by Nalini Singh
I believe the fact that such discussions were able to—and continue to—take place, without the minds of the individuals involved being shut down by the application of embedded pain controls, speaks to critical problems in the structural integrity of the Protocol. Even two years ago, such a topic would’ve been stifled before it ever grew to the point where it was circling the globe in clandestine chat rooms and in-person discussions.
While Pure Psy’s tenets are fanatical in the extreme, hidden in their rhetoric may be a critical point: that this freedom is not necessarily a fact to celebrate. Our race chose Silence because our minds skew toward insanity and violence without such strictures. This is not my opinion, but a fact written into our history in blood.
A hundred years ago, we were on the verge of total annihilation, our young murdered in their thousands by other Psy, while hundreds of thousands more sank into the splintered worlds created by broken minds. We were more violent than the changelings whose physicality we now deem makes them a lesser race, and more vicious than the humans we’ve come to consider our inferiors.
Yet once again, it is our “superior” race that is on the verge of a cataclysm.
I, for one, do not wish to live in the world of the past, but it cannot be denied that Silence has lost its way in the last ten years. Some whisper it was never as effective as successive Councils would’ve had us believe, that the defective members of the population were simply eliminated before they became a problem. Others, as we’ve seen, are willing to commit murder to Silence us all.
Who is right? Who is wrong? I have no answers—all I know is that we stand at a crossroads. The decisions we make will either save us, or end us.
Professor Eric Tuivala
Anthropologist
(New Zealand)
Chapter 22
SAHARA SAT UP in the narrow single bed that was her own, unable to fall asleep as she had the previous night. Pushing off the sheets, she padded to the window to stare out at the landscaped gardens below, the blades of grass kissed silver by the moonlight. She felt disconnected, out of sync with the world . . . as if this were a dream created in the depths of the labyrinth, her body trapped in the hellhole where she’d spent so many years.
It was a certainty that she was being foolish in her refusal to talk to a Psy-Med specialist, but even now, with her senses confused and her mind struggling to hold on to the world, her fear of mental violation was worse than her fear of madness. Pressing her fingers to the glass, she tried to use the smooth coldness as an anchor, but the glass melted beneath her fingertips, the world twisting sideways in a smear of silver and black, as her consciousness attempted and failed to hold on to what was.
Clawing her way to some semblance of reason, she found a sliver of hope in the memory of a man who had promised her he would always come to her call. Kaleb. I need you. She knew without a doubt that reality wouldn’t waver with him here. He was too powerful a force, speaking to parts of her she didn’t know existed until he was in the room.
He stood beside her a heartbeat later, dressed in black suit pants and a crisp white shirt, no tie, the collar open to expose the strong column of his throat. The cuff links at his wrists caught the moonlight as he slid his hands into his pockets, and the world righted itself, only for her breath to catch, her body recognizing his.
“Why are you awake?” he asked.
Though he wasn’t touching her, the heat of him branded her through the T-shirt she wore on top of a pair of gray sweatpants. “I need to be doing something,” she said, struggling to explain the frustration that had her unable to sleep.
“I know I’m not functional enough to go out into the world, but I feel as if my skin will burst if I just stay here.” Shaking with the clawing ferocity of the anger and helplessness inside her, she closed the inches between them and began to unbutton his shirt, her skin a fever. If she drowned herself in sensation, in Kaleb, it would hold the other emotions at bay. Nothing else existed when—
“Sahara.” Kaleb’s hands closed over her wrists. “Put on clothes suitable for temperatures in the higher elevations,” he said, eyes pitch-black. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”
Sahara didn’t stop to reason, to consider the fact that she was about to go off into the darkness with a man who was the darkness. She simply stripped, pulled on jeans, a thin long-sleeved mohair top, and a heavy zip-up hooded sweatshirt. Slipping her feet into socks, she’d just finished tying her sneakers when Kaleb reappeared.
