"There is no other option," Anthony responded. "As long as the bounty exists, you stay a target."

"Are you certain a safe house will provide any better protection?" Kaleb had no intention of allowing Sahara to go anywhere aside from the home he'd built for her in Moscow. "This hunter, inept and young, managed to evade your perimeter guards."

"That will be investigated." A flint-hard promise. "Our safe houses are fortresses."

Sahara, hands fisted, shook her head. "No." Backing away from them until her spine hit the wall, she began to b.u.mp her fists against it. "No. No. No."

Recognizing the danger, Kaleb reacted before Anthony could figure out what was happening. "No safe house, no cage," he said, cupping her face and forcing her to meet his gaze until she stopped b.u.mping her fists against the wall, though she continued to rock back and forth.

You risk losing her if you push this, he 'pathed to Anthony as he released her. Her mind isn't fully healed. It was why Kaleb had scared information from the intruder instead of permitting her to exercise her ability.

I can't leave her unprotected.

I can protect her.

"So can the cats."

Kaleb was still trying to digest that wholly unexpected statement when Anthony shifted to enter Sahara's line of sight. "I'm sending you to Faith."

Sahara's body stopped moving, eyes of midnight blue shifting to Anthony. "Faith?"

"Even the best bounty hunter in the world won't think to look for you in the midst of a changeling pack."

"The connection with Faith," Sahara began, her intelligence plainly pushing past the visceral reaction that had sent her tumbling back into her personal h.e.l.l.

Anthony shook his head. "No one expected NightStar to jettison the most powerful F-Psy on the planet, regardless of her personal choices. That was business and expected. This is family."

Kaleb knew Anthony wasn't saying everything, but he could guess. NightStar had been very, very careful to maintain a line of demarcation between its business dealings with Faith and her lack of status as a member of the family-in public at least. Privately was another matter: Anthony remained in regular, direct contact with his daughter.

The latter suspicion was one it had taken Kaleb a year to confirm.

"You're ready to trust the changelings with Sahara's life?" The only reason he was willing to consider the proposal was because of Sahara's response to the mention of her cousin-and because he knew Anthony was right about the prospect of any bounty hunter venturing onto DarkRiver land.

"If they accept her as family, the leopards will close ranks. With Faith certain to vouch for her, as well as Sahara's broken Silence, there is no reason to a.s.sume they won't treat her as one of their own." Anthony's next words were directed at Sahara. "You'll be safe within their borders, and you'll have the forested part of their territory to roam."

That territory is vast, Kaleb added, sending Sahara a number of telepathic images. You'll be as free as any leopard changeling, so long as you don't go into a city.

Deep blue eyes met his before moving to Anthony. "Yes."

"I'll clear it with the DarkRiver alpha." Anthony glanced at Kaleb. "You seem to be treating my territory as your own." It was a warning.

Kaleb slid his hands into the pockets of his pants. "Would you rather I let her die?" he said aloud, even as he spoke to Sahara along their private telepathic channel. Why didn't you call me?

I had it under control. I am a grown woman.

Anthony's stare bore into him on the heels of Sahara's tart reply, but Kaleb hadn't been intimidated by anyone for a long time. "I can transfer Sahara to leopard territory."

"Thank you but that won't be necessary."

"Very well." He looked to Sahara. The knife was a nice touch.

Her scowl faded into a frown. Someone once told me I must always be prepared. I don't remember who it was, but it was sound advice.

If only, Kaleb thought, she'd followed it when she was sixteen. But then, Santano had been a cardinal Tk, an adult male who found pleasure in the pain of young women who couldn't fight back. Sahara had never stood a chance.

Chapter 24.

SAHARA KNEW THE black-garbed man who stood beside her as the clock ticked over four a.m. was an Arrow. She also knew he was a teleporter, one with cold gray eyes and a computronic gauntlet on his left forearm. Yet regardless of the single silver star on the shoulder of his combat uniform that said he was aligned to Kaleb, Anthony trusted the male to transport her to DarkRiver territory.

"I've been sent the image for the transfer." The Arrow looked up from the small screen built into the gauntlet. "Are you ready?"

