“No, it was rather interesting.” Ena took a sip of her tea. “Feeling better, Canto dear?”

Her grandson gave her a narrow-eyed look, pain no longer a shadow on his beautiful features. He’d never worked that out, had Canto, just how beautiful he was as a man. Despite his paternity, he reminded Ena very strongly of her own father. He’d been a beautiful man, too. And a kind one.

Canto had inherited that core of kindness, too, albeit with a rougher edge.

“Spasm is over,” he muttered, and grabbed a teacup, then made a face and put it back. “I’m going to make coffee.” Then her bad-tempered grandson turned his chair around and headed out to her kitchen area.

Ena didn’t cook, but the residence had come fully stocked.

“Tell me,” Ena said to Payal. “Is he truly not in pain any longer?”

“Yes.” Payal turned from where she’d been looking at the doorway through which Canto had left. “It’s gone. He told me it happens very rarely. This is the first one in two years.”

Ena nodded. “Yes. It has to do with the wiring in his spine—it builds up some type of tension. There’s no safe way to release it.”

“He says a minute or two of pain every two years is worth it,” Payal said, not sounding like she agreed.

Of course she wouldn’t. Because coldhearted Payal Rao cared for gruff, softhearted Canto Mercant. How did Ena’s grandchildren keep doing this to her? Silver with an alpha bear. Arwen with another bear. Now this. “You saved his life as a child. For this, I thank you.”

Payal met her eyes the same way she’d met Canto’s—without flinching. “The teacher was hurting Canto. I stopped him. As you stopped Binh Fernandez.”

Canto wheeled his chair back into the room right then, no coffee in hand. “It’s percolating,” he muttered, then raised an eyebrow at Ena. “You’ve never told me—why did Binh have to go when you already had a contractual way to take over guardianship?”

Ena considered her words, decided it was time. “My dear Canto, it wasn’t me.”

He frowned, parted his lips, closed his mouth. “An actual accident?”

“No,” Payal murmured, her eyes on Ena, “it was your mother.”

Ena inclined her head, as Canto sucked in a breath. “Magdalene?” Shaking his head, he said, “My mother is the least aggressive person in the family.”

“She’s also Ena Mercant’s daughter,” Payal said. “And Ena Mercant protects her own.”

The child understood this family, Ena thought. Not only that, she thought like them. And she protected like them. Ena knew all about Karishma Rao, buried in a lovely boarding school that had strict laws of confidentiality. Enough to protect a girl who wouldn’t rise to Pranath Rao’s standards of perfection.

All of it paid for through one of Payal Rao’s private accounts.

“Mother, huh.” Canto rubbed his smooth-shaven jawline. “She never said.”

“She didn’t do it to buy a way out of your anger,” Ena said. “She did it because Binh Fernandez hurt her child after promising to care for him. Magdalene does not forgive such slights.”

What Ena didn’t say was that giving up Canto had fractured something in Magdalene. That was why she’d never had another child, though she could’ve made another fertilization agreement after she and Binh dissolved the agreement that had produced Canto.

To then learn that Binh had abused the child she’d wanted to keep with every ounce of her being? No, Magdalene would never forgive. As Ena wouldn’t forgive herself for not foreseeing Magdalene’s reaction to giving birth.

Given their possessive natures, Mercants rarely, rarely entered into agreements where their children would be raised fully by others, but it was Magdalene herself who’d brought forward the proposal when Fernandez approached her. She’d been very interested in the genetic match and confirmed that she had no problem with a dual agreement as requested by the Fernandez family.

Ena had thought her Silent, had believed in her pragmatic take on the situation.

They’d both been wrong.

“The final decision was mine, Mother,” Magdalene had said to her some years ago, after Ena apologized for her mistake. “You told me to think long and hard on it, advised me to do my research. I thought I could handle it.” A hand pressed to her belly. “But then I carried him for nine months, and I felt his mind awaken …”

The only good thing in it all was that they’d been able to save Canto.

Such an angry boy he’d been, but even then, he’d been fiercely loyal. To 3K, the little girl who’d murdered for him.

Watching the two of them together now, Ena was quite convinced the adult Payal Rao would murder for him, too. So. “We’ll have tea at the Sea House next time,” she said as the two were about to leave.

Canto was still scowling, but his lips tugged up into a slight smile, and the voice that touched her mind was smug in a way he rarely was: I knew you’d like her.

One does not gloat, Canto.

He laughed out loud as he exited, causing Payal to look at him with soft eyes … and Ena’s long-frozen heart to threaten to thaw. “It appears,” she said to the slinky black cat that had prowled into the room, “the family is to expand again.”

CLINICAL NOTES ON PAYAL RAO

JAYA STORM, E.

Patient is very self-aware and conscious of the damage inflicted by her childhood, and is searching for a way to balance her powerful emotional response to the man she loves* against her need to maintain psychic and mental stability.

Her childhood protections did the job required, but they were a blunt tool. I have advised her that we can use more subtle methods to allow her to find the control she needs without losing herself. I have also received permission to speak about her case on an anonymous basis with other Es who have more specialized knowledge in certain areas.

Most specifically, I intend to speak to Sascha Duncan regarding custom shields, and to Dr. Farukh Duvall about the issue of childhood trauma and how it interacts with brain chemistry. I also need to find—or become—an expert in how childhood trauma may affect the development of psychic pathways in all children, and anchors in particular.

There do not appear to be any anchors who are also empaths, which is a critical piece of information in itself, but I intend to further my knowledge of anchors to the highest degree to better serve my patient—and any future patients from Designation A.