This man wasn’t an alpha.
The knowledge was pure instinct, born of her wolf.
He wore the black combat uniform of an Arrow, with its high collar and pants cuffed into boots, and he gave off an effect similar to those deadly telekinetics, telepaths, and assorted other Psy who—according to Selenka’s intel—had once been assassins for the now-defunct Psy Council. He even had a gleaming black gauntlet clipped over his left forearm, which her tech specialist had informed her was a new form of field-suitable mobile comm the Arrows were trialing.
Yet this man didn’t come across the same way as other members of the squad.
He also continued to hold her gaze with zero appearance of discomfort. Her wolf could’ve read that as a challenge, but instead, dark red embers glowed to life in her belly. It had been too long since she’d shared intimate skin privileges with anyone; why not an Arrow dangerous and pretty . . . and not quite as he should be.
Selenka narrowed her eyes—just because he made her blood heat didn’t mean she’d taken leave of her senses. Her grandparents hadn’t raised an idiotka. “What are you?” The blunt question would’ve earned her a disappointed look from her polite and gentle and loving babushka, but the Arrow showed no reaction at all.
“A Gradient 7.9 Tk,” he said in that clear voice that was music to her changeling hearing. Even toneless, it sang and made things inside her shiver in awareness.
“A telekinetic?” Drinking in the sound without being a slave to it, Selenka folded her arms and set her feet apart. “There’s something else there—it’s making my wolf’s fur stand up.” An odd resonance she couldn’t explain. But it was nothing that repelled. No, there was nothing at all disturbing about the Arrow with the pale eyes—it was her strong physical response that was peculiar. Then again, her body was starved and he was pretty and dangerous with a voice straight out of a certain alpha’s fantasies.
No wonder her wolf wanted to take a bite out of him.
The Arrow didn’t respond to her challenge with aggression or cold retreat. “I am permanently damaged in ways that affect my psychic balance,” he said. “You’re likely sensing that—I haven’t previously been in close contact with changelings, so I don’t know if that is part of your natural skill set.”
Selenka raised an eyebrow, her fascination with him unabated. Ivy Jane Zen, president of the Empathic Collective, had exhaustively briefed each and every person involved with the symposium, and one thing she’d made clear was that they’d be coming into contact with Es at all stages of post-Silence recovery.
“Silence,” the small and curvy and fiercely protective woman had said, “was about eliminating emotion from our race. That made empaths a liability—but the PsyNet can’t survive without Es in the mix. As a result, Designation E was erased from the books and our minds suffocated, our abilities crushed under shielding so brutal that scars are inevitable.”
No one, however, had warned Selenka about an Arrow who spoke about psychic damage as if it were a simple scratch—even when that damage was so profound that it registered on changeling senses. Unless it wasn’t about damage at all. More likely, he was giving her a pat answer in order to conceal some secret Arrow ability.
People who belonged to clandestine black ops squads didn’t usually go around—as her dedushka would put it—spilling water out of their buckets. Selenka had a sneaking suspicion her grandfather had made up that proverb, but since he’d infected the whole pack with it, it was now set in cement.
As for the Arrow, well, alpha wolves didn’t spill water out of their buckets, either.
Even as she parted her lips to reply, his attention jerked to over her head. His pupils flared, a sea of darkness that eclipsed the translucent brown.
“Close your eyes,” he said, the words clipped and cold.
Selenka didn’t take orders from anyone, including potential playmates.
But he slammed into her before she could respond, arms locking tight around her body. He had one hand on the back of her head, shoving her face into the hard muscle of his shoulder, the other clamped around her waist.
Claws slicing out as a snarl filled her chest, she went to thrust the sharp points into his gut . . . and that was when she heard the quiet.
Pristine.
Piercing.
Painful.
No murmur from the more than three hundred people scattered through the massive symposium hall. No faint echoes of comm calls taken or sent. No click of heels or boots on the floor. Blood chilling, she pricked the Arrow with her claws instead of eviscerating him. “Let go unless you want immediate abdominal surgery.” It came out a growl.
Unlocking from around her, he took a step backward, palms held up.
As if that meant anything. You could break every bone in a Psy body and they could still take you out with their mental abilities.
Especially when that Psy was an Arrow.
The hairs on her nape prickling, she continued to monitor him with her peripheral vision as she scanned as much of the hall as she could. Bozhe moi! Everyone was down. Everyone. She couldn’t see Valentin or Silver, so they must’ve left the hall before whatever it was that had happened, but two of her lieutenants as well as two of Valentin’s were on the floor, along with every single Arrow in her line of sight.
“It was the fastest way to neutralize the threat.”
She snapped her gaze back to the very dangerous man who spoke without inflection or emotion—and had a voice that continued to purr against her ears. “What threat?” It came out harsh, but her wolf wasn’t ready to go for blood, its instincts tempered by an unknown something nagging at her.
“The E in the green velvet jacket.” He nodded toward the center of the room.
Selenka could see nothing unusual about the woman from this distance. “Stay ahead of me,” she said. “No sudden movements.”
Making no effort to use his telekinetic powers against Selenka, he walked with deadly grace to where the small brunette lay on her front. Hunkering down beside her after a glance at Selenka, he motioned that he’d like to turn the brunette woman over.
Selenka flexed her hands, claws still out. “Slow and easy.”
The Arrow performed the action with an ease that spoke of honed strength, a stealthy hunter who didn’t need to flash his power.
The empath’s jacket was unbuttoned. It fell open to reveal a device Selenka recognized at once as a gas bomb. That Selenka was still standing meant the Arrow had taken down the woman before she could activate the bomb. “She’s breathing.” A soft rise and fall of her chest.
“She—and the others—are just unconscious,” the Arrow said. “A few sore heads and the odd broken bone if they fell wrong, but it’s better than death.” Not an explanation but a statement.