Storm echo, p.33
Storm Echo, page 33
They stared at one another before Soleil yawned. “No wonder I’m starving.” Reaching into a pocket as she leaned against him, she pulled out an energy bar. “Here, I grabbed a few of these from the kitchen.”
One arm hooked loosely around her waist, he all but inhaled one, then another as she finished one and said, “I scented Lucas, Mercy, and Tammy in the aerie, as well as two unknowns. At least one didn’t smell of leopard but had a scent you and your grandmother both carry. I’m guessing maybe your cousin?”
Ivan nodded. “I can’t see Grandmother climbing up here.”
“I wouldn’t count on that, vida mía.” A kiss to his cheek, the way she had of just touching him in affection already something he craved. “Your abuela is a force where the people she loves are concerned.”
Ivan couldn’t argue with that. “Shall we go down?”
Soleil nodded. “But first—” Grabbing his face in her hands, she kissed him until his world spun. “We’re alive.”
The wave of black dread he’d been holding back crashed down on him. “I don’t want to look in the ChaosNet. I have to have murdered countless people by now.”
Sliding a hand down his arm, Soleil linked her fingers with his. “It’s not a spider, remember? It’s a heart, the center that holds. Just like an alpha. You haven’t hurt anyone.”
The confidence in her voice was a kiss.
“I’m a healer,” she whispered. “I’d know if you were killing anyone. Look, Ivan.”
Gut clenched, he opened his eyes in the ChaosNet. Except … there was no chaos anymore. All the minds he’d wrapped in spidersilk remained wrapped up. Alive, functional, but unable to spread chaotic energy. As for the other minds …
He sucked in a breath, looked into Soleil’s eyes. “Everyone’s alive. Stronger. Not at full strength, but stronger.” No longer in danger of flickering out. “I’m the same. Not anywhere near full strength, but neither wiped nor bloated with power.”
Pressing her forehead to his, Soleil repeated the words she’d spoken to him before. “You’re the center that holds. The energy feeds into you, then feeds back out into the network as needed. It’s a perfect closed system, exactly like a pack. Once you all heal, it will be an amazingly healthy system.”
“I can’t …” He exhaled, their foreheads yet touching and breaths mingling. “I’ll need time to figure all this out.” To accept that he hadn’t become a devouring monster; it was too big a thing for him to comprehend. “Let’s go talk to everyone.”
This time, they went down together, Ivan climbing down first, with Soleil climbing down above him. “Don’t look up my dress,” she ordered him with a grin before they began the descent.
“I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” he said, but when it came down to it, he was more worried about her safety. She displayed nowhere near her usual wild grace, her body yet shaky.
“You’re in the network,” he told her quietly as they climbed down. “Not visibly, but I know you’re there.”
“Of course. We’re mated.” A dazzling smile he felt through the mating bond as his feet touched the forest floor.
He grabbed her waist as she came down, made sure she was steady on her feet before he turned—to almost be bowled over by Arwen slamming into him. He locked his arms around his cousin, aware that Lucas had enfolded a smiling Soleil in his own arms.
“Hey,” he said, running a hand down his cousin’s back, this man who had always cared even when caring for Ivan was a rewardless exercise, “I’m good. Alive and undamaged.”
Arwen was trembling when he drew back, his usually perfect hair a mess and his eyes red as if he’d been crying. “You vanished from the PsyNet, from our familial network. I thought you were dead.”
Wrapping his arm around his cousin’s neck, Ivan drew him close once again, held him tight. “I’m sorry about that. Things didn’t go as I’d planned.” This time when he let go, Arwen moved aside so Ena could walk up to Ivan.
“He wouldn’t believe me when I told him you were alive. He insisted on putting his eyes on you.” The slightest touch of her fingers to his jaw. “I must admit I had my doubts as well.”
That was as close as Ena would ever come to admitting fear, but Ivan needed no grand actions or declarations from his grandmother. He knew exactly what he meant to her. “I’m not sure quite what happened,” he said, holding out a hand instinctively as Soleil came to him.
