Talin grinned at the cardinal’s arch tone. “That’s what I thought. Maybe you’re just seeing a new side of him?”
“I think you’re right.” Sascha put down her mug. “I came into his life at a time when he was pure anger—after he lost his sister. I never knew him as he was before. Maybe part of that Dorian is coming back.”
“He hasn’t stopped being angry.” Talin watched that golden head as he bent to pick up one of the twins and throw him over his shoulder.
“No.” There was profound sadness in Sascha’s voice, until
Talin could almost feel the pain of it in her own heart. Then the cardinal shook her head. “But enough about Dorian. He’ll probably snarl at us both for daring to care.” A small smile. “How about you tell me what’s bothering you?”
Talin wasn’t surprised at the other woman’s perceptiveness. “I’m mated to Clay.”
“I know.”
“How can that have happened?” she asked, frantic. “I’m sick and—” And she’d been selfish. “I wanted him to love me, but I never intended to kill him.”
“When I was going through the mating dance with Lucas,” Sascha said, sympathy in every syllable, “Tammy told me the process is different for every couple. What does seem consistent though is that the female has to accept the bond in some way for it to come into being.”
“But I didn’t! I would have never willingly put him in that kind of danger!”
“Um, Talin, this is kind of personal, but Lucas says you smell of Clay.”
Talin blushed, put down her coffee. “So? We’re intimate, but obviously sex isn’t all it takes.”
“Well …”
“Tell me the truth. I promise I won’t jump down your throat again and accuse you of invading my privacy.” She was starting to understand that Sascha couldn’t block everything—because her gift was in her skin, in her blood, in her every breath.
“Sex isn’t everything, but in your case, sex is intertwined with the core of who you are. I’m guessing you were hurt with it—it was a damaging thread, but a thread that ran through your life.”
“You’re saying having sex with Clay was an acceptance on my part?”
“It wasn’t just sex, was it? I don’t know what happened but whatever it was, the mating bond took it as a resounding ‘yes.’ ”
Talin thought back to the first time she and Clay had made love—yes, made love, not had sex—to that moment when she’d felt the inexplicable vibration in her soul. That night, she had surrendered to Clay with every part of her. She had
trusted him with her soul. But she had never meant to steal his. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “It’ll destroy him if I die.”
“So fight to live.”
Talin had already made that choice. “We’ve scheduled appointments with medical people Tammy recommended.” She would try, would fight, but she also knew that a dying brain was not an easy thing to fix. The best the doctors might be able to do was give her a little more time. “Is there anything you can do? I’ll let you into my mind if you want.” Her pride was nothing compared to missing out on a lifetime with Clay.
Sascha shook her head, her concern unhidden. “Your shields are impenetrable and so instinctive, they’re nothing you can manipulate. I think it’s going to take years for you to let them down with anyone but Clay.”
“It was worth a try.” She stared out at the children, fighting back tears. She wondered what Clay and her babies would have looked like. Her throat threatened to close up and this time, it wasn’t anything deadly, but a painful knot of emotion.
“That doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying to find ways to help,” Sascha said, jaw a determined line. “You’re Pack and DarkRiver never abandons its own.”
Talin had once envied Clay that sense of ultimate acceptance but now found herself unsure. “I’m not exactly good at the family stuff.”
Sascha laughed and it was a joyous, infectious sound. “Welcome to the club.”
“I’m an idiot.” She felt her lips curve, despite the fear inside her soul. If she died, Clay wouldn’t make it. She knew he wouldn’t. It wasn’t anything either of them could change and it had nothing to do with courage. They were simply too deeply linked. If one fell, so would the other.
The unfairness of it made her want to scream bloody murder—she and her beautiful leopard had paid their dues a hundred times over. “How did you do it?” she asked Sascha. “How did you learn to be in a family?” She had to learn, too. Pack was important to Clay, and whatever time they had left, she wanted him happy.
“There’s not much choice with these cats,” Sascha responded. “They have a way of accepting you that’s pretty hard to resist.”
Something bit Talin’s bare toe. Yelping, she looked down. “Good Lord, how adorable are you?” Reaching down, she picked up the leopard cub.
Sascha leaned over and kissed his nose. “Hello, Roman.”
