by Nalini Singh
“I can take you to him.”
“Your meeting?”
A slight pause. “My aide is rescheduling it now.”
Sahara wasn’t the least surprised that Kaleb had put her first. He always did. “Thank you,” she said through the painful burn of a tenderness she wasn’t certain he’d ever accept. “But”—she met those incredible night-sky eyes—“I need to ask you a question first.”
Kaleb dosed her water with a vitamin and mineral tablet. “Ask.”
“How could you possibly not have been wiped out by what you did at the university?” Cardinals might be gifted, but their abilities were still finite. “You had enough energy left over to ’port us both to the other side of the world.”
Waiting until she’d drunk half her fortified water, he said, “Do you know about the Amplification Effect?”
She shook her head and, because she didn’t like the distance in his expression, reached out to tangle her fingers with his.
“Per the effect,” he said, not repudiating the touch, “an individual with two midlevel abilities, for example 4.7 in telepathy and 3.9 in psychometry, can sometimes use one to amplify the strength of the other, pushing themselves into the 8 or higher range.” He paused to finish a high-energy nutrient bar. “No one has ever considered if the effect would hold true if an individual had two cardinal-level abilities.”
Sahara couldn’t imagine the storm of his power. To be a cardinal was to be off the scale. To be a dual cardinal was incomprehensible. “What happens if you amplify?”
“My dual-cardinal status already makes me stronger than other cardinals, by an unknown factor.” No arrogance, only cold fact. “I believe there must be a low level of unconscious amplification taking place at all times. That’s why my abilities didn’t flatline at the university, and have, in fact, never flatlined.”
Teleporting away the wrapper of the nutrient bar, he said, “As a very young child, I once lifted the wreckage of a bullet train off a trapped survivor—even a cardinal child shouldn’t have been capable of that.”
Sahara struggled to understand what he was saying. “Have you ever consciously amplified your abilities?”
“As a test, yes. Amplification impacts my telekinesis, not my telepathy. I could conceivably reach the earth’s core with the resulting power, destroy the planet from the inside out.”
She had no words, not for a long time, her fingers twined with those of a man who held the fate of the world in his grasp. “Kaleb?”
He didn’t answer, but she knew she held his attention.
“Promise me something.”
“Yes?”
“That you won’t destroy the Net.” If he struck out, she knew it wouldn’t be against the humans or the changelings, but against his own kind; against the ones who had taken her—and almost broken him.
“I told you,” he responded in the same coolly pragmatic tone he’d used for the entirety of their conversation. “I’ve decided against it.”
“That’s not what I asked.” She held the obsidian of his gaze. “I want you to promise to never destroy the Net.” No matter what happened or didn’t happen to her.
A pause filled with a thousand unspoken words . . . and the words he did speak, they made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck rise. “Some things need to be broken to become stronger.”
Chapter 30
“DO YOU THINK,” she whispered, “that holds true for me?”
He went very, very still. “No. You should’ve never been hurt.”
Something in those words, in the dead rage of his tone, made her mind open the doorway to a second vault hidden inside the first. She entered and flinched, a sea of viscous red spreading across her irises. Her breath caught in her throat, dots swam in front of her eyes . . . and Sahara realized she’d stopped breathing, her heart losing its rhythm.
A hand on the back of her neck, a man with eyes of obsidian on his haunches in front of her chair. “It’s gone, done. He’s dead.”
He’s dead.
Her lungs expanded in a rush of air, her subconscious understanding—reveling in—his words, even if her conscious mind did not. Her chest still hurt, shards of glass in her veins as she reached out to touch the hard line of his jaw. “Something bad happened to me, didn’t it?” Worse than the captivity, worse than the torture after she created the labyrinth.
Kaleb knew he’d made a major tactical error. But he’d promised Sahara he’d never lie to her, so he said, “Yes,” and waited.
