Heart of Obsidian

Sahara had no comprehension of the power she wielded, of the empires he’d destroy for her, the blood he’d spill. All she saw was the monster he’d become. “I would never hurt you.” Every man had a breaking point, and Sahara was his—and though he knew his declaration to be the wrong move on the chessboard, her trust in him wavering, he could no longer stand the wariness of her.

Sahara’s eyes were of infinite depth when she looked at him, the clarity of her gaze seeming to strip away the mask until she saw the ugly truth of his becoming. “I want to go home,” she said, “to Tahoe. To my father.”

Every muscle in his body went rigid. “I’ve told you, you belong to me.” She was the only person in the world who did, and he would never surrender his claim.

Not unless and until she did the one thing that would forever separate them.

“You also promised me you’d never hurt me.” It was a quiet reminder of the vow he’d just remade. “This—us—I’m being subsumed in it.” Acrid fear, the line of her jaw taut as she turned her gaze to the water. “I can’t become who I’m meant to be in your shadow. I’m afraid of waking up one day and finding there’s nothing left inside me but this furious need for you that wrenches away my sanity.”

The cold void in him, the part that spoke to the DarkMind and found satisfaction in Tatiana’s terror, saw in her confession—in the memory of the way she’d held him to her, both of them out of control—a submission that gave him the power to bend her to his will. If he held her long enough, Sahara would be his in every way. But even the part that was the void, merciless and without conscience, knew one thing: the woman who remained would no longer be Sahara, her murder a quiet suffocation.

“There is no guarantee NightStar will be safe for you,” he said, the waves crashing to shore with increasing force as his telekinesis threatened to slip its bonds. “You had your suspicions about what they did to Faith.”

“My father, I remember him now.” She blinked against the spray of a wave that slammed to the sand with enough force to reach them both. “He’s not just a name, was never just a genetic donor. He would’ve missed me.”

Seeing the flecks of water on his shirt, Kaleb was reminded of the shards of glass that carpeted the living room. “Your father is Silent.” As he spoke, he switched on the dissonance at the highest level, wracking his body with a nerve-shredding pain that he bore in expressionless quiet. He could not risk losing lethal control while Sahara sat next to him, asking to walk away. The pain itself did nothing to halt the Tk—no, it was simply a reminder that he could never, ever let go.

If he struck out and ended her, he would become a nightmare in truth.

“He might be Silent,” Sahara said, her mind filled with images of a big man who had picked her up and dusted her off after countless childhood accidents, “but I was more to him than a biological legacy.” In front of her, the waves remained aggressive but no longer violent, and she knew the Tk beside her had found the black ice again. Passionate anger bubbled below her skin, her hatred directed at the very remoteness that might make him open to reason.

“My father treated me with care”—she tightened her grip around her own wrists to stop from reaching for Kaleb—“even when my only known gift was backsight at a level far below my standing on the Gradient. He never once made me feel as if I were a disappointment. My whole life, I knew I was important to him.”

Glancing at Kaleb when he remained silent, the wind whipping her hair off her face, she said, “Did he search for me?”

Kaleb’s eyes remained on the water, his gaze that blackness so absolute, she couldn’t imagine what he saw. “Yes. Leon Kyriakus has led the NightStar search since the day of your disappearance, to the present day.”

Hope struggled to life inside her. “Tatiana is . . . out of the picture”—tightening her stomach muscles to contain the roiling in her abdomen—“and there is no reason to believe anyone in my family was ever sympathetic to her. NightStar is a very tight-knit clan.” They’d had to be. Foresight was not a gift that allowed for the survival of the individual without the support of the group. “Even if they did sell out Faith”—it hurt to think that—“it shows a profit motive. There is no possible economic advantage in giving up my ability to another.”

No response from the deadly Tk who considered her his possession.

“I want to go home, Kaleb,” she said again, and watched the waves turn murderous.





Chapter 19