He’d changed into black cargo pants and a black T-shirt, his feet in scuffed boots that appeared worn in. Looking her up and down, he nodded—and then they weren’t in her room any longer, but at the foot of an imposing rock face under a huge silver moon that cast a spotlight over the firs that sprawled a dark green sea in every direction, majestic against a backdrop of snowcapped mountains familiar to anyone in this region. “We’re in the Sierra Nevada.” Changeling-wolf territory.
“Yes. We’ll remain in a satellite shadow as long as we don’t move past the tree line.”
“The live patrols?” The SnowDancer pack was rumored to kill intruders first and ask questions of the corpses.
“I’m scanning for any minds in the vicinity, but the wolves rarely patrol this section—there’s nowhere to go from this point where sentries won’t spot an intruder.” Pulling out something from one of the pockets of his cargos, he held it out.
Half-gloves. Leather. To protect her palms from the rock. Exhilaration bursting through her bloodstream, she slipped them on, then moved to the rock face, took a grip on the first handhold, and began to climb. Finally, finally she felt alive again!
The wind was quiet and gentle against her face, the rock hard under her fingertips, the chill night air so clean and pure it almost hurt. Drawing it in, she found another hold, then another, and when her foot slipped, said, “No!” to halt Kaleb’s help, and got herself out of the situation on her own.
Heart thudding and sweat pouring down her temples, it took her over an hour to climb a puny increment of the jagged rock face, but she laughed in unadulterated delight as she pulled herself to a seat on a slight outcrop. “My arms are crying!”
Kaleb looked up from the foot of the rock. Takes practice.
As she watched, he began to climb, his body moving with such fluidity she couldn’t separate move from move. She knew without asking that he wasn’t using his telekinesis—Tks were generally physically adept, a known side effect of their ability. But Kaleb was better than adept. He climbed with a wild grace that hypnotized.
Stunned at the lethal beauty of him, she watched in silence until he was almost lost to her sight. Come back. She was frightened, though she knew he was a Tk, would never die in a fall. But the fear, it was so profound, it clenched bony fingers around her heart and squeezed. As if she had witnessed him fall once, knew he could be hurt. Kaleb, I can’t see you.
He reappeared into view seconds later, backtracking with that same hypnotic grace. Halting beside her, he hugged the rock with a one-handed grip, his feet on a whisper-thin ledge, the muscles of his arm hard and defined. With his free hand, he drank from a bottle of water he’d had in another pocket, before passing it to her.
She took a drink . . . and the cobwebs fell away from her memories of the first night she’d spent with him. He’d given her water then, too. “Was I really that bad?” she asked. “You said I smelled like a pigsty.” The thought embarrassed her now as it hadn’t then.
“I was attempting to incite a response.” Taking back the bottle with that matter-of-fact response, he held out a hand. “Can you climb back down?”
Sahara considered the jellylike state of her limbs and forced herself to be realistic. “I don’t think so.” A second later, she found herself on the ground.
Lying on her back on the soft grass, she watched him climb down to land on his feet beside her, strong and muscled and dangerous. When he turned and met her gaze, her thighs clenched, a sheen of perspiration breaking out over her skin that h
ad nothing to do with the climb and everything to do with a hunger that was no longer the desperation she’d felt in her bedroom, but a hotter, deeper ache.
It had been so long.
Breath turning shallow, she parted her lips. “Kaleb.”
* * *
KALEB had intended to keep his distance from Sahara until he was dead sure his shields were adamantine. Except now she looked at him with desire a red flush on her cheekbones, her chest rising and falling in a rapid rhythm, and it was a siren call to his own body. She had no comprehension of the power she wielded, didn’t understand that when he told her he’d line the streets with bodies for her, he meant every word.
As far as Sahara Kyriakus was concerned, he was a weapon she could point in any direction she chose. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her . . . except let her go.
“Kaleb,” she whispered again. “I’ve missed you.”
He broke.
