Tangle of Need

KALEB teleported into Nikita’s office to find Anthony Kyriakus already there. Since Anthony was a telepath with no teleport-capable ability, that meant he’d either used one of his Tks to arrange an immediate ’port … or he’d been with Nikita at the time of the attack. Very late for a political meeting.

Unbuttoning his suit jacket, he took a seat beside Anthony, on the other side of Nikita’s desk. “A de facto Council?”

“I have no reason to want the Net to suffer a catastrophic failure,” Nikita said instead of answering, her ruler-straight black hair brushing her shoulders. “Neither does Anthony. Neither do you.”

“So certain?”

“You want to control the Net, Kaleb. Broken, it’s useless to you.”

He said nothing to that, betrayed nothing. Nikita thought she understood how his mind worked. She didn’t, but it was to his advantage to let her misapprehension continue. “There’s still no sign of Henry, and Shoshanna has bunkered down somewhere in England behind heavy shields.” None of which would protect her when the time came. “Tatiana and Ming are the wild cards.” Kaleb had his suspicions about Ming’s involvement in the Pure Psy assault in California, but the military mastermind had been very careful to bury his tracks.

“There are others who have reason to want to damage the Net,” Anthony said, and the three of them went through much the same conversation he’d had with Aden and Vasic.

Aden, he thought with a corner of his mind, was the center around whom the Arrows rotated. While the telepath wasn’t the most powerful member of the squad in terms of raw psychic ability, he was the one the rest of the Arrows looked to for leadership. He also had the support of Vasic, the only teleporter in the Net faster than Kaleb himself. To own the squad, Kaleb would have to have Aden’s loyalty. And he would. Because Kaleb had plans Nikita couldn’t even guess at, and having a squad of lethal assassins behind him would make things both deadlier and smoother when he played his endgame.

“Now that the violence has a shape, will your foreseers be able to predict the next strike?” Nikita asked Anthony.

“I’ve given the order, and I’ll forward any pertinent information, but chaos on this scale skews and warps the timeline.” Anthony glanced at Kaleb. “We’ll ensure our anchors are well protected.”

“I can offer you a certain number of my troops.” He knew the two ex-Councilors had limited military resources of their own, would find it near impossible to cover the anchor network in the area.

“Thank you,” Nikita said, “but I’ll decline.”

Anthony’s response was much the same. Kaleb hadn’t expected anything else—if he were on the other side, he wouldn’t trust himself either. “The offer remains on the table, should you change your mind.”

Rising, he buttoned up his suit jacket at the same time that he soothed the panic of the NetMind. The neosentience was scared, and while Kaleb didn’t feel, he had learned to differentiate the moods of the DarkMind and NetMind both. Now he gentled the NetMind and reined in the DarkMind, the darker sentience stronger in the wake of the murderous violence. “If you’ll excuse me. I need to return to my own region.”

A second later, he teleported into another room on another continent. “Ming,” he said. “Tatiana, I see you’ve heard about the attack.”





Chapter 58


AFTER A NIGHT spent curled around the woman who had healed something broken in him, then held him as the wound tore open again, Riaz woke with his world back in focus. “Good morning,” he said, brushing aside the inky strands of hair that clung to Adria’s cheek.

“Morning.” A faint smile, the caution hidden but present.

He felt like he’d been punched all over again, but he told himself to be patient. His not-so-tough soldier had had a shock, too. Leaning down, he nibbled at her lower lip in a playful kiss, one hand splayed over her rib cage, his other arm braced above her head.

She ran her own hand up his chest and around to his nape, petting him with the same affectionate laziness, her smile growing deeper. “This is a nice way to wake up.”

“Yes, it is.” He went to say something else, but the comm beeped, Riley summoning him to an urgent lieutenant meeting.

He didn’t want to go, wanted to love Adria sweet and slow, show her who she was to him, but he was a lieutenant as she was a senior soldier. Dashing into the shower, he walked out to find she’d scared up a cup of coffee for him. “I hope it’s not another attack,” she said, eyes of blue-violet dark with worry.

Cupping her cheek, he pressed his forehead to her own for a single, precious moment. “I hope the hell not. I’m guessing whatever it is, the seniors will all be briefed soon as we’re done.”

She nodded. “Go on.” A quick kiss, the warmth of her lips still with him when he walked into the conference room a few minutes later.