Heart of Obsidian

That was his mistake and part of what made Sahara so dangerous.

A split second after her fingers brushed his, the kidnapper handed her his gun, his eyes blurry with confusion. “What am I doing here?”

“You got lost.” Weaving a new memory for him, she sent him to sleep on the floor. When he woke, it would be with a recollection of an altercation that required he lie low for a week.

Sahara hated the idea of violating anyone’s mind, but this bounty hunter had lost the protection offered by her abhorrence for mental invasion when he decided to abduct her. Slipping in and out of his mind as if it were her own, she logged on to his computer using his password and erased everything that referenced the deal, whether in his e-mail or in his bank accounts. It helped that he was organized, his mind filing the data about her in a discrete section, but it still took time.

Rather than attempting to overwrite the hard drive, she decided to take the computer with her. That meant another memory insertion where the kidnapper’s phantom opponent in this altercation threw the small backpack containing his computer under a passing truck, the pieces that remained fit only for the recycler.

Kaleb, she said afterward, conscious it was past midnight in Moscow. Are you awake?

Yes. What do you need?

For you not to kill someone.

He appeared beside her a second later, taking in the situation with a single glance. “Why shouldn’t I kill him?” An ice-cold question.

“Because I’ve handled it. He’s more useful to us alive.” Once she’d touched a mind, Sahara could slip back in and take total control regardless of distance or time, turning the individual into a flesh-and-blood puppet who had not even a suspicion that his decisions weren’t his own.

The idea of doing such a thing revolted her, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Resulting from an unknown genetic mutation that meant it had no official classification, her ability was one that would be the bogeyman of her race should they know about her. No mind was safe from Sahara’s, no shield impenetrable, no offensive ability capable of stopping her if she got close enough just once.

She left behind no trace of her interference, the memories she implanted as real as true memories. And she was undetectable when she worked. Should she desire, she could make a Councilor dance to her tune, a CEO sign over his properties, a man slit his own throat while smiling. And while she’d never had cause to test how many minds she could control at one time, the trusted NightStar telepath who’d worked with her to understand her ability when it first came to light, had posited it to be in the triple digits.

It was the ugliest of abilities to have for a woman whose own mind had been torn apart, but she had come to terms with it during the periods of lucidity built into the labyrinth. The decisions she’d made and the rules she’d laid down for herself all revolved around a central question: If she ever had a child, could she look into that child’s eyes without feeling ashamed at what she had done?

Nothing about her actions today breached that test.

“Who hired him?” Kaleb asked, his gaze on the kidnapper, the stars eclipsed by lethal black.

“I’ve handled it,” she repeated rather than responding to the question and, when he didn’t shift his gaze, decided to play hardball. “If you don’t respect my wishes, I simply won’t call you next time.”

The line of his jaw remained a blade, but he turned his attention off the bounty hunter. “Who?”

“According to his memories, Tatiana.”

“Impossible. She’s exactly where I put her.”

“Then someone in her organization smart enough to work out what I can do, and cocky enough to deceive and undercut his boss.” If the rumors about the other woman’s rise to power were correct, it truly was a case of what the humans called karma.

Not wasting any further time or energy thinking about Tatiana, she looked into the face of the cardinal telekinetic who she knew was having to exercise harsh self-control not to send the man at their feet to an early grave. “Let’s go home, Kaleb,” she said, brushing her fingers over his jaw in a silent reminder of who he was to her.





Chapter 34





THE FIRST THING she did once they were on the starlit terrace in Moscow was put down the laptop, borrow Kaleb’s phone, having forgotten her own at the aerie, and call Faith. “I’m safe,” she assured her cousin. “You? Mercy? Her babies?”

“We’re fine. Mercy ate the paramedics alive when I made her get a checkup,” Faith said with an affectionate laugh. “Then Riley turned up and she decided to cooperate because he was crazy with worry—but she was right. There wasn’t a scratch on her and, in her expert former hellion-child opinion, the pupcubs enjoyed the excitement.”