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Thank you, she said, almost able to see him in the Moscow office where he said he was finalizing a project in spite of the late hour there, a beautiful man in a handmade suit who might as well be a knife blade; a man so complex, she knew she understood only the barest pieces; a man who had survived hell as a child and come out of it a shadowy enigma.
He belonged to her in a way she couldn’t articulate, the bond between them unbreakable, but Sahara had no illusions about Kaleb. The scars of a lifetime tied to a monster could never be erased —and no one, not even she, could predict the decisions those scars would lead him to make. You need to rest, she said, a painful tenderness inside her. Because no matter what else he was, he was hers first.
Soon.
Black ice in her mind, but that no longer scared her. His icy control was as much a part of Kaleb as the dark possession of his kiss, and Sahara understood the need for it.
The external damage? she asked, pulse racing at the memory of her shock when she’d looked absently out the kitchen window after they’d shared their bodies—to see huge gashes in the landscape as far as the eye could see, as if the earth had been cracked like an egg.
Limited to a five-hundred-meter radius around the house. I fixed the cracks after ’porting you to DarkRiver territory.
Sahara knew she should be worried about the fact that she’d been in bed with a man who’d caused that kind of damage with a momentary and, according to him, minor loss of telekinetic control during intimacy, but she felt her lips kick up at the corners. So we literally made the earth move?
A slight pause, before Kaleb said, I suggest we don’t engage in sex in populated areas.
The cool comment made her burst into laughter.
Centered by the short interplay, she ate a small, healthy meal, mindful she couldn’t become complacent about her physical health, then climbed down the rope ladder to walk through her new surroundings. Her intent, however, was not to explore, but to utilize the sun-dappled peace to mend the tears in her psyche. As a result, she was soon lost in the vault of tangled memories that held the broken pieces of her.
“You look like you need a cupcake. ”
Sahara jumped, having heard no footsteps, not even a whisper that someone was in the vicinity.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” said the tall woman with hair of a red more golden than Faith’s, the strands pulled back in a tight French braid. Dressed in jeans, boots, and a T-shirt, she did in fact have a pink-frosted cupcake in her hand. “I was going to eat this one, too,” the woman confided, “but I’ve already had three and my hips are starting to groan in protest. ”
Sahara saw nothing but supple muscle on those hips. “Thank you,” she said, taking the unexpected gift. “Are you one of the guards?” The woman’s walk identified her as a feline changeling.
“Name’s Mercy. DarkRiver sentinel—it’s my job to make sure your perimeter remains secure at all times. ” She put a hand on the slight curve of her abdomen in an absent move, her watchful eyes on the forest around them.
“You’re carrying a child,” Sahara blurted out, realizing too late it was rude to raise so personal a topic.
“According to your cousin,” Mercy said dryly, and with no indication of having taken offense, “I might be carrying half a dozen. Faith refuses to tell me if she saw triplets or quads, and I’m not asking beyond that—not sure either my or my mate’s sanity can take it. ” A grin. “The pupcubs will no doubt kick the knowledge into me when they’re ready. ”
“Pupcubs?”
The other woman laughed. “That’s a long story involving a very sexy brown-eyed wolf and far too much hard liquor. ”
Hesitant but hopeful, Sahara smiled. “I have time. ” She liked Mercy, and unlike when she’d been a girl, she didn’t have to keep her distance from someone she wanted as a friend.
Over the next hour, as they walked through the wild green of the trees, Mercy spoke of her passionate courtship with the wolf she clearly adored and who was the father of the “pupcubs” in her womb. Again and again, Sahara’s eye fell on the charms Kaleb had given her . . . and she began to dig deeper into the vault for the fragmented story of her own courtship.
* * *
IT was fifteen minutes past two in the morning in Moscow when Kaleb lay down to rest. He’d only been asleep twenty minutes when he was woken by a piece of raw data that set off his subconscious alarms. He felt no sense of surprise at opening his eyes to discover that Pure Psy had attacked a university heavily attended by Psy, due to its location in the center of the busy city that was Denver.
The world-class campus was famous for its progressive students and faculty. Discussion about current events had to have been rife. And with that many bright minds in one place, no doubt sides had been taken. If Kaleb had to guess, he’d say the majority had decided against Pure Psy—but a minority had disagreed and one or more had no doubt reported the “disloyalty” to the fanatical group.
Pulling on cargo pants, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and combat boots, he teleported into the chaos, identified the individual in charge of evacuating the collapsed buildings, and made himself—and the Arrows who had ’ported in at his request—known as ready to assist. For reasons yet unidentified, Pure Psy hadn’t used firebombs this time, leaving a much higher chance of survivors.
The short, plump, silver-haired human female running the show didn’t blink at their arrival and began to use their skills with a quick-thinking clarity that meant no one attempted to usurp her position. “Quadrant two, at two o’clock,” she said when he checked in after helping to stabilize a building that had threatened to collapse on top of injured and immobile survivors. “Equipment’s picking up breathing. ”
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.