Heart of Obsidian

later.
    “Wait,” he said to Sahara when she got to her feet, and, activating the low-level hum of his ability, he did a test ’port. He appeared in the night darkness beside the tree at the back of Leon Kyriakus’s home between one thought and the next, the tree large enough to provide concealment for a Tk who should have never set foot on this land. But he had, and in so doing, he’d altered the course of Sahara’s life, coloring it in suffering and isolation.
    The well-kept house at the edge of the NightStar compound appeared quiet, but a light glowed in the room he knew to be Leon’s study.
    Returning to Sahara, he said, “Are you ready?” as the void screamed its denial of what he was about to do, the madness threatening to suck him under.
    A deep breath before she slid her hand into his. “I’ll be able to reach you?” The question was quiet, her hand clenching on his.
    “At will.” His telepathy was agonizingly strong, would amplify her own abilities to allow them to speak as they wished. “If you feel at risk at any stage, just call. I’ll come.” He would always come to her call.
    An unexpected uncertainty, her throat moving as she swallowed. “What if the clan disowns me because of my broken Silence?”
    “They didn’t disown Faith, and it’s highly unlikely they’ll do so when it comes to a family member they’ve been searching for for seven years.” When her breath trembled, he said, “A single word and I’ll get you out.” It was keeping his distance that might yet prove an impossibility.
    Pulse fluttering in her throat, she nodded. “Let’s go.”
    He made the teleport with that slender hand curled around his, the connection causing his already raw nerve endings to bleed. Though he’d planned on using sex to bond Sahara closer to him, he hadn’t realized the brutal impact intimate touch—extended touch of any kind—would have on him when it was Sahara whose skin slid against his, Sahara whose taste was a drug in his system. To everyone else, he would appear as stable as always. He wasn’t. And that could be devastating when it involved Kaleb’s level of power.
    Sahara’s fingers flexed in his hold, causing another tiny rupture, another spike in the dissonance he’d initiated. “I never thought to check if he still lives here. This unit is meant for a parent and child, not a man alone.”
    “He does.” Kaleb knew Leon Kyriakus had never stopped waiting for his only daughter to come home. He hadn’t paused for a suitable period, then organized another fertilization and conception contract to replace his genetic legacy. He hadn’t cleared out her room and thrown away her belongings. And he hadn’t ever stopped searching for her.
    Having no experience of parental loyalty, it had taken Kaleb years to accept that Leon would never give up on his child—and he would certainly never hand her over to Kaleb, should it be Leon who located her first. Not without a bloody fight. Such fidelity was something Kaleb respected, and he’d had every intention of permitting Leon to see his daughter—
after
she had bonded to Kaleb in a way that could not be severed by any power on this Earth.
    The one thing he hadn’t factored into his strategy was that Sahara was the greatest, deepest fracture in his psyche. He would do things for her he’d do for no one else, but while he’d empty the sky for her so she could spread her wings, fly, he would not set her free. She belonged to him, would always belong to him. “Your father,” he added, “leaves an electronic key for you in the small hollow below the last step.”
    Wet in the deep blue eyes he’d waited seven long years to see again, Sahara took a step toward the house, halted. “You won’t leave me yet?”
    He stepped forward in silent answer.
    * * *
    AS Sahara raised her hand to knock on the door, however, Kaleb’s palm broke contact with her own. She felt stunningly moorless, her heart aching with a sense of loss beyond all proportion to the act, but she knew he’d made the right choice. Her father was about to find his kidnapped daughter on his doorstep. Any further source of stress would be untenable.
    A sound from inside that sent her heart into her throat.
Kaleb.
    Call and I’ll come. Always.
    The door opened to spill golden light onto her feet, on the heels of a promise that felt etched in stone, the man on the other side as tall and as wide as in her memory—her father had never had the body of the