Talin thought back to one of their earlier conversations. “You said the Council started hunting you a few generations back. Is that why?”
A sharp nod. “The murders began as soon as Silence took a solid hold. Those descendants who didn’t need the link to the ShadowNet—not all the kids did—were ordered to scatter and stay scattered.”
“But the Net was too small to allow those who needed the biofeedback to go far?” Sascha asked.
“Yes. It might have led to psychic starvation. Shine was formed by those who remained in the ShadowNet. It’s only in recent years that we’ve become powerful enough to chance tracing the others. We’ve focused our efforts on the marginalized children, those who need us most.”
“Why?” Jon’s tone was on the wrong side of insolent. “You might as well have pinned a target on our backs.”
Dev’s lips thinned. “We search because some of you need our help. Not all are ‘gifted.’ Some are cursed—we found one child dying because she needed the link to the ShadowNet, but her brain had lost the ability to search for it instinctively.” His jaw tensed, eyes dark with fury.
“Another, a teenage boy, is a midrange telepath, but he was diagnosed as schizophrenic because he kept hearing voices and, according to his family tree, he’s one hundred percent human. Those who scattered wiped their pasts so effectively that sometimes their own descendants don’t know who they are.”
It was too much information to process, but Talin had one further question. “What about changeling-Psy children? Why doesn’t Shine help them?”
Dev shot a wry look at Lucas. “The packs closed ranks and disappeared the known Psy families so well, we don’t have a hope in hell of tracing them. That secrecy probably saved their lives—then and now.” Pure anger threaded through his voice. “What we are, what we’ve become, it’s nothing like the Psy. We don’t want to grab their power, but the Psy Council sees only evil because it is only evil.”
Hours later, Clay
held Tally as they lay spooned on the futon they had made up on the first floor. The bed was taken—they’d brought Jon and Noor home with them. The boy hadn’t said anything, but it had been obvious he wanted to be near Talin. And Noor went where Jon did. “They’re asleep,” he said.
Tally put her arm over his. “You can hear them from down here?”
“Uh-huh.” Little Noor was snuggled up on a mattress on the second floor, while Jon had been given the bedroom, over his protests.
“Noor seemed happy with sleeping alone.” She ran her foot over his calf, the affectionate act making him purr. “I figured she’d be scared—that’s why I didn’t want her at the top of the aerie.”
“I think it’s because she’s in the middle. Hard for anyone to get to her.”
“You’re probably right. Jon’s already so protective of her.”
“Hmm.” He kissed the curve of her neck. “We keep an eye on them they’ll be okay. Look at us,” he teased, “we tried damn hard to mess up something wonderful, but we made it.”
She made a noise of assent, but said nothing else.
His leopard scented her quiet distress. “Baby, I can’t read your mind. But I know you’re sad.”
“I wish … I wish I’d waited for you,” she said without warning, her anguish so raw it crashed into him with the force of a tidal wave. “I know we’re okay now, but I wish I could wipe out the past. I wish Orrin hadn’t tainted me before we ever met.”
“Don’t.” His voice came out harsh when he wanted to be tender for her. “Don’t hurt that way. And don’t you dare consider yourself anything less than perfect.” God, she was sunshine and heart, light and beauty. How could she imagine he thought anything else? “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever dared to touch.”
Her hand fisted against his. “But what about what
I
did? You must think about it,” she insisted, voice thick with tears she refused to shed. “You must get angry sometimes.”
“I did. Before.” He’d been a fool, unable to see the truth. “Before I realized that you’re mine and you always will be. No one, nothing, can come between us.” Not even death. If she went, he would follow.
“How can you forget?” she asked in her stubborn, determined way, the same way she loved him. “You were so mad—”
“It wasn’t easy,” he admitted. “But I’m not stupid. I finally realized that what you did, the life you led, was what brought you back to me. If you’d become a good little Larkspur, you’d probably have married a farmer by now.”
She gasped, obviously horrified. “I would not.”
“No.” His tone turned serious. “Because you were mine. You always have been.”
“You’re not angry anymore?” It came out hesitant, searching.
“How can I be angry with the other half of my soul?” he asked, his tone so tender it tore little pieces out of her heart. “I have a temper, baby, and I know I fucking brood. But even if I act pissed, even if I snarl, it doesn’t mean I love you any less. Your soul shines, Tally, and I’m so damn glad it shines for me.”
