by Nalini Singh
A younger man who moved with the fluid grace of a changeling, the university logo on his T-shirt torn but not bloody, ran up the section before Kaleb could begin to shift the pieces of old plascrete. “Wait.” He held out a hand, his skin tawny brown in the afternoon light. “I can scent them.”
Kaleb contained his Tk. While he could sense a number of minds, their pain and panic blanketed the area, making it impossible to pinpoint specific locations.
Moving carefully over the broken section, the changeling nodded at Kaleb, his eyes the amber-green of a large predator, possibly one of the reclusive tigers. “Here.”
Kaleb moved the jagged plascrete with care. Trapped underneath was a tall human student who appeared to have a broken clavicle and ankle. Kaleb shook his head when the changeling boy—and he was a boy, not more than nineteen—would’ve lifted her out. “I’ve alerted the paramedics. She needs care in case of spinal injuries.”
The next live recovery was of a pair of Psy students, both with severe crush injuries. Three more followed. Everyone else was dead—including an older changeling whose lab coat identified her as a professor, and whose eyes the boy closed with trembling fingertips that had become tipped with claws.
“Confirm no further heat signatures!” called the human scientist who’d been scanning the wreckage with specialized radar equipment.
The changeling boy, his face drawn, nodded. “The scents are confused . . . but all I scent nearby is death.”
Kaleb scanned for live minds in the immediate vicinity, found none. “It’s time to check in, get a new assignment.”
Two Psy paramedics ran past right then, heading for the next quadrant, a human doctor already on the scene, a changeling nurse at his elbow. Kaleb hadn’t ever seen such cooperation between the three races—and he wasn’t the only one who noticed. Journalists from around the world interviewed the rescued who could talk, bystanders who’d survived the initial blast, rescuers benched because of exhaustion, anyone who’d sit still for a few minutes.
Kaleb, you must be exhausted. According to the news reports, you haven’t stopped since you arrived.
He was almost expecting the telepathic message. My energy reserves are higher than that of most cardinals. The fact was, he didn’t know how long he could go for as an adult, had never been pushed to the point where he’d flatlined.
Have you eaten?
Yes. If his body failed, it wouldn’t matter if his psychic reserves remained high. I’m in no danger of overload. How is your father?
Holding strong.
He expected her to retreat as he continued to work, but she stayed with him throughout, the telepathic pathway open but quiet.
No one but Sahara had ever cared enough about him to worry.
It wasn’t until almost twenty hours later that Kaleb stopped working. According to the equipment, there were no further signs that anyone had survived, and the changelings had been over the area multiple times with the same results. Because of the number of rescue personnel in the area, Psy telepathic scans weren’t as useful, but they’d been done, too.
“No further chance of survivors,” was the ruling by the silver-haired female who hadn’t taken a break throughout. “Thank you. All of you. Go home now, and rest. It’s time for the body recovery teams to take over.”
Physically spent in a way he hadn’t been for longer than he could remember, Kaleb considered his next move. The cooperation today had come in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy—it would not hold if Pure Psy continued to attack racially mixed targets, particularly if those targets focused on the young.
The majority of people understood the bloodshed stemmed from a radical fringe of the Psy population, but according to the media reports flowing through the PsyNet, a small element was beginning to believe differently: that the Psy were sacrificing some of their own in order to hide their true aim—to kill large numbers of humans and changelings, setting the stage for a worldwide takeover by their race.
If that element reacted to protect their own by violent action against those they considered the enemy, the civil war in the PsyNet could tip over into a true global war. The carnage would result in a broken world, its people demoralized and without hope.
The perfect time for a new emperor to come to power.
Pure Psy
VASQUEZ WATCHED THE news feeds with a growing sense of unease. The situation was even worse than he’d believed: Psy journalists were not only praising the skills of and the assistance provided by the lesser races in the aftermath of the university strike, they were calling it a bright new dawn in interracial cooperation.
