Heart of Obsidian

further specific attention to Faith.” Reaching out, he tugged the front of her ball cap a little further down.
    He’d given her the cap when he met her and Kaleb in the deserted service corridor Kaleb had used as a teleport lock. According to him, the cap, branded with the logo of the champion local baseball team, would make her far less apt to attract attention, even if she spent hours in the station. Since she’d already seen a number of other people with the same cap, she couldn’t argue.
    “How’s Leon?”
    “Good. Really good.” Sahara spoke to her father every day and had already planned a visit in the coming days, no matter what. But first, she had to do what she could to help stop another wave of violence. “Okay”—a deep breath—“I’m ready.”
    It was the first time she’d attempted anything of this magnitude, and from what she’d heard of telepaths who had allowed their shields to drop in similar situations, she had to brace herself for a crushing blast of noise as a thousand different minds crashed into her own. Ninety-nine percent of individuals, Psy, human, or changeling, had a “public” mind, an upper level of inconsequential thought that was rarely shielded; that would be bad enough, but Sahara intended to scan the next layer down.
    Here I go,
she said to the Tk who was her own.
    I won’t let you drown.
    Holding on to that promise, she opened her senses the smallest fraction, ready to shut everything down the instant she hit overload. Except—
    Oh!
    It wasn’t the same as with the telepaths. Her ability was unique, her mind created to filter data from other minds in a streamlined fashion. The thoughts of passersby were clearly delineated, her mind visualizing each individual as a separate, understandable strand . . . shimmering silver for Psy, a haunting, luminous blue for humans, and a stunning wild green for changelings.
    It was a multihued sea as extraordinarily beautiful as the PsyNet.
    Not feeling the least stretched, she expanded her senses bit by bit and had to bite the inside of her cheek to stifle her excitement. Her reach wasn’t only two to three inches around her body. It was far,
far
wider. At fifty percent strength, she could understand the thoughts of every individual passing within the walls of the station . . . including those of the changeling next to her, and changeling shields were meant to be impenetrable.
    What she caught made her want to grin—Vaughn was humming a nonsense tune clearly meant to obfuscate his thoughts. It worked, and it told her Faith had her suspicions about Sahara’s abilities. That didn’t worry her. Her cousin would never betray her. Now, after consciously blocking Vaughn’s mind, she began to scan and discard thoughts at a speed that turned the strands into a silver-blue jetstream vibrant with sparks of wild green.
    * * *
    KALEB didn’t teleport inside DarkRiver’s HQ after leaving Sahara and Vaughn at the station. He walked through the door in a gesture of goodwill that had him receiving a curt nod of welcome from the leopard alpha. The green-eyed male was around Kaleb’s height, with the sleek, muscular build so common in the feline changelings.
    “Krychek. You’ve beaten Anthony here.”
    The head of NightStar walked in two minutes later and Lucas gestured for them to follow him into a large meeting room dominated by an oval-shaped table that currently held seven people. Kaleb caught Judd’s eye, noting the other man sat beside the wolf alpha, Hawke. Next to Hawke was a male Kaleb ID’ed as Nathan Ryder, DarkRiver’s most senior lieutenant.
    Nikita was on the other side of the table, next to Max Shannon, her security chief. According to Kaleb’s informants, Max’s wife, Sophia, an ex-J with a huge network of contacts, had also quietly become one of Nikita’s most trusted advisers. Her reliance on the couple was a fact many in Nikita’s organization struggled to understand, since Max and Sophia were apparently as often in conflict with Nikita as they were in agreement.
    Kaleb understood. He didn’t employ the weak, either.
    Now Max Shannon caught his gaze and nodded in a silent thank-you.
    Kaleb thought to tell the other man theirs was a debt he might one day collect, but didn’t for the same reason he’d helped save Sophia’s life from a madman over half a year ago. He hadn’t been able to help the one woman who was everything to him, his mind a place of angry darkness, but in saving Sophia, he had gained, if