“I’m not ready yet.” Her hand fell to his shoulder. “Not strong enough yet. But I will be soon.”
He had no doubts about that. “Do you want to go to your father now?” he asked, wanting her mind off the one subject that held the potential to destroy the bond between them.
If she ran, he hoped she would do as he’d asked and make sure she didn’t leave him alive. Because without Sahara, the world would learn what a child became when his trainer wove nightmares into his mind—of knives slicing into flesh, of women begging for their lives—then put the blade into his hand.
“This is my legacy. You will continue what I have begun.”
“Kaleb.” Sahara’s fingers in his hair, her eyes seeing too deep. “Don’t leave me again. Don’t go away.”
She’d said those words to him before. And his answer, it was the same. “I won’t. I’ll always be here. For you.” Only for her.
Her eyes mysterious with thoughts unvoiced, she stepped into his arms when he rose, her hold fierce. It was the greatest of ironies that the only person who had ever held him as if he mattered was the one person who did not need to hold him at all. If Sahara called, he would come.
Always.
“Let me take you to your father.” Using Leon Kyriakus as the lock, he completed the transfer.
They came in beside the bed where Sahara’s father lay surrounded by complex machines that regulated his body while he healed. Face crumpling, Sahara left Kaleb’s arms to take the older man’s hand, sinking into a chair placed beside the bed. “Father.”
Eye on the small window that allowed the NightStar guard on watch outside to look in on occasion, Kaleb shifted out of view, positioning himself against the wall beside the old-fashioned inward-opening door. If the female—whom he identified from the back as a high-level telepath skilled in mental combat, her petite size distinctive among Anthony’s most trusted security people—had spotted him during the ’port, Kaleb would’ve dealt with it. Since she hadn’t, there was no cause to add further stress to the situation.
The guard proved herself by opening the door thirty seconds later, the ebony of her skin dulled by the pane of glass that lay between her and Kaleb. Clearly recognizing Sahara, the armed woman didn’t dispute her right to be there, but asked, “The teleporter who brought you?”
“I have direct telepathic access to him. He’ll take me back when it’s time.”
Satisfied with the soft-voiced answer, the guard closed the door behind herself and took up her sentinel position once more. Kaleb stayed in the shadows, thinking about the complexity of the lie Sahara had told—which wasn’t a lie at all, simply a statement that invited the guard to draw the conclusion that the teleporter had departed the premises.
Sahara, with her intellect and her talent for shaping language to serve her needs, was much further along in her recovery than she realized. Today she’d shied from the bloodiest of the memories that connected them, but the clock was ticking down at rapid speed. Body and spirit, mind and heart, it was unlikely to be long before she faced the past with the same stubborn will that she had survived it.
He had known it would come down to this, to a day of final reckoning.
What he didn’t know was if they would survive it.
* * *
SAHARA spent the majority of the next two days at her father’s bedside, Vasic ’porting her in and out. The Arrow did the task with quick efficiency, but he made Sahara uncomfortable, his Silence a cold gray frost. Kaleb, however, threat
ened to cause too much friction with her family, and right now, she wanted the focus on her father; he’d woken up at last, was able to speak.
As well, Kaleb had a critical item on his agenda—hunting Pure Psy.
Sahara hugged her arms around herself as she stood on the landing outside her aerie, looking out into the falling dark of night at the end of the second day. She should’ve long since asked the question that continued to haunt her: Just how far would Kaleb go to seize control of the Net?
It made her sick to even consider that he’d work with Pure Psy, but if she looked at the situation through the filter of cold, hard logic, the partnership made perfect sense.
“Some things need to be broken to become stronger.”
The fanatical group had proved itself skilled at destruction, and as evidenced by the single star on her bracelet, Kaleb had no loyalty to the PsyNet.
None.
She couldn’t blame him for it—how could anyone expect a child to have faith in a system that had left him at the mercy of a monster? Now that tormented child was a deadly man, and though Sahara loved him in ways that tore at her soul, the aching resonance of old emotion tangling with the stark beauty of the fragile new trust that had grown between them, she also understood his choices might be untenable.
