“And consider,” she said, “I’m only at the beginner level.” Her lack of experience was an ache between her thighs, an intriguing ripple of pleasure and pain that made her feel used—in a way that felt right. Because she’d used Valentin, too, but none of it had been done to cause pain or to take more than was freely given. An even exchange where neither one of them was keeping score.

Valentin had focused nearly exclusively on her pleasure.

“I plan to learn to drive you to the breaking point as you did me.” She’d have to advance at light speed, time spilling from her cupped hands like water.

“Starlight, you do that by existing.” Valentin slid his hand down her back, lower. “You have one fine ass. Have I ever told you that?”

“You may tell me that at any time,” she said, just to see his eyes fill with laughter, even as her own heart ached. She’d never known the organ could do that through the sheer weight of emotion. It hurt.

Valentin’s laughter faded before her greedy gaze. “Talk to me. What’s got you sad?”

Sad.

Such a simple word. Such a powerful word.

The ache in her heart grew deeper, harder, darker. “I don’t trust easily.”

“I figured that out after the eleventh time you gave me that blank do-I-know-you face when I turned up to say hi.”

Her lips wanted to curve. Why should she have that physical reaction to a feeling of amusement? Not that it changed anything. She couldn’t cup her hands tight enough to hold the rapidly passing seconds. “But,” she whispered, “I’ve learned something about you in the time since we first met.”

“What?” A rumble of sound against her, his hand still on her buttocks and his heavily muscled body a wall of searing heat full of a primal power that would never be turned against her.

She met the intense dark of his eyes. She could read those eyes now, read them so clearly that she wondered why she’d ever thought them impenetrable. What she saw, it made her own eyes burn in another inexplicable emotional response. “I’ve learned that my Valyusha does not lie to me. Sometimes, he won’t tell me things, and other times, he’ll tell me only a little, but he won’t lie.”

A scowl. “Do I look like a durak? Of course I’m not going to lie to my mate.”

She didn’t dispute his claim; she felt it, too, the sense she was the lock to his key. Or perhaps it was a case of two keys mutually unlocking each other’s souls. “Do you know how extraordinary that makes you in my world?” He was a gift beyond comprehension. “I trust my family, but I trust only Grandmother and Arwen never to lie to me.”

Lines carved into his forehead. “But your family is about loyalty.”

“We are shadows in the Net. Lies are a part of our lexicon.”

Valentin’s scowl grew deeper. “You don’t lie to me, Starlichka.” It was an order. “Not even by omission. Not anymore.”

“Never,” she promised, touching her fingertips to his jaw. “I vow this.”

Silver gave her word as rarely as her grandmother did, and for the same reason—once she gave it, she wouldn’t break it. As long as her memory remained, as long as her mind worked, she would keep her word . . . even if she could no longer understand why she’d given it. “I will not lie to you, Valentin. Not so long as I live.”

Valentin made that deep rumble in his chest that had her hand vibrating where she’d placed it against his skin. “Tell me what you aren’t saying,” he demanded. “I will fight all your monsters beside you, solnyshko moyo. You just have to point them out.”

Beside her, not for her. Yes, this alpha bear understood her as no one else had ever done. And she was about to break that huge heart of his—because this monster, not even her bear could fight.

“People talk about Psy gifts, Psy powers.” For over a century, the rulers of the Psy race had made sure that when others thought of the Psy, they thought of power. “Even after the outbreaks when Psy became mindless killers, most people just believe we got hit with a mental virus. Bad luck, but not enough to diminish the aura of Psy power.”

How could it be otherwise when Kaleb was a living symbol of that power, when the Arrows were heroes using their violent abilities to help rather than harm, when the M-Psy continued to diagnose countless illnesses and the Es opened their hearts to all who needed them?

“What’s the other side?” Valentin fisted his hand in her hair, a big predator who’d die for her. “That’s what you’re trying to tell me, isn’t it, Starlichka? That it isn’t only about gifts and powers.”

“Yes.” Silver wondered if he knew she’d not only die for him; she’d kill for him. Mercants had few boundaries when they loved. But that fierce woman, the one who felt the passion of her ancestors, would soon be erased from this earth. “What no one ever talks about are the curses in amongst the gifts.”

Chapter 32

Even so young, it’s clear that Silver has the intelligence, spirit, and strength to lead this family after I am gone, but she can’t do that if she’s dead. I have to find a way to keep her alive.

—Personal diary entry by Ena Mercant (March 7, 2057)

VALENTIN RAN HIS hand over her hair, his attention a dominant wave.

There was no more time to delay, no more time to hope for a miraculous reversal of her personal curse. “Do you know what Nova is doing right now? She’s talking to Chaos about how Dima took off his pants and ran around half-naked this morning just because it was fun. Every so often, he’d stop and do a ‘butt dance.’ Nova couldn’t catch him because she was laughing too hard.”

“Boy’s got a point,” Valentin rumbled. “It is fun to run around pantless—though I’d go the whole hog and take off the shirt, too.”

Despite Valentin’s light words, his lips weren’t curved, his amber eyes aglow . . . and suddenly acute in their perception. “How can you possibly hear them?” he asked, muscles bunching beneath her. “I have far better hearing than any Psy should have, and I can’t hear a word of their conversation.”

“That’s because it’s taking place out in the forest where the two of them are going for a moonlit walk while their cub sleeps, watched over by his doting grandparents.” She paused. “Your parents?”

He shook his head, a shadow passing across his face. “My father is dead. My mother prefers the wild.” Short words that said so much and not enough. “Must be Chaos’s parents—they just arrived this morning for a visit after spending time with his sister in the Rockies. She mated with a grizzly. Bad-tempered creatures, grizzlies.”

Silver had so many questions, but tonight, she was the one telling secrets. “I can also hear one of your sentries sending in a report to Pavel.”

“The miscreant is heading the watch tonight.” Valentin kissed her slow and deep, as if savoring her, before flipping them so she was below the powerful bulk of his body. “Super hearing doesn’t sound like a curse. It’s considered a strength for changelings.”

“I’d consider it a strength, too, if I could control it.” She pressed both hands to her ears. “This is what I did as a child when my grandmother lowered the secondary shields she’d had around me. I had my telepathic shields already, didn’t understand why she was pushing me to create military-grade shields so strong they were titanium.” Silver had always had a strong will.