Heart of Obsidian

than a group whose every action led to further cracks in the structure of Psy society? Cracks that left plenty of room for a “hero” to step in and clean up the mess.
    As for the lives lost, they’d be written off as collateral damage.
    * * *
    KALEB returned home without speaking to the news media. It wasn’t necessary—he knew word of his actions had gone viral across the world, the images of him with survivor after survivor in his arms far more powerful than anything he could’ve said. Unbuttoning his shirt as he walked down the corridor to his bedroom, he entered to find Sahara sitting on the edge of his bed.
    She jerked up to her feet, her eyes going to his chest, back up, color on her cheekbones. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think. I was waiting for you.”
    The latter words were a punch to the solar plexus, an echo across time, but tasting the fear beneath her embarrassment, he kept his distance. “We can speak after I shower.” Smoke and grit coated his every breath.
    The color on her cheeks still hot, she said, “Of course,” and slipped out.
    Closing the door, he stripped and stepped under the pounding spray of the shower to wash off the scent of smoke and flame that seemed embedded in his very cells. The bomb had been expertly placed to do maximum damage, the resulting fire a bonus for Pure Psy. At least a hundred and five confirmed dead, with fifty-seven unaccounted for.
    Chances were good that a percentage of the missing had already left for work and would get in touch with the authorities as the news spread, but there was also a high chance that there’d been people inside who weren’t on the building manifest. Until the forensic teams were able to get in to scour the building for victims, the final death toll could not be predicted with any certainty.
    Scrubbing at his body and hair until the water ran clear, he got out, dried himself off. It was as he was about to put on a suit in preparation for the meetings he’d had Silver postpone that he remembered the way Sahara’s gaze had fixed on his bare chest, her breath hitching as her skin heated.
    He knew he had a physically attractive body—changeling and human females had made that clear with the silent invitations they sent him on a regular basis. None of them ever approached, realizing who and what he was, but he’d known that should he decide to accept one of those invitations, he wouldn’t hear the word “no.” His very coldness seemed a lure for certain women, and though he had paused to consider if they would scream in terror when faced with the reality of him, he had never tested the theory.
    To him, his body was a tool, and the women who’d sent the invitations had nothing to offer him that would’ve made it worth his while to put that tool to intimate use. Sahara wasn’t one of those nameless women with a heat in their eyes that reminded him of the fever in Santano Enrique’s at the moment of the kill. Given that link to blood and torture, Kaleb wasn’t certain he wouldn’t have snapped the women’s fragile necks had he accepted their invitations.
    That wasn’t ever going to be an issue with Sahara. She fell into a unique category of her own. More, he needed her to bond with him. And regardless of the fact that physical contact caused him acute discomfort, and sex would require him to push himself inside Sahara’s body, the primal act was known to create a bond far stronger than any chain. As if the sweat and heat of sex melded the couple together.
    His hand flexed, clenched, his body hardening in response to images he wasn’t consciously aware of forming. It was a problematic development. While his body was in prime condition, the fact was, he shouldn’t have responded—that he’d done so with such faint provocation spoke to deep issues with his control that he’d have to fix before he laid hands on Sahara.
    As it was, any such thoughts were premature. Sahara wasn’t yet at a point where he could initiate the most intimate level of physical bonding. For now, he’d use her attraction to his body to keep her off balance, allow it to eat into the fear that colored her eyes whenever she looked at him . . . a fear that made his Tk wrench at the reins, ready to break free and destroy everything around them.
    Discarding the shirt he’d picked up, he pulled on only a pair of the lightweight black pants he wore while running, his upper body bare. His eye caught on the mark on his left forearm as he threw the towel