If this continued, his people would soon begin to see the animal emotions of the changelings and humans in a positive light, and the traitors in the Net would have another weapon in their fight to topple Silence. That could not be permitted to happen—and Pure Psy’s next strike would make certain of it, splintering all hope of cooperation in a miasma of distrust.
The university hit had been nothing, a decoy to distract those who hunted Vasquez and his faithful soldiers. Pure Psy’s true message was yet to be heard, would be written in the skies in deadly flame, the omega site going down in the history of the world.
An Arrow was rumored to be sniffing around that site, and it was a concern, but not enough to make Vasquez authorize a premature “go.” The fact that a large number of Tks had been tired out by the university operation played a weightier role in his deliberations, but in the end, he decided on patience.
If he detonated now, with the final preparations not quite in place, he risked doing a grave injustice to hundreds of hours of painstaking work. His people deserved to witness the glory of what they could achieve—and in the end, it did not matter if every single Tk in the world responded to the next strike: it could not be stopped, could not be minimized.
“We will,” he said to the memory of his lost leader, “arise anew from the ashes of the world.”
Chapter 29
THIRTY MINUTES AFTER the head of the rescue team at the university announced no hope of further survivors, Sahara felt the prickle at the back of her neck that was Kaleb’s presence. He’d showered and changed from the clothing she’d seen on the comm and wore camouflage black pants, his T-shirt an olive green.
Nothing on his face betrayed the exhaustion he had to be feeling, but Sahara had stayed up with him through the brutal hours, wasn’t fooled. “You need to be asleep,” she said, grabbing his hand and tugging him to her bed. “I can’t believe you were stupid enough to waste energy ’porting to me.”
When she reached for the bottom of his T-shirt, intending to pull it off so he could sleep more comfortably, strong hands closed over her wrists. “Would you like to sleep with me?”
Sahara went motionless at the cool question. Kaleb Krychek, she knew without asking, trusted no one beside him while he was as vulnerable as he ever became. “Yes,” she whispered. “I’m tired, too.”
To her frustration, he again used energy he should’ve been conserving to ’port them to the night-swathed Moscow house, but she didn’t argue. He wouldn’t be able to lower his guard enough to get real rest anywhere else. Grabbing the T-shirt he stripped off, she removed her own clothing and pulled the soft fabric over her head.
It was still warm from his body, the scent of pine and Kaleb in the weave. Shivering in tactile pleasure, Sahara decided she would always steal his T-shirts. She’d undone her braid and crawled into bed when she spied him leaving the room. “Kaleb?”
“I’ll be back after I check the security system.”
Unsurprised, she drew the sheet over her. Kaleb’s body burned so hot, she’d need nothing else. She was half-asleep when he returned. Coming to the bed, he touched the arch of her cheekbone. “You’re on my side of the bed.” It was a quiet reprimand.
Sahara smiled, sleepy and content, rolling over to surrender the spot that put him between her and the terrace sliders. “All secure?” she asked, dead certain nothing and no one would ever hurt h
er with Kaleb in the vicinity.
“Yes.” His weight in the bed, but no touch.
The ache for skin-to-skin contact was a dull throb in every cell of her body, but she bit down on her lower lip to stifle the request on the tip of her tongue. Kaleb’s power reserves had to be at minimal by now, which meant his shielding capacity—
He curved his body behind her own, one arm sliding under her head, the other around her waist, as his thigh pushed between her own.
“Your shields—”
“Intact. I’m only physically tired. My psychic reserves are full.”
Impossible, Sahara thought, but sensing his body begin to shut down with the same icy discipline he used in every other aspect of his life bar one, she kept her silence and fell into the soft hush of sleep seconds behind Kaleb.
* * *
KALEB woke first, to discover his hand under Sahara’s T-shirt, his fingers curved over the warm heaviness of one of her breasts. Leaving it exactly where it was, the erotic weight a deep pleasure, he quickly scanned the information that had filtered into his mind while he slept; he forwarded two items of business for his aide to handle, while taking note of the increasing disquiet in the Net.
