Silver Silence Read online

  Berkley titles by Nalini Singh

  Psy-Changeling Series SLAVE TO SENSATION

  VISIONS OF HEAT

  CARESSED BY ICE

  MINE TO POSSESS

  HOSTAGE TO PLEASURE

  BRANDED BY FIRE

  BLAZE OF MEMORY

  BONDS OF JUSTICE

  PLAY OF PASSION

  KISS OF SNOW

  TANGLE OF NEED

  HEART OF OBSIDIAN

  SHIELD OF WINTER

  SHARDS OF HOPE

  ALLEGIANCE OF HONOR

  SILVER SILENCE

  Guild Hunter Series ANGELS' BLOOD

  ARCHANGEL'S KISS

  ARCHANGEL'S CONSORT

  ARCHANGEL'S BLADE

  ARCHANGEL'S STORM

  ARCHANGEL'S LEGION

  ARCHANGEL'S SHADOWS

  ARCHANGEL'S ENIGMA ARCHANGEL'S HEART

  Anthologies

  AN ENCHANTED SEASON

  (with Maggie Shayne, Erin McCarthy, and Jean Johnson) THE MAGICAL CHRISTMAS CAT

  (with Lora Leigh, Erin McCarthy, and Linda Winstead Jones) MUST LOVE HELLHOUNDS

  (with Charlaine Harris, Ilona Andrews, and Meljean Brook) BURNING UP

  (with Angela Knight, Virginia Kantra, and Meljean Brook) ANGELS OF DARKNESS

  (with Ilona Andrews, Meljean Brook, and Sharon Shinn) ANGELS' FLIGHT

  WILD INVITATION

  NIGHT SHIFT

  (with Ilona Andrews, Lisa Shearin, and Milla Vane) WILD EMBRACE

  Specials

  ANGELS' PAWN

  ANGELS' DANCE

  TEXTURE OF INTIMACY

  DECLARATION OF COURTSHIP

  WHISPER OF SIN

  SECRETS AT MIDNIGHT

  BERKLEY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright (c) 2017 by Nalini Singh

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY is a registered trademark and the B colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Singh, Nalini, 1977-author.

  Title: Silver silence : a Psy-changeling trinity novel / Nalini Singh.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Berkley, 2017.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016058705 (print) | LCCN 2017006109 (ebook) |

  ISBN 9781101987797 (hardback) | ISBN 9781101987810 (ebook) Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Romance Paranormal. | FICTION Fantasy /

  Paranormal. | GSAFD: Romantic suspense fiction. | Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PR9639.4.S566 S57 2017 (print) | LCC PR9639.4.S566 (ebook) |

  DDC 823/.92--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016058705

  First Edition: June 2017

  Cover illustration by Tony Mauro

  Cover design by Rita Frangie

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Berkley titles by Nalini Singh

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Age of Trinity

  PART 1 Chapter 1

  The Human Patriot

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  The Human Alpha

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  The Human Patriot

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  The Human Alpha

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  The Human Patriot

  Chapter 17

  The Unknown Architect

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  The Ruling Coalition of the Psy

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  The Human Alpha

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  The Human Patriot

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  PART 2 The Human Alpha

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  The Unknown Architect

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  The Human Alliance

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Shadows

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Age of Trinity

  OCTOBER 2082 IS a new beginning.

  Psy, human, and changeling, all three races have agreed to work together to unite their divided world.

  The Trinity Accord is the fragile foundation of all their hopes and dreams of a future without war, without violence, without shattering loss.

  It is a noble ambition.

  But the past is not an old coat that can be discarded and forgotten.

  It is a scent that clings and clings and clings.

  That scent is of blood and betrayal and a chilling, emotionless Silence.

  The psychically gifted Psy seek to feel emotion for the first time in over a hundred years.

  Changelings with their primal hearts fight their natural instinct to trust only pack, only clan.

  Humans look to the future with a grim-eyed determination to no longer be the weakest race.

  And others . . . they seek to spread chaos and death and division.

  Welcome to the Age of Trinity.

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  To be a Mercant is to be a shadow that moves with will, with intelligence, with pitiless precision.

  --Ena Mercant (circa 2057)

  SILVER MERCANT BELIEVED in control. It was what made her so good at what she did--she was never caught by surprise. She prepared for everything. Unfortunately, it was impossible to prepare for the heavily muscled man standing at her apartment door.

  "How did you get in?" she asked in Russian, making sure to stand front and center in the doorway so he wouldn't forget this was her territory.

  Bears had a habit of just pushing everything out of their way.

  This bear shrugged his broad shoulders where he leaned up against the side of her doorjamb. "I asked nicely," he replied in the same language.

  "I live in the most secure building in central Moscow." Silver stared at that square-jawed face with its honey-dark skin. It wasn't a tan. Valentin Nikolaev retained the shade in winter, got darker in summer. "And," she added, "building security is made up of former soldiers who don't understand the word 'nice.'" One of those soldiers was a Mercant. No one talked their way past a Mercant.