Her fingers touched his, her cat in his mind.
“I made contact with Lucas the moment you vanished from the PsyNet,” his grandmother told him. “He’d already felt a violent impact through his blood bond with you, Soleil, and had diverted one of his sentinels to your aerie. She was the closest person to you at the time.”
Arwen pushed a trembling hand through his hair. “The sentinel confirmed you were both alive and breathing but otherwise unresponsive, got you inside with help from another packmate who was close by, and then Lucas said we should come.” A wobbly grin. “I would’ve come anyway, even if I had to fight off leopards.”
“Empaths.” Lucas Hunter scowled. “You’re a menace to yourselves. My leopards would’ve eaten you alive.”
The cardinal-eyed woman next to him—quite famously the first Silent empath to wake to her powers—laughed. “Don’t listen to a word he says, Arwen. He’d snap the neck of anyone who dared hurt an E.”
Another voice broke into the conversation, a voice as black as the heart of midnight, a thing of power and cold. “A number of the people uplinked to the island have woken from their comas.”
Ivan looked toward Kaleb Krychek, who’d joined the rough circle that had formed. Arwen still stood right next to him, his shoulder touching Ivan’s, a touch with which Ivan was more than comfortable. He’d never wanted to hurt Arwen, and the sudden loss of Ivan from their network would’ve devastated him.
Ena stood beside Arwen, Krychek next to her, while Lucas Hunter stood beside Krychek, his mate between him and Soleil. Ivan had no idea how or why Krychek had access to DarkRiver territory, but he was comfortable here, that much was obvious in the way he stood at ease under the canopy even though he was in a formal black suit.
“Are any of them talking?” Ivan asked.
“Yes. According to them, they’re in a stable psychic network with a unique biofeedback loop that seems to be flowing from a center they can’t see.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’m assuming that’s you.”
Ivan nodded. “The anchors? Ager Lii?” The foundation without which nothing could exist.
“Alive and aware—though it appears at least two of the other four As on the island have Scarab Syndrome.”
It was the worst kind of news, Designation A already critical in terms of numbers.
“Ager Lii isn’t suffering from the syndrome,” Kaleb clarified. “They’ve confirmed that the new network is stable, and that its link to the main part of the Substrate appears to be opening up. So while the island remains separated from the rest of the PsyNet on the upper level, it stands atop the same foundations. It won’t starve of anchor energy.”
Ivan exhaled slowly at the realization that the island’s psychic network was more than functioning. It was functioning well. “I can’t explain the mechanics of it to you.”
“It’s simple,” Soleil said from beside him. “You have the capacity to create and maintain pack bonds, just like Lucas. You can feel every packmate in the back of your mind, can’t you, Luc?”
Lucas inclined his head. “Talking of which—there are a lot more heartbeats in my consciousness as of thirty-two hours ago. Nothing near as strong an awareness as I have of the members of the pack, but I know they’re there. An entire network of people at the far periphery of my view.”
Soleil’s mouth made a rounded O, while Ivan just stared at the alpha.
“Looks like our blood bond has linked the two groups.” Lucas folded his arms, legs spread.
“Psy, human, changeling,” Sascha murmured. “That’s what’s always been needed in the PsyNet, a trinity of energy. Soleil, Yariela mentioned your mother was human?”
Soleil nodded.
“Pack energy, too, has to be feeding into the Psy network through Soleil. We have members from all three races.” Sascha frowned. “But Lucas darling, you don’t feel any drain?”
“No.”
“Might be that all that’s needed for the stabilization of a psychic network is the mere presence of changeling and human energies.” Sascha’s smile was a thing of warmth. “It’s going to be a fascinating puzzle to work out. Later. Right now, you two must be starving—Tammy finally agreed to go rest an hour ago, when she felt you start to surface, but she left us with strict instructions to feed you.”
“So.” Ena’s soft voice as Lucas shifted to reveal a large basket of food. “You’ve succeeded in creating an island that is perfectly balanced within the trinity.” A tone in her voice that Ivan knew was pride.
