Memory and Sascha both glared at Alexei’s cool-eyed friend.

Clearly not the least bit terrified by their wrath, Judd carried on. “I’ve tagged the locations for you. Demolition instructions sent to Sascha.”

“Be any smugger and you’ll turn into a cat.”

Eyes gleaming at Alexei’s bad-tempered comment, Judd looked at Memory again. “You realize you have a minor telekinetic ability?”

“Yes, it’s worthless.” Much to her disgust. “It was tagged as 1 on the Gradient when I was tested as a child.” At the time, with Designation E unknown to the general populace, she’d been officially classed a 3.4 telepath. Multiple abilities weren’t uncommon, but generally only on the lower end of the scale—or that’s what she’d been taught.

According to Sascha, however, Judd was beyond a 9 in both Tk and Tp.

The ex-Arrow pushed up the sleeves of his sweater. “Your Tk’s matured closer to 1.5—and nothing is useless if you know how to utilize it.” He went to the counter to pick up a spoon she’d left to dry.

Placing it on the table in front of her, he said, “Nudge it.”

Memory did it only so she could prove to him that this was a pointless exercise. The spoon moved a fraction of an inch.

“Do it again,” Judd said.

She did.

When he asked her to do it a third time, however, she sat back and folded her arms. “Why?” It wasn’t even a parlor trick when Tks like Judd could throw missiles around in the sky.

“Imagine if you had the delicate skill to manipulate the tumblers of an old-fashioned lock, or to push in the code on a computronic one. Not many prisons could keep you inside.” A raised eyebrow. “Never leave an advantage on the table.”

Memory sucked in a breath. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll practice.”

A small nod before Judd glanced at Alexei. “Ready to do our patrol, or do you want to rub your scent on your E?” Words so cool it took Memory a second to realize he was poking the wolf, his eyes alive with humor.

“One of these days . . .” Alexei growled before leaning down to kiss Memory. “Do not admire the asshole. It just gives him a big head.”

As the two men left, Memory tried not to think about the wounds inside her golden wolf, scars that meant their relationship could never be like Sascha and Lucas’s, or Jaya and Abbot’s.

So we’ll make it our own, she vowed. I’m not about to give up on you, on us, Alexei Vasiliev Harte. She was too far gone, his name written on her heart.

Chapter 41

It is the recommendation of this PsyMed advisory board that the survivors of Operation Scarab be placed in psychic restraints and kept away from the general populace. It has proved impossible to go backward—the survivors cannot be returned to their stable pre-Scarab state.

—Report prepared for the Psy Council (circa 2003)

HE’D HAD THE emergency overnight brain scans done at an anonymous facility, under a false name. Had even gone to the extent of wearing an expensive disguise, a disguise he only had because his now-deceased grandfather had insisted he always have one ready just in case. He’d felt foolish doing it, but as the head of a major Psy family, there was a high chance someone would’ve recognized him otherwise.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Dr. Mehra. The Gradient 9.8 M-Psy was deeply loyal to the family. The one who had awakened had learned the importance of loyalty by watching not his own parent, but Kaleb Krychek. One of the most ruthless and deadly men in the Net had never—not once—been sold out by his own people.

It had taken time and a careful reading of rare public comments made by Krychek’s employees, but he’d come to learn that Krychek had one rule with subordinates: Be loyal to me and I will be loyal to you. No capricious firings. No bad treatment. Mistakes forgiven as long as they were genuine and an attempt was made to fix it.

The simplicity of that structure had appealed to him. It’d taken time to roll it out across his own network—his grandfather had run their business units a far different way—but these days, he knew he had the loyalty of every single senior member of his staff. But he’d wanted no one to know of these scans . . . and the story they told.

The experienced neurospecialist who’d reviewed the scans, then spoken to him over the phone to get background, had made a chilling diagnosis. “There is evidence of damage in an area of the brain linked strongly with Psy abilities. High probability it’s the reason behind your descent into a fugue state.”

Fugue state.

A time when he was an automaton, driven not by his conscious mind but by the subconscious. A person in a fugue could do many things, become a wholly different individual. Whether he’d ever recover any memories of what he’d done was an open-ended question. Psy brains didn’t always react in medically predictable ways.

The M-Psy had urged him to return to the facility within the week, have further scans, but he didn’t need the scans to know the problem: his sprawling new power. He had to figure out how to turn it off, how to fix himself before it was too late and the damage to his brain had a permanent effect.

