Heart of Obsidian

Enrique was a Councilor, but she knew nothing about him beyond that. Yet the tone of the voices she recalled told her this was an important fact about Kaleb.
    Drinking some water, she took a deep breath and tried to figure out her next move.
    At least there’s hope.
    The thought was a glow in her heart. For so long, there hadn’t been even a possibility of hope, her mind ripped open with such brutal ugliness that she’d had to curl up within herself to survive. The stripping had been in retaliation for her creation of the labyrinth, but Sahara wasn’t sorry. Without the labyrinth, she’d be worse than one of the so-called rehabilitated, her personality erased, her mind that of an automaton who did exactly as her jailers ordered.
    The shield.
    Breathing in and out at the mental reminder, she opened her psychic eye to the obsidian shield that protected her mind. That
beautiful
, indestructible creation wasn’t hers, could never be hers. It belonged to Kaleb. If she attempted to escape him, he might well collapse it in punishment.
    Her stomach roiled at the idea of being so naked and helpless once more, panic threatening to seize her senses, but she gritted her teeth, forced herself to
think
the same way she’d done as a scared teenager at the mercy of strangers who wanted only to use her until she was nothing and no one. There might be gaps in her memory, huge chunks lost to the twists of the labyrinth, but some things were hardwired. She knew how to build shields, had done so since childhood.
    And Kaleb would never hurt me.
    Ignoring the thought that had to be a product of her confusion over his apparent care of her, she began to weave her own shields below his. When he realized she had no intention of giving him what he wanted and withdrew his protection—
    He won’t hurt me. He’d never hurt me.
    Trembling at the thoughts that could well mean she hadn’t come out of the labyrinth sane, she decided to shower, in the hope the water would calm her. It did, one thought arrowing through the panic.
    I have the tools to escape.

Chapter 8

    HER STOMACH REVOLTED violently at the idea of using those tools against Kaleb, but the reminder that she wasn’t helpless gave her something to cling to. No longer was she a drugged sixteen-year-old with erratic control over her mind; she was a woman, a survivor. Dressed, she tied back her hair and opened her door, taking care to be quiet. From the way Kaleb never had any trouble locating her, he had to be keeping track of her in some fashion . . . perhaps through a Trojan in her mind.
    Bile burning her throat, she scrambled to check her neural pathways for the construct that could give one telepath a back door into another’s mind. Nothing obvious jumped out at her, but Kaleb was too powerful not to know how to hide such a leash—and regardless of her subconscious’s determination to trust him, he was a man who lived for power. Even as the latter thought crossed her mind, another, more rational part reminded her that no such construct—no matter how subtle—could circumvent the unique natural safeguards born of her ability.
    Her mind simply
could not be compromised
by outside forces.
    Added to that, if Kaleb had wished to know her thoughts, fragmented though they’d been, he could’ve easily rifled through them in the days since he’d taken her. The quiet psychic recorders she’d hidden inside her mind long before the labyrinth told her he hadn’t. Rather than relief, the realization made her blood chill—because it left only one reason why he wanted her under his control.
    And she’d never tested her ability against a man with shields of obsidian.
    Her every breath jagged, her heart out of sync, she stepped out of her room to see the door to his own open. Not chancing a look inside in case he was still within, she padded down the hallway to the kitchen, the gentle light coming in through the window telling her the sun had just risen. Once there, she forced herself to eat—she had to rebuild her strength. But her hand shook as she picked up a breakfast bagel so fresh it was still warm, the paper sleeve around it bearing the elegant silhouette of what appeared to be a luxury hotel.
    Most telekinetics hoarded their strength for only the most necessary use, but Kaleb . . . that level of power was beyond scary. Except an insane part of her continued to fight her conscious mind, continued to see him as safe and as
off-limits
to the single devastating weapon she had