Gripping her wrists together as he came down over her, he pinned them above her head. “You can’t touch me.” Her fingers curled at his low-voiced order, but there was no panic, her lips soft under the hard demand of his mouth, her thighs spreading to cradle him.
Even as slender as she remained, there was no doubting her femininity. Gentle curves under his free hand, her breasts crushed against his chest, lips plump and wet. Until Sahara, he hadn’t understood why men murdered to possess a woman. Now the rage of it was a black fire in his blood, a deadly inferno that would engulf the world should anyone dare take her from him again.
When she began to struggle under his weight, he tightened his hold on the delicate bones of her wrists before he could rein in the violently possessive response. Opening his hand a second later, he waited for her next move. Should it be a rejection, he’d give every indication of accepting it, then strategize his next play—Sahara was as physically susceptible to him as he was to her, and it was an advantage he’d use without hesitation.
“I’m too hot.” With that complaint, she reached between them to unzip her sweatshirt and twisted to get it off. It left her dressed only in a warm but thin white top that hugged the mounds of her breasts, the curve of her waist.
“Don’t,” he said, when she would’ve put her hands on him. “We don’t want that rock face coming down over us.”
Dropping her arms to the lush green grass, Sahara’s eyes went to the huge slab of rock at his back. “You’re not exaggerating, are you?”
“No.” He had no need to exaggerate.
A subtle movement of her throat as she swallowed. He followed it with his gaze, aware of her pulse gaining in speed, her breath hitching. “I’ll keep my hands to myself,” she promised, voice rough. “But you can’t look at me like that.”
Gripping her jaw in silent answer, he braced himself with his free arm beside her head, and then he branded her mouth with his own. You are mine. It was a statement telepathed along the private pathway that had formed years ago. Mine to touch. Mine to look at. Mine. Releasing her jaw, he stroked his hand down her throat to close over her breast.
Sahara shuddered.
Able to feel the pebbled hardness of her nipple under his palm, he took care in learning the shape of her. A gasp, her body attempting to shift restlessly under his. Sensitive, extremely so. Filing away the piece of knowledge, he rubbed his thumb over her nipple and she almost twisted out from under him, breaking the kiss to sob out a breath. “Please, please. More.”
Kaleb felt his closest PsyNet shield fall in a crash that almost took out the second. But he wasn’t dangerous to her. Not yet. “I’ll give you anything you want.” Holding her gaze, he slipped his hand under the bottom of her top to spread it on her abdomen. It quivered under his touch, her teeth sinking into her lower lip.
“That’s for me to do,” he said in a quiet rebuke that had her sucking in a breath.
His mouth was on hers an instant later, his teeth biting down on her lower lip a fraction too hard. Back arching up from the ground, she broke the kiss . . . only to return for another, her tongue stroking against his with an intimacy that went straight to the rock-hard erection pressing against the zipper of his pants. As if she were licking her tongue along the rigid length of his penis and not inside his mouth.
This time, it was Kaleb who broke the kiss. “No,” he said when she would’ve initiated another kiss.
Chest heaving, Sahara licked her lips, and he had to look away before he broke his own rules and asked her to put her hands on the painful hardness between his thighs, to squeeze and stroke his naked flesh. He focused instead on his exploration of her body. Her pulse fluttered under his hand when he moved it to lie over her ribs, the moonlight shimmering on her skin. A little further up, he found lace, fine and silky.
“It was in the box,” Sahara whispered on a hitched breath. “Thank you.”
The fact she wore his gift against her skin pleased him, but it wasn’t enough.
Removing his hand, to her frustrated “No,” he pushed up her top to bare her breasts to the night . . . to him.
Her body went utterly motionless.
Do you want me to stop? he forced himself to ask, the fury to possess a turbulent storm inside him. Below that was an old and vicious rage, incited by the sight of the fine silvery scars that marked her flesh and that she likely no longer noticed. He did. He’d been there when each and every cut was made, remembered exactly how deep each wound had been, knew how much medical attention she must’ve needed to heal.
