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…there are millions of humans who…wake up knowing that today might be the day an invisible hand reaches in and rapes their mind.”

Adam felt Eleri go limp under him; not wanting to break contact, wanting to just hold on, he nonetheless laid her gently back down on the bed. He’d lifted her off it at some stage without realizing, pressing her body to his own.

Your wings are already under enormous strain.

How extraordinary that she’d seen his attempt to protect as shielding her with his wings.

And how devastating to know that she’d been right.

Because he’d felt them break, too, felt the clan’s energy pour back into him as either her mind repudiated it, or it reached a critical point where it had nowhere else to go.

A rustle at his back, a nurse walking in. “Her vitals spiked,” she said.

“Eleri was awake for a minute or two,” he said and made sure the blanket he’d brought her from his bed at the den was warm and cozy around her.

The falcon sense of smell might not be their greatest asset, but like humans, they could tell when they were wrapped in the scent of a person they loved and were loved by in turn.

“Fully conscious and coherent,” he told the nurse. “But she couldn’t hold on to a shield.”

The nurse’s mouth tightened. “Did she exhibit signs of acute distress?”

His mind flashed back to Eleri’s fingers clenching possessively in his hair, her lips parting with eagerness under his, her leg rising as if she wanted to make space for him between her thighs. “No,” he said. “A hint right at the start before I threw clan energy at her.”

The medical staff here knew that Eleri was blood-bonded to him, that changeling “psychic” ability no longer a secret after they’d blood-bonded so many Psy children into their packs and clans.

“How long was she able to maintain with your assistance?”

“A minute. Ninety seconds at most.” A lifetime.

The nurse made a notation on the chart, and though her manner remained crisp, she had a softness to her eyes as she said, “It’s more than anyone expected.”

Adam barely heard her, his falcon clutching fiercely at the last words Eleri had said: I’m not ready to go yet, Adam.

As far as he was concerned, she’d just torn up her good-bye letter and given him permission to go full throttle on attempting to save her life. Because if she could wake once, then she could wake again. Next time around, they’d talk solutions. Because Adam wasn’t done with kissing his mate.

···

Lucas’s call came the next morning, an hour after Adam landed back at the Canyon.

For now, his nights were Eleri’s, his days WindHaven’s.

“I’m sorry, Adam,” the leopard alpha said. “Consensus is that while you might be able to help Eleri maintain a shield for a short period, you can’t project one over her mind, not even if she mates with you. The shield she’s lost is a fundamentally Psy thing, to be created from the inside out.”

“I know.” Adam told the alpha about Eleri’s short waking.

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Adam paced the plateau, letting the sunlight fill him with energy. “Your group came up with the right answer, which means they must have other answers. How about an artificial shield?”

“We’ve never attempted to create one for a Psy,” Lucas said, “but Ashaya’s been involved in attempting to build a shield to protect human minds against Psy interference.”

All attempts at artificial shields so far have failed.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Adam said, “I’ve heard those attempts have failed,” and he wanted Lucas to tell him that his intel was wrong, that someone had succeeded.

When Lucas confirmed the bleak truth, he opened his eyes to the beauty of his clan, the sky awash in reds and yellows, three falcons circling lazily against the horizon as the hungry cries of the littlest birds woke their parents.

Eleri would love this.

“My sister’s attempting a shield, too,” he said, determined that he’d stand here with his mate one day soon. “Working in isolation from all other ideas. One of Eleri’s colleagues suggested we leave it that way.”

If Lucas was startled that an aeronautical engineer was leading this task, he didn’t reveal it.

“It’s good advice,” he said. “Ashaya’s asking the same of any scientists who come onboard—her take is that if they feed off each other, they risk making the same errors, or risk becoming locked in a singular loop of thought.

She’s even scratched her own previous concept and started again from an entirely new angle. ”

“What’s Ashaya’s Psy ability?” Adam mostly dealt with Lucas or one of the sentinels, so hadn’t had any reason to speak in depth with the scientist.

“M,” Lucas said. “Specialization in DNA. She was one of the Council’s top experimental medical scientists, remains the best of the best in her field now she’s doing independent work.”

They ended the call soon afterward, and Adam kept on pacing, kept on thinking. An M-Psy, one who worked on the DNA level, had failed to create a workable shield. Yet he’d demanded his sister do it. Saoirse was at a massive disadvantage.

…her take is that if they feed off each other, they…risk becoming locked in a singular loop of thought.

Where would an M start? Inside the body. Inside the mind.

He rang Saoirse, not knowing if she was at the Canyon or at the facility. “Chirp,” he said when she picked up. “I have an idea about your shield.”

No jokes about him being an engineer all at once, no sisterly digs. Because Saoirse knew what Eleri was to him. “Hit me.”

“Don’t attempt to create anything for inside Eleri’s brain.”

“Are you a foreseer now?” she muttered. “One of the concepts I came up with last night while Amir glared at me anytime I stopped eating—as did our own daughter who I carried in my womb, I should add—is an embed. I planned to talk to the doctor treating Eleri about it.”

“Malia and Amir both know you forget to eat when deep in work,” Adam said with a brotherly scowl. “They need to glare. And I don’t think you should put the embed on your list.”

He told her about Eleri coming to consciousness.

“I’m connected to her directly through the blood bond”—it wasn’t a mating bond but it was powerful nonetheless—“and I couldn’t make the shield hold beyond a minute.

For that to work, Eleri needs the building blocks, and those building blocks are gone. ”

Dr. Czajka had been clear on that point when he’d spoken to her last night. “Focus on the outside. Like you do with jetcraft.”

“Eleri isn’t a machine.” He could hear the scowl in her voice. “But your reasoning makes logical sense. I’m going to take this to my crew—wouldn’t it be something if a bunch of jet nerds came up with an answer that’s eluded the Psy race all this time?”

Adam didn’t say it out loud, but he knew why it had—because the Council had just used up those like the Js, pushing them to the point that they eliminated themselves from the equation. Fixing the damage had never been on the agenda; “used-up” Js were of no value to the Council.

Adam’s falcon stirred, its feathers a shadow skin beneath his human form.

No one was ever again going to use his J.