Sahara had never once hesitated with Kaleb, but she had to take a deep breath before nodding when it came to this Arrow with his steely eyes that seemed as distant as light on a storm-dark horizon. If Kaleb was at times encased in black ice, this man was as chill as frost, his Silence metallic in its perfection.

He was, however, as fast as Kaleb-and since he wasn't a cardinal, he had to be one of the extremely rare true teleporters, designation Tk, subdesignation V. While those of subdesignation V were telekinetics, with the attendant abilities depending on their level of power, it was said they came out of the womb with the ability to 'port, no practice or study necessary, the talent independent of their standing on the Gradient.

As a girl, she'd once heard that Tk-V children were GPS chipped as babies. Sahara didn't know if that was true, or only a story made up by young Psy who had never met anyone from the near-mythical subdesignation V, but it made sense. Like all telekinetics capable of teleportation, they had to have steel-trap geographic memories. So a baby or a toddler could conceivably teleport himself to a random location he'd glimpsed from a car, for example, then become too distressed to teleport back home.

Now the teleporter, a man she simply couldn't imagine as a child, glanced around the pine-needle-carpeted clearing made distinctive by two royal blue scarves hung from thick branches. He inclined his head at the woman with hair of scarlet silk who ran toward Sahara, then was gone.

"Sahara. It's really you!" Cheeks stained with tears, the lovely woman cupped Sahara's face, her smile luminous through the wet. "I thought I'd never see you again."

"Faith." It was a whisper as she took in the woman her remote, composed cousin had become. Alive and stunningly vibrant. "You're so beautiful."

A startled light in the cardinal starlight of Faith's eyes before she gave a small cry and removed her hands. "Forgive me. I didn't-"

"It's all right." Sahara took the slender hands that had touched her with an unhidden affection that made her throat thicken, brought them back to her cheeks. "My Silence is far more than broken."

Wrapping her arms tight around Sahara, her cousin whispered, "I never forgot you," into a quiet filled with the music of a thousand leaves rustling in a pa.s.sing wind. "Father . . . it wasn't until after my defection that he told me about your abduction, and that the family had never stopped searching for you."

Returning Faith's embrace, emotion burning her eyes, Sahara said, "I know you tried to find me, too, through your visions." It was something her own father had shared with her that first day they'd spent together.

A shaky breath as Faith drew back. "I'm so sorry about Leon. He was kind to me whenever our paths crossed."

"He's strong, he'll be okay." Sahara refused to believe in any other outcome. "He didn't give up on me, and I won't give up on him." A future without her father's big, solid presence in her life was incomprehensible.

"If it helps," Faith said, "when I look into the future with Leon as a focus, I constantly see him in his clinic, talking to a patient, or at his desk. I feel no sadness, no sense of loss."

Sahara squeezed her cousin's hand. "Thank you." To hear that from the most gifted F-Psy in the world was no small thing, the glimmer of hope one she held on to with both hands. "I'm sorry, too," she said softly, "about Marine." Faith's younger sister had been a cardinal telepath, her studies rarely crossing with Sahara's, but they'd been cousins all the same.

Sadness in Faith's eyes, her fingers brushing Sahara's cheek. "Marine lived an extraordinary life, did things I only found out about after I was no longer in the PsyNet. She left her mark." Unhidden pride, a waterlogged smile. "I like to think she would've cheered and said 'Finally!' when her toe-the-line sister rebelled at last."

Sahara's responding smile was just as shaky. "I'm so happy you made it out, Faith, that you have a life full of joy. Thank you for inviting me into it."

"You can stay forever as far as I'm concerned." Tender warmth in every word. "We can finally be friends as we always wanted to be."

Sahara wanted nothing more than to accept the offer of sanctuary and just be, but she couldn't do it under false pretenses. "I may be dangerous to your pack. Kaleb Krychek can find me at any time."

The warm welcome in Faith's expression didn't falter. "We've already thought of that. Fact is, if Father is right and Kaleb is a teleporter who can lock on to people rather than simply places, he can find any of us." Smoothing Sahara's hair, she continued. "Still, he's never shown any aggression toward the pack, and you're family. If he does turn hostile, we'll handle it."

