a huge yawn and finally admitted to her exhaustion. Not that it would stop her. Soon as she woke, she’d be driving over.

Still, it was better than nothing.

That sorted, he grabbed a spare unsecured organizer of Canto’s that he knew the other man was okay with him borrowing, and went out on the deck to finish a book he’d started earlier. He wasn’t a total barbarian. And Arwen had a thing for men who read.

Tucking one arm behind his head, he dived in.

It was an hour later that he tiptoed in from the deck. He’d heard the cardinal’s breathing drop into an intensely slow and deep rhythm, wanted to check she wasn’t in trouble. The last thing he needed was for Canto to tear him a new one because he hadn’t looked out for Canto’s woman.

The damn Psy was as prickly as a grizzly right out of hibernation.

What did it say about Pavel that he liked him not in spite of it, but because of it? Contrary bear, that was what he was.

The cardinal was fast asleep.

No signs of distress. Not like the dangerous tension he’d sensed in her before she surrendered to sleep. Dangerous, that was, to him. A cardinal telekinetic could do a lot of damage to a bear. That was why there was only one rule when fighting Tks: hit first and hit hard. Any delay and you might as well plan your funeral.

But Canto’s Tk hadn’t tried to hurt him even when startled.

Now she lay motionless, unguarded.

Maybe it had taken her this long to actually relax. Couldn’t blame her, not when he’d almost tackled her to the floor when she first arrived. In his defense, she’d been nothing but a flicker at the corner of his eye, a threat that had appeared out of nowhere.

Bozhe moi! Imagine if he’d concussed Canto’s lover!

Dead meat, he’d have been bear-flavored dead meat.

Chapter 27

To say Mercants are a tight-knit unit is a slight understatement. More correct would be to say that if they consider you a threat to one of their own, they will cut out your liver, fry it in front of you, then offer it to you with a side dish of your poison of choice.

—Quote by an anonymous source for the PsyNet Beacon (2082)

DESPITE HIS TWIN Yakov calling him as subtle as an elephant, Pavel could be pretty light of foot for a bear, so he padded over to tuck the blanket more firmly around Canto’s cardinal, frowning at the dark shadows under her eyes. He’d seen Arwen get that way—it happened when Psy burned too hot and used up all their psychic energy.