Heart of Obsidian

Sahara halted with her own drink halfway to her mouth. “Changelings?”


“Judd’s niece is someone Ming wants dead or in his control. She’s also mated to the alpha of SnowDancer, considered the most dangerous changeling pack in the world.” Kaleb tapped her glass until Sahara lifted it to her mouth. “Man like that won’t rest until he’s eradicated the threat against his woman.” Kaleb wondered if the wolf alpha would be surprised to find he had something in common with Kaleb Krychek. “Hungry?”

Sahara wrinkled her nose. “Shower first.”

They’d just reached the bedroom when his cell phone rang. It was Aden on the other end. “Vasquez is proving his intelligence,” were the Arrow’s opening words. “His entire team split up after Geneva and scattered in different directions. We captured one; two others suicided when cornered. There are signs two more remain at large.”

An impressive result, but they both knew it wasn’t enough. “Vasquez?”

“Signs point to him being here, but he slipped away.” Though Aden’s voice betrayed nothing, his frustration level had to be high—in the icy way of any Arrow denied his target. “Interrogation of the captive did yield one piece of data; he was assigned to the Luxembourg site with a member of the team we haven’t yet captured. Luxembourg and Paris, however, were also both meant to be distractions.”

“The prisoner didn’t know why Pure Psy needed the distractions, did he?” Vasquez was smart, smart enough to keep information on a need-to-know basis.

“No,” Aden confirmed. “But whatever it is, it’s happening soon, and it’s important enough that a lieutenant we were about to capture threw herself off the side of a building rather than surrender.”

No organization could afford to lose its entire leadership, and now not only had Vasquez risked exposure, his top people were sacrificing themselves to protect their secret. “Leave the teams who have live leads in the field,” he said to Aden. “I want you to rest, along with a rapid response team. We move the instant Vasquez surfaces or Pure Psy makes a move.”

“Agreed.”

Hanging up, he relayed the information to Sahara. “Vasquez might have gone under,” he said, “but his options for safe harbor are limited and shrinking by the minute.”

We wanted to protect our people. We didn’t want the blood of children on our hands.

It was a refrain Kaleb had seen over and over again in the reports Silver had forwarded him, of minor players who had either turned themselves in after his warning blasted through the Net or been turned in by others. “The populace isn’t so Silent,” he said, watching Sahara peel off her T-shirt, “as to not be horrified by the growing atrocities.”

She dropped the T-shirt to the floor and kicked off her shoes. “It makes me hope,” she said softly, “that we have inside us the capacity to build a better future.”

Kaleb didn’t understand hope, but he knew he would do everything in his power to give Sahara the future that was a fragile dream in her eyes as she walked toward him, bare to the skin. Reaching him, she tugged up his long-sleeved black T-shirt, then undid his belt.

“I’ll wait for you in the shower,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to the center of his chest. “I think, after so many years, no one can begrudge us for stealing a little time.”

His eyes caressed every inch of her as she walked away from him with the grace of the dancer she’d always been . . . and he knew she was healing in the deepest of ways. Ripping off the rest of his clothing, he stepped into the shower behind her, his hands at her hips. The hot water pounded over them, but the beat of his heart was louder, deeper, stronger.

Bending his head to her neck, he kissed her throat, his hands rising to cup her breasts. She arched into him with a shudder, her hands slippery on his thighs, his Sahara who had never turned away from him. Picking up her arms, he brought them around his neck, then poured some of the liquid soap into his hands. She moved with a sinuous sensuality against him as he slicked the soap over her skin, the foam trickling down her legs.

“Put your hands on the wall.”

She obeyed his quiet order with a smile that was at once sultry and possessive. “Have you gone obsidian?” Hands flat on the tile, she moaned as he stroked the soap over her back and onto the curves of her buttocks.

“Yes.” He took his time with the task, before going down on his haunches to run the soap over her legs.

His kiss to her inner thigh made her gasp and turn around. Tugging him to his feet, she let the spray hit her back and held out her hand for the soap. “You’re dirty, too.”