“My brother.” Silver’s fingers curled into her palm, the urge to touch Valentin coming up against decades of Silence. “How did you know?”

“I have secret psychic powers.” A wink, no hint of sadness.

Silver gave in, touched her hand to the beat of his changeling heart. “Are you all right, Alpha Nikolaev?”

Amber eyes locked with her own, his body motionless, the power of him a leashed force. “Why do you ask, Ms. Mercant?”

“I see your hurt,” she said, forcing herself to be blunt. “I sense the pain in your clanmates.”

The amber didn’t dim. “Maybe I’ll tell you one day.” Valentin tugged on a strand of her hair that had come loose when a light caught on it. “But you’d have to be mine for me to share clan secrets.”

Silver’s heart kicked. She had a sudden vision of a life where she walked into Denhome every day . . . and slept every night in the protective warmth of Valentin’s arms.

You must survive first.

The cold reminder came from the part of her that had grown up conscious of the ticking time bomb in her head. It was currently encased in the remnants of Silent ice, but what would happen when the ice melted?

“A mating bond,” she said. “It’s a formidable psychic connection.” A number of Psy, most famously Sascha Duncan and Faith NightStar, had survived dropping out of the PsyNet when they mated with changelings. Something had to be giving their brains the necessary neural feedback.

Else they’d have died within minutes of disconnection.

“It’s a bond of the soul.” Valentin’s voice. “It’s a leap of faith.”

Silver broke the eye contact, her hands busy on the lights she’d already untangled. Some leaps of faith, she thought, shouldn’t be made—not when it put the other party at risk.

This world needed Valentin Nikolaev’s big heart and wild spirit.

She couldn’t tell him the darkest truth yet, focused on another. “That bond cuts Psy from the PsyNet.”

Valentin’s frown was in his tone when he said, “You sure?”

“Without a doubt. Mating with a changeling—an alpha or one of his closest people at least—pulls the Psy into what must be a changeling neural network of some kind.” Shutting down all access to the psychic highways of the PsyNet.

“I have too many responsibilities in the Net to abandon it,” she added before deciding she no longer wished to talk about the harsh realities that lay between them. “I’ve had minor tactile contact with other members of your clan today without any repercussions. We can continue our physical experiment tonight, this time skin to skin.”

Valentin groaned. “Now I have a hard-on,” he accused with a scowl.

Feeling the faint edges of an emotion that might have been self-satisfaction, Silver answered the question he hadn’t asked but that blazed in his eyes. “Yes, I’m certain it won’t hurt me. The minor touches have primed my body for more intimate skin privileges. I may even chance being naked while you—”

“You’re deliberately messing with me now, Starlight,” Valentin interrupted bad-temperedly. “I’ll get my revenge. Just you wait.”

Toes curling inside her shoes, Silver said, “Tell me of your new clanmate.”

Valentin accepted the change of topic. “He knows he’s clan, knows his alpha accepts him: bear cubs need that knowledge to feel secure, feel happy.”

Glancing up at the change in his tone, all aggravation and sexual heat lost, Silver glimpsed the shadows that danced across his face, knew once again that StoneWater’s secrets were painful ones for its alpha to carry. “It’s about family.”

Valentin had no need to reply, his response manifest in the way he interacted with each member of his clan and in how his clanmates responded to him.

Valentin was the heart of StoneWater.

Her phone alarm buzzed at that instant, alerting her that she had to return to her work.

Silver turned off the alarm, saw the raft of messages waiting for her. Yet she didn’t want to go, the depth of her reaction a silent indicator of how far her Silence had crumbled in a dangerously short time. “I’m the director of EmNet,” she reminded herself. “Lives hang in the balance.”

Valentin’s hand shot out, tugged her against him. She landed with both her palms on his chest, a gasp of air rushing out of her lungs. The kiss he pressed to her lips had shouts going up all around them . . . and her mind threatening to short-circuit.

But she was Silver Fucking Mercant. She could handle a kiss.

Even if it threatened to melt her bones.

Illogical. Irrational.

And yet . . .

He was pure brawn and heat against her, his lips firm, the stubble on his jaw abrasive, the tongue he licked across the seam of her lips bluntly aggressive. Silver should’ve been put off by that bluntness, but when had she ever been put off by Valentin? Her breasts ached, her blood pumped, and when he scraped his teeth over her lower lip as he released her from the kiss, she felt her eyes flick open, and only then realized she’d closed them to savor the sensations.

Grinning, Valentin ran one hand down her back, lower, squeezed.

The possessive action incited another round of whistles from his clanmates. Pushing off his chest, Silver raised an eyebrow. “Careful, Alpha Valentin. Don’t forget who you’re tangling with.”

“I know you like me, Starlight. Just admit it.” He clasped her hips with the rough care of his hands, raised his voice. “She likes me, right?”

“I dunno . . .”

“Looks like she wants to fry your brains . . .”

“But that’s normal for a woman with a bear . . .”

“So . . .”

Ignoring the dubious comments, Valentin pointed at Silver. “All your dances are mine tonight, moyo solnyshko.”

“We’ll see,” Silver said, because the man who’d kissed her was an alpha bear who had to be kept on his toes.

• • •

IT took her far longer to finish her work than she’d anticipated. Lenik called her in a panic—a Silent panic, of course—because Kaleb had asked him to handle a business matter with which Lenik had zero experience. Neither had Silver when she first started as Kaleb’s aide, but she’d been able to lean on the experience of her grandmother, who’d talked her through the complicated steps.

Lenik, by contrast, came from a family that was by no means united. He was alone in a way Silver couldn’t comprehend. “There’s no need for stress,” she said in a calm tone. “Here’s how you do it.” Connecting with him telepathically using her greater psychic reach, she walked him through the process.

Later, when he came to her and asked her to double-check his work, she did so.

You’re far more competent than you give yourself credit for, Lenik, she said, impressed by how quickly he’d absorbed the new information. Be confident in your work.

I never expected to be at the forefront, he admitted. I’m fine when you deal with Kaleb, but dealing with him on my own . . .

Silver was starting to realize that might be an issue they couldn’t solve. Lenik was highly intelligent. He spoke seven languages, had a memory that was near-eidetic, and mathematical skills that surpassed hers, but what he didn’t have was the self-assurance necessary to deal with a man of Kaleb’s power and demands.