Yet when he came to her that night, she couldn’t bear to ask the question. If she was wrong, it would wound him—and the wound would be all the worse because he’d encase it in black ice and refuse to acknowledge the damage. If she was right, it would force her to act in a way she never wanted to act. To erase Kaleb from the world . . . No, she didn’t have the strength to face that choice.
A little more time, she bargained with herself. Only a few more days. Pure Psy will need to regroup after a major operation like the university strike. I have time yet to love him.
“I’ve drained the bounty account,” he told her from his position leaning against the outer wall of the aerie, his tie off and his white shirt unbuttoned at the collar. “The information will have already begun to leak. You’re safe.”
His protectiveness stabbed at her heart. If he had crossed the line, if she had to use her ability to end him, it would break her. And this time, she wouldn’t come back. “That means I can leave the forest,” she said around the rock in her throat. “No one in the wider world has any reason to recognize me.”
Kaleb slipped one of his hands into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, the charcoal fabric sitting perfectly on shoulders that might yet bear the marks she’d made on his body two days before. “A means of defense,” he said, having retrieved a sleek little gun. “This is considered one of the most dangerous weapons in the world, because even a child can point and shoot and hit his target.” Showing her the controls, he handed it over. “Make sure the safety is on at all times unless you want to debilitate or kill.”
Sahara forced herself to handle the deadly piece, knowing he was right. Her ability wouldn’t protect her if an aggressor shot at her from a distance. “I expected you to attempt to stop me from leaving the protective zone inside DarkRiver land.”
“I told you, Sahara, I will never hurt you.”
Fingers trembling, she placed her free hand over his heart. “Thank you for keeping your promise, for coming for me.”
His response was to tuck her hair behind her ear, the action as possessive as it was gentle, his face so darkly handsome as to steal her breath. No man should be as hard, as beautiful as her Kaleb.
“There’s something else,” she said, voice husky. “You can release me from your shields—mine are now operational.”
Kaleb stilled, the primal creature that lived in the void rigid in its attempt to maintain control. “Your Silence is broken. You’ll become a target for Pure Psy the instant you reappear in the Net.” He would never permit her to be so vulnerable.
Sahara’s hand spread on his heart. “Take a look at my shields.”
He did so and beheld a mind so Silent, it had not even the finest of hairline fractures. Intrigued, he examined it from every angle and could find no errors that might give her away, nothing that would make anyone take a second look, the lie told with flawless skill.
“This isn’t your work.” Sahara was gifted in many things, but advanced shield mechanics of this complexity was a highly specialized field that required years of practice. “Sascha Duncan,” he said, and saw from Sahara’s wide-eyed surprise that he was right.
Councilor Nikita Duncan’s daughter was not only a defector and mated to the alpha of DarkRiver, she was the best shield technician Kaleb had ever seen. He had acquired some of his most useful tricks by covertly monitoring her while she’d been part of the Net.
“She’s enhanced her technique.” Unexpected, given that Sascha Duncan was infamously no longer in the Net—or perhaps not. This region had seen a significant rise in the number of Psy with fractured or suspect conditioning. Those individuals would need a way to hide in plain sight.
Leaning to his right, Sahara put the gun on the window ledge, and he could tell she was uncomfortable with the weapon. As long as she used it when necessary, that didn’t matter.
“It’s not a shield but a shell,” she told him, her hand sliding to his waist as she straightened, “its sole function to mask my broken Silence. My natural protective shields are hidden beneath, and they’re tougher than most people’s. They always were.”
Yes, her natural shields were formidable, a side effect of her ability—but she’d been sixteen and already compromised by severe trauma when taken captive, while Tatiana had been an adult in full control of her scalpel-sharp telepathy. An inequitable contest from the start. “Total restoration?”
