For the ones who are always there.

Bloodlines

Genetic integrity.

A cold ideal, but one to which certain Psy families committed during Silence. It was believed that the more intensely curated the genetic line, the more powerful the abilities of the children born into that line. As such, potential partners in the creation of the next generation were investigated for any and all anomalies, only the most tightly controlled of the other genetic lines in the PsyNet allowed to intermingle with theirs.

It worked.

Over the more than one hundred years since the inception of the Silence Protocol and the subsequent elimination of emotion from Psy lives, this subgroup of families have refined their bloodlines to such genetic perfection that all their children are high-Gradients. Their cells carry no “extraneous” material that could initiate an unexpected result. There are no genetic leaps, no extraordinary new gifts, but on the flip side, there are no low-Gradients who will be a drain on the family’s resources.

Unfortunately, these families did not allow for a trifecta of wild cards.

First: the unpredictability of nature.

Second: the continued inability of the Psy race to pinpoint the exact genesis of their mental abilities on a biological level.

And third: the interference of those who believe themselves better than their fellow Psy—their own families included. Because for a super minority within this “flawless” minority, genetic perfection isn’t enough. A high-Gradient child isn’t enough. Even power far beyond that of the vast majority of the population isn’t enough.

Dominion over all sentient beings is what they crave.

Power so unqualified that it is a drug.

Five months ago

Chapter 1

“Stand down. I have your squadmate in the truck.”

—Remington Denier, alpha of RainFire, to Aden Kai, leader of the Arrow Squad, one storm-lashed night (9 April 2082)

Remi swore under his breath.

He’d been hoping that what he’d picked up hadn’t been conscious movement, merely branches breaking in the aftermath of the rainstorm that had passed over this part of the Smoky Mountains an hour earlier.

But what was happening on the land adjacent to his pack’s northernmost border had nothing to do with nature. Remi and his people, as well as their very dangerous friends, the Arrow Squad, had been attempting to trace the ownership of that land since two senior Arrows had woken up badly wounded in the single building that sat on the land: a flat square bunker created of old-fashioned concrete.

Back then, it had been draped in camouflage netting and dead foliage. These days, the walls were covered with moss and lichen, the concrete itself dirty and marked by exposure to the elements. Two or three more decades, and the creeping tendrils of the forest would overpower it until nothing of the bunker showed to the naked eye.

Remi would’ve been fine with that—though he’d much rather have found the owner. The Arrows knew who’d been behind their capture, but they hadn’t been able to tie any member of that group to this land. At first, it appeared the trail ended with the name of a deceased five-year-old child, but that had turned out to be just another misdirection.

Last Remi had heard, the squad’s civilian specialist had landed on another faceless shell corporation. “Whoever did the paperwork to hide ownership,” Tamar had muttered, “they were good, did all the same things I would have. Trail’s circular and eats its own tail.”

As it was, the Arrows had had to shelve the search for the time being. The PsyNet, the psychic network that connected the majority of the Psy on the planet and that the other race needed to survive, was breaking down at a catastrophic rate. The squad had focused their power and attention on that looming threat to millions of lives.

“As it is,” the leader of the squad—and Remi’s friend—Aden Kai had said, “we’ve poisoned that location for the owner, regardless. No way to run black ops out of it anymore, not when they know it’s in our crosshairs.”

Now, eyes narrowed, Remi leaned one shoulder against a mature yellow birch, its spring-green leaves a falling rain around him, and watched the small gathering in the clearing in front of the bunker: two women, three men, all of them in suits a little too lightweight for the temperature at this elevation.

The older woman—maybe in her early fifties—was a tall and very thin brunette with skin of pale brown and eyes that appeared dark from this distance. She looked to be in charge, the three men listening intently to whatever it was that she was saying.

The younger woman stood apart, her possibly curly black hair viciously contained in a knot at the back of her head, her skin an ebony that glowed even in the cloud-heavy light. She was on the taller side for a woman, maybe five eight, and wore a black skirt suit paired with a white shirt, her black heels so unsuitable for this terrain that it was laughable.

That wasn’t what caught his attention.

