Part 23 (2/2)
David Sezer was the only one left, and the birds were beginning to sing outside when Kaleb decided it was time to pay the other male a personal visit. It was three hours later, once he'd showered and dressed after taking care of that matter, that he went to meet the two people other than Sahara who had a claim on his loyalty.
It was nothing akin to what he felt for her, but it was enough for him to teleport into the night shadow of San Francisco, the clouds hiding the sickle moon from view. Sliding into the last pew in the church where Father Xavier Perez welcomed all who came, he spoke to the back of the former Arrow who sat in front of him. Never did the other man look at his face, but he knew it was to Kaleb that he spoke.
”You want to discuss Pure Psy,” Kaleb guessed. The three of them-Xavier, Judd, and Kaleb-had long been bound by a mutual desire to collapse the rotten power structure of the Net, but where Judd and Xavier wanted to save the innocents of all races caught up in the rot, Kaleb had fought only for Sahara.
That he had saved a number of lives during their fight, helped some of those innocents, had been a consequence rather than an aim. Then again, perhaps Judd and Xavier had had a deeper impact on him than any one of them believed; after all, he had spared the children in his plan to wipe the Psy off the face of the planet if his search for Sahara ended with the knowledge of her death.
He'd told her about Judd, about Xavier, and about the details of their strategic war, in the quiet minutes after he and Sahara had had s.e.x under the starlit Moscow sky, his heart beating in time with hers as she lay warm and sated against him. The only person with whom he had ever understood friends.h.i.+p had seen that in his relations.h.i.+p with the two men. He had accepted her judgment, knowing Sahara comprehended far more about emotion than he ever would.
”No,” Judd said now. ”Not Pure Psy. I need information on Ming.”
Kaleb thought about why his fellow rebel would need data on the former Councilor. ”He's become too big a threat to Sienna.” Judd's niece might be the only individual on the planet as dangerous as Kaleb, but since she had no desire to impinge on his territory, nor he on hers, he'd left her alone.
That, and his loyalty to the fallen Arrow in front of him.
”Ming's fixated on her,” Judd confirmed. ”She managed to hurt him the last time they came in contact, and Ming never forgets a threat.” He raised a hand in a silent h.e.l.lo as Xavier walked down the center of the church toward them, while Kaleb drew back into the shadows. It was safer for Xavier not to know his ident.i.ty.
Unlike Judd, the priest had never been trained to be lethal.
Sliding into the pew beside Judd, Xavier said, ”We've worked for a better world all this time, believing the ugliness that was the Council needed to be excised from the Net, and now it appears that the Net is fracturing, with fatal results. I do not wish to bathe in the blood of innocents.”
”Innocents were never our targets,” Judd said, his next words directed at Kaleb. ”Has that changed?”
”Do you remember when you asked me if there was one person in the PsyNet who mattered to me?”
”Yes.”
”That person has asked me not to destroy the Net.” Like the scars that marked him, the rot would be nearly impossible to eradicate without first sanitizing the network. But he knew he couldn't do that and still have Sahara look at him the way she'd done on the terrace, a softness to her that made him believe he might understand happiness. ”Your innocents are safe from me.”
”I'm glad.” Quiet words from the former Arrow.
”Would you have attempted to execute me if I'd answered otherwise?” While Judd's Tk wasn't as powerful as Kaleb's, he was fiercely intelligent, might just have achieved his aim.
”Yes,” came the brutal answer. ”It would've destroyed a piece of me to end your life, but I would've done it.”
Chapter 36.
KALEB FELT NO sense of betrayal; he'd known the answer before he asked the question. He also knew the other man would've done everything in his power to save Kaleb before he attempted to a.s.sa.s.sinate him. Judd had somehow survived the cruel life of an Arrow with his conscience, if not intact, then not totally destroyed.
Not long ago, Kaleb had watched the other man laughing with his mate and considered such an existence beyond his understanding or reach. Even should he find Sahara, he'd believed himself too damaged to give her what Judd gave his mate. Yet tonight, Sahara had kissed him, fought with him, laughed that familiar husky laugh when he not only bent, but broke every single one of the metal railings during their slow, lazy s.e.x under the stars.
