“To let loose all our various spies with only one aim: find the HAPMA terrorist cell in Moscow if one exists.”

Silver had no doubts that they’d succeed.

“They hit Moscow first for a reason—I think it was meant to show up EmNet in the city where its director is based.” Anger rolled through the deep timbre of his voice.

Silver found herself patting his thigh. “They failed.” The muscle bunched under her touch.

Breath no longer even, Valentin moved his hands to her upper arms. “Okay?”

At her nod, he leaned close to her ear and whispered, “Imagine, Starlichka, how much better this would feel if you were naked.”

Silver knew he was teasing her, the bear in him unable to maintain the good behavior. But she’d learned a few things after watching how the bears interacted with one another. “I’ve always been interested in sex, in why it causes such inexplicable and often irrational behavior.”

Chapter 22

Regular sexual contact with another individual causes the formation of psycho-chemical bonds that are disruptive to Silence. It is recommended that all such intimate contact be eliminated from Psy life.

—Practical Application of the Silence Protocol, a study by Catherine Adelaja for the Psy Council (1976)

VALENTIN WENT STOCK-STILL behind Silver. “What?” It came out a strangled sound, his bear sitting dazed on its ass, like little Arkasha this afternoon.

“It seems important to humans and changelings. I want to understand it.” Reaching back, she touched a part of her shoulder. “You missed this spot.”

First she hit him with a virtual roundhouse punch, and now she was giving him orders exactly like the queen she was. Silver Mercant was Valentin’s kind of woman. “You want to try sex?” he said, his bear’s heart pounding like a drum and his eager cock in serious danger of prematurely spilling its seed, like a teenage boy faced with his first naked woman. “I volunteer as a willing sacrifice.”

“Humans don’t launch these types of attacks,” she said, instead of responding to his generous offer to be her sex crash-test dummy.

Groaning inwardly, Valentin shifted his brain from his engorged cock to his head. “You’re right.” As a race, humans generally got on with the business of life while Psy and changelings engaged in a centuries-long power struggle. The revitalized Human Alliance was making waves, but they didn’t do it with indiscriminate violence.

“So why now?” Silver murmured, her lashes shadowing her cheeks. “Oh.”

Valentin was smug at having petted her into boneless laziness, but he knew that last utterance hadn’t been of pleasure. “What aren’t you saying, Starlight?”

“The information is classified. I was briefed only because I’m the director of EmNet.”

Valentin wanted to rampage bad-temperedly around the room. Not because he didn’t understand loyalty. But because he wanted Silver’s. “You think your classified information is behind the surge of violence?”

“It would explain HAPMA’s rhetoric.” Silver knew the empaths had determined the PsyNet needed human connections if it weren’t to collapse, but no one had worked out how to foster those emotional bonds, not after over a century of ill treatment of humans by Psy in power.

The vast majority of humans hated the Psy.

If HAPMA had gained access to the report on the need for human energy in the PsyNet, they could believe the Psy were planning to force the issue. The irony of it was that the bonds couldn’t be forced. The Es were adamant the connections had to be organic.

“Secrets cause rot,” Valentin murmured, a profound darkness in his tone that didn’t fit the warmth of his nature. “They give fear room to grow.”

Silver didn’t take her hand from his thigh. “If this information were to go public, it could cause catastrophic panic.” How could the Ruling Coalition or the Empathic Collective tell millions of people that the psychic network they needed to survive had a fatal disease without offering them hope of a cure?

Silver had been briefed so she could come up with a game plan for EmNet’s response, if and when a leak did occur and the forecast panic led to riots or other chaotic incidents.

“Or,” Valentin said, “you make this classified problem public and all those clever minds working on it might figure out a solution.”

Silver gave up trying to open her eyes and turned a fraction to lean deeper into Valentin. “That decision isn’t mine.”

Apparently not the least discomforted by the physical liberties she was taking, Valentin said, “Then let’s talk about the decision you have made. In case you’ve forgotten, it’s the one to do with sex.” Heat in his voice, his fingers working muscles that had turned to honey. “How about we start with kisses and ice cream?”

Silver mumbled her response. “Kisses aren’t on the menu. Neither’s ice cream.”

“I thought you wanted to experience sex.”

“Intercourse, yes.”

“I think you have the wrong idea about intimate skin privileges, Starlight.” His breath brushed her ear, his husky words a near-tactile caress. “We could do the physical act, but that’d teach you nothing about why sex can cause people to do insane things.”

Silver made herself open her eyes, though she didn’t shift from her position curled into Valentin—despite the fact that she couldn’t recall pulling her legs up onto the bed, or moving her hand from his thigh to place it over the steady beat of his changeling heart. “Explain.”

“Sex and emotion,” he murmured. “That’s the explosive combination. People kill for love, die for love. But even if it doesn’t get that far, affection is a prerequisite to intimate skin privileges in my book. Kisses have to be on the menu, along with a million other small acts that build bonds no one can break.”

Silver ignored the latter part of his statement; it was too dangerous. “I don’t understand affection.”

“Let me show you.” A deep rumble. “Take a chance, Silver. If you’re going to test your adult control, do it for real. Nothing halfway.”

Silver was so drowsy, her muscles so relaxed, she was certain she was already breaching Silence. However, she couldn’t bring herself to move away. The strength of Valentin’s hands, the heat of him pulsing against her, it was . . . good. “You want to convince me to live with emotion.”

“Never exactly hid that.” His jaw brushed her temple, his stubble abrasive but not in any way painful. What was disquieting was her need to feel it again. Even then, Silver didn’t withdraw.

She’d made her decision, would not be held hostage to childhood memories and the horror of her mind being crushed by a building roar of noise. She needed to learn who Silver Mercant was without Silence. For this experiment, she would assume nothing. Not even that her life depended on purest Silence, a truth she’d been taught as a child and never before questioned.

Her grandmother would’ve never lied to her about that, would’ve never hobbled her, but given all the recent revelations about the flaws in Silence and the Psy Council’s manipulation of their people, she had to assume that Ena herself might not have had all pertinent information. Most important, she’d stop fighting an undeniable truth: that the only reason she’d permitted Valentin to touch her was that he caused her to react in ways no one else ever had.