It was that the woman wasn’t simply silent and uninvolved in the discussion. She didn’t appear to be present, her expression seeming lax as she stared into the distance away from both Remi and the other group. Though all he could see of her was her profile, the way she stood—her arms loose at her sides, her body swaying the slightest amount—confirmed that something wasn’t quite right.

Shifting his attention off her because she wasn’t the threat, he zeroed in on the brunette. But no matter how much he strained, he couldn’t pick up on the conversation. The group was just a fraction too far away for even his leopard’s acute hearing.

Which left him with only one real choice.

He straightened, and was about to prowl out of the trees when the younger woman jerked her head in his precise direction.

Her eyes were a hauntingly eerie blue, moonstone made liquid.

Remi sucked in a breath. His leopard surged to the surface of his skin at the same time, Remi’s own eyes shifting to the yellow-green of the primal creature that was the other half of his self.

The cat’s response wasn’t, however, aggressive. It was … more complicated. As if the cat was compelled and repelled by her in equal measures. The animal within Remi had belatedly realized the same thing the human part of him already had: she might be strikingly beautiful, but even with her expression no longer distant and vacant, her body held with tension, something about her raised his hackles.

Still, aware that he couldn’t afford to scare her, Remi allowed the human side of him to rise to the surface once again as the woman began to walk toward him. The others didn’t look to be paying attention to her, but, soon, the most heavyset of the men turned to follow her.

Then the older woman called out to him, and the man returned to the huddle around her without giving the blue-eyed woman a second glance.

Not worried. Why should they be?

After all, they were meant to be alone in the wilderness.

In truth, they should have been alone. The heart of RainFire’s territory lay a significant distance away—but that didn’t mean Remi and his packmates didn’t patrol this area on a regular basis. It would’ve been stupid in the extreme to leave an unguarded threat on their border.

No one came after the younger woman even when she walked into the trees, but Remi stepped forward so she wouldn’t come too far. Right now, given the shadows thrown by the other trees immediately around them—a mix of maple and beech along with a stand of poplar—the others would still be able to see the back of her body but would have no chance of spotting Remi.

“Good morning,” he said as he took a deep inhale of her scent in an instinctive changeling act.

Scents could tell you a lot about a person.

Hers was … problematic. Erratic in the most abnormal way he’d ever sensed. He’d never usually use that term about a person—each person’s normal was their own, scent a very unique marker—but it was the only one that suited this specific situation.

Her scent fit none of the parameters for a sentient being. Had it been formed of light, he’d have said the rays were reflecting off a funhouse mirror that distorted everything. Muddy and sluggish and with too many pieces to it, it made his leopard snarl.

Those extraordinary eyes—such a striking translucent hue—held his for a split second before drifting away.

He didn’t mistake it for an act of submission.

Lost in her own world, this woman likely didn’t hold anyone’s eyes.

It would’ve been easy to peg her as neurologically atypical, but that didn’t sit right, either. Not when her scent was so wrong. He’d interacted with others through the years who wouldn’t meet his eyes in the same way, but their scents had read as natural nonetheless.

Never had he met anyone with such a fragmented and unsettled scent … almost as if she wasn’t a whole person at all, rather a collection of disparate pieces that clashed and broke against each other.

The hairs on his nape prickled.

Yet he didn’t do anything to stop her when she reached for his hand. He couldn’t, however, keep his leopard’s claws from pushing out of his skin or his eyes from shifting back to those of his cat. That cat’s initial fascination with her had turned into a confused protectiveness: it didn’t want to hurt her, seeing her as wounded, but it also didn’t want her too close.

She didn’t pause or stare at his clawed hands, continuing on her trajectory until her fingers grazed the face of his mobile comm unit. Small as an ordinary watch, the thing was pristine even more than ten years after its purchase … because Remi had never been able to make himself use it except for this one day every year.

Her birthday.

“I know you’ll never spend this kind of money on yourself,” his mother had said with a smile right before the end, when she’d insisted he take it. “You and your dragon’s hoard.”

