Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
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.