Nothing required his urgent attention.
Slamming down the obsidian shields, he got rid of the sheet, then kicked off his sweatpants to press his nakedness against the lace-covered curves of Sahara’s lower body, the T-shirt bunched up at her waist. It made her sigh in her sleep and wiggle closer. Nudging aside the silken black strands at her neck, he pressed his lips to her sensitive throat, abdomen tightening when her thighs squeezed down his.
He had watched videos of people copulating in this position, analyzed the mechanics of it, while seeing no reason to pick it over any other. Now he realized there were two very good reasons—it gave the male free access to the female and near total control of the sexual act.
Kaleb liked control in all things.
“Sahara.” A graze of teeth on her neck that made her shiver. “Wake up.”
She stretched sinuously against him, body pliant, no fear or surprise in her at their intimate entanglement . . . only an increasing dampness in the lace that pressed against his thigh. “How does this work?” It was a sleepy question, her foot lifting to rub over the back of his calf.
Kaleb rifled through his image files to find one that showed her exactly what he wanted. “Like this.”
Sahara whimpered but pulled off the T-shirt in silent acquiescence. Throwing it aside, she brushed her hair off her face, then curled her arm over her shoulder until her fingers brushed his nape, the charms on her bracelet cool against his skin. It left her entire body exposed for him to touch, for him to possess, her breasts lifted lush and high on her chest for his private viewing. His body rock-hard, he stroked one hand over the sweetly sensitive skin of her thigh before pulling it up and back to hook over his own, his fingers pressing into the delicate flesh.
His other hand he curled gently around her throat.
“Are you ready?” he asked, though he could feel her molten stickiness against his thigh.
“Yes.”
“Show me.”
“I—how?”
“Use your own fingers.”
Color pulsed under her skin.
“No taboos, no rules here,” he said, wanting her with him through every step of this erotic exploration. “This is our place, our time.” Finally it was their time.
Sahara wet her lips, eyes of midnight blue drenched in passion. “Our bed.”
Squeezing the base of his penis with a telekinetic ring, he reined in the driving urge to thrust inside her. “And my Sahara.” Always his.
Sahara shivered and moved her hand down the concave slope of her stomach to splay her fingers over her navel. When she hesitated, he kissed her throat again. “No taboos.”
Her hand ventured lower, the tips of her fingers disappearing under the creamy lace of her panties. Breath turning shallow at the visual stimuli that hit every single one of his pleasure centers, he watched her hand move under the lace as she stroked herself. His abdomen was rigid, his chest tight, the pleasure almost pain by the time she withdrew her fingers, the digits slick and shiny.
“Make me yours, Kaleb.”
The throaty request, falling from lips plump and wet, snapped the ring of black ice. Slipping his hand under her thigh after repositioning his own, he spread her further and, tearing away her panties with a negligible use of his Tk, pushed inside her. She was tight. He was slow, deliberate. Moaning, Sahara dug her nails into his nape, her breasts flushed, her nipples lush beads he wanted to roll against his tongue.
Since he couldn’t indulge in the latter, he covered one of her breasts with a telekinetic hand, stroking down to squeeze her nipple. She clenched around him, her wetness molten. It took Kaleb’s brain a microsecond to make the connection. Giving her neglected breast the same treatment, he rubbed at her clitoris with a phantom finger, while never faltering in the slow, steady rhythm of sexual intercourse that had his testicles drawn up tight against his body, the pain exquisite.
Sensing her body begin to tighten, he parted her labia using telekinesis and squeezed her clitoris.
“Kaleb!” Sahara convulsed around his erection, her entire body shaking with the strength of her orgasm.
