Heart of Obsidian

believe he was forever gone, the damage permanent. “I want jewels on the sheath, bright and colorful.”
And hopeful.
    “It’ll require considerable work,” he said softly, the obsidian of his gaze holding her own, “might even be an impossible task.”
    “Are you surrendering, then?” It was a question as soft. “Walking away?”
    Kaleb’s response held a possessiveness that might yet keep her a prisoner. “I will never walk away from you.”
    * * *
    KALEB didn’t go to bed after Sahara left his office following an interaction he hadn’t ever thought would come to pass, not given what she’d learned of him, and the injuries done to her in the years of captivity. He should’ve known not to attempt to predict or judge her—Sahara Kyriakus had always had an unexpected and stubborn will. No other woman could’ve survived seven years in hell and come out of it with the strength to challenge Kaleb.
    He waited an hour to give her time to fall into deep sleep, before getting up and rolling down the sleeves of his shirt to do up the cuffs. Picking up his jacket from where it hung behind the study door, he shrugged into it. His choice of clothing was another mask—it gave people a certain impression of him, an impression he intended to use tonight to ensure Sahara’s future safety.
    No one
was ever again taking her from him.
    Ready, he discovered himself unable to leave before making dead certain she was safe and undisturbed in her rest. If he lost her now, after she’d returned to him at last, eyes of midnight blue holding a fragile trust he’d never again expected to see, there would no longer be any question about his sanity or lack of it. The world had no knowledge of the delicate hands that held its fate.
    He made sure to position himself in the shadows by the door when he teleported into her room, not wanting to scare her if she wasn’t lost in sleep. Fear in Sahara’s eyes, he’d learned when she’d run from him earlier, burned worse than any acid Santano had poured on him when he’d been a boy. It was dangerous, that pain, could drown the world in blood, but Sahara had been the first, would always be the deepest, fracture in his conditioning.
    It was a truth as pure and as inescapable as the wind.
    The room was pitch-black, but his eyes had learned to adapt in the darkness of his childhood, and he had no trouble seeing her. Risking going closer when her breathing proved quiet and steady, he saw her face was turned sideways on the pillow as she lay on her back, the black strands of her hair silky and thick across the Egyptian cotton of the pillowcase.
    It was the best money could buy. He’d made certain of it.
    Hand rising, he almost touched the sleep-warm curve of her cheek before realizing it would wake her . . . scare her. He couldn’t risk that. Not now, when she’d remembered just enough to trust him on a basic level but not enough to brand him the monster he knew himself to be.
    “You are what I made you. There is nothing else.”
    Visions of blood, bright and hot, spraying across his retinas, he teleported out and manually checked every door and window. Rerouting the perimeter alarms to feed into his cell phone once he was satisfied the house was secure, he made sure the siren remained active. If a breach did occur, he didn’t want Sahara caught unprepared. The filleting knife she’d hidden under her pillow would work fine as a weapon if he was delayed by a second or two, especially since he’d quietly sharpened it until it would take only a single swipe to sever the carotid or jugular.
    Security check complete, he looked in a mirror to confirm his mask remained in place, hair combed neatly and suit jacket buttoned, before accessing his Tk to build the framework for a teleport more complex than his usual split-second shifts. As the search for Sahara had thrown into dark focus, his ability to lock onto people wasn’t foolproof. If the individual in question didn’t know who she was, the attempt would fail. It was no coincidence the enemy Tk had found Sahara
after
she came out of the labyrinth.
    A small number of telepaths in the Net—not necessarily the strongest, but the most intelligent—had figured out that weakness, too. If Kaleb had to guess, he’d say that was how the entire Lauren family, now part of the SnowDancer wolf pack, had ensured the success of their defection.
    Tonight, he had to locate another individual who understood telepathic camouflage: Tatiana