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 reassurance 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 assured 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 breasts 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 amusement, 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.”