by Nalini Singh
Wanting to test herself, she stood, too. Her legs trembled, but held. “I should probably have specialist help,” she murmured, simply to see how he would respond, this man who let her wander the house at will, who protected her mind, who gave her the tools to gain knowledge about the world—but who alarmed the doors so she couldn’t leave.
“Would you like to speak to someone from Psy-Med?”
Startled, she stared at him. “If I say yes?”
“I’ll make sure you have access to the best specialists in the world.”
She couldn’t judge him, she realized with a sense of despair out of all proportion to the topic of conversation and the fleeting time she’d known him. He gave off none of the physical or vocal clues that even other Psy did, his control honed to an impossible edge. “How? By taking someone else captive?”
A steady look. “No one speaks my secrets.”
Sucking in a breath at the sheer, terrifying emotionlessness of his statement, she shook her head. “I don’t want the terror of another living being”—Silent or not—“on my conscience.”
His stillness was suddenly so absolute, she’d have believed herself alone if she hadn’t been able to see him in front of her. “There are other ways.”
She wanted desperately to believe he was attempting to compromise, that he wasn’t the cold-blooded murderer the articles had made him out to be. The vicious depth of her need scared her to the bone—she didn’t need a specialist to tell her the compulsion she felt toward Kaleb was unhealthy and could turn deadly.
“I’m not ready yet.” After years of having her mind splayed open, she couldn’t bear the idea of anyone else attempting to divine her secrets. “All I want,” she whispered to her jailer, “is to be free.”
Kaleb’s lashes came down, the world fragmented for a single split second, and then she was standing on the shimmering black sands of a windswept beach, not another being in sight for what appeared to be miles in every direction; the rolling sand dunes to her right home to hardy grasses that waved in the breeze. On her other side, water danced gently to shore, leaving graceful ripples in the sand, the sea foam wild lace entangled with tiny shells that sparkled under the yellow-orange sunlight of late afternoon.
“Is this real?” she whispered, afraid he’d created an illusion inside her mind, one so detailed she could even feel the salt-laced wind against her lips.
“Pain is the best indicator of whether something is an illusion or reality.”
She recognized the words from a childhood lesson, one taught to all Psy children.
Reaching up, she pinched the sensitive flesh at the back of her arm, winced. Then she smiled and, turning, kicked off her shoes to curl her feet into the sun-warmed grains that weren’t truly black at all, but an amalgam of colors that shimmered in the light.
She knew this wasn’t freedom, not when Kaleb stood by the nearest dune, silent and watchful, but to a girl who’d come to womanhood in a cage, it was enough for this sunshine-drenched instant. She would enjoy the beautiful now and worry about the future after drinking of happiness.
Running forward, she spread her arms and spun around in circles, the sky a shattering blue overhead, the sun’s caress languid against her skin, the sand sugar-fine between her toes. She laughed and laughed, and when she was finally too dizzy to spin anymore, she collapsed on the heated softness of the sand to see that Kaleb had taken a seat at the foot of a dune, his arms braced loosely on his knees, his no-doubt expensive suit utterly out of place in this wilderness untouched by the hand of man.
And yet . . . he fit.
It was nothing she could’ve ever predicted, but Kaleb Krychek fit here in this wild place, where the sea held the promise of fury even in the calm and the wind stroked possessively through the grasses, tugging at her hair, his own. He appeared as much a part of the landscape as the dunes and the water . . . and as isolated, as alone.
Frowning when she realized her eyes were lingering on him, her thoughts once more circling back to her captor, she got up and started to walk toward the cliffs in the distance. They stayed remote though she must’ve walked for an hour, but the peace of the water, the lap of the waves, the salt in her every breath, it was better therapy than any invasive Psy-Med exam.
She stopped only when her body protested the unaccustomed level of exercise. Looking back, she could see Kaleb waiting with a patience that somehow did nothing to mute the power of him, but she knew she couldn’t make it back to him, her body almost at its limit. Her heart, however, wasn’t yet full enough, her skin still soaking in this dramatic, haunting part of the world far from the morning skies of Moscow.