The cub butted his head against Sascha, but seemed content to remain in Talin’s arms. Stroking her hand down the cub’s fur, she felt him purr as he lay there. Her and Clay’s child would have been able to shift, she thought, would have had fur as soft. Such intense emotion seared through her that it hurt. “Did you get tired, baby?”
A nod of his head.
Amazed at the beauty of this creature she held, she looked up and met Sascha’s eyes. “Like I said,” the cardinal murmured, “they make it very hard not to be family.”
An hour later,
having talked it over with Clay, Talin made sure Jonquil was included in the conference call they placed to Dev. Noor was engrossed in a board game upstairs, having become fast friends with Julian and Roman. Dorian had volunteered to continue babysitting. He seemed to have developed a soft spot for the shy little girl.
Good, she thought, with painful practicality. That meant Noor would be loved no matter what. As for Jon … he’d be okay. He wasn’t as trusting as Noor, but his spirit was full of a warrior bravery she knew he didn’t see. But she did—because Clay had been the same at that age. That thought in mind, she reached out and rubbed Jon’s hair. It was now military short, the stunning white-gold dyed black.
He’d taken a seat on the floor, his back to the armchair where she sat. Clay was standing behind her, arms braced on the same armchair. She smiled. She was happy at this moment and she gloried in the sensation. Everyone she cared for—even Max—was safe. “You have any questions?” she asked Jon.
He leaned against her leg. “It’s weird to think we have Psy blood. It makes us mutts, I guess.”
She laughed. “Hey, watch who you call a mutt.”
Smiling, he wrapped one arm around her leg. Clay tugged at her ponytail and when she looked up, he bent down to kiss her. One touch and he was in her soul, in her deepest, most secret heart.
I love you
, she mouthed.
His response was a nip to her lower lip that promised all sorts of things once they were alone. Another burst of happiness taking root in her heart, she looked back down—to find Jon watching her and Clay, those amazing violet eyes carefully neutral. “You’ll need contact lenses,” she said. “At least for a while.” His eyes were too unique.
His expression didn’t change. “Sure.”
Recognizing that his protective walls had gone up, and able to guess why—he was afraid of losing her to Clay, to DarkRiver—she gentled her voice. Jon hadn’t ever had anyone stick by him, didn’t quite understand that he, too, was now part of the pack. “About being mutts,” she said, “the truth is, I never knew who my parents were. At least now, I know something of my genetic history.”
The Shine records had listed the name of her mother, though they had been unable to trace her father. Talin had no intention of making contact with the woman. She had no need to chase love, not when she was adored by a predator who would take on the world for her. But … “I think knowing is better than not knowing, don’t you?”
“Even if what we learn isn’t something we want to know?”
“Haven’t you ever wondered why you can do the things you can do?”
He shrugged. “I can’t do shit.”
“Watch your language.” Clay kept his tone quiet but infused it with steel. He knew teenage boys. They needed Talin’s kind of softness, but they also needed discipline.
Jon’s spine straightened. “Or you’ll throw me out?”
Clay saw echoes of himself in that angry pride. “No, we’re like the mob. Once you’re in, you can’t get out. Try it and see.”
The boy’s eyes widened, then shifted to Talin. “Is he joking?”
“I don’t think so,” she whispered. “They’re a bit possessive.” Her words were for Jon but Clay knew her mischievous tone was for him. “Would you really leave Noor?”
The boy shook his head. “How come you want me?” he asked Clay point-blank. “I’m a piece of sh—” He paused at Clay’s growl. “I mean I’m a troublemaker.”
“So was I,” Clay said. “I came into the pack when I was eighteen.”
“But you’re a sentinel.”
“Being a sentinel isn’t hereditary. Earn your place and no one will deny you.” It had been eight months into his stay with DarkRiver that he’d truly accepted his new way of life. That was the day he had walked out with Luc, Nate, Vaughn, and several others and destroyed a bloodthirsty pack called the ShadowWalkers. No one had made his acceptance hinge on blood. It was the leopard who had decided—this was his new family and he’d do whatever it took to keep them safe.
“What if—” Jon paused. “Kit told me about pack hierarchy. I can’t shift into animal form. Guess that means I’ll never get a high rank, huh?”
Clay raised an eyebrow. “Ask Dorian.”
“He can’t shift?”
“No.”
“But he’s a sentinel, too!”
“Exactly.” He left the kid that information to chew on.
