Chapter 13

While bear changelings have many talents, grace is not one of them.

—“Jocie’s Opinions: Inaugural Column” in the June 2083 issue of Wild Woman magazine: “Skin Privileges, Style & Primal Sophistication”

IT TOOK ALL Yakov had to keep his attention on his task, his nape burning with the intensity of Theo’s focus on him as he moved the blade of grass slowly forward. No telltale vibration, none of the hairs on his arms standing up. To be extra careful, he took off the metal ring he wore on his right ring finger and flicked it gently at the gate.

It pinged harmlessly off the metal to fall to the ground.

“Must’ve been turned off.” He bent to pick up the ring that had been a gift on his and Pavel’s eighteenth birthday from his maternal grandparents. He figured they’d be pleased he’d used it to assist in his safety.

Satisfied he wouldn’t get fried, he went to examine the lock more closely. “Interesting.”

A stir in the air, Theo coming to stand by his side. Much closer than he would’ve expected. But chert voz’mi, if she’d just give him permission, he’d cuddle her right against his chest and wrap her up in his arms.

Fear remained a strong thread in her scent. Whatever else this place turned out to be, it was obvious that to her, it was a horror. And no matter the suspicions he had about her family, his bear was not okay with allowing another being to suffer when gentle skin privileges would help ease their pain.

“What?” The question was air over the back of his neck as he bent toward the lock.

His bear stirred under the shivering caress.

Wrenching the animal within under control, he said, “This.” He pointed to a patch of clean metal. “Someone’s gone to great effort to make this lock look as overgrown and as old as the intercom, but it’s undergone recent maintenance.”

“I do have a code,” Theo said, and he could all but hear her pulling the tempered steel of her soul back together, “but it won’t work. This lock is a different kind than the one in the files.”

Yakov considered bending the bars of the gate, but a single shake of one cylindrical piece of metal told him they were built strong—strong enough to repel even a bear’s considerable strength. He next looked at the top of the gate.

Tall but not insurmountable, even with the spikes. “I can jump the gate, see if I can find a way through for you.” Bears weren’t the most limber or graceful climbers, but they were strong, and in human form, that strength made up for their lack of fluidity.

“No, wait.” Theo put her hand on the lock, tilted her head to the side for a full minute. “Yes,” she said at last. “I can unlock it.”

That was when he remembered what Silver had said—that Theo Marshall was a Tk who could move tiny parts around with her mind. “Telekinesis?”

A curt nod, her attention clearly on whatever it was she was doing to the lock.

He actually heard a tiny click before she stepped back, rubbing the palm of her hand against her skirt. “It should open now. I didn’t break the mechanism, so we can lock it back up when we leave.”

Yakov whistled. “I didn’t know Psy could do that.” Computronic locks like this were considered highly secure, since they had few if any moving parts that could be “picked.”

“Most can’t.” Theo’s voice had gone oddly flat, devoid of the hum of contained emotion that was her trademark. “It’s a skill so rare that there’s probably less than five people in the world capable of it. I just happen to be one of them.”

Yakov wanted the real Theo back. “Could you walk into a bank and unlock their vault?” he joked.

But her response was serious. “Likely.”

“Paired with a teleporter, you’d make one hell of a heist team.”

She shot him what should’ve been a flat glance—but there was too much mobility to her face, too much energy. “I’m not a criminal.” Hard words.

Yakov realized that while he’d broken through the flatness, he’d also hit a nerve. Then again, it could be deflection, because what Theo had just done wasn’t exactly a minor skill. It was, in fact, a very useful one for a family that wanted to keep secrets and take advantage of the secrets of others.

What exactly had Theo Marshall done while flying under the radar?

And who had she done it for?

Bear rumbling inside him because the damn animal liked the scent of Theo Marshall, but also saw her as a possible threat—and couldn’t forget that she was part of a family that had made a profit out of maiming people—he reached out to push open the gate. It stuck and he realized it had a redundancy in the form of two bolts behind it. “Can you move these?”

Theo tried, shook her head. “No. I’m only a 2.7.” And that trick with the lock had taken a large amount of her power reserves—it was harder than it looked from the outside. “They’re too heavy.”

Yakov stepped back. “Guess I’m jumping the gate after all.”

Theo’s entire body tensed, her gaze jerking to the spikes, then back to him. Her hand lifted on the instinctive urge to grab him, stop him.

“HEY.” Eyes kissed by amber meeting Theo’s. “Bears aren’t as clumsy as we look. We only run into things fifty percent of the time.”

“Be careful of the spikes.” Theo didn’t realize she’d risen onto her toes until she settled back down. “They aren’t decoration and you are a bear. My source on changelings states that bears constantly overestimate their ability to be graceful.” He didn’t need to know that her source was Wild Woman magazine.

A sudden grin from Yakov that made her stomach clench. “Watch this,” he said, then jogged back several meters before running full tilt at the gate.

Her mouth fell open as he hauled himself up with a power and speed she’d never have expected from a bear changeling. Close to the top, he all but vaulted over the spikes and came to a firm landing on both feet on the grassy and cracked drive on the other side.