All those years he’d been denying his instincts to nurture and protect a pack, determined he’d never be an alpha, he’d still hardly spent anything. He’d told himself he was saving for retirement … even when he’d believed with every fiber of his being that he’d fuck up his life well before then.

“Rem-Rem.” A whisper of a word from the woman with the muddy scent.

One that kicked him right in the gut.

“So tired.” She swayed left and right. “My wrist is so thin this is falling off. Wonder if my Rem-Rem will figure out I bought it for him in the first place.”

Remi fought not to lash out, not to react in a rage of grief. Because she couldn’t be reading his mind. Changeling shields were too powerful. She’d have had to launch a violent telepathic assault before she could have ever gotten to his memories—and such an assault would’ve probably destroyed his brain in the process.

Whatever this was, it wasn’t mind reading.

“It’s my mother’s,” he said, his voice harsh. “She left it to me.” She was also the only person in the entire world who’d called him Rem-Rem. But only when they were alone together. Because it was a little boy’s name, and “oh my Rem-Rem, what a man you’ve become”—words she’d spoken to him more than once, her eyes shining with love.

But the blue-eyed woman who knew his deepest memories was listening only to her own internal voice. “One last gift.” Her face softened. “My boy, I’m so proud of you.” Her lashes quivered, her eyes staring hard into nothing. “Cake. Brown cake. Small brown cakes.”

“Chocolate cupcakes.” His mother’s favorite; she’d baked them at least once a week.

Later, after she was too sick, he’d baked them for her.

“Pieces of color. Tiny pieces of color on the small brown cakes.” A blink that appeared to have been forced by her watering eyes. “It hurts.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “Oh, it hurts.” Then she made soft sounds … that were an exact mimicry of his mother’s small heart monitor signaling an emergency alert.

Remi jerked away his hand.

She stumbled, swayed.

Feeling like shit, though his face was hot, his grief tangled with anger at the intrusion into the most painful part of his past, he gripped her upper arm to stabilize her. A jolt under him before her head shifted, her eerie, beautiful eyes meeting him head-on.

At that instant, there was no lack of clarity to her, no fuzziness to the edges of her.

And no muddiness in her scent.

It was complex, and bright, and intoxicating.

“She was happy the last time she wore that watch.” Clear words, the intent in them potent. “No pain, just comfort at being with you, at lying by the window in the sun, with the forest just outside.

“She was so proud of what she’d accomplished in life. You were her greatest pride …” Gaze turning dull and unfocused, her eyes drifting away, her muscles going slack under his grip … and her scent twisting once more in that funhouse mirror.

Shaken, he released her.

She turned and walked back the way she’d come, until she stood in the same spot as when he’d first seen her. But she’d left carnage in her wake.

Bending down, his hands on his thighs, he gulped in lungfuls of air as his mind filled with memories of the mother who’d brought him up with love and heart and courage. She’d also held his feet to the fire when needed, especially during his teenage years, when he’d wanted to rage at the entire world.

“You sit your ass down, Remington, and we’ll have this out until I know what’s hurting you.” Fierce eyes of palest brown locked with his, her leopard a golden glow on the edges of her irises. “No son of mine is going to go off the rails because he’s got a fear inside him that he’s allowing to fester.”

Her strong, capable hands cupping his face, holding him in place. “You are not only your father’s son, Rem-Rem, you are also your mother’s son. Don’t you ever forget that.”

You were her greatest pride …

His throat closed up. How could a Psy know to say that? How could a Psy understand what a blow it struck to his weathered but never-forgotten grief to know that his mother had died proud of the man he’d become?

In the sun, in her favorite chair, in the little cottage he’d built for her when she got too tired and sick to get up to her aerie. She’d wanted to die at home, not in the antiseptic environs of a hospital. “I’m dying anyway, baby boy.” A husky whisper of memory. “I’d rather spend my last days surrounded by the green that’s always fed my wild heart.”

So he’d brought her home, and when she’d asked, he’d carried her outside, into the trees. But she’d been content to spend most days in her favorite armchair, next to an open window from where she could watch the world while the sun caressed her face.