His wrist unit vibrated against his skin.

Glancing down, he froze. It was a message from Theo: Whatever you’re doing, I’d request you stop. I’m getting tired of the secondhand migraines.

Chapter 42

It is agreed: the survivors of Operation Scarab are to be eliminated. Their psychic power surges threaten to destabilize the PsyNet, and this cannot be permitted. Death is to be by humane methods.

—Psy Council (2004)

MEMORY WAS SITTING at her kitchen table at around four that day, working on nudging the spoon along a preset path, when Alexei turned up at her door, his eyes backlit by amber. “Want to go see more of the festival in Chinatown?” Golden and strong, with a smile that hit her in the solar plexus, he could tempt her anywhere.

Rising, she slipped her hand into the warm roughness of his . . . just as his phone buzzed. “Hello, squirt,” he said as he led Memory to the black SUV he was driving today. “Yeah? Well maybe I miss your face, too.” He grinned at the response. “Congrats on the win, by the way. I sent you a celebratory surprise. Should arrive tomorrow.”

Smiling at the happy emotions she could sense in him, Memory didn’t interrupt. Alexei spoke with the caller for a few more minutes before hanging up. “My cousin, Franzi,” he said after they were in the SUV and on their way. “Aunt Min’s daughter. Twelve years old and smart as a whip—she just won this major computronics contest.” His pride in his young cousin was adorable.

“They’re based in your den?” Memory loved seeing this side of him, the dangerous dominant who made time for a little girl who wanted to hear his voice—and who’d thought to send her a gift to celebrate an achievement.

“Yeah. Aunt Min and her mate, Gustav, followed me and Brodie when I got put in charge of that den.” A roughness to his voice. “Said it was about family.”

Memory already loved these three people she’d never met. “Tell me more about them.”

It was a topic on which her golden wolf had no hesitation speaking. She discovered that his aunt was a senior soldier, his uncle a lighting engineer, and that they’d met while his aunt had been roaming the world on her own. Alexei, too, had roamed as a younger wolf, and he shared stories about his adventures that had her laughing.

“I have a question,” she said much later, after a companionable silence had fallen between them. “How can Judd have helped Abbot if he’s a Tk?” Telekinetics caused destruction; they didn’t heal.

“Judd’s a special kind of Tk. Can move the cells of the body.” A sudden darkness in Alexei’s voice. “As a child, he was taught that his only value was as an assassin. A Tk-Cell can stop the heart, can kill in undetectable ways—but it turns out you can use the same skill in the exact opposite way.”

“To put the cells of the body back together,” Memory whispered, her fingers clasped tight in her lap. “Do you think I could . . . be something good?”

“You already are.” A scowling proclamation. “Remember Ashaya. Remember how she treasures the time you give her with Amara.”

Memory couldn’t argue with that. Neither could she forget what Amara herself had said to her: You’ve shown me elements of the world I never before knew existed. The scientist remained a psychopath, still spent time considering how she could use what Memory did as a tool of manipulation . . . but every so often, she’d display an unexpected humanity.

Such as when, after a session, she’d spent time fixing a scientific problem posted on an online forum by a small human community. The community could only offer naming rights to their tiny library as payment, and the work itself wasn’t cutting-edge enough to tempt the caliber of scientist required. Yet Amara had sat down and solved the problem.

“Might as well,” she’d said with a shrug. “It amuses me to know students will be studying at the Amara Aleine Library.”

Flip words, but she’d given up hours of her time.

Memory was still considering what that meant when Alexei parked his SUV in a lot attached to DarkRiver’s city HQ. “The cats are a lot more hooked into the pulse of San Francisco than us wolves,” he said as they got out. “This really is a feline city.”

She saw the curl of his lip, but knew by now that it was all for show. The cats and the wolves were blood allies—but they liked to pretend they couldn’t stand the sight of each other. Complete with innovative insults crafted with intense care. Grinning, she took his hand and suddenly realized she was now one half of a couple out for the night. A dream she’d only hours earlier believed impossible.

Rising on tiptoe, she kissed his bristly jaw. His responding smile was devastating, and she knew she’d take her golden wolf any way he’d trust himself to come to her. She’d love him with fierce devotion and raw honesty—and she’d hunt for ways to disprove his belief in the family curse. Not for herself, but because thinking himself a rogue-in-waiting wounded Alexei unbelievably.