Blaze of Memory by Nalini Singh

aware of was his heartbeat.
     
     
     
    Dev brushed Katya’s hair off her cheek and studied her sleeping face, his eyes lingering on the lush sweetness of her mouth. Hunger and innocence, it was one hell of a potent combination. His body surged at the memory, defying his efforts to keep it under control. Gritting his teeth, he sought out all the metal in the house.
    The cool kiss of iron and steel brushed his mind, invaded his limbs. It wouldn’t last long, not with Katya’s slight form resting trustingly against him—but he’d use the calm while he had it, see if he could find answers to some of his questions in the ShadowNet. He’d heard stories of the PsyNet, that it was an endless field of black littered with millions of white stars, each star representing a mind, but it was a concept he had trouble understanding.
    How could minds remain completely separate?
    Closing his physical eyes, he opened a psychic gateway and stepped out into the organized chaos of the ShadowNet. Given their comparatively small numbers, the “skies” of this psychic network were stretched thin in comparison to the endless breadth of the PsyNet, but it was a riot of color, of connections.
    From where he stood, he could see the solid threads that tied him to both sets of grandparents—his bond with his maternal grandmother was the strongest, but he was linked indelibly to all four, and the two couples were also connected to each other, though those links were much weaker. More threads linked him to uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, some thin, some strong, some on the verge of breaking.
    And then, there was the strange, almost invisible dark thread that tied him to his father.
    All the crisscrossing bonds made the ShadowNet a busy place to navigate. Most people tended to follow the lines of connection until they found the person they wanted—sometimes even then, the lines were so tangled that it took a few tries to locate the right thread. But the one that Dev wanted stood out like a beacon—bright silver and tough as titanium.
    His maternal grandmother took no shit from anyone.
    Smiling inside at the thought of the woman he’d loved since the day he’d first opened his eyes and seen her watching over him, he shot along the silver thread and “knocked” on the door to her mind. She responded a moment later. Conversation in the ShadowNet itself was difficult because of the amount of psychic “noise,” so they both hooked into the emotional line that connected them, creating a direct conduit for speech—and affording unbreachable privacy.
    “Devraj.” His grandmother’s energy was strong, beautiful, carrying within it the echoes of incense and spice, silica and molten heat. “A little late to come calling, beta .”
    Only his grandmother ever called him “beloved child” in the language of his mother. “I figured you’d be up working on your designs.”
    “The glass is becoming more and more stubborn with age. Today, I meant to finish a stained glass window except the red refused to cooperate. It turned orange instead.”
    He was used to the way she spoke of her precious glass as if it were a sentient being. “You still haven’t sent me my birthday present.”
    “Cheeky boy.” A psychic brush against his mind, an affectionate kiss on his forehead. “You’ll get what’s coming to you.”
    He laughed, and it was perhaps the only time he ever truly did that anymore—with her, the woman who’d loved him even when he’d hated himself. “Nani,” he said, using the Hindi word for maternal grandmother, “I need some advice.”
    “You’ve been walking a lonely path these past few years . ”
    “Yes.” He’d never lied to his grandmother. Perhaps he’d withheld his darkest secrets, but he’d never lied.
    “The metal—I know it kept you sane at a time when another child might’ve broken,” she said, the warmth of her love a gentle wind across his senses, “but you must see what it’s doing to you.”
    It was,