Last Guard (Psy-Changeling Trinity #5) by Nalini Singh

All of it paid for through one of Payal Rao’s private accounts.

“Mother, huh.” Canto rubbed his smooth-shaven jawline. “She never said.”

“She didn’t do it to buy a way out of your anger,” Ena said. “She did it because Binh Fernandez hurt her child after promising to care for him. Magdalene does not forgive such slights.”

What Ena didn’t say was that giving up Canto had fractured something in Magdalene. That was why she’d never had another child, though she could’ve made another fertilization agreement after she and Binh dissolved the agreement that had produced Canto.

To then learn that Binh had abused the child she’d wanted to keep with every ounce of her being? No, Magdalene would never forgive. As Ena wouldn’t forgive herself for not foreseeing Magdalene’s reaction to giving birth.

Given their possessive natures, Mercants rarely, rarely entered into agreements where their children would be raised fully by others, but it was Magdalene herself who’d brought forward the proposal when Fernandez approached her. She’d been very interested in the genetic match and confirmed that she had no problem with a dual agreement as requested by the Fernandez family.

Ena had thought her Silent, had believed in her pragmatic take on the situation.

They’d both been wrong.

“The final decision was mine, Mother,” Magdalene had said to her some years ago, after Ena apologized for her mistake. “You told me to think long and hard on it, advised me to do my research. I thought I could handle it.” A hand pressed to her belly. “But then I carried him for nine months, and I felt his mind awaken …”

The only good thing in it all was that they’d been able to save Canto.

Such an angry boy he’d been, but even then, he’d been fiercely loyal. To 3K, the little girl who’d murdered for him.

Watching the two of them together now, Ena was quite convinced the adult Payal Rao would murder for him, too. So. “We’ll have tea at the Sea House next time,” she said as the two were about to leave.

Canto was still scowling, but his lips tugged up into a slight smile, and the voice that touched her mind was smug in a way he rarely was: I knew you’d like her.

One does not gloat, Canto.

He laughed out loud as he exited, causing Payal to look at him with soft eyes … and Ena’s long-frozen heart to threaten to thaw. “It appears,” she said to the slinky black cat that had prowled into the room, “the family is to expand again.”





CLINICAL NOTES ON PAYAL RAO



JAYA STORM, E.

Patient is very self-aware and conscious of the damage inflicted by her childhood, and is searching for a way to balance her powerful emotional response to the man she loves* against her need to maintain psychic and mental stability.

Her childhood protections did the job required, but they were a blunt tool. I have advised her that we can use more subtle methods to allow her to find the control she needs without losing herself. I have also received permission to speak about her case on an anonymous basis with other Es who have more specialized knowledge in certain areas.

Most specifically, I intend to speak to Sascha Duncan regarding custom shields, and to Dr. Farukh Duvall about the issue of childhood trauma and how it interacts with brain chemistry. I also need to find—or become—an expert in how childhood trauma may affect the development of psychic pathways in all children, and anchors in particular.

There do not appear to be any anchors who are also empaths, which is a critical piece of information in itself, but I intend to further my knowledge of anchors to the highest degree to better serve my patient—and any future patients from Designation A.

While this is not my area of specialization, my skills appear to transfer over very well to this particular anchor. When I work with patients in a coma, it is to coax them back to consciousness. With Payal, I feel as if I’m teaching her how to walk out of a different kind of darkness.

She is an incredibly intelligent woman and—given her past—could easily have gone off the rails, yet she has risen to her current high-level position through sheer grit and the help of a limited slate of medications, none of which are calibrated correctly for her current psychic and mental state. I will be consulting with a prescribing physician to get those levels corrected—with Payal having a final say on who that physician will be, though I will offer my recommendations.

For now, I’ve given her mental exercises that should begin to bring peace to her mind without the bluntness of her previous shields.

*This is my view. The patient has not yet put a label on what she feels for him.





Chapter 37



I’d like to book it out for the entire day. I’ll make the payment immediately on receipt of your invoice.

—E-mail sent by Canto Mercant

JUST OVER A week after surviving Ena, and seven days after her first meeting with Jaya, Payal was happier than she’d been in her entire life. She’d had nine whole days with Canto, nine days with a man she trusted with all of herself, nine days where she could just be Payal without the masks she wore in the world.

It had been aggravating at times, frustrating often, and wonderful always.

Now she looked at the image Canto had given her and tried to work out where it was that he was asking her to teleport them. But the image, while distinctive enough for a teleport lock, was of a stone wall marred by multiple small pieces of carved-in graffiti. All seemed to be entwined initials.