If Judd and Xavier had helped him remain sane enough to give Sahara what she needed, then he owed them a debt that could never be discharged. ”Ming,” he said, ”is in France.
”Champagne region as before,” he added, having updated the data the previous day, ”though he's s.h.i.+fted his base of operations. I'm in the process of tracking that base, but he's tactically minded and careful.” Ming also knew how to lay traps with blade-sharp teeth.
”The confirmation he's in the region is enough. We have certain sources in the area.”
”You can't kill him yet. I need to stabilize the Net enough that his death won't cripple it.” Even with the Council in ruins, each of the former Councilors held so much economic and psychic power that a violent or sudden death could cause a deadly shock wave.
The ripples had been minor when Kaleb a.s.sa.s.sinated a Councilor just over a year and a half ago, but the PsyNet had been stable then, not teetering on the brink of collapse. The backlash from the loss had been absorbed with no more than a few minor incidents. ”A shock wave right now could be catastrophic.”
”It'll take time to set things up,” Judd said. ”I'll give you a twenty-minute warning before we move, so you can be on alert for any structural weaknesses in the Net.”
”How do you plan to reach Ming?”
”The same way the packs reached Santano Enrique,” was the cool response.
Kaleb knew he'd get nothing more. As Kaleb's first loyalty was to Sahara, Judd's was to his mate and the changeling wolf pack he now called family. It was a measure of the trust that had grown between them that Kaleb allowed the matter to rest.
Xavier spoke into the silence. ”We sit in a house of G.o.d and speak of murder. What does that make us?”
”Men who understand that there is evil in the world,” Judd answered. ”The data I pa.s.sed on-did it help you track down your Nina?”
Nina, Kaleb knew, had been Xavier's love before a Psy attack tore them apart.
The priest's breath shuddered out of his chest. ”The information points to a tiny village in the mountains of my homeland. I am . . . afraid to go there. I must gather my courage to face the truth, and perhaps my Nina's hatred.”
They spoke of other matters then, Kaleb leaving an hour later, just before Judd. Waiting in the shadows until the former Arrow was out of sight, he returned to the church to find Xavier where he'd left him.
”I expected you,” the priest said without turning around.
Kaleb took a seat behind the other male. ”Did you?”
”A man who has lost his only love knows when he hears the same loss in another's voice.” Xavier shook his head, the near black of his skin gilded gold by the candlelight. ”Has your Nina returned? Is she the one who asks you to have mercy on the innocent?”
”Yes.” Leaning forward, he crossed his arms on the back of Xavier's pew. ”I don't know how to love her.” He would die for her, kill for her, but he did not understand the emotion he had always sensed she needed from him, even when she'd been a bright-eyed sixteen.
”Love is the greatest form of loyalty, one that places the happiness of the beloved over that of the lover,” Xavier said with a peace that was an integral aspect of him, even in his confusion. ”And you know loyalty.”
”I will,” Kaleb said as the candles burned around them, ”think on what you've said.” He paused. ”Xavier, I can take you to your Nina.” It could be done without the other man ever glimpsing Kaleb's face.
”Thank you, friend.” Xavier's voice shook. ”But I think I must do this the hard way. I must earn her.”
Leaving the priest to his thoughts, Kaleb went to Sahara after he exited the church, simply to watch her sleep. To see her safe and alive, the need he had to ensure her well-being one that would never fade. And though he made not a sound, thick lashes lifted to reveal eyes of sleepy dark blue. ”Kaleb?” Scooting over, she raised the blanket with a mumbled invitation. ”C'mere. 'S cold out.”
He hadn't meant to stay, but he slept that night in the arms of the only person in the entire world to whom it mattered if he was cold . . . and he thought that perhaps he might understand not only love, but joy.
Maybe it was that thought that ignited long-dormant neurons in his brain, but for the first time in over seven years, he dreamed not of blood and pain and cruelty, but of the day a girl with eyes of darkest blue had forever altered the course of his existence.
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