Page 106 of Storm Echo

Soleil nodded. “But first—” Grabbing his face in her hands, she kissed him until his world spun. “We’re alive.”

The wave of black dread he’d been holding back crashed down on him. “I don’t want to look in the ChaosNet. I have to have murdered countless people by now.”

Sliding a hand down his arm, Soleil linked her fingers with his. “It’s not a spider, remember? It’s a heart, the center that holds. Just like an alpha. You haven’t hurt anyone.”

The confidence in her voice was a kiss.

“I’m a healer,” she whispered. “I’d know if you were killing anyone. Look, Ivan.”

Gut clenched, he opened his eyes in the ChaosNet. Except … there was no chaos anymore. All the minds he’d wrapped in spidersilk remained wrapped up. Alive, functional, but unable to spread chaotic energy. As for the other minds …

He sucked in a breath, looked into Soleil’s eyes. “Everyone’s alive. Stronger. Not at full strength, but stronger.” No longer in danger of flickering out. “I’m the same. Not anywhere near full strength, but neither wiped nor bloated with power.”

Pressing her forehead to his, Soleil repeated the words she’d spoken to him before. “You’re the center that holds. The energy feeds into you, then feeds back out into the network as needed. It’s a perfect closed system, exactly like a pack. Once you all heal, it will be an amazingly healthy system.”

“I can’t …” He exhaled, their foreheads yet touching and breaths mingling. “I’ll need time to figure all this out.” To accept that he hadn’t become a devouring monster; it was too big a thing for him to comprehend. “Let’s go talk to everyone.”

This time, they went down together, Ivan climbing down first, with Soleil climbing down above him. “Don’t look up my dress,” she ordered him with a grin before they began the descent.

“I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” he said, but when it came down to it, he was more worried about her safety. She displayed nowhere near her usual wild grace, her body yet shaky.

“You’re in the network,” he told her quietly as they climbed down. “Not visibly, but I know you’re there.”

“Of course. We’re mated.” A dazzling smile he felt through the mating bond as his feet touched the forest floor.

He grabbed her waist as she came down, made sure she was steady on her feet before he turned—to almost be bowled over by Arwen slamming into him. He locked his arms around his cousin, aware that Lucas had enfolded a smiling Soleil in his own arms.

“Hey,” he said, running a hand down his cousin’s back, this man who had always cared even when caring for Ivan was a rewardless exercise, “I’m good. Alive and undamaged.”

Arwen was trembling when he drew back, his usually perfect hair a mess and his eyes red as if he’d been crying. “You vanished from the PsyNet, from our familial network. I thought you were dead.”

Wrapping his arm around his cousin’s neck, Ivan drew him close once again, held him tight. “I’m sorry about that. Things didn’t go as I’d planned.” This time when he let go, Arwen moved aside so Ena could walk up to Ivan.

“He wouldn’t believe me when I told him you were alive. He insisted on putting his eyes on you.” The slightest touch of her fingers to his jaw. “I must admit I had my doubts as well.”

That was as close as Ena would ever come to admitting fear, but Ivan needed no grand actions or declarations from his grandmother. He knew exactly what he meant to her. “I’m not sure quite what happened,” he said, holding out a hand instinctively as Soleil came to him.

Her fingers touched his, her cat in his mind.

“I made contact with Lucas the moment you vanished from the PsyNet,” his grandmother told him. “He’d already felt a violent impact through his blood bond with you, Soleil, and had diverted one of his sentinels to your aerie. She was the closest person to you at the time.”

Arwen pushed a trembling hand through his hair. “The sentinel confirmed you were both alive and breathing but otherwise unresponsive, got you inside with help from another packmate who was close by, and then Lucas said we should come.” A wobbly grin. “I would’ve come anyway, even if I had to fight off leopards.”

“Empaths.” Lucas Hunter scowled. “You’re a menace to yourselves. My leopards would’ve eaten you alive.”

The cardinal-eyed woman next to him—quite famously the first Silent empath to wake to her powers—laughed. “Don’t listen to a word he says, Arwen. He’d snap the neck of anyone who dared hurt an E.”

Another voice broke into the conversation, a voice as black as the heart of midnight, a thing of power and cold. “A number of the people uplinked to the island have woken from their comas.”

Ivan looked toward Kaleb Krychek, who’d joined the rough circle that had formed. Arwen still stood right next to him, his shoulder touching Ivan’s, a touch with which Ivan was more than comfortable. He’d never wanted to hurt Arwen, and the sudden loss of Ivan from their network would’ve devastated him.

Ena stood beside Arwen, Krychek next to her, while Lucas Hunter stood beside Krychek, his mate between him and Soleil. Ivan had no idea how or why Krychek had access to DarkRiver territory, but he was comfortable here, that much was obvious in the way he stood at ease under the canopy even though he was in a formal black suit.

“Are any of them talking?” Ivan asked.

“Yes. According to them, they’re in a stable psychic network with a unique biofeedback loop that seems to be flowing from a center they can’t see.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’m assuming that’s you.”

Ivan nodded. “The anchors? Ager Lii?” The foundation without which nothing could exist.

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