“Ah, this must be the source of your deep and abiding friendship.”

Scowling deeper at her reference to his comment the morning he’d come to her apartment, he shuddered. “I don’t know how Lucas Hunter does it. Then again, he’s a cat. They find the strangest things funny. Maybe he thinks an alliance with wolves is a hysterical joke.”

Silver wondered how much of the bear antipathy for the wolves—and vice versa—was real and how much was habitual. “I’d have to check if the complex has any openings.” It wasn’t built like a Psy or human apartment building—the homes were spread out amidst a large amount of green space; raised pathways that doubled as elevated runs meant every residence, even those sized for single individuals, had a personal exit directly onto a path.

“I already checked. One apartment available on the third floor of a four-story building. Wolves and bears around you. My rebel cousin would be your neighbor.”

Silver realized that this was a neat trap into which she’d been gently nudged, but since it happened to be an excellent idea, she had no reason to protest. However, her relocation would be only until they’d unearthed the traitor. She’d permit no one to force her out of her home.

The two of them sat in silence for long minutes, the water flowing below and the birds raucous as they finished their business for the day.

Valentin was the one who broke the quiet. “If you want to go for a run after you feel better, Starlight, I can show you a running track through the woods. I know you go running on Moscow streets after dark.”

“It’s quiet then, the streets comparatively empty.”

“Being around so many bears must be driving you crazy.”

“No, I’m having no difficulty being in Denhome.” Silver had expected to feel suffocated, but she’d forgotten to factor in an important variable: she’d grown up in a tightly integrated extended family unit, had spent her entire childhood sharing quarters with others.

The bear setup didn’t stress her on any level.

“My family has a version of Denhome,” she found herself telling him. “On a much smaller scale, of course.”

“Ena?”

Silver nodded. Her grandmother’s home was a place where they were all welcome, and where they gathered multiple times a year.

“Look.” Valentin nodded up. “Stars are starting to appear.”

Her vision wasn’t as acute as his. She couldn’t see the stars against the gray of the sky, but she could feel the cooling air, hear the rustling of the trees. “I’ve never been in this type of environment.”

• • •

VALENTIN took in her profile, bear and man both deeply contented at being here, beside her. “There’s beauty in the night, in wild spaces filled with life.” It sang to his soul; he could tolerate the city, but sooner or later, his heart began to keen for the primal forests that were his home.

They kept those forests as natural as possible, but Denhome itself wasn’t in any way backward. Having watched and learned while he was Zoya’s first second, Valentin had purchased a satellite for his clan as soon as he had the power. It meant their communications weren’t reliant on any outside party.

Of course, that satellite was more irritating than a smug wolf when it bounced him calls at moments when he’d rather be left alone. Like right now. Glancing at the screen, he saw Pavel’s name. “What is it?” he asked, aware the other man was on sentry duty.

“I have a very pretty dude here claiming to be your Starlight’s brother. Silver eyes, black hair, supermodel bones, is giving me a death stare.”

Sitting up, his bear at attention, Valentin looked at Silver. “You have a brother?” How had he never unearthed that fact?

A pause, her head angled as if listening. “Arwen is here,” she said. “He says he wasn’t giving anyone the death stare—that’s his normal expression.”

“Must run in the family.”

Silver’s response was a look that was all ice.

Wanting to kiss her so bad it hurt, he told Pavel to guide the other man to a particular section of the territory, one that wasn’t too close to Denhome. It was one thing to trust Silver and Ena not to betray them, quite another to trust a brother he’d never seen.

It took them twenty minutes to reach the location.

Pavel leaned against a sleek black vehicle while another male stood nearby. Valentin recognized him at once—he was a regular visitor to Silver’s apartment. But the color of their eyes aside, the two had little in common physically speaking.

Arwen Mercant looked to be shorter than his sister, maybe five seven or five eight. That black hair Pavel had already noted, straight and smooth and cut with CEO ruthlessness, not a strand out of place; a skin tone that was more olive than golden; the “supermodel” bones that equaled high cheekbones and a square jawline.

While his eyes were the same shade as Silver’s, they were tilted sharply at the corners, giving him a silkily feline appearance.

Right now, he looked about as suited to these primeval forests as a peacock. His suit was dark gray and flawlessly fitted, his tie a stylish black.

“Arwen.”

Valentin heard a subtle warmth in Silver’s tone that had him listening hard.

“Silver.” Walking forward, her brother stopped a foot from Silver.

Silver didn’t make contact, either. It wasn’t how changelings would greet each other, and it definitely wasn’t how bears would greet a sibling who’d been hurt, but Valentin didn’t make the mistake of thinking they weren’t close.

Back when he’d noticed all those visits by Arwen in the surveillance files Pavel kept on all the major players in the area, he’d been jealous until he’d gotten a close look at the other man’s eyes and figured out he was family. Now that he knew their relationship, the visits took on another meaning.

Chapter 14

The E-Psy, or empaths, as they are called in the vernacular, are something of a peculiarity. The powerful among them can heal the most devastating of emotional wounds. Folklore says they can cure insanity. That has never been proven. What has been proven is that they can certainly help people through difficult emotional times, absorbing negative emotion in a way that defies even psychic explanation.

—Introduction to The Mysterious E Designation: Empathic Gifts & Shadows by Alice Eldridge (Reprint: 2082)

“WHAT ARE YOU doing here?” Silver asked her brother, keeping the conversation on the audible level so as not to be rude to her hosts.

Right then, however, Valentin moved away to speak to Pavel. The distance was such that neither bear should be able to hear this conversation if she and Arwen maintained a low volume.

“I needed to see you were all right.” Her brother let his shields fall; on his face, she saw layer upon layer of deepest emotion.

Arwen’s vulnerability was a rare thing in the world in which they lived.

“I’m fine.” Of the two of them, Silver had always been the more ruthless and pragmatic. Arwen’s Gradient 7.9 empathic abilities sometimes threatened to leave him wide open to the violence and chaos of the world.

She—all of the Mercants—had always known he was precious, had protected him from the cradle, but only now did they understand that he was likely responsible for the deep mental stability of the Mercants over the past twenty-nine years, give or take a few weeks. Arwen made them better.