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

He hadn’t known too much about J-Psy at that point, but he’d dug deep in the time since. Both he and Payal had been stunned by the level of attrition in the designation. So many dead and damaged, so much pain. There had to be a better way.

SOPHIA didn’t know what she was expecting from the mysterious Canto Mercant and Payal Rao. After reading the Beacon interview with Payal, she’d braced herself for an abrasive personality who took no bullshit, but that wasn’t quite what she got when they teleported into a small outdoor garden at Duncan HQ.

Payal was wearing flowing pants in dark gray, matched with a pale green top with sleeves cuffed at the wrist. Her hair was up in a ponytail, but that ponytail was loose, not tight. There was nothing sleek about her. She was … softer than she’d come across in that interview, at least on the outside.

As for Canto Mercant, she was surprised by the chair, but only because she knew her race’s desire for perfection had meant terrible, criminal acts in the past. It was rare to see a Psy adult who used assistive devices; those who’d survived childhood but ended up injured later tended to either disappear or be hidden away.

Yet so-called perfect Psy were often the worst monsters of them all—she carried the marks of that cold truth on her face, and in her memories of three innocent children who’d never gotten the chance to live. Sophia would never forget them—and she’d made sure the world wouldn’t forget them, either.

Carrie O’Brien.

Lin Wong.

Bilar Baramichai.

All three names were now listed as “lost on duty” in the official J-rolls. A small thing, but it mattered. Their names mattered. Their lives had mattered.

As did the lives of Designation A.

Canto Mercant’s hair was silky black like her husband Max’s, and he had eyes with just a hint of an upward tilt. Those eyes were the most unusual cardinal eyes she’d ever seen. Her overall impression was of a handsome man, but one with a dangerous edge to him.

“Hello.” Meeting them halfway, she kept her hands loosely linked in front of her. “We can sit over there.” She nodded to an outdoor seating arrangement put in place when Nikita began to make deals with non-Psy.

She saw both Payal and Canto glance at the fine black leather of her gloves. When neither asked a question about them, she figured they’d dug around and knew she was a Sensitive after her years of work as a J. Skin-to-skin contact led to a telepathic connection she couldn’t control and didn’t want.

To be buried in another person’s thoughts and memories, fears and horrors, it was akin to being buried alive, having the life suffocated out of her. In the worst-case scenario, the overload could crush the brain, collapse the psychic pathways, and kill.

Her friend and fellow J, Cèlian, had turned Sensitive six months earlier. Touch could kill him—yet he was starved of it, too. The divergent needs had been tearing him apart, pushing him closer and closer to choosing self-termination. Sophia had lost too many friends to that terrible final choice, and she refused, refused to let anyone else fall. She’d managed to haul Cèlian back thanks to Max and his huge heart: her husband had natural shields that nothing could crack.

For a Sensitive, he was an oasis of peace, of silence.

After Sophia convinced Cèlian to let Max touch him—and though Sophia’s husband wasn’t a big cuddler of strangers—Max had hugged the other J. Not once. As many times as Cèlian needed in the days since. Cèlian had sobbed the first time and clung to Max’s muscled frame. Her ex-cop husband had stroked the other man’s back and held him without a single sign of impatience.

Later, he’d told her they needed to talk to Bowen Knight at the Human Alliance to build a list of naturally shielded humans who wouldn’t mind interacting with hurt Js. “Back when I was in Enforcement,” he’d said, “I knew some pros on the street who had clients who came to them just for friendly touch, not sexual stuff.”

He’d frowned. “It’s not only Js who ache for touch. I think touch therapy might actually already be a thing, but we need to set up a subgroup of therapists who have airtight shields. And it’s not like Js have never helped humans—the Council only interfered in major cases. Rest of the time, Js did as much good for humans as they did for Psy, so I don’t think it’ll be a hard sell to get help for your friends. Let me talk to Bo.”

Just another reason Sophia would love Max to the end of time.

“Thank you for meeting with us.” Payal took a seat at the edge of the seating area, so Canto could park his chair next to her.

Sophia chose a seat opposite the other woman, putting the three of them in a rough semicircle. “Of course.” Sophia rubbed her forehead, the dull pain behind her eyelids a constant. “The NetMind is so scared and lost and I can’t help it. I need—” She looked up and halted. The two As were staring at her. “What?”

“The NetMind is alive?” Canto Mercant’s voice was harsh—with a piercing note of hope. “All we sense in the Net are fragments.”

“It exists,” Sophia confirmed. “Not as the huge presence it once was, but the core remains. My anchor point—I’m sorry, that’s what I’ve always called it, though I know it’s not correct.”

“It is an anchor point.” Payal Rao’s tone brooked no argument. “We can see you in the Substrate. While you can’t communicate in that sphere with the rest of us, your anchor lines are rooted deep.”