Wild Woman didn’t know what it was talking about! She had half a mind to write a letter to the editor demanding a retraction of the slander against bears. But the magazine had been right when it had called bears “an arsenal of brute power.” Yakov clearly had muscles atop muscles.

Her heart was still thumping when he began to slide open the bars that acted as deadbolts, his biceps flexing and the veins in his forearms standing out against the burnished brown of his skin. That took enough time that she had some control over herself when he opened one side of the gate. It was big enough to drive through.

“I’ll drive in,” he said, jogging back out, “then we should lock things up. There’s a reason security is stringent—we don’t want to risk others coming in, or getting out. For all we know, this place was hidden because it’s where your grandfather housed dangerous criminals he had a use for.”

Nodding, she stood where she was with her gut churning as he drove the vehicle inside. It took every inch of courage she possessed to make her feet move to the gate, but she couldn’t cross the boundary between the outside world and whatever lay beyond.

Getting out of the vehicle on the other side, Yakov jogged back to her . . . and then he held out his hand. “Take your time, pchelka. This place isn’t going anywhere.”

“Did you just call me a little bee?” It came out a startled question, her voice strangled with a fear that infuriated her. She’d fought this, had won. She’d refused to be scared anymore, and in so doing, she’d stolen her grandfather’s power.

A slow smile by the bear in front of her, followed by a wink. “You must’ve misheard . . . zaichik.”

It had been rabbit . . . no, little hare, that time.

Bears.

And somehow, her fingers were touching his, and then she was sliding her hand into his and gripping with bruising strength as she forced her feet to cross the invisible dividing line between the outside and . . . this terrible, dark place behind heavy metal gates.

She would not let a long-dead monster defeat her.

Yakov’s body so close to her, his breath brushing her earlobe as he said, “Not mishonok, I think. Not for a woman with a spine so fucking strong.”

Mouse, she translated inside her head. He refused to call her a mouse, even in jest. And . . . it meant something. As it meant something that he stood there with her hand locked around the rough warmth of his until she could make herself let go. Even then, he ran his knuckles over her back in an act of comfort before he turned to close the gate.

The sound of the deadbolts sliding home made her flinch.

“You’re doing great, Thela.” A murmur far too close to her, the heat of his body pressing against her chilled skin.

Thela. Not Theo. He’d altered her name in a way that her language lessons told her was familiar, friendly. Such a Russian thing to do. The implied acceptance left her shaken. “What do your friends call you?”

“Yasha,” he said. “My mother calls me Yakov Mayakovskevich Stepyrev when she’s about to give me a scolding, but otherwise, it’s Yashka. My babushka Quyen calls me Mischief Bear One. You can call me Gorgeous.”

No one in her entire life had ever spoken to her this way. So open and warm and amused. And that was when she realized she was gripping his hand again, and he was letting her. “How about Trouble?” she shoved out past the cold fear that crushed her throat with a skeletal hand.

Because Theo wasn’t about to surrender to evil.

Not then. Not now. Not fucking ever.

A grin that revealed those dimples that were weapons of bearish distraction—and the antithesis of evil. “You honor me.” He did a half bow before rising to squeeze her hand. “You ready to move on, pchelka?”

She’d have to ask him why little bee, but for right now, she jerked her head in a yes, ready to face this head-on. The worst of it wasn’t the physical sensations of fear that crawled over her skin and blocked her breathing, it was that she didn’t know why this place was a cauldron of nightmare for her—if that flashback by the gate had been a memory, she didn’t have the rest.

I won after all, whispered the ghost of her grandfather.

Theo bared her teeth and slapped away the phantom. No, he didn’t get to come back from the dead, didn’t get to taunt her. He got to stay in pieces so small that his remains hadn’t even filled a box of such trivial size that a child could’ve carried it with ease.

“Yes,” she said to Yakov in a voice as hard as stone, “let’s go.” But before she could take a step forward, her eyes fixed on a crack, over which grew green moss.

Shifting her gaze, she looked further down what should’ve been a pristine drive, but while there weren’t an enormous number of cracks or potholes, there were more than there should’ve been. And a lot of foliage had begun to creep onto the asphalt.

“This place must’ve been heavily planted to begin with,” she murmured with a frown, “which is unusual in a Psy facility, but now it looks totally out of control.” At last, finding her footing in the practical, she made her fingers let go of his.

Her digits cramped, used to the shape of him.

“Planting would’ve been to ensure privacy.” Yakov hunkered down beside her, touched the growth she’d seen. “This stuff is fairly quick growing, but some of the other plants . . .” He looked up, eyes narrowed. “Two, three years without being trimmed at least, to get to this stage.”

“My grandfather died roughly three and a half years ago.” She didn’t use the word “assassination” because to use that word seemed to imply that it had been a bad thing that Marshall Hyde had been killed. It hadn’t been a bad thing.

The world was a better place without her grandfather.

“Hmm, and you say funds are still going out?” Yakov rose to his feet, rigid thighs pushing up against his jeans. “Might be a case of embezzlement. If it is a Center, they’ve unloaded their ‘patients’ and are siphoning money.”

Ice crackled over Theo’s skin because in Psy terms, “unloading” would mean only one thing. “We’ll find out today.”

She already knew hers was a family of monsters.

Today, she’d find out if they were also a family of mass murderers.