Blaze of Memory

matters.

The ostrasizing has already begun. We called your uncle Greg to tell him we were safe. I could see the relief in his eyes, but all he said out loud was not to call him again. He’s afraid that if he shows any feelings toward us, the Council will take your cousins away.

I cried afterward. You saw me, wiped my tears. And I knew with every beat of my heart that I’d made the right choice.

I love you so.

Mom

CHAPTER 41

Night fell with predictable swiftness but they were done by then. Neither of them brought up the idea of staying on. Dev simply took the wheel and they headed out. They’d been driving an hour when Katya broke the silence. “I’m starting to remember things I wasn’t ready to before.”

“Anything like this?”

“No.” A long pause. “My memories of Noor’s and especially Jon’s time in the labs are almost complete.”

He didn’t try to talk her out of her guilt—that, he’d realized, would take time. The woman Katya had become would never be able to walk away from those darkest of memories. So he kept his tone matter-of-fact, his words the same. “She seems unaffected, and he’s a strong kid.”

“A gifted one.” Katya’s voice was quiet. “His ability—it’s one so open to misuse.”

“Not if he’s shown the right path.”

“When I was a child,” she said, “I used to try to use my telepathy to make others in my crèche group do what I wanted.”

“That’s a fairly normal developmental stage for telepathic children.” Dev, too, had done things as a kid that weren’t strictly right—he’d been learning his strengths, stretching his limbs. He wanted to tell Katya that, share the truth of his gift with metal, with machines. “It pisses me off that I can’t talk to you like I want.” His palms protested the strength with which he was gripping the steering wheel. Relaxing with effort, he blew out a breath between clenched teeth.

“I keep telling myself that things will change, that I’ll find an escape hatch.”

He remembered what she’d once said about the tentacles of Ming’s control. “You haven’t been able to work out a way to disengage the programming?”

“No” she said, wrapping her arms around herself in a hold so tight, he heard something tear in her jacket. “Not without damaging my brain. The talons of this thing he put in my head are sunk too deep.”

“Maybe the programming is too strong to break,” he said, pain shooting down his jaw, he’d clenched it so hard, “but it shouldn’t have a permanent physical effect. It’s a psychic construct.”

“Dev . . . it’s not the programming. The prison is anchored in my mind.”

His gut turned to ice. “How sure are you?” A long pause. “Tell me.”

“I’ve looked at it from every possible angle. I was hoping I’d made a mistake.” The tone of her voice told him she’d discovered different.

Dev was only just a telepath, but he knew everything there was to know about the abilities—both old and new—that might manifest among the Forgotten. So he understood damn well that something that was anchored in an individual’s mind, as opposed to the fabric of a neural net, would tear that mind to pieces if it was removed without the proper procedure. And right now, the only person who had a key to Katya’s prison was Councilor Ming LeBon.

The decision was simple. “We need to find Ming.”

Katya’s head snapped toward him. “No, Dev. No.”

Having spent the entire day with Cruz, Sascha expected to fall into an easy sleep that night, tired by the psychic energy she’d expended. But she found herself lying awake long after the forest had gone quiet around her. Cuddling into Lucas’s changeling heat, she spread her fingers over his heart and tried to match the rhythm of her breathing to his.

Her body began to relax, but her mind continued to spin. Giving up, she decided to read for a while . . . but Lucas’s arm tightened the instant she tried to pull away. She should have let him sleep—instead she stroked a hand down his neck. “Wake up.”

His eyes blinked open with feline laziness. “Hmm?” Nuzzling at her in sleepy interest, he squeezed his hand over her hip.

“I can’t sleep.”

He spread his hand over her abdomen. “Feeling okay?” A tender question, a protective touch.

“Yes.” She moved her hand over his biceps. “Just wide-awake.”

“Want me to make you tired?” A rumble against her ear, fingers playing over the dip of her navel.

The butterflies in her stomach were intimately, exquisitely familiar. “That’s a very tempting offer.”

“But you want to talk.”

Heart stretching with the force of what she felt for this man who knew her so completely, she kissed the side of his jaw, tangling her hand in the heavy silk of his hair. “Working with Cruz . . . he’s so vulnerable, Lucas, so open to any direction.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’d never hurt him.”

That was what worried her. “That book my mother sent me—it said E-Psy can turn bad.”

“No,” Lucas said, rising to look down at her. “It said E-Psy often care so much they start to think they know what’s best for everyone.”

“And then they do bad things,” she insisted. “What about that empath the writer profiled—the one who tried to emotionally manipulate everyone to be ‘good.’ He drove people insane by forcing them to go against their own will.”

“He was a loner—without family, without Pack. Do you really think I’d let you turn into a megalomaniac?” An amused gleam in those leopard eyes.

She made a face at him. “This is serious.” But he’d succeeded in loosening the knot of fear in her chest. “I never even knew I could feed emotion into someone, literally force them to feel what I wanted.”

Lucas played with strands of her hair as she lapsed into thought.

“I wonder why my mother sent the book,” she murmured. “Was it to destabilize me, or did she want to warn me of the danger?” With most mothers, it wouldn’t have been a question, but most mothers weren’t Councilor Nikita Duncan.

“Or maybe she’s finally realized what a powerful ally you’d make.”

She lifted her face in a wordless question.

“You know what the alpha in me found most interesting in that book?” he asked, bracing his elbows on either side of her head. “The fact that a cardinal empath who has total control of her gift can effectively stop a riot of thousands in its tracks. Imagine how useful that gift would be to a Councilor facing rebellion from within the ranks.”

Sascha wrapped her arms around Lucas’s neck. “According to Eldridge’s book, that empathic skill has saved countless lives over the generations.”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t think that’s why Nikita wants it?”

Lucas kissed her with utmost tenderness. “I’m not going to guess at your mother’s motives, Sascha. But I can’t bear to see you being hurt—be careful, kitten.”

His love swept around her, tight and protective and wonderful. “Don’t worry,” she said, nuzzling into him. “I’m not that vulnerable to her anymore. I just wish I understood why she did this now of all times.”

“Ask her,” Lucas said, to her surprise. “She might not tell you the truth—probably won’t—but you’re good at