  Except for this man. This wasn't the first time he'd appeared on her doo
rstep on the thirty-fourth floor of this building.

  "I have a special charm," Valentin responded, his big body blocking out the light and his deep smile settling into familiar grooves in his cheeks, his hair an inky black that was so messy she wondered if he even owned a comb. That hair appeared as if it might have a silken texture, in stark contrast to the harsh angles of his face.

  No part of him was tense, his body as lazy limbed as a cat's.

  She knew he was trying to appear harmless, but she wasn't an idiot. Despite her offensive and defensive training, the alpha of the StoneWater clan could crush her like a bug, physically speaking. He had too much brawn, too much strength for her to beat him without a weapon. So it was good that Silver's mind was a ruthless weapon.

  "Why did you need to see me at seven in the morning?" she asked, because it was clear he wasn't going to tell her how he kept getting past her security.

  He extended a hand on which sat a data crystal. "The clan promised EmNet a breakdown of the small incidents we've handled over the past three months."

  Those "small incidents" were times when Psy, humans, or non-clan changelings needed assistance in the area controlled by StoneWater--or elsewhere, when members of the bear clan were close enough to help. As the director of the worldwide Emergency Response Network run under the aegis of the Trinity Accord, Silver was the one who coordinated all available resources--and in this part of the world, that included the StoneWater bears.

  Of course, she had no ability to order them to do anything--trying that on a predatory changeling was an exercise in abject failure. But she could ask. So far, the bears had always come through. The data crystal would tell her how many clan members and/or other resources had been required to manage each instance; it would help her fine-tune her requests in the future.

  She took the crystal, not bothering to ask why the alpha of the clan had turned up to personally deliver the data.

  Valentin liked to do things his way.

  "Why does Selenka let you get away with breaching her territory?" The BlackEdge wolves had control over this part of Moscow when it came to changeling access. The city was split evenly between the wolf pack and the bear clan, with the rest of their respective territories heading outward from that central dividing line.

  This apartment building fell in the wolf half.

  Valentin smiled, night-dark eyes alight in a way she couldn't describe. "StoneWater and BlackEdge are friends now."

  If Silver had felt emotion, she may have made a face of sheer disbelief. The two most powerful packs in Russia had a working relationship and no longer clashed in violent confrontations, but they were not friends. "I see," she said, refusing to look away from those onyx eyes.

  Predatory changelings sometimes took a lack of eye contact as submissive behavior, even when interacting with non-changelings. Bears definitely took it as submissive behavior. They weren't exactly subtle about it, either. In fact, bears were the least subtle of the changelings she'd met through her work as Kaleb Krychek's senior aide, and as the head of EmNet.

  "What do you see, Starlight?" Valentin asked in his deep rumble of a voice that spoke of the animal that lived under his skin.

  Silver refused to react to the name he insisted on calling her. When she'd pointed out he was being discourteous by not using her actual name, he'd told her to call him her medvezhonok, her teddy bear, that he wouldn't mind. It was difficult to have a rational conversation with a man who seemed impossible to insult or freeze out.

  Bears.

  She'd heard Selenka Durev say that through tightly clenched teeth on more than one occasion. While Silver's conditioning under the Silence Protocol remained pristine, her mind clear of all emotion, in the time she'd known Valentin, she'd come to understand the wolf alpha's reaction. "Thank you for the data," she said to him now. "Next time, you might wish to consider an invention we in the civilized world call e-mail."

  His laugh was so big it filled the air, filled the entire space of her apartment.

  The thought made no sense, yet it appeared like clockwork when Valentin laughed in her vicinity. She'd told herself multiple times that she worked for the most powerful man in the world; Valentin was only a changeling alpha. Unfortunately, it appeared changeling alphas had their own potent brand of charisma. And this bear alpha had a surfeit of it.

  "Have you thought about my offer?" he asked, the laughter still in his eyes.

  "The answer remains the same," Silver said as a burn spread through her chest. "I do not wish to go have ice cream with you."

  "It's really good ice cream." Smile disappearing, Valentin suddenly shifted fully upright from his leaning position against the doorjamb, the size and muscle of him dangerously apparent. "You doing okay?"

  "Quite fine," Silver said, even as the burn morphed into a jagged spike. Something was wrong. She had to contact--

  Her brain shorted out. She was aware of her body beginning to spasm, her lungs gasping for air as her legs crumpled, but she couldn't get her telepathic "muscles" to work, couldn't contact her family or Kaleb for an emergency teleport.

  *

  MOVING far faster than most people expected bear changelings to move, Valentin caught Silver's slender body before she'd done much more than sway on those ice-pick heels she liked to wear. He knew it wasn't the heels that were toppling her; Silver was never in any danger on those heels. The woman walked on them like he walked on his "bigfoot-sized" feet, as described by one of his three older sisters.

