Page 78 of Storm Echo

“A heart full of fire,” Soleil whispered, spreading her fingers over that heart. “You told me in a dream. I saw it.”

He nodded, left it at that for now. He’d save the worst of it for last. “I confronted Grandmother and asked her why she’d lied.”

“What did she say?”

“That day,” he said, “for the first time, I came face-to-face not with my grandmother, but with Ena Mercant, the woman who scares powerful people in the PsyNet.” Her focus had been pure, her will granite.

“She told me that a small boy looked her in the eye and told her he was a Mercant. That boy, she said, had more courage in his bones than the grown men more than twice his size who’d escorted him to the meeting with her—and who couldn’t meet her gaze.”

A memory of a slender hand gripping the back of his neck, the hold not the least painful—but unbreakable in its sheer intensity. “Blood, she said, wasn’t the only way to be a Mercant.”

Then he spoke the rest of the words she’d said to him, the words carved on another part of his skin. “‘We are who we are because we treasure courage, treasure strength. Many of our best and brightest have come from outside the bloodline. Youarea Mercant, Ivan. Never again say that you’re not—not unless you wish to deal with me.’”

He could hear each word in her voice, steely and cool and resolute. “Then she pulled me to her in an embrace I could’ve never expected—Grandmother doesn’t do physical contact. But that day, she held me above the crashing waves of the sea and she said, ‘You are one of mine, Ivan Mercant. Now and always.’”

Soleil’s eyes were no longer human. “I love her already.”

“I think the feeling will be mutual.” Soleil might be a healer, but she had within her the same fierce steel when it came to protecting her people.

“When can I meet her?” Soleil raised an eyebrow. “And yes, I’m asking to be introduced to your family.”

His gut clenched at the idea of a thing he’d never expected, never thought he’d deserve.

You deserve joy, Ivan. Hold on to her, on to the spark of joy inside your heart.

His desire to believe Arwen, to give Soleil what she wanted, was a violence inside him. But he hadn’t told her the whole truth yet, had saved the worst horror for last. And that horror didn’t permit happiness. Not now that it was awake.

So, for the second time, he told her about the spider that lived in his mind, formed of the poisonous deposits of Jax in his neural cells. Her answer was the same as in the forest, the cat inside him as determined to stay. But things had changed.

“I can’t control it anymore.” His voice was rough, raw. “Grandmother’s shield, the one she helped me create when I was nine and the power first activated, it’s fragmenting and I can’t put it back together. It crumbles every single time.”

Soleil narrowed those wild ocelot eyes. “What are you trying to tell me, Ivan Mercant?”

“Without that shield, I suck people dry—I take their psychic energy and then I take the physical energy that powers the mind. I take and take until there’s nothing left, until they’re husks devoid of mind or life.” While he didn’t gain access to his victims’ psychic abilities, his theft of their energies supercharged his own nasty ability. “I become a murderous monster. And my control is all but gone.”

Claws dug into his skin. “So, what’s the solution? Because I know you have a solution—and I’m certain I won’t like it.”

“The only way to handle it once it breaks out is for me to create a cage so powerful that it’ll effectively crush my mind.” The man Soleil knew as Ivan Mercant would be gone, buried as deep as if he lay in a grave.

“It’ll put me in a coma, where I’ve informed my neurologist that he is to organize experiments and observation. There’s no point in erasing myself when my brain could offer a way forward for another child born with the same neural defect, the same twisted ability. I’ll never come out of that coma and will eventually expire.”

Instead of crying or berating him, Soleil folded her arms across her chest. “And your grandmother has agreed to this ridiculous plan?”

“She doesn’t know.”

“Ha!” Soleil pointed at him. “Because you know she’d stop you. Well, same here.”

“Soleil, this isn’t something you can fix by willpower or medical techniques. The known children of Jax addicts all experience serious neurological issues that can’t be fixed.”

“Known children? What’s the sample size of the studies you’re referencing?”

“Eleven,” he said. “Not many Jax addicts manage to procreate.”

“Eleven?”She threw up her hands. “Maybe there’s a reason those eleven were chosen for the study. Maybe the others found ways to escape their pasts and are living big beautiful lives! Maybe their parent or parents gave them up for adoption and no one ever had reason to test them for Jax because they showed no ill effects!” Her chest heaved. “You ever think of that?”

“It’s not realistic.” Too hopeful, too much a thing of raw want.

Soleil’s lips twitched, and then she was laughing—but it held a dangerous edge. Claws digging into his shoulders, she leaned in close. “You currently have a cat in residence in your head. I’ll eat that spider alive if I have to. Don’t you talk to me about realistic.”

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