Free Zero to Love by Em Petrova

flooded her system, and he groaned.
    After reaching for the hem of the T-shirt that hung to her knees, he ruched it upward over her bare ass, belly, breasts. He tossed it to the floor, where it lay like a deflated balloon.
    She threaded her fingers into the longer hair at his nape and drew his mouth down to hers. If her mind was indeed empty, she was determined to fill it up with as many memories of him as possible.
    * * * *
    Monroe strode across the town square, plucking stupid food from the atmosphere. Mr. Furry Paws on the counter this morning… Toenail polish is chipped…
    He scraped his fingers through his hair, still feeling Magda’s touch to the marrow of his bones. After having her in his bed all day, his mind wouldn’t let her go. He could still taste her musky sex on his lips as well as the honey of her emotion. Fuck, to taste her mind…
    Keefe had better keep his goddamn feelers to himself.
    As Magda had walked down the sidewalk to the front door of her house, Keefe had slunk from the shadows to Monroe’s side. On the front stoop, she’d turned around to look at them.
    Immediately Keefe had reached out for her thoughts. As the rumble of rage built in Monroe’s chest, his friend snapped his powers back.
    “You’re right, man. I can’t lay a feeler on her.”
    “Good, and don’t fucking try again. Just do your job and keep the Free Wills from her.”
    But once she was in her bedroom with the thought catcher, not a Mindchanger on the planet could hear her. She was off the radar.
    It drove Monroe wild. Just knowing she was out there in the city, her mind ticking, brought him ease. But the minute she was with that thought catcher—it was as if she didn’t exist anymore.
    He kept to the shadows as he moved down the sidewalk. The city was quiet tonight. He’d been to the park and found it vacant aside from a few lovers entwined on metal benches. The Free Wills wouldn’t be prowling the park anyway, and he wasn’t going to hide behind a tree and uncover their plans.
    He scoured an alley as he passed. No human or Mindchanger there. Just a rat scuttling back and forth from a dropped sandwich to its hiding place.
    His thoughts returned to Magda. If he wanted, he could send out his mind and zero in on her father. Were they having that conversation? If so, they must be in her bedroom—not a tinkle of her thoughts reverberated within Monroe.
    Swallowing hard against the urge to growl his frustration, he tried to focus on his task. Weeks ago, a Mindchanger elder named Van Es had appeared at Monroe’s shop and set him on his task.
    The city was plagued by Free Wills. Every day the Mindchangers lost more of the good people of their race to the evil renegades who promised more food. Just how they planned to draw more humans into the city was beyond him, though. Beyond Van Es too, which was why he asked Monroe to find out.
    The task was harder than Monroe had ever dreamed, especially now that he had Magda to consider. In a short time, protecting her had become his sole mission.
    How had it happened? One minute he was trying to scrounge some boring thought from her to provide him energy, and the next, she was right there —deep in the center of his heart.
    After raising a hand, he rubbed the spot. Wrong of him to drag her into the dark underworld of the Mindchangers, yet what choice did he have?
    I had a choice not to tell her about the spying.
    He pressed his lips together. The last thing he should have told her was that. If a Free Will got her down and ripped the thought from her, Monroe had massive problems on his hands. Once the Free Wills discovered the Mindchangers were searching for their weakness and a way to toss them out of Helgedom, a full-blown war would result.
    And Magda would be caught in the middle, a pawn.
    But some instinct told him that if there ever was a safe place to store this information, it was in Magda’s mind. After all, the corners of her brain were fogged. Snippets of thought and