Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3) - Nalini Singh Page 0,44

her into breathlessness.

Alexei brought the vehicle to a stop and gave her a long, penetrating look. “You don’t like the idea of debt?”

“A debt gives a person power over you.”

Piercing gray eyes held hers. “In that case, SnowDancer or I won’t pay for anything. It’ll come out of the fund set up by the Empathic Collective, with backing by the Ruling Coalition of the Psy.”

He tapped a finger on the steering wheel. “Fund was created to aid Es who come out of Silence without a supportive family network. Hawke’s already told Ivy Jane Zen about you, and she’ll make sure you’re assigned the stipend.”

Ivy Jane Zen was the president of the Empathic Collective.

Stomach lurching, Memory parted her lips to interrupt, but Alexei hadn’t finished.

“It’s a generous amount,” he said, “but that’s because the Coalition’s going to try to press you into service as soon as you have the necessary training. PsyNet’s coming apart at the seams and that Honeycomb thing the Es have created is apparently the only thing holding it together.”

Memory’s mind glowed with images of the golden threads she’d seen weaving across the blackness of the PsyNet. “If I don’t want to serve?” She’d be exposed as a fraud the instant she was assessed by a senior E, but she could live the dream a moment longer—dreams didn’t ever come true for her, so what was the harm?

“Empaths heal the PsyNet simply by existing, so they’ll get their pound of flesh.” Alexei opened his door. “We walk the rest of the way. Rain’s stopped, so you won’t get wet again.”

The air was cold and crisp in her lungs, the ground beneath her feet wonderfully uneven, and the green, so much green. The snow had faded the lower they came down the mountain, and though it was still apparent in patches at this elevation, spring had also begun to whisper its oncoming arrival here. She could imagine Jitterbug pouncing after an out-of-reach butterfly, or prowling through the underbrush like a tiny leopard.

Sadness enclosed her in heavy wings, her heart aching; she wondered for the millionth time if she’d done the right thing in taking another living being into her cage. Her only excuse was excruciating loneliness—and oh, how she’d loved him. She’d even cooperated with Renault at times so he’d take Jitterbug into the world, too.

Her captor had agreed because it meant he didn’t have to waste psychic energy on forcing her actions. Not that she’d ever been free—he’d always had fingers in her mind, ready to clamp down if she stepped out of line.

Four times during those outings, she’d tried to set her pet free.

Jitterbug had always come back to her. Once, while he’d been exploring a large public square outside the meeting location, Renault had teleported Memory home. She’d cried in the chill emptiness of the bunker, but it had helped her to know that Jitterbug was free. Then Renault had taken her back to the same general area two days later, and her pet had found her. Jitterbug had remonstrated with her volubly and audibly and she’d never again tried to leave him behind.

The reminder of her pet’s loyalty leavened some of her guilt, but it could do nothing for her grief.

A rough-skinned hand brushed her own.

Not taking. Asking.

Breath a knot in her lungs, she didn’t look at Alexei as she slid her fingers into his, let his bigger hand engulf hers. Skin privileges. Hers for a short while longer . . . before the true Es discovered that she was an abomination.

Chapter 17

All historical records retrieved1 to date support the Ruling Coalition’s hypothesis that the PsyNet was never meant to contain only Psy minds. In the pre-Silence period, humans—via relationships with Psy—made up at least twenty-five percent2 of the Net population. As all indications are that human minds cannot access the PsyNet and Psy cannot access Net-connected human minds, the humans were a passive element of the pre-Silence PsyNet.

1 Majority of retrieved documents are partials, resurrected then organized into coherent order.

2 Conservative estimate.

—Research Group Alpha-Z, PsyNet Health

NIGHT CLOAKED MOSCOW. Kaleb stood on the edge of the terrace, his body clad only in the lightweight black pants he wore while exercising and his mind on the new damage in the PsyNet. The disintegration was increasing at multiple critical junctures, the Honeycomb strained.

“There are a lot of us Es,” Ivy Jane Zen had told the other members of the Ruling Coalition an hour earlier, “but it’s clear we were never meant to hold the entire PsyNet together