Even as Sahara's heart warmed at Faith's protectiveness, another part of her whispered that Kaleb had no family, no one to call his own, no one who would welcome him with the unconditional love with which Faith had welcomed her. "But," she said through a deep sense of desolation mixed with anger at the parents who had given up a defenseless boy to a monster, "you will put me away from your vulnerable?" Kaleb might not harm her, but she couldn't promise the same when it came to others.

"Yes." Faith's eyes were gentle as she said, "Don't worry, Sahara. We've been playing these games a long time." It was the firm rea.s.surance of an older sister. "Your aerie is close to our place, but far enough away to afford you your privacy."

"I have my own aerie?" The idea of a house in the treetops made the damaged girl inside her gasp in wonder.

"Yes, but only if you prefer it that way," Faith a.s.sured her.

"I think I'd like my own place." It felt disloyal to say that when Kaleb had built her a graceful, light-drenched home that sang to her soul-but that home wasn't what she needed at this moment, wasn't a place where she could stretch her long-stunted wings.

Kaleb was too protective . . . too much an addiction.

Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s ached at the memory of how he'd touched her, his eyes an obsidian storm. Every time he came near her, she wanted to dance in the storm. Even now, so far from him, the pine in the air reminded her of him with every breath she took. "Did your mate come with you?" she asked Faith, making the conscious decision to turn her concentration away from the cardinal who'd kissed her under a wolf moon.

Faith's face glowed. "Vaughn."

A tall man with amber hair caught neatly in a queue at the nape of his neck and eyes of near gold appeared out of the shadows. "It's good to meet you at last, Sahara." Quiet and deep, his voice was honey over her skin.

"I'm so happy to meet you, too," she said, fascinated by the way he moved as he pulled down the scarves that had acted as markers for the teleport; she'd never mistake him for either Psy or human.

"He's magnificent, isn't he?" Faith whispered, lips to her ear.

"Yes." But no matter his golden beauty, he didn't make her skin burn, her heart beat out of rhythm, and her soul hurt.

"Let's get you home," her cousin's mate said, throwing one of the scarves around Faith's neck, the other around Sahara's.

The knit was soft against her skin and the pine needles thick underneath her feet as they began to walk. Sahara tried to take in everything at once, until Vaughn teased her gently about spinning her head off her neck. Liking this jaguar who was her cousin's, Sahara made a face at him that caused his cheeks to crease in feline amus.e.m.e.nt, and continued to drink in the wildness around her.

When she turned her gaze upward, it was to see a stunning sky still dotted with countless stars . . . but her eyes kept being drawn to a star situated away from the others, lonely and hard and bright.

The canopy closed overhead a minute later, hiding the star from sight. It wasn't long afterward that she stood in front of a tree so immense, she couldn't see all of it. "Oh." Running to the bottom of the forest giant, she stared up at the neat little house perched among the branches. It was connected to a second house by a pathway along a wide branch.

Light, yellow and rich, spilled from the windows of both.

"Who lives there?" she asked, pointing to the second one.

"No one," Faith said, hand linked to Vaughn's. "It's for when you want us to stay over."

"A guest treehouse!" Delighted, she sent the image of her aerie to the man who was that lonely star, ice hard and cold, the act coming from the same part of her that had turned to him when the world skewed sideways, finding aching pleasure in his touch, unrivaled safety in his arms. And she knew he was too deep inside her, meant too much for her to keep a rational distance, that it would be futile to try. Look!

A hesitation before the dark music of his voice flowed into her mind, wrapping around her senses to curl her toes. You like it?

Yes, Sahara said and, though she knew it was foolish with a man as powerful as Kaleb, felt as if she'd wounded him. The house you built, she whispered in a gentle confession, it sings to me in ways I don't understand, but I'm not ready for it yet, not whole enough.

Vaughn lunged up the tree with dangerous feline grace as she added that last, claws slicing out of his hands and feet to anchor him to the trunk. Eyes wide, she watched him climb to a rolled-up rope ladder at the top without causing anything more than surface scratches on the trunk.

