Rubbing her damp palms on her jeans, she blurted out, “I’m sorry,” before Ashaya could speak.

“You don’t ever have to apologize to me.” The blue-gray of Ashaya’s eyes shone with emotion. “You gave me a gift I never expected,” she whispered in a voice that trembled. “The effect may have been temporary, but for three hours yesterday, I saw a glimpse of who my twin might’ve been if she hadn’t been wired wrong in the womb.”

All the air rushed out of Memory. “She didn’t hurt you with her new understanding of your vulnerabilities?”

A poignant smile. “I long ago learned how to conduct myself around Amara to ensure that I didn’t put myself or those I loved at risk.” She inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. “Bittersweet though they were, I’d never give up those three hours.” Ashaya reached back to tuck a curl behind her ear.

Memory was suddenly conscious of the state of her own hair; it hadn’t dried enough to become a huge mess, but she had nothing like Ashaya’s beautifully separated curls. “Would you like a coffee?” she said despite the heat in her face.

“I’d love some, and I brought a gift I hope you’ll like.” She lifted the bag she was holding.

Only after the two of them were seated around the kitchen table did Ashaya open the bag. As Memory watched, she took out a number of items.

Hair care products and tools designed for tight curls.

Heat crawling over her entire body, Memory looked down into the fragrant dark liquid in her mug. “My hair looks terrible, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, I didn’t do this to make you feel bad.” Ashaya’s tone was distraught. “I thought maybe no one had remembered to get you curl-specific products.”

Memory looked up, her eyes burning. “Alexei did,” she whispered, wanting to kiss him all over again for seeing her. Not a victim. Not a strange E. Her. Memory.

“Will you let me do your hair?” Ashaya’s throat moved as she swallowed. “I need to do something for you. Please.”

“Oh.” No one else had done Memory’s hair since she was eight years old. Her emotions got all tangled at the idea of it, her throat thick. “Yes,” she managed to say.

Ashaya’s face lit up.

As she got up to come around behind Memory, she said, “I kept my mate up all night telling him about Amara and our strange, wonderful afternoon.” The M-Psy went on to speak about her leopard changeling mate and her Psy son, who considered himself an honorary cat and was with his adoptive father today. “Learning leopard secrets,” Ashaya said with a laugh. “Important man-business.”

Memory found herself wondering if Alexei took wolf pups off to learn wolf secrets. The idea of her growly golden wolf corralling curious pups made her grin.

Jaya returned while Ashaya was still detangling Memory’s hair. “We can start on the drills while Ashaya does her thing,” she said, her elegant features warmly affectionate. “First, we’re going to do the psychic version of piano scales to warm you up.”

It became clear within the first quarter-hour that the usual E exercises simply didn’t work for Memory’s brain. Memory fisted her fingers into her palms, her gut churning at this evidence that she didn’t belong in Designation E, but Jaya wasn’t about to give up. She threw out a far different exercise . . . and Memory flew through it.

“Interesting.” Jaya sat back in her chair, rubbing the back of her neck. “That particular exercise was originally designed for telepathic Arrow trainees,” she said just as Sascha arrived. “Abbot showed it to me.”

The room was now filled with so much friendly feminine energy that Memory felt overwhelmed—in a good way. Never had she imagined she’d have this many friends around her, people who seemed to like her regardless of her dark ability. She felt shy about claiming them as friends out loud, but she hugged the thought close in her heart.

“Hmm,” Sascha said, in the process of taking off her royal blue coat with silky blue and white detailing at the cuffs. “Memory does have an instinctive ability to use her empathy offensively,” the cardinal murmured, “so an exercise designed to teach control to a martial mind makes sense.”

Stomach lurching, Memory tried not to let those words hurt.

She’d forgotten she was in the presence of two experienced Es. Sascha’s eyes widened. “Memory, sweetheart, that’s a good thing.”

The cardinal came to sit beside Memory, weaving one hand through Memory’s. “Do you know how many people want to use Es? Break us and manipulate our abilities for their own gain?” The stars disappeared from her haunting gaze. “If we can teach all Es to do what you do without thought, we give them a sword and a shield.”

Jaya nodded. “You’re an E we could pair with a more vulnerable one so you could protect that person.”

Memory’s entire sense of self altered at that instant. To be the protector rather than a victim? It filled so many broken spaces inside her. “I see now,” she said through the intense tightness in her chest. “Thank you.”

