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

“How often do you come here?” she asked.

“Few times a week. It’s not far from the house.” Then he splashed her.

Crying out at the cold, Payal manipulated the water using her Tk so that it fell on him in gentle waves. He grinned and began to “chase” her around the pond. It was silly and fun and it was a wonderful coda to the most pleasurable experience of her life … even though her mind was already going sideways, her thoughts skittering out of her control.

She barely got them home, her ability to maintain a teleport lock erratic as her concentration fractured. “I can’t think.” Wrapped in a large towel, she walked jaggedly back and forth across the bedroom floor. “Broken things inside my head.” She held the sides of that head. “The screaming part is awake.” A whimper escaped her control. “Mad. Mad. Mad.”

Canto was already in his chair, having pulled on a pair of sweatpants in the interim. Intercepting her, he gripped her hips and said, “Focus on the calming exercise the empath taught you.”

“I can’t remember!” It came out a scream, panic jabbering inside her. “I’m mad! I’m mad! I’m mad!” A singsong litany. “Insane murderous Payal who stabs people and isn’t sorry. Mad. Mad. Mad.”

Hauling her down into his lap, he crushed her in his arms. “Shh. You’re safe. And you’re not mad. You just have to learn to deal with a kind of mental paralysis, as I had to do with my legs.”

Payal clung to that imagery with feral claws. “You’ve adapted.”

“Using tools. Remember?” He continued to squeeze her close, as if aware that being contained this way by him, warm and safe, helped her find coherence. “You need the help of the framework your E has started to teach you. Reach for it.”

Wet heat in her eyes. “I can’t. It’s lost in the chaos.” Pieces of a thousand memories and thoughts floated in her mind.

“Hold on to our bond.” He pressed his lips to her temple. “Use it, use me, as you made me use you to handle my pain.”

Payal clung and clung and he didn’t shove her away, didn’t tell her it was uncomfortable or unwanted. Not even when her jittering self pulled at the bond in jagged bursts, desperation making her rough. He just held her to his heartbeat until her breathing evened and she found her footing.

No longer too confused to think, she did what she should’ve done from the start and began to build the framework Jaya had begun to teach her. It was less solid than her shields, and it allowed her to be herself while corralling the part of her mind that was damaged and broken.

“You’re not broken,” the E had said in her gentle voice. “You have trauma that’s calcified and exacerbated a chemical imbalance in your brain. We work with one element at a time, step-by-step, to bring you to a place where you feel good. No one else gets to make that call. Just you.”

Shaky in the aftermath of the build, she whispered, “I lost control.” Shame was a wildfire in her veins.

“Baby, I threw full-on tantrums when I was initially in the hospital.” He kissed her hair in that way that had already become so familiar, so affectionate that it made her feel precious. “Cut yourself some slack—you’ve held it together for three decades on your own. It’s okay if you lose it now and then. Jaya didn’t promise overnight success, remember? You have to build those muscles as I build my leg muscles.”

Again, the analogy worked for the way she thought, giving her a physical analogue that offered her something to grip. She’d been falling back on thinking of the new framework as ropes around her mind, handcuffs to keep the madness at bay. She had to consider it a tool, as Canto considered his robotic exercise machinery.

“I’m not broken.” It was the first time in her life she’d ever verbalized such a thing. “I just function differently than other people.”

“Got it in one.” Another one of those nuzzles that made her feel so warm and … There was another word she couldn’t say, couldn’t think, because it was too big, too huge a promise.

So she just lay against him and used the tools she’d been given.





MESSAGE STREAM BETWEEN YAKOV AND PAVEL STEPYREV

Pasha, the weirdest thing just happened.

What? A woman looked at your ugly face and didn’t turn to stone in fright?

I’m going to tell on you to Mama.

Tattletale. Also, if you tell, I’ll tell her who stole that entire chocolate cake when we were thirteen. What happened anyway?

I’m just walking through the forest, minding my own business, when this big old tree starts creaking and groaning …

???? I’m growing old here.

It fell over. Right in front of me!

You okay?

Yeah, yeah, it was making so much noise before it fell that no one could’ve missed it. And even when it began to fall, it was in slow motion. The thing came down with a boom that I swear caused a quake.

A tree falls in the forest. And thanks to the great explorer Yasha, we know it made a noise.

You suck. But it fell down for no reason! Like it was pushed over by a giant hand. But that’s not the weirdest part.

You have my interest, young man. Proceed.

It AVOIDED all the other trees in its path, and managed to lie down right in this fine gap. Like the giant finger couldn’t stop from pushing it over, but they controlled it.