  "I've got you, Starlight," he said, scooping her up in his arms and walking into her apartment.

  He'd been trying to get in for ten long months, ever since he first met Ms. Silver Mercant. But he'd never expected it to be because she was convulsing in his arms. Placing her on the dark gray of the sofa, he turned her onto her side and gripped her jaw to keep her head from jerking too hard. At least she was breathing, though the sound was ragged.

  With his other hand, he grabbed his phone, went to call Kaleb Krychek. The viciously powerful telekinetic could get her to help far faster than any ambulance. But Silver's body was spasming too violently for him to both hold the phone and keep her from hurting herself. Swearing under his breath, he dropped the phone and placed his other hand on her hip, holding her in place.

  "Not how I wanted to put my hands on you, moyo solnyshko." He kept talking so she'd know she wasn't alone, but his blood was chilling with every second that passed. It was going on too long.

  Deciding to risk it, he released her hip and, snatching up his phone, managed to make the call. "Silver's apartment," he said to the pitiless son of a bitch who was Silver's boss. "Medical emergency."

  He dropped the phone as Silver jerked again. "Hold on, Starlight," he ordered in his most obnoxiously alpha voice, trying to keep her body from wrenching painfully at the same time. If Silver was going to respond to anything, it would be to the idea that he'd dared give her an order. "You're tougher than this."

  Her eyes, that glorious silver, met his, the pupils huge . . . right before her body went limp.

  Kaleb appeared in the room at the same instant, the Psy male dressed in a flawless black-on-black suit. "What happened?" he asked, his voice as cold as midnight on the steppes.

  "Get her to a doctor," Valentin growled, the sound coming from the human male's vocal cords but carrying the bear's rage. "Tell them it was poison."

  Kaleb was smart enough not to waste time questioning him. He simply teleported out, taking Silver with him. Teeth gritted at the fact she was out of his sight, Valentin got up and, going into Silver's kitchen, began to pull out anything that could be food. Psy had strange ideas of food--meal bars and nutrient mixes. The only surprise in Silver's cupboard was a block of fine dark chocolate.

  Wondering if he'd discovered a secret about the most fascinating woman he'd ever met, a secret he could use to sneak past her defenses--no, he had no shame whatsoever when it came to Silver Mercant--he turned over the block and found a small card still attached to it. The writing
was in English. It said: Thank you for your assistance, Ms. Mercant. I hope you enjoy this small taste of our family business. ~Rico Cavalier

  His bear rumbled inside his chest.

  This was the kind of gift a man gave a woman he was interested in--but it looked like this Rico had struck out if the chocolate was sitting in the back of what passed for Silver's pantry.

  Good. Otherwise, I'd have had to pound the fool into dust.

  The only one courting Starlight was going to be Valentin.

  Having collected all possible food items, including some bland-looking "cake" from the cooler that was probably a nutrient-dense protein supplement, he began to go through them. Changelings had the sharpest noses of the three races.

  Bears had the sharpest noses among changelings.

  Nothing would escape him now that he'd pinpointed the poisonous scent from the millions of others in the air at any one time: the exemplar had come from Silver, her body screaming a warning to his senses as the poison went active.

  "Hungry, Alpha Nikolaev?"

  He didn't start at Krychek's midnight voice, having scented the cardinal telekinetic's return to the room. Thankfully for his nose, Kaleb didn't have the astringent metallic scent that some Psy did, the ones who were so deep in the emotionless regime they called Silence that Valentin didn't think anything would get them out.

  It was as if they'd cut out their hearts and souls.

  Silver was pure ice, but she didn't have that metallic scent, either. It gave him hope. As did the faint touch of fire he kept picking up around her, a hidden sunshine that flickered against his skin. Valentin was determined to seduce Silver's hidden wildness out into the light. Who better than an uncivilized bear, after all?

  "How is she?" he asked, looking Krychek in the eye.

  The telekinetic's gaze was the eerie white stars on black that denoted the strongest among the Psy race, difficult to read even if it hadn't been Kaleb Krychek--a man Valentin respected for his relentless will but mostly for his unexpected capacity for loyalty.

  StoneWater did its research on possible business partners. Valentin, a young second to Zoya at the time Krychek first appeared on StoneWater's radar, was the one who'd dug into the Psy male. And what he'd discovered about Krychek was that if you didn't betray him, he wouldn't betray you.

  Valentin could work with a man like that.

  Especially since Krychek had had the good sense to employ Silver.

  The words the telekinetic spoke were toneless. "The medics are working on stabilizing her."

  Valentin's gut clenched.

  A deep rumbling building in his chest, he held out a barely used jar of nutrient mix. "This has the same toxic scent as what I scented on her--get it tested. I'm going to finish checking the other items."