“No.” Her skin gleaming with the finest layer of perspiration, her breasts rising and falling as if in invitation, Sahara’s voice pulled him out of the blood-soaked past. “No, don’t stop, Kaleb.”
Wrenching his anger under control, and slamming down ice-cold shields around the violent surge of arousal provoked by the sound of his name on her lips, he concentrated on the creamy flesh cupped in delicate pink lace. It wasn’t what he wanted. Pulling first at one cup, then the other, he pushed the lace down until the heavy weight of her breasts spilled free, the soft pink providing a frame for the lush curves that melted the black ice around his pounding erection as if it didn’t exist.
* * *
SAHARA dug her nails into the earth in an effort to fight the urge to beg for Kaleb’s touch as he watched her with those eyes of madness. It should’ve scared her, the possessive darkness she saw in them, and perhaps part of her was terrified, but not enough to back away, not enough to end this raw wave of sensation, vivid and wild and alive.
Shifting position, Kaleb straddled her. The next instant, he placed his hands under her upper back, lifted her slightly, and put his lips around one aching nipple. She shoved a fist against her mouth to stifle her scream, the wet suction of his mouth as hotly erotic as the hard strength of his grip.
He moved to her neglected breast without warning, the night air cool on the wet of her other nipple. Whimpering, she twisted under him, but there was no way for her to gain contact with the hard ridge of his erection, his knees planted on either side of her thighs. Teeth scraped her highly sensitive nipple an instant later, making her bite down on her fist. Stop! It’s too much!
Kaleb released her nipple, his lips wet, his eyes so dark they were akin to black pearls, a shimmer of midnight color in their depths. “Are you certain?”
The quiet question raised every hair on her body.
Not in fear. In the blinding realization of how tight a leash he had on himself.
Dear God. What would he do to her if he slipped that leash?
The damp folds between her thighs grew slick with a melting heat. Squeezing those thighs in a vain effort to find relief, she removed her fist from her mouth and whispered, “No. I can take more.” Wanted more. Wanted everything.
Not asking a second time, Kaleb looked down at her breasts, his hair falling across his forehead. Sliding a hand from under her back, he gripped one breast with a firmness that felt like a brand and lowered his mouth to her flesh again. Her mind went red, her back arching as if to thrust her br
east farther into his mouth. Kaleb, I need—
Tell me. Another scrape of teeth that scattered her neurons, her nails clawing the earth, crushed grass under her palms.
Touch me, please. I can’t—
Here? He cupped her between the thighs in a raw intimacy, pushing up with the heel of his hand.
And the world splintered.
* * *
SAHARA opened her eyes to find Kaleb still straddling her body, her top shoved up her chest and the cups of her bra pushed down to expose her breasts. The Tk on top of her had his gaze on her bared flesh, the intensity of his focus such that it caused her pleasure-lax muscles to twinge in renewed arousal.
As she watched, he reached out and fixed her bra, his fingers brushing her nipples. Sucking in a breath, her abdomen taut, she stayed silent as he tugged down her top. His every action was careful, that of a man who knew he could be pushed off the edge and into the abyss with a single wrong move.
“Teeth,” he said in that same frigid tone she’d heard earlier, “are not always used in sexual play.”
Sahara’s chest rose and fell in a shallow rhythm. “No?”
“It is a matter of preference, according to the papers I’ve read on intimacy.” Lashes rising, obsidian eyes looking into her own, the black fire in them as hot as his voice was cold. “What is your preference?”
“Yes.” The confession felt as intimate as what he’d just done to her body. “With you.”
His expression altered to a hardness that made it clear who and what he was, his arms coming down on either side of her as he lowered his face until their breaths kissed. “It will,” he said in a silken whisper, “only ever be with me.”
Chapter 23
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Kaleb returned to the rock face, Sahara now safe in her bedroom. She hadn’t run from him even after he’d exposed his murderous possessiveness where she was concerned. But then, they both knew she had the power to stop him, the only individual in the Net who could.
