Last Guard by Nalini Singh

Chapter 22

We are not meant to be alone.

As a species, we’re designed to be social. Yet we’ve told ourselves for over a hundred years that Psy are different from humans and changelings, that we can function at full capacity within the cold loneliness of Silence—denying ourselves all bonds, including those formed in spaces such as the PsyNet and the Internet.

Each of us must accept that that was a mistake. To move forward, we must embrace the truth: that Psy need connections as much as changelings and humans—and that such need isn’t a flaw or a weakness.

—PsyNet Beacon social interaction column by Jaya Laila Storm

PAYAL.

Mmm.

Wake up, baby. Or I could send an electrical shock through the door and fry your brother’s brains. Sounds like a better idea to me.

Payal’s eyes snapped open. Canto?

Even as she reached for him with her mind, she winced at the high-pitched sounds emanating from her organizer—the emergency alarm from her security system. Coming immediately out of her groggy state, she turned off the alarm, then got out of bed and scanned outward with her telepathic senses.

Multiple minds beyond the door.

They can’t get in.Canto’s voice, as clear as an ice-cold lake. But I’m picking up chatter that they’re considering a battering ram. Want me to melt Lalit’s brain?

He sounded serious.

No, that’ll just cause questions.

She should’ve been grilling him about his security access, but ignoring that, she pulled up the external visual feed on her organizer. A maintenance team stood outside, with her brother giving them orders. “Lalit,” she said through the intercom, “what are you doing?”

He stilled, then looked up at the door camera. “You’ve been incommunicado for hours, dearest bahena.” He made the word for “sister” sound slimy. “Father asked me to check on you.”

“My apartment is fitted with sensors that would’ve sent out a medical alert had I been incapacitated.” Her father was the one who’d suggested it—though Payal had sourced her own tech so he couldn’t sneak in subtle surveillance. The fact was, her tumors could grow in the time between scans, leading to a sudden collapse; a medical alarm was a sensible precaution. “Leave now.”

Muting Lalit’s response, she contacted her father through the comm, audio only. “Father, did you receive a medical alert?”

“No, but you weren’t responding to any attempt to contact you. I assumed you’d had a psychic breakdown.”

Breakdown.

The word choice was intentional, a reminder that she was “unstable.” Having been born with the intelligence to see through his manipulation was one of the strongest weapons in her arsenal. She’d been more vulnerable as a child, but she hadn’t been a child for a long time. “I had to deal with the possible collapse of the PsyNet over Delhi. I’m sure you heard of it.” No one in this area of the PsyNet could’ve missed the massive fissure.

Pranath’s pause went on a beat too long. “You were involved in that?”

“I’m an anchor, Father. The Delhi hub. What do you think I do? Now I need to be left alone to finish my work. Or would you rather the Net collapse and take us all with it?”

No response, but the maintenance crew outside her door began to disperse. Lalit shot a malicious smile toward the camera, and she knew this was just another imagined slight her brother was adding to his list of grievances. She’d never understood if his brain was miswired, or if it was simply his personality, but he hoarded grievances the same way he hoarded money and power.

The first thing she did was check the number of fatalities: twohundred and sixty-three. Three hundred and seven more noted as injured, half of them badly.

Her stomach lurched.

Forcing herself to breathe through the punch of it, she read through the rest of the bulletin sent out by Anthony Kyriakus on behalf of the Ruling Coalition. The city’s medical system had switched into disaster mode, had hauled in all standby medics, and was coping with the influx with the assistance of EmNet—which had organized the teleportation of more medics and supplies from outside the affected zone.

No one was missing out on medical care.

So much death and pain, but she had to remember it could’ve been far worse, or the thought would paralyze her. Canto?

I’m here.

Why were you watching when Lalit came?

I knew he’d try some bullshit, and you needed your rest.He sounded like he was growling, a ferocious dragon who’d hunched his lethal mind over her vulnerable form, his claws extended and teeth bared. Your data security kept him out of your files, but then the manipulative shit went running to your father. Few hours earlier and I’d have run that current through him without hesitation.

Payal had no idea which element of that to address first, so she did what she always did when she got overwhelmed. She broke his reply down into its component parts. And went straight to the point that shook her the most. Thank you for protecting me.

You never have to thank me for looking out for you.Pure voice, rough words.

She swallowed hard. I’ll be perfectly capable when I contact the Ruling Coalition.

I don’t care about that. I was worried about you, 3K.

What had once been a moniker that indicated pain and horror had become a thing far more tender. As if Canto had claimed it, put his stamp on it.

Payal stood motionless at her kitchenette counter, her eyes hot and her walls tumbling down all over again. She always ate in her apartment and ordered her own food via private delivery because she didn’t trust anyone in the house, not even those who’d professed their loyalty.

She’d been fine alone for years. She’d been functional.

And sad, whispered the lost, broken part of her. Sad and so alone. She didn’t want to be that way today, didn’t want to live in an isolated bubble where she could never let down her guard.

Canto was so dangerous to her—and her craving for him was a storm.

She looked down at her pajamas. A pair of thin cotton pants of blue with fine yellow stripes, paired with a white T-shirt in a silky fabric that felt good against her skin. My mind has regrouped, she telepathed to him, her heart a drumbeat. I might teleport to the oasis after I have my nutrients.

If he didn’t want to acknowledge her implied invitation, he could just tell her she was welcome to go there.

Nothing in her words made her need obvious.

Nothing laid her soft inner core bare to him.

No, Canto said. Come here.

The image that entered her mind was of a room with comfortable sofas of chocolate brown and warm wooden flooring striped by what looked to be midmorning sunshine.