"I can't do that," she said when he jumped back down after freeing the ladder, cat-quiet in spite of the muscled strength of his body.

A sharp grin, the jaguar who was his other half in his eyes. "You don't have to." Reaching into his pocket after retracting his claws, he pulled out a small gadget. "It's a remote to bring the ladder down and roll it back up."

Faith slapped her mate playfully on the shoulder. "Why didn't you just use the remote in the first place?"

The changeling male gave his mate a long look, eyes wild gold. "Red, if you expect me to use a remote to get up a tree, we need to have a serious talk."

Sahara bit back a laugh at the affront in his expression. "Thank you for the remote. I'm very much not insulted."

"You can thank Dorian-he's another one of the sentinels," Vaughn said, tucking a grinning Faith to his side. "He came up with this a while ago, but couldn't get anyone to use it. I think a few packmates even threatened to excommunicate him."

"Predatory changeling pride," Faith said in a stage whisper, "is a sensitive thing."

The laughing tease had Vaughn fisting his hand in Faith's hair to pull her into a kiss as playful as it was sensual, the fingers of his free hand gripping her jaw. The sight made Sahara hunger for a man as dark as Vaughn was golden; a man as remote and contained as her cousin's mate was wild and affectionate.

Putting her hands on the rope ladder, she reached for Kaleb, this Tk who had a claim on her deeper than memory. I'm about to enter the aerie. It took a few steps to get used to the motion of the flexible ladder, but her body soon learned the rhythm and she was pulling herself up onto the landing half a minute later.

The aerie proved to be a single large room, with a tidy kitchen area to the right as she entered, and the shower and other facilities tucked away in the back behind sliding doors of gleaming pine. A bed made up with a pretty comforter in soft pink and white sat to the back left and on the window ledge beside it was a small basket filled with chocolates. Every feature she checked was ecologically sound, the aerie a living part of the forest.

"How did you prepare this so fast?" Sahara asked as her cousin followed her inside. "There's food in the cupboards, a new set of toiletries in the bathroom, fresh towels." It felt warm, welcoming.

"Both these aeries are new, built in antic.i.p.ation of younger members of the pack wanting their own s.p.a.ce in the coming year," her cousin said. "In the meantime, we keep them ready for guests of the pack. Vaughn and I just had to stock the food, and that was easy enough since we all keep extra supplies these days, with the growing unrest."

Her cousin's reference to the turbulence rocking the world had Sahara thinking of Kaleb again, of the games he played with a ruthless ease that made him as much a predator as the jaguar lounging in the doorway.

A jaguar who said, "There's a big family of wildcats in the area. Lynx, too. They might come by to scope you out."

"I hope they do visit." Excitement bubbled in her blood. "I can't imagine seeing them up close."

"Those might be famous last words. Cats are incurably curious-you'll have more wild visitors than you know what to do with." Vaughn paused before adding, "I guarantee none will make any aggressive moves, not with what I'm guessing is Krychek's scent all over you."

Sahara sucked in a breath and met Vaughn's incisive gaze, suddenly conscious he'd intuited the intimate nature of her relationship with Kaleb. "There's something bad in his scent?" she asked, a painful knot in her abdomen.

"No, Sahara. There's something very dangerous in it."

IT was an hour later, the skies graying, that Sahara said good-bye to Faith and Vaughn. "I'll be fine on my own, I promise," she rea.s.sured her cousin when Faith hesitated on the landing. "I have your comm and cell codes if anything goes wrong."

Faith's lips curved in a rueful smile. "Sorry, I know I'm being overprotective. I promise I'll leave you be."

"Rest and heal," Vaughn said, brushing the back of his knuckles over Sahara's cheek in an unexpected caress. "You're safe here."

Sahara watched them leave from the doorway, thinking how very, very lucky she was in her family. She had expected an interrogation about Kaleb, but Faith had asked only if Kaleb was coercing her in any way. Accepting Sahara's negative response, her cousin had promised not to tell Anthony about her relationship with Kaleb, though Faith and Vaughn would have to alert the DarkRiver alpha.

"Do you know what we did to Santano Enrique?" Vaughn had asked, expression grim.