Selenka had to agree. Chance the gas was harmless was around the same as a bear being on good behavior for more than ten minutes: a big fat zero. “Good call.” Slicing her claws back into her body, she held out a hand before recalling that, Es aside, many of the psychic race tended to eschew contact.
A warm, rough hand slid against hers.
The contact shocked, an electric jolt straight to her core.
There you are, whispered a primal part of her psyche.
She was trying to breathe past the rush of noise in her brain when she caught motion in her peripheral vision. It could’ve been an innocent walking back into the hall, but her wolf smelled the faintest hint of old sweat—acrid and bitter, afraid. She reacted without thought, slamming her body into the Arrow’s and taking him to the ground.
The projectile bullet that would’ve slammed into him scraped across her upper back. Hissing out a breath as the bullet penetrated the soft blue leather of her favorite jacket as well as the fine cotton of her T-shirt to dig a furrow in her skin, before smashing into the wall to their left, she went to twist to go for the shooter.
But the Arrow held out a hand and said, “Eyes,” in that cold and uninflected tone.
She shut them this time.
She still “saw” the flash, a dazzling glow beneath her eyelids, a luminous beauty.
When she lifted her lashes, it was to tiny lights dancing in front of her. The assailant was down. Selenka recognized the brown-skinned woman from earlier that morning. Another E.
They were in trouble.
Chapter 2
Dominant predatory changeling females are a dangerous breed. They’ll rip your face off if you annoy them and they’re in a bad mood. On the flip side, if they claim you, you’ll be loved with a possessive fury that allows no room for doubt. Of course, you have to survive the courtship. We salute you for your courage.
—Excerpt from the editorial in the October 2078 issue of Wild Woman magazine: “Skin Privileges, Style & Primal Sophistication”
ETHAN LOOKED UP at the fine jawline of the woman who had her body on his, her pink-and-purple-streaked black braid hanging over one shoulder, and thought, This wasn’t in the plan. He’d been meant to save everyone from the attack, gain her trust, and then . . .
And then . . .
Despite the beliefs of his “handler,” Ethan hadn’t decided on his next action. He’d agreed to the plan not because of any political leanings, but because he’d wanted to see if the idea of being a traitor would ignite anything in him. It hadn’t. The world had remained a distant blur, his body and mind disconnected from every other living being around him.
Another dead end . . . until his target had put her body in the line of fire to protect him. Too well trained not to react with instinctive speed, he’d locked his arms around her as they fell, and the smell of burned flesh was yet in his nose when she twisted out of his hold with changeling strength and bounded toward the empath who’d aimed at Ethan.
That was when he saw the seared red of Selenka’s back, the flesh raw and bleeding.
No more gray, the world hemorrhaging with color and noise, his pulse in his throat.
Rising on that violent rush, he ran after her. He couldn’t catch her. She was a wolf alpha and not even an Arrow could match a powerful wolf at full lope. But she wasn’t going far and he reached the second assailant only a moment or two behind her.
This second attack wasn’t meant to take place. Either someone had screwed up, or his handler didn’t trust Ethan and had decided on a backup option that involved removing him from the chessboard. He was right not to trust Ethan, but that the gambit had harmed the wolf who’d saved Ethan’s life? Unacceptable.
Selenka disarmed the assailant. “How long does the unconsciousness last?”
“I used less power this time, so unless she hit her head, she’ll come around with everyone else—about three more minutes.” It was a guess; while everyone went down when he used his ability, recovery time fluctuated. A few would be groggy ten minutes in, while others would be up within the next two.
“Can’t see an obvious head wound,” Selenka said after a careful look. “Good, that—”
A sound at the doors before the big bear alpha ran in. Valentin Nikolaev’s dark eyes went directly to Ethan, the only unknown in this situation. But Selenka immediately stood, putting herself in front of Ethan. “He’s not the threat.”
Ethan didn’t hear the deep murmur of the other alpha’s response. He was staring at the back of Selenka’s head, and lower, to her wound. He’d been hurt far worse by his Arrow trainers and by Ming LeBon himself. But Selenka was bleeding because she’d put herself in the line of fire for him.
Breath tight in his lungs and skin hot, he broke away to head for the nearest first-aid kit. There were multiple in the hall because a number of the newly trained Es had a tendency to overload and collapse. It took him only a short time to grab it, but several more people had entered the hall by the time he got back to Selenka.
“Your back,” he said, the red of her blood pulsing in his vision.
She shot him an irritated look but shrugged off her ruined jacket, then stripped off her T-shirt. The purple-edged black sports bra she wore underneath was damaged as a result of the strike but had enough structural integrity left to hold against the cool white of her skin. Opening the first-aid kit while she continued to talk to Valentin Nikolaev and Silver Mercant, he took out the disinfectant spray. “This will sting.”
A curt nod was her only response.
Acknowledgment or not, she hissed out a breath while shooting him a golden-eyed look when he began to spray on the disinfectant. Those eyes had been dark brown when they’d first spoken.
He held the wolf’s snarling gaze, caught by the primal brilliance—he’d never been near anyone this vividly alive. However, he wasn’t about to back down. She was his priority. “I did warn you.”
Another instant of contact that shimmered with untamed power before she returned to her discussion with the others. He ignored that discussion, focused on the damage done to her. A heavy, dark sensation gripped his lungs with stone hands. An emotional reaction? Ethan didn’t know; he had no barometer against which to judge his response.
Silence may have fallen, his race free to feel, but none of it’d had any impact on the cold gray place in which he lived. Until today.
Ethan did not find Selenka’s wound in any way permissible.
She was bleeding because she’d put her body between Ethan and danger.
His brain kept repeating that in a dazed loop, while his blood pounded in his ears. Even when his trainers had beaten him as a child, he hadn’t felt this thundering avalanche inside his head. He’d already been living in the cold place by then, the place from which he saw the world without being a part of it.