She’d shifted in that sunlight one last time right before the end: a leopard who was too thin, whose bones stuck out against her pelt. But who’d sighed in contentment as her eyes closed, her head placed on her forelegs as if she was just taking a lazy afternoon nap. His last memory of his mother, sunbeams dancing over the black and gold of her.

… lying by the window in the sun …

How could this strange Psy with the broken scent know any of that?

It took effort for him to rise to his full height, even more effort for him to retract his claws into his body. His leopard was right at the forefront of his mind, and he knew his eyes hadn’t yet returned to their human shade.

He had to get that under control if he was going to talk to the group. Because he was certain the woman with the unnerving presence that disturbed both man and leopard on a fundamental level hadn’t said a thing to them about him, telepathically or otherwise. They remained in the exact same positions, while she stood there rocking back and forth, her arms hugging her curvy body.

It was several minutes later that he emerged out of the forest, his stride easy and his expression friendly. He’d moved so that he arrived from a different direction to where the woman had entered the trees. It had also been long enough since then that the others shouldn’t connect the two incidents.

The entire group froze—and two of the men did so in a way that told him they had tactical training. He lifted a hand, keeping it casual and lazy through sheer effort of will. “Remi, your neighbor.”

When the young woman locked her gaze with his again, his gut tensed.

The brunette crossed over to him even as the blue-eyed one blinked, then looked away.

“Good morning.” The greeting was flat, but the brunette came close enough that they could talk without strain—while her guards followed, two besuited shadows. The third man shifted closer to the woman who’d told Remi things she had no way of knowing.

“I am Charisma Wai, executive personal assistant to Auden Scott”—a nod toward the silent younger woman—“the new owner of this land.”

Chapter 2

“Remi Denier quietly bought up a piece of land in the Smokies and set up a territory with a bunch of loners he met while roaming. Just heard he’s sent out the call for others to join the pack.”

“So he finally accepted it? I knew he was meant to be an alpha the first time I ran across him—and he was determined to break his neck on a racetrack at the time.”

“I’ve had my eye on him for around the same amount of time. Figured I might one day have a problem on my hands—Remi’s too dominant to be prowling around without a pack.”

“You think he’s willing to listen to advice that might make the entire thing easier?”

“I’m going to make the offer. But I like what I’m seeing so far—I don’t think it’s chance that he bought land right up against the border of a fallow territory under trust control.”

“Smart. He holds that ragtag pack together for a full year, and he’s in position to apply for a land grant. I don’t like cats as a rule, but yeah, I hope he makes it.”

“I mean, if we can put up with a bunch of mangy wolves, anything’s possible.”

—Conversation between Lucas Hunter: alpha, DarkRiver leopards and Hawke Snow: alpha, SnowDancer wolves (27 January 2080)

Remi had never heard of Auden, but he did know the last name Scott. Few years back, a couple with that name had been on the comm channels all the time as representatives of the now-defunct Psy Council.

The husband had been big, with skin the hue of mahogany and a military bearing, his face carved of aristocratic lines that shouted breeding. His wife, slender and fine-boned with cool white skin and ice-blue eyes, had carried the same air of contempt. Oh, they’d been clever about acting the perfect, refined Councilors, but Remi had always had a good bullshit detector.

Henry and Shoshanna Scott, that was it.

The skin and eye coloring had altered in Auden, become more intense on both fronts, but no doubt about it, those two had to be her parents. Her height was close to her mother’s, but her face held her father’s aristocratic bones on a feminine frame.

“Well now.” Remi folded his arms, and added a kick of charm to his smile, even though he knew it was wasted on most Psy. But no harm in trying. “I’ve been attempting to get in touch with the owner of this land for quite a while. All trails led to dead ends. You mind telling me how Ms. Scott managed to track them down?”

Auden Scott remained silent, her unseeing gaze on the trees.

Her assistant could’ve told him it was none of his business, and she’d have been right. Instead, she said, “Auden inherited it from her father. The records were lost after his passing—and it appears from the unauthorized structure on the land that someone made use of that oversight. Do you have any knowledge of the people who trespassed here?”

