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)
Ivan could only go so far, and no further. Not because he cared about Silence. But because he had to maintain the cage in which lived the devouring spider of his true psychic ability. A man who had to do that couldn’t break his shackles.
Ever.
“Grandmother’s like me,” he reminded himself, because Ena Mercant had been too long in Silence to drop it. But even Ena had learned to live among a pack of bears … and the cubs followed her for a reason; she might be firm and strict but below that sat a cool, dark well of ferocious love.
She’d held her entire clan together with that same unspoken love. As a child, Ivan had known that no matter what, no matter when, if he needed help, Grandmother would come for him. Always.
Ivan was too scarred up for such a well, a hollow man who could never give Soleil what she needed.
A musical sound.
The doorbell.
Figuring it had to be one of the cats checking to ensure that he was in his apartment, he brought up the door feed on his phone. And sat up ramrod straight. “What the hell?”
He left his half-finished drink on the bedside table and jogged down the stairs—to open the door to a slender man with eyes of an unusual silver-blue against olive skin, his hair as straight as a ruler and cut with sophisticated ruthlessness, and his cheekbones a thing of catwalks. He wore crisp jeans of darkest blue and a fine black sweater that was probably cashmere, and held a small tote bag.
Arwen grinned. “Hello, cousin!”
“What. Are. You. Doing. Here?”
A shrug. “Genara was visiting an associate in San Francisco and I hitched a ride. Haven’t seen you for a while.”
“Why is Genara visiting her associate at midnight?”
“She’s a woman of intrigue and mystery,” Arwen said with zero concern in his tone for those mysteries and intrigues.
Ivan should’ve seen this coming. Genara, a deadly teleport-capable telekinetic with a murky past, and Arwen the empath who worried about everyone, were fast friends. A more dangerous combination Ivan couldn’t imagine.
“So, you going to invite me in?”
Ivan stepped aside. He was in no mood for company, least of all of the one family member who might see right through him. “Come up.” No point taking him to the empty box of the downstairs lounge; Ivan had seen no reason to get furniture for it when he didn’t ever use the space.
His cousin sprawled easily onto his bed, palms braced behind him. “Well,” Arwen said after a look around, “it’s an upgrade from the last place. Hideous wallpaper—I’d be embarrassed to claim that if I was the designer—but at least there are no stuffed creatures.” A shudder, followed by a startled, “I like the cat statue. Whimsical.”
Ivan didn’t correct him about the little multicolored cat that sat on the bedside table. “You want nutrients?”
“No. I ate.” Then he stared at Ivan.
“Have I turned green?” Leaning against a wall facing Arwen, Ivan folded his arms over his T-shirt and stared back; he was fully confident of his ability to withstand the worst torture—and then there was Arwen.
“Noooo.” Arwen frowned as he stretched out that one-syllable word to an improbable length. “Except for the whole whimsical-statue thing. I suppose it came with the place?” More staring. Followed by a gasp as he sat up straight in a rapid snap of movement. “What’s her name? Is it the same woman as before? The one you’ve been missing all this time?”
Ivan barely held back his jolt, his gut clenching and arm muscles rigid. “What?”
“The changeling who’s in you like Valentin is in Silver.” Arwen’s handsome face scrunched up into a frown, his gaze suddenly far more intense. The gaze of an empath. “It’s not the same as those two, but I can definitely feel a bond.”
“She’s just someone I helped once,” Ivan forced himself to say. “It’s a temporary bond, will fade with distance.”
Piercing gaze and soft voice, Arwen said, “Changelings are possessive, Ivan. And if she’s marked you deep enough that it speaks to an empath, there’s nothing temporary about it.”
Need clawed at Ivan, ripping open the scars. “Arwen.” A tight word. “I can’t talk about this.”
The gentlest of his cousins just nodded. “Okay. Want to walk to the halfway house instead?”
It was Ivan’s turn to stare. “How do you know that?” That was his secret, his obsession.
“Family of spies, hello.” Arwen pretended to shrug on an invisible suit jacket. “I do have some spy skills, you know. Infected with them by osmosis.”
“Why are you spying on me?”
“Because I worry about you.” Guileless, sincere words that laid Arwen’s heart right there in the open and made Ivan wonder all over again how Arwen managed to exist in this world without being smashed into a million pieces.
Good thing he was surrounded by a family of sharks. As Ivan’s healer was now surrounded by a family of ruthless leopards.