Tucking back a flyaway strand of hair, she sat down on the sand, her arms around her knees in an echo of Kaleb’s position, her mind in turns frustrated and fascinated by the enigma of him. There was something not quite right about this captivity, something not quite right about Kaleb’s behavior. She’d been imprisoned for over seven years, knew the difference between a cage and . . . whatever this was.
“You belong to me.”
An unambiguous statement of ownership that told her he’d come after her if she attempted to escape. Yet so far, he’d given her every other thing she’d requested. It could be a clever ploy meant to cause exactly the confusion that had her so off balance, but that didn’t explain why her own mind was split in two on the subject of Kaleb Krychek.
Even now, she fought the wrenching need to go to him, touch her skin to his.
So long, it had been so long.
Accessing the telepathic channel between them, a channel that had been open on his end since he’d found her, she stretched out a hand into the darkness. Would you like to sit with me? It disturbed her to see him so alone.
He was seated beside her a second later, his eyes on the heavier waves rolling in to shore as the tide began to come in, the foam kissing the sand a meter in front of their feet. “You like the sea.”
“I always have,” she said, able to feel the heat of his bigger body in spite of the inches that separated them. “When I was first put in a cell, I used to imagine the motion and the breadth of the sea to keep myself calm.”
Kaleb’s eyes on her profile, potent as a touch. “You remember everything about the years you were held captive?”
“No,” she whispered, refusing to turn, uncertain she could resist the need that drew her to him, “there are gaps.” Almost, she told him about the irreversible damage done before the labyrinth, when she hadn’t understood the cost demanded by her ability.
“And before?” he asked. “Do you recall the first sixteen years of your life?”
“Not all of it.” However, she had the sense that those missing pieces weren’t permanent. “I’ll remember when I’m read—” She broke off as Kaleb rose to his feet without warning, reaching down to pull her up at the same time.
They were back on the terrace before she could do more than take a breath. Gasping, she swayed, would’ve stumbled if he hadn’t steadied her. “Kaleb? What is it?” she asked, gripping at his upper arms.
But he was already gone, leaving her holding on to air.
Chapter 10
KALEB FOUND HIMSELF surrounded by chaos, screams shattering the early morning hush in Copenhagen. The rescue workers who’d already made it to the scene shouted for people to clear the area, their Danish rapid, fire crews rushing to stifle the flames. However, no one approached Kaleb where he stood in front of the apartment building that had collapsed in on one side from the force of the explosive device, clouds of dust lingering in the air as flames blew out windows to shower bystanders with splinters that sliced and cut.
The building was an ordinary one, filled with ordinary people—but for one thing. It was—had been?—home to a scholar working on a thesis that challenged the Adelajas’ original theories and proofs on the value of Silence. The scholar’s focus had been on the well-disguised disappearance of the Adelajas’ twin sons, known as the “firsts,” on which the couple had based their en
tire theory that conditioning emotion out of the Psy would save them from the insanity and violence that threatened to destroy their race.
Kaleb knew that because the NetMind and DarkMind told him everything that might impact the Net—as they’d told him of this explosion—but if this was a Pure Psy attack, then the fanatical group had far better sources of information, and more powerful sympathizers, than he’d guessed.
“Help! Please!”
Glancing up to locate the source of the thin scream, repeated in Danish and again in English, he saw a woman with an infant cradled against her chest in one of the seventh-floor rooms that hadn’t collapsed in the initial blast. Judging from the thick gray smoke spiraling around her, he knew she and the child would be dead in minutes.
It took no thought to teleport up to bring mother and child to safety, the woman’s coughing drawing the attention of the medics, though it was the child she thrust at them with frantic cries. Wrapping both survivors in a blanket, the medics began to check their distressed patients for smoke inhalation.