Remi’s leopard growled within, not particularly interested in talking to this woman whose scent was off, too, but not like Auden’s. Charisma’s had that metallic undertone present in the scents of a percentage of Psy.

It wasn’t as bad as before the empaths had returned to the PsyNet, but it was still bad enough. Changelings who’d had more contact with Psy than Remi had told him that the metallic edge came from those who had no real emotion in them, their growth permanently stunted by the program called Silence that had ruled Psy lives until the very recent past.

The three men carried a faint glimmer of the same scent.

Auden Scott, this woman who’d just torn him to pieces, shifted on her heel.

His cat drew in another breath, snarled. What the fuck was that in her scent? Some kind of sedative? He’d smelled nothing medicinal when close to her, and he could’ve sworn that Psy didn’t deal much with those types of drugs—multiple Arrows had told him it messed with their psychic abilities.

Forcing his attention off her, he answered Charisma Wai’s question. “Paramilitary-type unit,” he said, wondering if she was as clueless as she was making herself out to be.

Everyone knew what had happened to Councilor Henry Scott—he’d picked a fight with the biggest wolf pack in the country and lost. Man had mingled with exactly the type of people who’d abducted, then brutally operated on Aden and Zaira. The two would’ve died if Remi hadn’t been prowling around with the intent to spy on the activity up here; next thing he knew, he had two bleeding Arrows in his vehicle. “Whole unit cleared out one day roughly a year and a half ago and haven’t been back since.”

Aden had told him the squad was certain the unit was linked to a group called the Consortium. “They’ve gone quiet of late,” he’d said more recently, while the two of them were scaling a sheer rock face. “Kaleb mentioned to me that while he’s never been able to prove it, he’s always suspected Shoshanna of being part of the Consortium, maybe even the central figure.”

So whichever way you sliced it, the Scotts had been involved in all kinds of deadly games. They were likely to have been in this up to their necks.

“I see.” Charisma Wai made a note in the thin computronic organizer in her hand. “Do you have any further details?”

“Nope.” Remi glanced once again at Auden Scott. “Funny.”

Auden focused on him, staring in an unblinking way that his leopard would’ve read as a challenge at any other time. Today, he was disturbed by that stare—because he was near certain she wasn’t seeing him at all, her gaze directed at some sight beyond his senses.

“What is funny?” Charisma Wai asked after a glance at her boss.

Who blinked several times before her gaze turned fuzzy once more, the abnormal tones back in her scent.

A growl threatened to rumble inside Remi’s chest; he fought it back because Psy would take it as a threat. “Losing track of a whole piece of land.”

“Councilor Scott’s passing was unexpected.” A smile so false that it looked like a skeletal rictus to his eyes. “And, to be quite frank, he was wealthy on a level you can’t hope to understand. This little tract of land was but an afterthought.”

“Oh, ouch.” Remi’s grin was real. “That put me in my place.”

“No offense was intended.”

“Rich people things, huh?” Remi lifted one shoulder in an easy shrug to take any sting out of his words. “So, you interested in selling?”

Charisma Wai glanced down at the organizer. “We’re in the preliminary inspection process, so I can’t promise anything, but yes, there is a possibility the parcel will be up for sale.”

Well, that he hadn’t expected. And while he wanted to talk to Auden Scott, this was more important—it was pack business, was part of his duty as alpha of RainFire. That duty came first.

No one had ever had to tell him that. He’d known from day one.

“I’d appreciate a heads-up if you do decide to put it on the market.” RainFire wasn’t rich, far from it, but this particular parcel was so isolated and remote that it was unlikely there’d be other takers. The pack might be able to negotiate their way to it by dint of being the only interested party.

“Of course. Do you have a comm code I can contact you on?”

Remi recited it, then directed his next question to Auden. “You have any idea why your father bought this land in the first place, Ms. Scott?” he asked, to see if he could get a response out of her. “And why he hid it under so many shell corporations and false identities?”

Auden Scott ignored him.