Kaleb had intended to continue the slow pace that was an exercise in erotic control, but his brain short-circuited at the possessive clenching of Sahara’s intimate muscles. Pushing her onto her front, her face turned sideways on the pillow, he fisted one hand tightly in her hair and slammed into her in a brutally deep and fast rhythm, her body tight and slick and of the woman who was and had always been his. It felt like madness, creeping red on the horizon.
Hurting her, the part of him that lived in the void screamed, I’m hurting her!
His muscles locked, his mind trying to force his body to pull out of her and failing. He didn’t want to break the rawness of the connection, her skin as sweat-slick as his own, her body a hot, silken fist. “I’m hurting you,” he managed to ground out.
“No, you’re not!” Punching her fist on the pillow, Sahara undulated her lower body toward him. Move!
The feminine demand was the only thing he needed to hear. Pounding into her, he saw her fingers clench tight on the sheets, her lips part on a breathless cry, and then she was coming around him once more, the pulses harder, more viciously possessive. Caught in the vise of her pleasure, his back arched as white lightning tore through his spine.
The bed slammed back to the ground.
Hard.
So did every other item in the room.
* * *
SAHARA was attempting to gasp in air when a fragment of memory untangled itself from the vault.
“Did you steal this?”
“No. I earned it.”
Her bracelet, she’d been talking of her bracelet with the man whose muscled body covered her back, both of them breathing as if they’d run a marathon. Never, she thought, had she asked him what he’d done to earn it; that wasn’t a choice she had any intention of altering. Whatever price Kaleb had paid for the platinum that encircled her wrist, he had done so for her, and she would honor it.
His chest sliding against her back, Kaleb pushed up a fraction. Can you breathe?
No, but it has nothing to do with your weight. Come back. Fingers flexing as he obeyed, she released a shuddering exhale and tried to shape words with her mouth. It took her at least two minutes. “I want to do that again.”
“I’m not sure our bodies can take it.”
The icy tone made her toes curl—she knew full well he only went that cold with her when he was fighting to leash himself. Then he kissed her neck and she knew he’d lost the fight. To her shock, they did manage to have sex again, her on her front, Kaleb’s chest rubbing over her back, though he used his Tk to lessen the pressure of his weight. This time, it was slow and deep from start to finish.
“It feels like a full-body kiss,” she whispe
red as her inner muscles began to clench in a quieter but no less potent pleasure.
Lips at her throat, Kaleb rocked her through the orgasm, then filled her in a burst of liquid heat.
They were both drenched in sweat and sticky with sex, but Sahara had no intention of moving. In fact, she wasn’t certain her bones hadn’t melted. So it was as well her lover was a cardinal Tk who could ’port them into the shower.
* * *
SHOWERED and dressed in fresh jeans and a soft pink cardigan from the closet she had in her original room, Sahara went hunting in the kitchen while Kaleb dressed in preparation for a comm meeting. The charcoal gray suit teamed with a steel blue shirt and charcoal tie was one of her favorites. There was something incredibly sexy about a man so lethal that civilized dress only served to highlight the danger, not lessen it.
Discovering a stash of frozen meals he must’ve stocked for use after a high-calorie burn, she put several in the thermal device in the corner. The flavors would be bland by the standards outside the PsyNet, but right now, she could eat a small mammal. Stomach fluttering at the reminder of exactly how she’d used up the kilojoules, she was pouring piping hot pasta into a dish when Kaleb walked in, the fingers of his right hand slotting in his left cuff link.
Hair combed and tie knotted, no trace of passion in his expression, he was Kaleb Krychek, cardinal Tk and former Councilor, once more. The transformation was so complete that it shook her, making her conscious of the level at which he could compartmentalize—and leaving her with the troubling question of exactly how much of himself he ever showed her.
Then he touched his finger to the arch of her cheekbone, and the fear splintered, because only her Kaleb touched her in that way.
Sitting down to eat, neither one of them spoke until they’d almost completed the meal.
“My father just came out of isolation,” she said, having received the update while she was heating up the meals, relief a shuddering emotion inside her. “Anthony called.”