She felt a tear slide down her cheek at the unforgiving honesty of his statement. Somehow, he had achieved the impossible, made her feel young, innocent to the depths of her soul.
“You sure can talk pretty when you put your mind to it.” Her voice came out husky. “I am so glad you’re mine—I know you’ll always be there for me, that if I call, you’ll come.”
His arms grew tight and she knew he’d understood. Never again would she wonder if he would one day leave her. His devotion humbled her, made her determined to love him until his own scars were nothing but forgotten memories. Then he said, “Forever, Tally,” and her heart broke.
“Clay, what if—”
“Don’t say it.” He squeezed her hard. “We’ll talk about it after we see the specialists. The first appointment is tomorrow.”
She bit his arm in a light reprimand, hearing his unspoken pain in the way he refused to discuss the subject. “Don’t you dare shift again,” she ordered, wondering if one lifetime, no matter how long, would ever be enough to love Clay all the ways she wanted to love him. “We can’t ignore the fact that I’m sick.”
“You don’t smell sick to me,” he snapped.
Neither of them spoke for a second, then they both spoke at once.
“I don’t?”
“What the fuck?”
She wiggled in his arms. “Lemme turn.”
He loosened his hold enough that she could turn around and shimmy up to take a face-to-face position with him. “You said I smelled wrong before.”
“Yeah, you did.” He frowned and nuzzled at her, this time to confirm his finding. His tongue flicked out to taste her pulse. “It’s gone. Nothing, not even under the surface.”
Talin’s eyes were huge as he met her gaze again. “Remission?”
“No, this is deeper.” His beast was convinced of it, took another sip of her scent to confirm. “The decay is gone.”
“Like I’m getting better?” Her hands clenched on his shoulders. “No, this kind of disease doesn’t disappear on its own. It’s a degenerative condition.”
Clay’s beast was roaring at him in agonized frustration, telling him to
remember
. “Remember what?” he muttered.
“Clay?”
He was concentrating too hard to reply. It was something
he’d heard, something important, something the cat had understood, though the man—“Hell!” He jerked upright without warning.
Talin bit off a cry of surprise as she sprawled off him and onto her back.
“Sorry,” he muttered, reaching for and pulling on his jeans.
She got up behind him, dressed in that strawberry ice cream slip that drove him half-crazy. “Are you going somewhere?”
“Here.” He threw her the lacy robe thing that came with the outfit.
She shrugged into it, eyes wary. “You okay, darling? Have too many beers with the boys maybe?”
He smacked her lightly on the bottom. “Smart-ass.”
“Don’t you forget it.” Her smile had the power to knock his heart right out of him. “Why are we getting decent?”
He found himself petting the curve he’d smacked, pulling up the slip so he could touch bare skin. Smooth. Hot.
His
. “I don’t want Luc to see you naked.”
“Stop that,” she breathed out as his fingers ventured south, dipped. “Or don’t, I’m easy.”
He kissed her hard on the lips before pulling down her slip and closing the robe tight. “Be good.” God, he wanted to play with her like this for decades to come. She’d drive him crazy and he’d enjoy every minute of it.
“Why?” Her eyes narrowed in puzzlement until he stopped in front of the communications panel. “We’re making a call?” At the same time, she grabbed the shirt he’d flung off earlier that night. “Put it on.”
“Trust me, I’m not that pretty.” But he shrugged into it before pushing in the code for the call.
“If no one’s bleeding, I don’t want to know,” Lucas growled, audio only.
“Sascha there?” Clay asked, wrapping both arms around Talin and pulling her back against his chest. “Or did she finally come to her senses and dump your ass?”
“Clay, have you lost your mind?” Talin glared at him, voice whisper-soft.
But Lucas turned on the visual feed. His hair was rumpled, his shirt on as haphazardly as Clay’s, and it was obvious he
hadn’t been sleeping. “I swear this had better be good. Do you know what I was about to tas—”
A feminine hand clamped over his mouth, then dropped away as Sascha looked over his shoulder, hair curling wildly around her face. “Clay?”