Sascha and Jaya both hugged her with empathic affection before stepping outside to chat about the compound’s wider training schedule. Ashaya spoke into the silence broken only by the faint murmur of the other two women’s voices.

“Don’t let the bastard who caged you continue to mess with your head.” Her voice was firm, the words an order. “I grew up with Amara—trust me, I know how subtle the manipulation can be, how it gets inside you and creates holes, weakness that a psychopath can exploit. Believe nothing he ever told you about yourself.”

Memory made a face. “I need to tattoo that on my forehead.” She kept falling back into old patterns, believing herself a monster—but that was Renault. Not her.

“I don’t think you need to go that far,” Ashaya said with a laugh as she began to pack up. “I saw the way Alexei was with you—trust me, when a predatory changeling that strong keeps expecting you to meet him toe-to-toe, strength is a given.” A wink. “Don’t give an inch. It’s much more fun that way.”

Blood hot at the memory of tangling with Alexei, Memory raised a hand and felt her curls all separate and glossy, each one full of bounce. Things cracked and broke inside her. “Thank you,” she whispered. “You’ve given me back a piece of myself.” Now, she had to claim the rest, claim the future she wanted for herself. Growly wolf included.

Chapter 27

Okay, a grumpy man. Here’s the thing, it depends on the changeling. Bears, for example, can be grump monsters—but pet them and tell them they’re wonderful and the best at everything and they’ll smile and grab you up in those big arms and the rest, as all of us mated to bears know, is delicious history.

Wolves, however, are a tougher nut to crack. It is the opinion of the Wild Woman team that wolves like to brood. They are the champions of changeling brooding . . . but crack that hard shell and oh my goodness. No one plays like a wolf—he’ll charm your pants right off your body. So if you get a grumpy wolf, we suggest a sneak attack.

—From the June 2077 issue of Wild Woman magazine: “Skin Privileges, Style & Primal Sophistication”

SASCHA SHOOED MEMORY out around two, after offering to put together sandwiches for them. “You need fresh air—and I need to call my cub.”

Fascinated by the idea of a little girl who shape-shifted into an equally little panther, Memory popped into the bedroom area first to see her hair in the mirror. Both her hands flew to her mouth. She looked like a picture from a magazine, all vibrant hair, glossy and perfect. Except that it wasn’t too perfect—Ashaya had left her curls to go where they would, and they erupted out of her head in a burst of wild joy.

Memory all but bounced back out to the kitchen area.

“You’re very smart,” Sascha was saying, a tone to her voice that made Memory’s heart hitch, it was so quintessentially maternal. The cardinal’s attention was on the small screen of her phone, but she lifted a hand in a wave as Memory passed.

Cold air kissed her cheeks outside, the bright sun no match for the fading edge of winter. Spotting a group of people seated on a rough circle of stones in the clearing to her left, she decided to go in the other direction. Only it was too late. Jaya had seen her; she motioned Memory over.

Heart thudding, Memory reminded herself to breathe—and to remember that invisible tattoo on her forehead.

“Break from shield training?” Jaya asked when Memory reached her.

Instead of wincing at the reference to her remedial shield lessons, Memory squared her shoulders and nodded. Shields were critical and hers needed to be impenetrable. No one would ever make her feel bad about prioritizing her protective barriers against evil.

“I had to train with Sascha, too,” one man groaned, while around him, his peers chuckled. “I felt as if my brain was soup after every session—but, damn, she knows her shields. You couldn’t have a better teacher.”

The next ten minutes passed by in startlingly easy conversation with people who weren’t so very different from Memory after all. She might’ve been the only one who’d been physically locked up, but they’d all experienced imprisonment—their abilities crushed and stifled, not one had known they were an empath until after the fall of Silence.

Each was in the infancy of exploring their powers, and Memory realized she was far from the only one with scars on her psyche. At one point, a quiet brunette E named Cordelia mentioned that she’d been denigrated in her family group as a “useless Gradient 1.7 psychometric.” Cordelia was actually a Gradient 7.9 empath.

“It’s hard getting my head around that,” Cordelia said in her soft voice. “I keep falling into the black hole of thinking myself worthless.”

Memory wanted to kick Cordelia’s family for her, bruising them black and blue. Only one thing made her hesitate in sharing her own similar stumbles into a lack of confidence. Jaya? she telepathed after warily requesting contact. Do they know I was a captive? It’d brand her as different, make it impossible for her to just be one of the group.