Exclusive Excerpt from RESONANCE SURGE by Nalini Singh
Yakov stepped back. “Guess I’m jumping the gate after all.”
Theo’s entire body tensed, her gaze jerking to the spikes, then back to him. Her hand lifted on the instinctive urge to grab him, stop him.
“Hey.” Eyes kissed by amber meeting Theo’s. “Bears aren’t as clumsy as we look. We only run into things fifty percent of the time.”
“Be careful of the spikes.” Theo didn’t realize she’d risen onto her toes until she settled back down. “They aren’t decoration and you are a bear. My source on changelings states that bears constantly overestimate their ability to be graceful.” He didn’t need to know that her source was Wild Woman magazine.
A sudden grin from Yakov that made her stomach clench. “Watch this,” he said, then jogged back several meters before running full tilt at the gate.
Her mouth fell open as he hauled himself up with a power and speed she’d never have expected from a bear changeling. Close to the top, he all but vaulted over the spikes and came to a firm landing on both feet on the grassy and cracked drive on the other side.
Wild Woman didn’t know what it was talking about! She had half a mind to write a letter to the editor demanding a retraction of the slander against bears. But the magazine had been right when it had called bears “an arsenal of brute power.” Yakov clearly had muscles atop muscles.
Her heart was still thumping when he began to slide open the bars that acted as deadbolts, his biceps flexing and the veins in his forearms standing out against the burnished brown of his skin. That took enough time that she had some control over herself when he opened one side of the gate. It was big enough to drive through.
“I’ll drive in,” he said, jogging back out, “then we should lock things up. There’s a reason security is stringent—we don’t want to risk others coming in, or getting out. For all we know, this place was hidden because it’s where your grandfather housed dangerous criminals he had a use for.”
Nodding, she stood where she was with her gut churning as he drove the vehicle inside. It took every inch of courage she possessed to make her feet move to the gate, but she couldn’t cross the boundary between the outside world and whatever lay beyond.
Getting out of the vehicle on the other side, Yakov jogged back to her . . . and then he held out his hand. “Take your time, pchelka. This place isn’t going anywhere.”
“Did you just call me a little bee?” It came out a startled question, her voice strangled with a fear that infuriated her. She’d fought this, had won. She’d refused to be scared anymore, and in so doing, she’d stolen her grandfather’s power.
A slow smile by the bear in front of her, followed by a wink. “You must’ve misheard . . . zaichik.”
It had been rabbit . . . no, little hare, that time.
Bears.
And somehow, her fingers were touching his, and then she was sliding her hand into his and gripping with bruising strength as she forced her feet to cross the invisible dividing line between the outside and . . . this terrible, dark place behind heavy metal gates.
She would not let a long-dead monster defeat her.
Yakov’s body so close to her, his breath brushing her earlobe as he said, “Not mishonok, I think. Not for a woman with a spine so fucking strong.”
Mouse, she translated inside her head. He refused to call her a mouse, even in jest. And . . . it meant something. As it meant something that he stood there with her hand locked around the rough warmth of his until she could make herself let go. Even then, he ran his knuckles over her back in an act of comfort before he turned to close the gate.
The sound of the deadbolts sliding home made her flinch.
“You’re doing great, Thela.” A murmur far too close to her, the heat of his body pressing against her chilled skin.
Thela. Not Theo. He’d altered her name in a way that her language lessons told her was familiar, friendly. Such a Russian thing to do. The implied acceptance left her shaken. “What do your friends call you?”
“Yasha,” he said. “My mother calls me Yakov Mayakovskevich Stepyrev when she’s about to give me a scolding, but otherwise, it’s Yashka. My babushka Quyen calls me Mischief Bear One. You can call me Gorgeous.”
No one in her entire life had ever spoken to her this way. So open and warm and amused. And that was when she realized she was gripping his hand again, and he was letting her. “How about Trouble?” she shoved out past the cold fear that crushed her throat with a skeletal hand.
Because Theo wasn’t about to surrender to evil.
Not then. Not now. Not ever.
A grin that revealed those dimples that were weapons of bearish distraction—and the antithesis of evil. “You honor me.”
Copyright © 2023 by Nalini Singh
RESONANCE SURGE by Nalini Singh
Where are the broken? That is the propulsive question that unleashes a world of secrets in New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh’s Resonance Surge . . .
StoneWater bears Pavel and Yakov Stepyrev have been a unit since birth, but now Pavel’s life is veering in a new direction, his heart held in the hands of Arwen Mercant, a Psy empath—and the only man who has ever brought Pavel to his knees.
This is it. A point of irrevocable change. For Pavel . . . for Arwen . . . for Yakov . . . and for another pair of twins whose bond has a far darker history.
A low-Gradient Psy, Theodora Marshall is considered worthless by everyone but her violently powerful twin, Pax. She is the sole person he trusts in their venomous family to investigate a hidden and terrible part of their family history – an unregistered rehabilitation Center established by their grandfather.
Places of unimaginable pain designed to psychically wipe minds, leaving the victims shells of their former selves, the Centers are an ugly vestige of the Psy race’s Silent past. But this Center was worse. Far, far worse. And now Theo must uncover the awful truth – in the company of a scowling bear named Yakov, who isn’t about to take a Marshall at face value . . . especially a Marshall who has turned his dreams into chilling nightmares.
Because Yakov is the great-grandson of a foreseer . . . and he has seen Theo die in an unstoppable surge of blood. Night after night after night . . .
Paranormal | Romance Fantasy [Berkley, On Sale: July 18, 2023, Hardcover, ISBN: 9780593440704 / ]
He will change both their dreams!
Nalini Singh delivers a compelling and thrilling paranormal romance
Shapeshifter bear twins pair up with powerful Psy mates
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About Nalini Singh
Born in Fiji and raised in New Zealand, Nalini has been writing as long as she can remember. Her stories always held a thread of romance (even when she was writing about a prince who could shoot lasers out of his eyes). She loves creating unique characters, loves giving them happy endings and she even loves the voices in her head. There’s no other job she would rather be doing.
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