Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(125)

“Yes.”

Aden was leader of the squad partially because he was so calm, but at that moment, he came within a split second of executing Pax Marshall where he stood. “Why are you here?” Because no one ever admitted to harming the squad; it was a death sentence.

“My mind is failing.” Pax’s voice, with its crisp English accent, was steady, his eyes on the distant horizon. “When I attacked the compound, I did so without conscious volition—I am too intelligent to make an enemy of the squad. Right now, however, I’m sane and may be able to offer recompense.”

Aden had no way to know if Marshall was lying, but he couldn’t discount the offer on the minute chance the telepath could make good on it. “What’s in this for you?” Pax was too ruthless a negotiator for it to be otherwise.

“I need help from the dark E.”

“That’s not my call to make.” Memory Aven-Rose was very much her own person.

“I know. I’ll help Yuri first. Then . . . we’ll see if she decides to assist me.”

“Come to these coordinates in one hour,” Aden said, his murderous urge toward Pax under brittle control at best. “Yuri will be there.” He strode toward Abbot; the teleport-capable Tk was on light duty and had brought Aden to this meeting. The teleport distance to their next destination was also well within the capacity of his healing body. “Take me to Yuri.”



* * *



? ? ?

WHEN Pax Marshall arrived at the private hospital to which Abbot had shifted Yuri from the medical facility in their home valley, it was with a woman Aden didn’t immediately recognize, though she bore a startling resemblance to Marshall. Tamar, he telepathed to the surveillance and data expert he had on standby. Identify the woman.

Marshall’s younger sister, Theodora, Tamar telepathed only thirty seconds later. Gradient 2.7 telekinetic. Works as a comm tech, specifically shifting miniature components using Tk. A short pause before she said, Wait. Wait. There’s something shifty in these files. A whole lot of folks went to considerable trouble to hide the birth records, but Tenacious Tamar is on the case. Hell. No levity in her tone when she added the next words. Aden, she’s his twin.

Aden had never heard of twins with such divergent abilities. “Why is your twin present?” Especially since she appeared terrified of Aden and the Arrows on guard outside Yuri’s room.

She also swallowed hard at being ID’d as Marshall’s twin, while he remained unmoved. “This ability only works when we’re together.”

Aden gave nothing away, but hope flickered to life inside him. He’d heard of such abilities; his parents had mentioned them when he was a child. The “Harmonies” had disappeared with Silence, but prior to that had emerged in people who were closely linked. Like twins.

Aden had a distinct memory of his father mentioning how his grandmother had once told him a strange tale: “She swore that a non-twin Harmony pair in her home village once brought her brother back to life after he drowned. According to her, he had no pulse for at least fifteen minutes and the resident M-Psy pronounced him dead, but the Harmony pair said his mind wasn’t gone and they were able to revive him.”

Aden’s father had made a dismissive noise. “Of course, she wasn’t exactly fully compos mentis at that point. I accept Harmonies existed—there are rumors of a classified coda to the Protocol dealing with them—but if these paired abilities are so powerful, why have they disappeared? Why hasn’t the Council done everything in its power to locate and draft Harmonies into service?”

“Maybe the ability demands a base emotional connection?” Aden’s mother had suggested, before the two of them got interrupted by another Arrow and the subject was dropped.

Very young at the time, Aden had forgotten the entire conversation until this moment when he stood face-to-face with twins who appeared to have an ability that only worked in concert.

“I need to act now,” Pax Marshall said. “I don’t know how long I’ll be rational.”

Aden stepped aside so the two could enter Yuri’s room. There was no need to warn them their lives hung in the balance—they knew. Though the sister wouldn’t be hurt unless she did direct harm to Yuri.

Arrows were no longer monsters.

Marshall put one palm on Yuri’s temple. His sister echoed him on the fallen Arrow’s other side. Then the two connected hands over Yuri’s chest. They didn’t speak as they closed their eyes, but on the psychic plane, Aden saw energy sparking through Yuri’s mind.

The other man wasn’t brain-dead—if that had been the case, Aden would’ve made the hard call the very first day. No, the senior Arrow was in a gray no-man’s-land between life and death, the damage done to his brain catastrophic, but not enough to kill him. Aden and Vasic were maintaining his shields.

And because they were, Aden could see what the twins were doing.

Pax was the more powerful by far, but he was only the conduit—and the source of the raw material. It was Theodora who was somehow taking Pax’s psychic energy and using it to weave something from nothing. She was building neural material with a delicacy Aden hadn’t ever seen. Only Judd came close. Another Tk who could move minuscule components with his mind.

Clenching his gut, he maintained the shield. When Vasic joined him in the hospital room an hour later, they switched on and off as per their plan to ensure the shield was never less than impenetrable.