Talin had remained silent throughout the conversation, knowing the importance of what was going on. When Jon nodded and returned to his previous position, his head against her knee, she relaxed.
That was when Sascha and Lucas walked into the room. It had been decided the alpha pair needed to hear this, since by accepting Jon and Noor, they were allying themselves to Shine by default.
Clay stirred behind her, his hand sliding down to cup the side of her neck in a hold as protective as it was possessive. She swallowed, reached up to close her hand over his wrist. His fingers played over her skin. “I already input the code,” he told Lucas.
Nodding, Lucas pressed the Enter key and sat down in the other armchair. Sascha perched on the arm, leaning into her mate, who slipped an arm around her waist, his hand lying loosely on her hip. It was an easy pose, the pose of a couple that had been together long enough to have created their own patterns, their own secret language.
She wanted that with Clay, she thought, would do everything in her power to gain it. Pulling his hand away from her neck, she pressed a kiss to his palm. He leaned down until his lips were against her ear. “Behave, Tally. Or are you calling in your winnings?”
The husky reminder made her grin. Releasing his hand, she sighed in pleasure when he pushed aside the neckline of her V-necked sweater to close it over her bare shoulder. That was when the comm screen cleared to reveal Dev’s face.
“Sorry for the delay. Had a last-minute situation spring up in Kansas.”
Anger rolled through her like fire. “Not another abduction?”
“No.” His eyes looked over her head. “I think that problem has been permanently resolved.”
“No,” Clay disagreed. “We need to cut this off at the root—the Council. Long as they hold power, civilians will keep dying.”
Talin felt Sascha jerk, but the cardinal nodded. “Yes, they have to be stopped.”
“You won’t get any argument from me.” Dev shoved a hand through his hair and glanced at Jon. “I’ve organized a place for you at one of our prep schools. You’ve got more Psy blood than most—you need to learn about the Psy side of your lineage.”
Talin took the lead when Jon maintained an obstinate silence. “Send me the information and we’ll look it over.” At Dev’s nod, she took a deep breath, drawing the scent of Clay into her lungs. “Now, tell us everything we don’t know about the Forgotten.”
Dev’s handsome face shadowed over. “That’s a big ask.”
“But necessary,” Clay said from behind her.
“Yes.” He paused as if gathering his thoughts. “In short, a hundred or so years ago, when Silence was voted into being, people who disagreed began to search for a way out. It had to be done in secret because dissidents had already begun to disappear.”
When no one interrupted, he continued, “In the end, the only solution the rebels could come up with was to drop out en masse and attempt to link to each other in the seconds before psychic death. They hoped their gamble would lead to the spontaneous creation of a new psychic network. If it didn’t,
the defectors were prepared to die.” The ruthless lines of Dev’s face lit from within. “But they didn’t. And the Shadow-Net was born.”
“This is extraordinary,” Sascha said. “I was a Councilor’s daughter and I knew nothing of the Forgotten or their Shadow-Net.”
“Not surprising. The Council would like to wipe us from the face of the planet.”
“Can you still accept renegades?” Sascha asked and Talin realized how important the answer was for those who remained imprisoned by Silence.
Dev shook his head. “We could for the first generation after defection. Some people dropped out later. Most had children they couldn’t bear to leave earlier.”
Sascha gave a slow nod, her hand gripping Lucas’s so tight that her dark gold skin had turned white over bone. “And now?”
“Everyone in the ShadowNet is of heavily mixed blood. Over time, the psychic pathways have shifted, become unique in a way that probably rules out the successful integration of a more ‘pure’ Psy and vice versa.”
“Did the Council realize what had happened to the defectors?” Talin asked, trying to wrap her head around the implications of Dev’s revelations.
“Yes. But since the ShadowNet was so small, and they were busy dealing with the aftermath of Silence, they didn’t pay much attention. They figured the defectors would intermarry with the other races and their Psy blood would eventually diminish.”
“That didn’t happen?”
“It did and it didn’t.” He leaned back in his chair, his skin gilded a rich bronze by the sun lancing in through the window behind him. “Every so often, the result of a pregnancy between two descendants of the Forgotten is a child with remarkable Psy powers. These powerful births are exceptionally rare, but like Jon, many children of the Forgotten carry some functional or latent power. And the Council doesn’t like anyone on the outside who might be able to challenge them on the psychic plane.”