“I’ll take this side,” he said to the teleporter who’d arrived a second before in response to Kaleb’s direct request that the Arrows render assistance. “There are people trapped in rooms we can’t see from here.”
Vasic nodded and disappeared to the back of the building. His partner, Aden, was already organizing the paramedics, including Arrow medics, with military precision. It was the first time in living memory that the lethal squad of assassins, their black uniforms marking them as some of the Net’s most dangerous men and women, had so publicly stepped in to offer humanitarian assistance.
Leaving Aden to manage the manpower so that the right people were handling the right tasks, Kaleb zeroed in on the next trapped survivor. As long as he had a viable visual lock, he could get to them.
* * *
UNSETTLED by Kaleb’s sudden departure, Sahara decided to walk through the house while she got her thoughts in order. As she knew well by now, it wasn’t the spartan cube people might expect of a cardinal Tk. Instead, it flowed from level to level, each divided from the other by a single wide step, with the lowest featuring a small internal koi pond filled with bright orange fish and surrounded by foliage that thrived in the warmth created by multiple skylights that occasionally opened to let in the cooler outside air. The temperature in the pond itself, she realized today, was regulated by a separate system, to ensure it remained comfortable for its inhabitants.
It made her so happy, that pond, her eyes spilling over with emotion. “Silly girl,” she whispered, wiping away the tears to kneel beside the jagged stone that bordered the water, emotion thick in her heart.
This place . . . this entire home, it felt so familiar, so safe.
It was a long, peaceful time later that she continued her walk through the airy, light-drenched rooms and wide hallways. Yet, regardless of its generous use of space, the house wasn’t so big that it felt impersonal. No, it was a home, with a hundred tiny details that denoted thought had been put into the design, with every room but for a limited few having wide floor-to-ceiling windows.
The windows on the level just up from the pond had been coated in something to protect the books that lined the shelves, hundreds of precious volumes sitting neatly in alphabetical order. The bent spines and worn covers told her the books had been read—or used. Many of them were nonfiction, the subjects as eclectic as those in Kaleb’s study.
A beautiful room, the rug on the floor ruby red and creamy white, the chairs comfortable . . . and yet it felt unfinished. She knew in her bones that while Kaleb might use the books, he never sat in here. As he didn’t sit in the breakfast area, or use the living room. He might sleep in his bed, but his study was the single room in the house that seemed to bear any imprint of the intelligent, lethal, fascinating man who was her captor.
Taking the wide step up to the next level, she looked out through the windows to see a haunting vista of empty grasslands. “As beautiful and dangerous and lonely as you,” she whispered, her mind filled with the image of Kaleb against the backdrop of the dunes.
Skin suddenly chilled, she wrapped her arms around herself and returned to the sunshine on the terrace. It was an automatic act to check the news sites on her organizer, her mind racing to fill in the gaps about this present that to her was an unknown future.
BREAKING NEWS! Bomb Blast in Copenhagen—Casualties Rising
Immediately searching for live coverage, she clicked on a comm feed fronted by a human reporter, sadness and shock intertwining inside her at the carnage visible behind the ponytailed blonde: broken bricks, fallen timbers, thick black smoke from what must be a secondary fire, dirty and bleeding victims sitting shell-shocked on the road, medical blankets around their shoulders.
“. . . amazing! I’ve never seen anything like it!”
The reporter’s inappropriate excitement had Sahara frowning . . . just as Kaleb appeared in front of a medical van with a child in his arms, his shirt covered with soot, streaks of black on his face. He was gone a second later, the screaming toddler safely passed to a paramedic.
“As most of you will recognize, that was Councilor Kaleb Krychek,” the reporter said out of frame as her cameraman scanned for the next teleport. “He, with the help of a number of unnamed Tks dressed in what appear to be black combat uniforms, has ensured that the cost of this tragic and unprovoked act of violence will remain limited to those who died in the initial blast.”
The camera zoomed in on the side of the building that had collapsed. “According to unconfirmed reports coming out of Australia,” the reporter continued, “this is the second time in the past two weeks that Councilor Krychek has been involved in a major rescue.”