A nod that sent her hair sliding over the hand he’d curved around the side of the slender column of her neck, the strands cool and heavy. “Yes, faster than I predicted. It helped that no one was tearing away new growth before it could take root.”
Kaleb decided he needed to increase the misery of Tatiana’s punishment. Perhaps he’d introduce insects into her environment. It was amazing how much terror such small creatures could cause.
“What are you thinking?” Sahara’s eyes were suddenly acute, as if she’d glimpsed the darkness that lived in him.
He told her, felt her flinch. “I managed to kill all the insects,” he said, thinking of the tiny, lightless closet in which he’d once spent three days for no reason but that Santano wanted to remind Kaleb who held the power, “and I was only ten.”
“No.” Sahara cupped his face, her own grim with an anger he knew wasn’t directed at him. “You do not do this, you do not become that monster’s legacy.”
“You are my legacy.”
“Tatiana is evil,” she continued over the chill sound of memory, “and she’ll do more evil if she’s free, so I won’t argue against her imprisonment, but no torture. Not of the physical kind and not of the mental. You’re strong enough to tie up her mind without isolating it as you’ve done now.”
Kaleb thought of the seven years he’d been alone in the dark, of the horror of a sixteen-year-old girl forced to imprison her own mind to survive, and said, “I’ll consider it.” In deference to Sahara’s request, he wouldn’t torture Tatiana as he’d been deliberating, but seven years would have to pass before he’d review the state of her mental imprisonment.
Sahara shook her head, her expression fierce. “Do you think I don’t see you?”
“I know you do.” It was the greatest, most inexplicable gift of his life that she saw him and didn’t turn away. “This one thing,” he said, “I won’t give you. This vengeance is mine to exact.”
Sahara pressed a lingering kiss to his jaw, a single tear escaping her closed eyelids. “What would we have become if we’d been free?”
Kaleb didn’t know the answer to that whispered question, couldn’t imagine an existence other than the one that had shaped him, but there was one request he could honor.
Chapter 31
THE OBSIDIAN SHIELDS around Sahara’s
mind slid away to leave her exposed to the PsyNet. She hadn’t been on the psychic plane for so long that the sheer vastness of the mental network made her pulse roar, her mouth dry.
Sahara. Starless eyes connecting with her own as her lids flew open. I can reinitiate my protection if you aren’t ready.
No. She took a trembling breath, her hand spreading on the tensile muscle of his chest. It’s overwhelming . . . but it’s also freedom.
Freedom can be intoxicating. Be careful.
You won’t abandon me?
This telepathic channel will never be closed. “Slow and easy,” he said aloud, his fingers playing with the eagle charm on her bracelet. “You need to strengthen your wings before you can fly.”
Holding on to him, she looked into the Net again, each mind a glittering point of light in the psychic network that connected millions of Psy around the world. In the spaces in between flowed fine silver streams—data shared by those minds—until the landscape was a sea of sparkling silver, the waves ebbing and flowing in a beauty that closed her throat.
Another strand of memory worked loose of the vault.
“Why does everyone call it a starscape?” She frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“’Path me an image of what you see,” Kaleb said, his face young, the line of his jaw not yet refined to masculine hardness.
Sahara did so, her feet hanging off the high branch of the tree at the back of the NightStar compound.
When Kaleb turned to her, his eyes held a wonder that was so rare it made her go motionless. “I don’t see what you see. I don’t think anyone does.”
“Do you want to travel through it?” Kaleb asked, and the fine thread of her past wove into a present where that beautiful boy with a healing gash on his cheek had become a powerful man, his hand spread protectively on her lower back.
“Can I do so anonymously?” she asked, even as a section of her mind continued to disentangle the memories inside her, desperate to unravel the mystery of Kaleb before she asked the question no part of her wanted to ask. “Tatiana and Enrique both probably hoarded the truth about me, but just in case.”