Her next words were telepathic, only for him: You were never the spider, Ivan. You were born to be the heart of a network. I regret that I didn’t understand this at the very beginning.
The words rang in Ivan’s head as Krychek slid his hands into the pockets of his pants. “It’s too bad your brain is one of a kind.” His eyes gleamed black with stars. “This would be the perfect solution to our problem, erase all our issues with the prior plans to fragment the PsyNet.”
“There’s at least one more mind like mine,” Ivan pointed out, an image of a bloated black carapace in mind. “The original spider who created the island.”
“No,” Kaleb said. “It’s analogous but not the same—it siphoned power, correct? You, however, act as a redistribution center.”
Ena stirred. “We can still learn from what Ivan has done. It’s possible we could create a network based on the framework.”
Kaleb murmured back a response, Ena replied, but Ivan was no longer listening.
All his life, Ivan had believed his ability a curse. To hear it being spoken of as an advantage … yes, it was going to take a lot of getting used to, but when he looked over to see Soleil grinning as Sascha handed her a huge chocolate chip muffin, he knew nothing was impossible.
He loved and was loved, words he’d never thought he’d ever think.
“The embers are so warm I can feel them,” Arwen murmured from beside him. “She loves you with all her being.”
“I know,” Ivan said as Soleil turned and waved the muffin at him with a laugh. “I know.”
Chapter 52
Ivan, I just got a hit on your DNA. Uncle Rufus and I maintained the automatic background search as you asked—this is the first time it’s had a hit. I’m sending you the details, but it looks like a full match—this man is likely your father.
He’s human, showed up in the system when he was processed as a suspect in a murder case in the vicinity of his residence. Enforcement tested all adult males within a certain radius. He was cleared straight-away and his DNA is already being wiped from the records, but the automation caught it before the wipe.
I’ve backed up the record and am attaching it here so you can run your own comparison search to confirm.
—Canto Mercant to Ivan Mercant (9 October 2083)
“HAPPY ENDINGS ARE for human and changeling fairy tales.”
“I like that about you,” Soleil said, “you’re so positive.” Ignoring her mate’s dark look, she took his hand. “Whatever happens, whoever your papa turns out to be, it doesn’t change you. You’re my Ivan, courageous and loyal and with serious moves in bed.”
Lips curving a fraction as she fanned her face, Ivan curled his fingers over hers. “Canto was able to track down his criminal record—he had multiple minor busts for drugs over the years. No sign the authorities took his DNA as required. Busy shift, sample lost before it was logged, could be any number of reasons why. But”—he paused for a second—“he hasn’t been arrested or cited in the past decade.”
Tucking her unbound hair behind her ear, Soleil took in the nursing home across the street, beyond a small patch of lush green lawn. “You think he got too sick to score drugs? Was just caught up in that DNA dragnet as a matter of form?”
“It’s what makes sense.” The structure in which the donor of Ivan’s paternal DNA resided was old but tidily kept, and while it had no real grounds of its own, it was situated right across the road from a large park maintained by DarkRiver as part of the pack’s commitment to the city.
A place of verdant growth and wild color.
“Odd, that I’d find him here, so close to the place I now call home.”
“You say odd, I say fate.” Soleil leaned up against him, the pretty fall of metal and jewels at her ears making a musical sound. “Just like it was fate that I packed up my bags on a whim and went to visit Melati while you were doing that lunatic course with your equally lunatic wolf friends. I was meant to find you.”
Ivan wasn’t sure he believed in fate, but he believed in his Lei. There was no one else he could imagine by his side as they navigated the surprises of life—because there’d been plenty of them in the two months since their mating. This was just the latest.
“If you have to be in a nursing home,” Soleil murmured, the dark magenta of her dress vivid against the denim of her jacket, “this isn’t too bad.” Her tone, however, was dubious.
Because even the most luxurious such residence would crush a changeling’s spirit—which was why packs had their own ways of looking after their elders and others who needed care. Soleil would never end up away from the forests that fed her soul.
“What do the Psy do with their elders?” she asked, the sparkling stones in the earrings he’d given her dancing in the sunlight.