“Dev Santos said something tonight about a girl dying because she wasn’t getting the feedback her part-Psy brain needed.” Hope weaved through Clay’s voice with tensile strength. “Something about not knowing how to link to a psychic network.”
Sascha was nodding before he finished, her eyes going from night-sky to obsidian in a single blink. “You think—”
“Yeah,” he finished for her. “She doesn’t smell sick. Luc?”
Lucas’s facial markings became more defined as he frowned in thought. “You’re right. I smelled it that first night we met, but nothing set off my beast today.”
Talin stood frozen in the circle of Clay’s arms, trying not to hope. If she didn’t hope, the disappointment wouldn’t tear her to pieces. But she failed. “Can you check that?”
“I don’t know,” Sascha said. “I can’t get into your mind, but I’ll try on the Web of Stars—that’s the network that connects all the sentinels and their mates to Lucas. I’m contacting Faith, too. She’s not as good with the Web yet, but she’s had a lot of experience looking for hidden patterns.” Closing her eyes, she seemed to melt into Lucas, her bare arms wrapping around the alpha from behind.
Talin turned and half buried her face in Clay’s chest. “It can’t be true. My Psy DNA is a joke. Three percent, remember?”
“Shine was unable to track down your father,” he said, confusing her for a second, “but what if
both
your parents were long-removed descendants of the Forgotten? What if they each carried a single dormant gene that came together in you? Maybe that gene
is
the three percent.”
“A million-to-one chance.”
“Not necessarily,” he said. “Silence has been around for just over a hundred years. Before that, anything went. A lot of humans and changelings had Psy relatives pre-Silence—the pool for dormant genes is wider than the descendants of the Forgotten.”
“But the specialists,” she said, playing devil’s advocate
because she wanted this too much, “they did genetic tests, found no markers.”
“Because they weren’t looking for the right thing,” he said, not budging. “Remember what Santos said about a kid’s family thinking he was full human, so no one looked for a Psy cause?”
He was fighting for her, fighting so damn hard. “I love you,” she whispered.
He stroked his hand down her back. “Yep, you do.”
“You’re supposed to say it back,” she said, pretending to be offended because the silliness kept the fear/hope at bay.
“Why?” He scowled down at her. “You know you’re my heartbeat.”
The blunt words cut her off at the knees. Reaching up, she kissed him, uncaring that the other couple might be watching. But when they parted, she glanced at the screen to find Sascha’s eyes still closed and Lucas focusing on her. “I wonder what she sees.”
“Faith told me once—our minds are like stars, each one connected ultimately to Lucas. That’s why Sascha calls it a web.”
“And I’m in there because of my bond with you.” It gave her a sense of peace to say that. “I’m glad we’re mated,” she said, speaking the truth for the first time. “I know that’s selfish, but I’m glad.”
“Good, because there’s no getting out.”
It was at that moment that Sascha’s eyes flicked open. Talin was startled to see the blackness cascading with color. The wonder of it astonished her, made her want to reach out and touch the screen in delight.
But what Sascha had to say eclipsed even those magnificent eyes. “Clay was right.”
Her knees would have collapsed had Clay not been holding her upright. “What?” she croaked out. “Did you see something?”
“It was hard,” Sascha said, her smile growing so wide it was in danger of cracking her face. “Your mind is different—we thought it was because you were human, and we were mostly right, but our preconception kept us from seeing the whole truth. You don’t suck in the biofeedback the same way a
Psy does. The flows aren’t obvious. It’s like”—she paused her rapid-fire explanation—“like you need a misty rain, while we need a downpour. Do you see?”
Talin was so dazed, she had trouble formulating speech. “Not enough to die immediately without, but not quite right unless I have it?”
“Yes!” Sascha’s expression glowed with excitement. “What we saw around you is a slight, very slight, draw on the biofeedback. Your brain is taking in what it needs through your link to Clay and therefore to the Web.” Her eyes sharpened. “Are you feeling much better?”
She didn’t have to consider the question. “Yes. I can think so clearly. Ever since—” Blood rushed out of her face. “Clay’s headache.”
“That explains it,” Sascha said, smile not dimming. “There had to be a strong draw at some point, because, if we go by your symptoms, your brain was well into starvation mode. I didn’t notice a shift in the Web that would have alerted me to the truth, but that’s because you took it directly from Clay.”