Heart of Obsidian

beautiful shields to conceal your location.” She had made it so easy for him. “Soon after I leave, your security team will receive a sharply worded note ordering them to do a full security audit, since they failed their recent ‘test.’”
    Again, she had paved the way for her own imprisonment—she was so paranoid about her enemies that she rarely used telepathy these days, preferring to communicate via secure e-mail. “As for your companies, as long as they continue to receive instructions from ‘you,’ no one will be any the wiser.”
    Tatiana’s hand gripped the edge of the metal table hard enough to make her bones push against her skin. “Kaleb, I didn’t know she was yours.”
    “That’s irrelevant.” Rage rolled through his bloodstream in a pitiless wave, cold and unforgiving. “You still damaged her to the point where she may never fully come back.” Sahara had screamed in that bloody bed during their last meeting, but she had never begged, somehow managed to stay whole. Then had come Tatiana, and a captivity that had forced Sahara to entomb herself to survive.
    “What does it matter to you, if you intend to kill her anyway?” Tatiana asked, a desperation in her tone that was too ragged to be feigned.
    Psychic isolation had a way of doing that to Psy. Sahara had lived the same nightmare for seven years. “My intent makes no difference to your culpability.”
    Strolling around the circular room, he glanced at the food stores to make sure she had enough to survive on. The medical supplies were basic, but she’d be able to do some first aid. He’d been very careful about the injuries he’d done her—none of it was life threatening, and she could fix the dislocations herself.
    It wasn’t difficult. Kaleb had learned to do so as a boy.
    Tatiana followed him with her eyes. “You’re not planning to leave me here.” Swinging her legs off the side of the table that had channels on either side meant for blood and other bodily fluids, she bit down on her lower lip, her left knee grotesquely swollen. “Kaleb, you can’t. You’re not Santano Enrique.”
    “Aren’t I?” He smiled again. “The food will last for six months if you don’t gorge. I hope you enjoy the accommodations.”
    “Wait! Wait! What is this place?”
    Closing the distance between them, he leaned in to whisper the truth in her ear. “It’s Santano’s oldest playroom, of course.” A room no one else knew existed, the stains on the floor created by the blood of countless victims Kaleb had watched scream and plead and break.
    * * *
    HAVING woken early to find Kaleb’s door closed, Sahara dressed in jeans paired with a floaty rose-colored top, made herself a hot drink, then padded down to visit the koi, before curling up in her favorite armchair in the living room. She loved the way the pale gold morning sunshine made the room glow, the grasslands beyond shimmering with light, until they weren’t desolate but achingly beautiful.
    Her intent had been to read further articles on her cousin Faith’s spectacular defection from the PsyNet, but the light kept hitting the bracelet she wore on her right wrist, and each time it did, she’d think of a man kissed by darkness, of the single star and a history she couldn’t remember. She was rubbing her finger over the final platinum charm when Kaleb walked into the room. Dressed in the same business suit she’d seen him in last night, it was clear he hadn’t been asleep as she’d assumed.
    Her first thought was that he was a dangerously seductive predator in a flawlessly cut mask. Her second was that something was very,
very
wrong. “Kaleb, what is it?” Putting aside her organizer, she shoved aside the lap blanket she’d found folded on the back of the armchair and ran to him. His expression was as remote and as inscrutable as always, and yet her blood ran cold, the tiny hairs on her body standing up in alarm.
    “Kaleb, please.” Desperation had her daring to touch the fingertips of both hands to his cheeks. “What have you done?” It came out a near whisper.
    “Nothing that didn’t need to be done.” Closing his hands around her wrists, he tugged her own gently off his face and to her sides, where he broke contact. “You don’t want to touch me right now.”
    “Why?” There was a wildness inside of her, a screaming, panicked girl who said she had to fix this, fix
him
, though she knew, she
knew
that she couldn’t turn back time, couldn’t undo that which