Her mouthpiece graced him with that nauseatingly fake smile once again. “The Councilor’s records indicate he purchased it when he was young,” she told him. “He might’ve been building a property portfolio before realizing this region wasn’t the most valuable in terms of future capital value. As for the rest … he was a Councilor.”

Remi nodded. Even though she’d given him nothing solid, what she had said could be the actual truth. Psy generally didn’t make any attempt to own property in remote areas—unless of course, they were a Councilor up to nefarious business. Nice to have a secret getaway where you could torture prisoners without anyone hearing them scream. Also made sense that he’d structured the ownership so it couldn’t be traced back to him unless he allowed it.

Until, of course, an upstart pack set up shop here and ruined the whole operation.

“You have official proof of ownership?” he said. “I don’t want to be a stupid changeling taking you at your word.” Every changeling in the world knew that Psy like Charisma Wai thought themselves better than humans or changelings.

Humans were considered too weak, changelings too feral.

The executive assistant showed him the deed on her organizer screen. Looked official, with the transfer to Auden Scott noted as occurring three weeks earlier. If it was legit, then whoever was settling Henry’s estate had lost track of this land for some time.

“I’ll send you a copy at your comm code so you can verify it with the relevant authorities,” Ms. Wai said. “I understand your wariness given the rogue military unit you mentioned.”

Sometimes, the whole logic-is-best thing Silent Psy had going on actually worked to make them straightforward. Not often enough to balance out the other crap they pulled, but it was a small positive.

It could, however, also be used as a shield.

“Appreciate that,” he said aloud. “You know where the borders are? I don’t want any of your people startling my sentinels into aggressive behavior.” His senior people were far too smart to attack without thought, but Remi needed Wai to see them as a threat, so neither she—nor anyone else in the Scott camp—would start getting any ideas.

Another tap at her organizer before she flipped it so he could see the map on the screen. The boundaries glowed red. “Does this align with your understanding?”

“Looks good,” he said after a thorough scan. “My people have become used to running through here while it was uninhabited—I’ll tell them to back off, stay within our boundaries.”

“That would be appreciated.” Another smile that put him in mind of a cobra changeling he’d met—man’s blood really had run cold. Good thing cobra changelings were so rare that no one else he knew had ever come across one. “I wouldn’t wish our security to be startled into aggressive behavior.”

He gave her a small smile. “Got it.” After another glance at Auden Scott, who hadn’t spoken a single word to anyone the entire time, he melted back into the trees.

But he didn’t go far—just far enough that there was no way they could see him. It was possible the security team was doing telepathic scans, but his Arrow friends had told him that most security specialists didn’t bother with the draining task unless they were in a high-risk situation.

“Arrows do it as a matter of course,” a senior member of the squad had said, “but Arrows have more psychic power than ninety-nine percent of people.”

As it was, Remi could make things even harder for them.

Stripping in the shadow of the trees, he cached his clothes on a lower branch that wasn’t too wet from the rainstorm, then shifted. His body broke into a million pinpricks of light before coalescing into the leopard that was his other form. The change took a heartbeat, the agony and the ecstasy of it singing through his bones.

It was pain beyond the imaginable, and it was pleasure untold.

Shaking his body to settle his new skin in place, he jumped up onto the trunk with muscular feline grace before making his way to a thick upper branch from where he could watch his new neighbors even if they were once again out of hearing range. His tail twitched lazily, but there was nothing lazy about his eyes or his mind. A mind that Charisma Wai and her security goons could no longer spot—it was Zaira who’d told him that.

Lethal assassin, Aden’s lover, and the unexpected heart of the place the squad had made their home, she’d said, “You have a shield in either form, but I’ve noticed that once in animal form, your shield doesn’t feel like a shield. I can only sense changelings in animal form because I know so many of you. To most telepaths, you’d read as an animal.”

That suited Remi just fine.

So he wasn’t prepared for Auden Scott to do it again: jerk her head in his exact direction and stare at the trees as if she could see through the wall of dark green to the shadowed golden pelt of the creature that stalked her little group … as if she felt the same primal compulsion that had driven Remi to keep trying to get a response from her, find out the truth of her.

He stared back, the two of them locked in a battle invisible to the world.