The camera halted on the seated form of a woman wrapped in a blanket, a field bandage on her right hand. “Ma’am”—soft, sensitive—“you were rescued by the Councilor, were you not?”
“Yes.” Sahara caught the trembling of the woman’s fingers before she hid both hands in the blanket. “I’d be dead now if not for him.”
“You are Psy, but did you have any reason to hope for telekinetic assistance, particularly from Councilor Krychek himself?”
Tugging the blanket more tightly around herself, the woman shook her head. “Councilors don’t waste their time on such ‘small’ incidents . . . but he did, and I don’t think anyone in this city will ever forget it.”
Sahara froze.
What Kaleb had done today, actions that had the reporter hailing him as a hero, didn’t line up with either his reputation or his unmistakable lust for power—unless he was ruthless enough to have planned the entire exercise.
No, no, no.
Ignoring the shaken voice in her mind, she scanned more reports, saw that Pure Psy had claimed responsibility for the attack, but that knowledge did nothing to melt the ice in her veins.
What better partner for a man widely believed to be aiming for a total takeover of the Net than a group whose every action led to further cracks in the structure of Psy society? Cracks that left plenty of room for a “hero” to step in and clean up the mess.
As for the lives lost, they’d be written off as collateral damage.
* * *
KALEB returned home without speaking to the news media. It wasn’t necessary—he knew word of his actions had gone viral across the world, the images of him with survivor after survivor in his arms far more powerful than anything he could’ve said. Unbuttoning his shirt as he walked down the corridor to his bedroom, he entered to find Sahara sitting on the edge of his bed.
She jerked up to her feet, her eyes going to his chest, back up, color on her cheekbones. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think. I was waiting for you.”
The latter words were a punch to the solar plexus, an echo across time, but tasting the fear beneath her embarrassment, he kept his distance. “We can speak after I shower.” Smoke and grit coated his every breath.
The color on her cheeks still hot, she said, “Of course,” and slipped ou
t.
Closing the door, he stripped and stepped under the pounding spray of the shower to wash off the scent of smoke and flame that seemed embedded in his very cells. The bomb had been expertly placed to do maximum damage, the resulting fire a bonus for Pure Psy. At least a hundred and five confirmed dead, with fifty-seven unaccounted for.
Chances were good that a percentage of the missing had already left for work and would get in touch with the authorities as the news spread, but there was also a high chance that there’d been people inside who weren’t on the building manifest. Until the forensic teams were able to get in to scour the building for victims, the final death toll could not be predicted with any certainty.
Scrubbing at his body and hair until the water ran clear, he got out, dried himself off. It was as he was about to put on a suit in preparation for the meetings he’d had Silver postpone that he remembered the way Sahara’s gaze had fixed on his bare chest, her breath hitching as her skin heated.
He knew he had a physically attractive body—changeling and human females had made that clear with the silent invitations they sent him on a regular basis. None of them ever approached, realizing who and what he was, but he’d known that should he decide to accept one of those invitations, he wouldn’t hear the word “no.” His very coldness seemed a lure for certain women, and though he had paused to consider if they would scream in terror when faced with the reality of him, he had never tested the theory.
To him, his body was a tool, and the women who’d sent the invitations had nothing to offer him that would’ve made it worth his while to put that tool to intimate use. Sahara wasn’t one of those nameless women with a heat in their eyes that reminded him of the fever in Santano Enrique’s at the moment of the kill. Given that link to blood and torture, Kaleb wasn’t certain he wouldn’t have snapped the women’s fragile necks had he accepted their invitations.
That wasn’t ever going to be an issue with Sahara. She fell into a unique category of her own. More, he needed her to bond with him. And regardless of the fact that physical contact caused him acute discomfort, and sex would require him to push himself inside Sahara’s body, the primal act was known to create a bond far stronger than any chain. As if the sweat and heat of sex melded the couple together.