He needed a pair of eyes on the ground in case the system sensed his intrusion and rejected him.

Yes, I will do that, Sunita replied with her usual formal way of speaking. There is disruption in Vara. Miss Payal missed two big meetings. Is she in trouble?

She’s fine, but she needs to rest. His pulse rapid and his gut tight, he’d looked in the Substrate three times in the past five minutes, confirmed each time that her anchor zone was holding steady. 3K had to be okay for that to be the case. We just have to give her the time she needs to recover.

I will watch, Sunita promised.

A ping on Canto’s system alerted him to another hack in progress. Frowning, he glanced at the data and realized Lalit Rao was attempting to get into Payal’s private files while she was incommunicado. The man wouldn’t succeed—he didn’t have a brain half as dazzling as his sister’s.

Canto would stand guard regardless. Lalit would not hurt Payal while she was down. Only another anchor might ever understand what she’d done, the death she’d courted by standing so close to the vortex, but that took nothing away from her courage and her ferocity.

Sending a targeted worm through the system, he set it to corrupting the other man’s files. The security subsystems would soon hit Lalit with an emergency alert that should distract him for hours.

Canto could’ve asked Genara to teleport him into Vara since he now had the necessary visuals, but right now he was more useful to Payal as a dangerous ally hidden in the shadows.

He was also fully capable of killing Lalit Rao from a distance.

It was amazing how much current could be fed through a single point if you shut off the safety features. All Canto would need was for Lalit to make contact with a computronic point—such as Payal’s secure doorknob. It wouldn’t be pretty, but it would get the job done.

Never again would anyone hurt or hunt Canto’s 3K.

Chapter 21

Without you, I would be a monster.

—Kaleb Krychek to Sahara Kyriakus

KALEB ASSISTED ADEN to finish the repair. The two of them then checked it sector by sector. “It’ll hold, but it’s like the other recent ones.” A repair they’d have to strengthen again and again in the coming months to maintain its integrity.

“Are you tired?”

“Yes.” Psychic tiredness was a rare thing for Kaleb—as a dual cardinal, he could access more energy than most Psy could even imagine. “Nowhere close to flameout, but this was a difficult repair. The worst we’ve had to date.”

“I agree. Maybe that was why the anchor spoke to me.”

“Possible. But we’ve had critical incidents in the past without any anchor contact.” Yet PsyNet logistics dictated that the As had to have been working alongside them the entire time.

Aden put his thoughts into words. “The anchors must have been adapting to the changes in the PsyNet for the PsyNet to retain any kind of stability. It was a mistake to think of them as a passive presence.”

“We have a dangerous blind spot.” Not words Kaleb had ever expected to say when he’d spent his entire adult life gathering information—because in that lay power. Yet he’d permitted Designation A to slip under his radar.

“I’ll find out the name of the anchor in this region.” He’d also touch base with Ena regarding the Mercant anchor who’d asked for data on Sentinel. Clearly, that A was taking a serious and active interest in current matters.

“Intake nutrients first,” Aden said.

Unspoken was the fact that even with a corps of other strong Psy now trained to counter breaches, Aden and Kaleb remained the strongest and most skilled at the task. They had to be ready to respond at a moment’s notice. “I’ll give you the same advice.” He and Aden weren’t friends, but they’d become brothers-in-arms after so long fighting together.

The two of them parted without further words.

When Kaleb opened his eyes to the cold dark of very early morning in Moscow, it was to see Sahara standing in the doorway that led into their house, a glass of nutrient liquid in her hand. She wore one of his shirts with the sleeves folded back, the color an ice white, paired with dark gray leggings that were stretchy and soft.

Padding out onto the deck on socked feet, she handed over the drink. “I felt you go.”

Both he and Sahara had been meant to have early meetings with other time zones today, and he’d been outside exercising to shake off the night when Aden sent him the emergency alert. His naked upper body was now covered in sweat, and the thin black fabric of his pants stuck to his skin.

The cool bite of the morning air was welcome against his overheated flesh.

Accepting the drink, he swallowed it down to the last drop. Sahara had made sure it wasn’t one of the flavored varieties she preferred. She might be the reason Kaleb wasn’t a ravening monster, every cell of his body hers to command—but he drew the line at peach- and cherry-flavored nutrients.

She smiled after he teleported the glass back to the kitchen. “How about banana?”

“It should remain a fruit.”

Her laughter was soft and husky, sparks of delight in the midnight blue of her eyes. But it faded too fast. Placing a hand on his back, touching him as she so often did—just because she wanted to be close—she said, “That was a hard one, wasn’t it?”

“Major cascading breach.” As she listened, he told her about the anchor who’d spoken to Aden.

Wide eyes. “Anchors don’t talk to anyone, I mean, I’m sure they do—but they never talk about anchor business. They just … do it.”

“Unless the situation is now so critical that they have no choice.” Grabbing the towel he’d left on an outdoor chair, he began to rub his face and hair dry. “I need a shower.”

“Go, have a long one.” She pressed her fingers to his lips when he would’ve spoken. “Finding out about the anchor can wait a few more minutes. Look after yourself first.”

She kept on doing that. Looking after him. Protecting him. Him, a man who could topple cities with the power of his mind alone. Seeing the fine lines flaring out from the corners of her eyes, sensing her concern in the way she ran her hand over him, he did as she’d ordered and got himself to a bathroom lush with plants his lover babied every morning.

When a naked Sahara stepped into the large space minutes later, he welcomed her with open arms and a hungry mouth. He hadn’t understood pleasure before her, hadn’t understood that touch could be wanted and not simply borne. All slippery limbs and possessive lips, she kissed and bit and claimed him all over again as he found home inside her. Always, he’d find home with Sahara.