“Give me a minute to find the strength to hunt and gather.”
Her lips quirked. “Devraj Santos, brought down by a woman half his size.”
“With a mouth like heaven.” Another kiss. “You can do that again anytime you want. I insist.”
A laugh burst out of her. “Ouch, my stomach muscles hurt.” But she’d take this kind of pain any day. “Tell me about the eyes.” Surely that knowledge was nothing that would hurt the Forgotten even if Ming found her before she could end this?
“Hmm.” His lashes moved against her in an incongruously delicate caress. “We had cardinals drop out with us. The eyes disappeared within a generation.”
“Because of the dilution in your abilities,” she murmured. “No cardinals, no night-sky eyes.” Cardinal eyes were eerily beautiful. Even Psy in the Net rarely met those at the extreme end of Psy power—white stars on black, their eyes seemed to reflect the Net itself.
“But some of us are starting to be born with these eyes.”
“Brown and gold?”
“The color doesn’t matter.” He rose up on his elbow, damp strands of hair on his forehead. She liked him this way—sexy and disheveled. “I don’t think you’re listening to me.” He mock-scowled when she reached up to lave kisses over the muscled curve of one shoulder.
She smiled. “Sorry.”
“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted”—she laughed at his severe tone—“there’s some kind of psychic feedback in times of either great emotional stress or arousal.” A gleam in those beautiful eyes. “I think you gave me both today.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” she said, in deliberate echo. “Jonquil,” she whispered. “I thought his eyes were simply an extraordinary blue, but I think he exhibits the phenomenon.”
Dev cupped her face in his hands. “It’s not connected to the level of power,” he told her. “It seems to be a random mutation that’s occurred in a certain percentage of the population.”
“Maybe you’re in the process of developing your own version of cardinal eyes,” she murmured. “Even if it’s not connected to power now, it might one day end up being so.”
“I hope to hell not,” Dev said, jaw firming. “It’d make the strong ones easier to identify and target.”
“I thought this was a safe question.” Chest tight, she closed her hand over his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Dev. I won’t let anyone take the knowledge from my mind.” Not this time. Not ever again.
“Why do you think I told you?” A tone that left no room for doubt. And then he said the words she’d waited what felt like a lifetime to hear. “You won’t betray us, Katya, no matter what the cost.”
“Dev.”
“You beat him. You survived,” he said quietly. “Ming has no claim on you anymore.”
PETROKOV FAMILY ARCHIVES
Letter dated July 17, 1982
Dearest Matthew,
You’re growing so big and strong, my boy. Your talent shines ever brighter. I wish we didn’t have to uproot you at such a critical time, but I’d rather be safe than sorry. Several of the defectors have recently disappeared without a trace. They were all at the powerful end of the spectrum. There’s speculation the Council is eradicating us.
Your father . . . he had a vision yesterday. He’s so rarely truly with us these days that I wanted only to talk to him, but he used the minutes that he was awake and lucid to warn me. They’re going to come after you, Matthew. You’re too powerful a telepath. So we have to run. And we have to keep running until they can no longer find even a trace of the Petrokovs.
Your father won’t come with us. He calls himself a liability. And he won’t listen to me when I say different. Before Silence, I used to tease him by quoting the Manual of Psy Designations. It says that F-Psy are considered some of the strongest individuals among our race because of what their ability demands. But today, he proved the definition true to the last word, my strong, courageous David.
He made me promise to go tomorrow. I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I can leave the only man I’ve ever loved.
Mom
CHAPTER 43
You won’t betray us, Katya, no matter what the cost.
He was more right than he knew, Katya thought two hours later, pain beating at her temples. Reaching out, she whispered her fingers over Dev’s cheekbones, conscious he’d wake to anything but the most butterfly of touches. Even then, he shifted.
“It’s just me,” she whispered, as the exquisite ache in her heart threatened to tear her wide open. This, she thought, was love. She’d never felt it before but she knew. This feeling, it went soul deep, and it ravaged even as it healed. Devraj Santos had become an integral part of her. She couldn’t let him go after Ming—she had every faith in his abilities, but she refused to lose him to a fool’s errand.