“Under Silence, people who could no longer contribute to society just vanished.” He squeezed her hand when she sucked in a breath. “Not in my family. Grandmother doesn’t let go of her people, remember?”
“If I wasn’t mated to you, I’d proposition your abuela. I’m serious.”
Amused at how much she adored his grandmother—and content to his core with how deeply Ena returned her regard, he said, “I forgot to tell you. Arwen’s invited us to dinner tomorrow night. His bear is cooking.”
“Bears,” Soleil said with a mock frown. “Charming troublemakers one and all. You know Valentin keeps asking me to teach him how to be extra sneaky?” Laughter in her tone now. “Last time around, I told him he already has a degree in sneaky—he conned Silver into mating with him, didn’t he? He laughed so hard he almost fell off his chair.”
Ivan could imagine his cousin’s big, brash mate doing exactly that. As he could imagine his feline mate making just such a quip. Strange as it was, it turned out that cats and bears liked one another—perhaps because they were so different. Each found the other a source of endless fascination.
As for Ivan’s family, they’d been welcomed in DarkRiver. Not in the exuberant bear style, but with a feline subtlety that was no less sincere. It was there in the invitations to pack events, in the fact that a young Mercant with an interest in construction was now interning at DarkRiver HQ, and undeniably so in how Sascha and Lucas had permitted Arwen to babysit their cub.
The latter had been a disaster of epic proportions, Arwen the worst babysitter on the planet when it came to discipline. Naya had played hide-and-seek with him—emphasis on the hide—until he admitted defeat and promised her chocolate cake for dinner if she revealed herself. After which, he’d allowed her to watch cartoons till she fell asleep on a besotted Arwen, a tiny black panther with a rounded stomach.
Of course, Arwen was now Naya’s all-time favorite babysitter.
As for Ivan’s grandmother, she’d formed an unexpected friendship with Yariela, who’d gained a new lease on life in the past months.
It wasn’t unusual for Ena to visit with her over a cup of tea.
“We’re not so very different, Ivan,” Ena had said when Ivan mentioned it. “Yariela wears her heart on her sleeve, while my heart is reinforced with steel and barricaded by ice, but we’d both gut anyone who came after those under our care. She’d cry about it. I wouldn’t. Our enemies would still be as dead.”
Ivan, too, had formed friendships in the pack—including with Mercy’s calm and grounded wolf mate as well as with the sentinel Vaughn. Ivan might not have learned to laugh yet, but he got the feline sense of humor, liked their sly wit and wicked asides.
The one other major shift in his life had been in how he dealt with Jax dealers. Since discovering that Soleil would feel it through their bond if he killed anyone, her soft healer’s heart taking brutal hit after brutal hit, he’d begun to work with DarkRiver and the authorities to clear out the trash.
It wasn’t as satisfying, but it got the job done—and it protected this woman who was his world.
Today, she hooked her arm through his, the bangles at her wrists a beautiful confusion of color, and looked up. “Ready?”
Jaw clenched, he gave a short nod. This is just closing a too-long-open door, he told himself. I’ll be in and out in a matter of minutes, my questions about my genetic inheritance answered.
They walked quietly up the wide and shallow steps to the locked front door. A sign to one side asked visitors to contact the front desk using the intercom provided, and if buzzed in, to make sure to close the door behind themselves to “protect residents who can no longer protect themselves.”
Soleil was the one who made the call. “Hi, we’re here to see Tabor Novak.”
The response was kind but firm. “We’re not supposed to have visitors while we’re working. Standard rule, I’m afraid.”
Ivan’s hand clenched convulsively on Soleil’s.
“Oh,” she said after shooting him a wide-eyed look. “I apologize. We were told he was a resident here.”
The receptionist paused a beat, then laughed. “Oh dear, it looks like there’s been a misunderstanding. He is resident here, but he isn’t a resident. He’s one of our live-in care staff. Hold on a sec, honey.” The sound of tapping. “Schedule says he’s on break in thirty minutes. Can you wait that long?”