Okay.Her fingers trembled.

Breathing slow and deep, slow and deep until her mind no longer skittered, she drank the first glass of nutrients with focused concentration. She couldn’t so quickly intake the second, decided to leave it for later.

Hurry, hurry, whispered the madness in her. Go to him. To 7J.

She thought about brushing her hair into its usual tail, thought about putting on the cosmetics she’d learned to use because they created a shield against the world. Then she thought about the image Canto had sent her. Her heartbeat jerked. She was near certain what he’d done, but it made no rational sense to her. Yet she teleported into that space—into danger—while barefoot and in her pajamas.

The ghost of the little girl she’d once been, wanting to see the friend in him.

Her mind responded with red warning sirens an instant afterward, but it was too late to take back her action. She’d arrived.

CANTOcouldn’t believe she was here. All sleep-tumbled hair, a line yet marking her cheek from when she’d curled onto her side, her body clad in soft fabrics that made him want to touch, and her feet bare.

Her toenails were neatly buffed and polished with a clear coat, her toes small, as befitted her overall size. He’d never before noticed anyone’s toes. It was probably strange and creepy to find himself fascinated by them, but he couldn’t stop noticing things about her—couldn’t stop being fascinated by her.

His heart was thunder.

“Don’t get mad, but I got you food.” He scowled, aggravated by the shadows under her eyes. “Actual solid food.” Payal needed fuel, especially since he’d made her teleport here; he’d thrown the items together in the short minutes since she’d said she’d go to the desert … and he’d hoped she’d come to him.

“I can’t not help you. Don’t ask that of me.” He picked up a fortified roll and thrust it at her, even knowing she’d probably be furious with him for doing it. He couldn’t help it, not with her shoeless and sleep-mussed and looking at him with those big cardinal eyes, her face devoid of makeup.

But what she said had nothing to do with the food. “This is your home.” She sounded … appalled.

Appalled.

His chest expanded, fire in his blood. She hadn’t stepped back, hadn’t told him to stop taking care of her. No, she was glaring at him as if he’d lost his goddamn mind. Canto wanted to fucking dance. “Yes.”

Everyone in his family would lose their shit when they discovered what he’d done. But if Canto knew one thing, it was that he had to be the naked and defenseless one in this first step into pure trust. Payal didn’t have that capacity and he couldn’t ask it of her. While Canto might’ve had a cold bastard for a father, he’d then been embraced by a pack of Mercants who’d gut anyone who dared lay a finger on him.

Payal had never had anyone.

Well, fuck that. She had him now, and he’d show her until she accepted that indelible truth.

“You just gave a teleporter access to your home.” Appalled was morphing into furious. Grabbing the bread roll, she shook it at him. “Do you know what I could do with that information?”

Canto shrugged, fighting a grin. “Teleport in and murder me.” Unless he did major renovations—including blocking out the view beyond the automatic balcony sliders—she could now enter his home as she wished.

“Why?” She spread her arms on either side of her body, and the sun speared through the white of her tee to reveal the protrusion of her rib cage.

“Eat.”It came out a growl and he didn’t fucking care; he couldn’t concentrate when he knew she was hurting herself. “You’ve lost weight.”

Glaring, she took a deliberate bite of the roll, chewed.

Mollified, he huffed out a breath. “You planning to use this information to cause harm to me or mine?”

“No,” she snapped, nothing muted or distant about her. “But you couldn’t have known that. You shouldn’t just trust people, Canto.” Her emotions were brilliant and dazzling, a crackle of energy in the air.

This was the wild heart she kept caged. It was a shine in her eyes, a rapid jerkiness in her movements, a hyper energy that had her pacing.

He was as compelled by this side of her as he was the other. “I know an empath—he says my instincts are generally good.”

“Empaths have a tendency to get in trouble because they trust the wrong people.” Payal took another feral bite of the roll, chewed, and swallowed, before adding, “The last time we hired a commercial empath, I had to run interference the entire time because they kept going into rooms with unauthorized people who are controlled by Lalit.”

She waved the roll in the air. “At least they had the sense not to want to be alone with him.”

“Too late now.” He fought the urge to thrust a chocolate drink at her. “I’ve given you the key to my home. I’ve burdened you with my trust.”

A hard look from glittering eyes. “I won’t reciprocate.” She still held half the roll.

“I know.” This wasn’t about quid pro quo. “Have something to drink.” Great. That restraint had lasted exactly ten seconds. He truly was channeling a bear now. The last time he’d visited Denhome, they’d plied him with so much food he’d asked Silver if her packmates thought Psy had prodigious appetites.

His cousin had given him an amused look. “No. They just like you.”

Now Payal gave him the same look he’d probably given those bears. But she did deign to curl up on the sofa. It happened to be his favorite seat, and seeing her there … Good. It was good. After moving his chair to the other side of the low coffee table, he nudged across a sealed bottle of chocolate-flavored nutrients.

She took it, before freezing and staring at the partially eaten roll in her hand. “I ate this.”

He didn’t get it for a second. Then he did—it had been unsealed, could’ve held poison.

Payal lived in a world where food was a weapon.

Canto gritted his teeth. Anger was a familiar friend from his childhood, a hot flame that scalded from the inside out, but that wouldn’t be helpful here. “Throw it to me.”

When she did nothing, he held out his hands. She finally chucked it over. Holding her gaze, he finished it in two bites. “If I wanted to kill you,” he muttered, “I’d just shoot you. I wouldn’t waste handmade fucking rolls.”

A sudden intense burst of laughter from her that turned him to stone, it was so bright and sharp and beautiful.