Cipher

powerful. I’m not a floppy little puppy who knows a neat trick. Empathy makes me vulnerable to the people I love, but it makes me dangerous to everyone else.”

“Believe it or not, there’s a middle ground between floppy puppy and psychic warrior.”

“There’s a middle ground between laid-back wolf and stone-cold alpha badass too.”

A middle ground he couldn’t, for the life of him, seem to find. “Point taken.”

“Really?” She bent over, slipped a flash drive from the side pocket of her bag and plugged it in without looking at him. “I don’t even know what my point was. Maybe my point is that we would have already gotten to the middle ground if we could. Maybe we should get used to being a psychic killer and a warrior alpha.”

They used to be just Kat and Andrew, and now he wondered if he’d fucked everything up a long, long time ago. If sitting on his ass and waiting her out had cost him everything. “I guess.”

Her fingers danced over the keys, the clacks coming so close together they sounded like one continuous noise. “I can send these to Ben once we get close enough to the city to get a decent signal with my aircard.

Then, I guess we wait? See if anyone tries to kidnap or kill us?”

It wasn’t funny. “We try to get back to some semblance of normal.”

“Do I—” Her voice cracked. She swallowed and stared straight ahead. “Do you want me to go back to my place tonight?”

She sounded so scared. “We shouldn’t split up.” He didn’t know how recently Jackson had buffed up the wards around her apartment, though part of him almost relished the thought of someone coming in to start a fight. “We can stay at my place again.”

“At the council headquarters?” She jerked the flash drive free and twisted to look up at him. “I guess there’s plenty of room there. And good protections.”

And an extra well-trained fighter. “Julio will be glad to have company for a few days. He can cook for more than just us.”

“Julio likes to cook?” The thought seemed to amuse her, at least enough to tease her lips up into a half- smile.

“Firehouse food. Gigantic pots of chili and spaghetti, stuff like that.”

“Of course.” Sighing, Kat rose and began packing up her things. “After this, I think I should swing by the dojo. I’ve missed four lessons in a row. If I don’t drag my ass in there, Zola’s going to kill me before any assassins get a chance.”

“You’ve been shot,” Andrew said firmly. “If she doesn’t understand why you might need to miss a few more sessions, I’ll set her straight.”

But Kat shook her head. “No, the healing spells worked. My arm’s fine. And if things are going crazy, training’s more important than ever.”

She was determined, he had to give her that. “Okay. After we talk to Julio and get him up to speed, we’ll head to the dojo together.”

“Good.” The letter from her mother was still up on the screen. She spared it one last look, then cut the power to the computer. “Let’s go.”

Time. She needed it for everything right now—decrypting the information on the disk, dealing with her mother’s letter. Dealing with him.

He took her bag and slung it over his own shoulder. “It’ll work out, Kat.”

She smiled, and he couldn’t tell if she was lying when she said, “I know.”

Andrew was building things.

Fresh from the shower, Kat followed the faint noises down the stark, undecorated corridors of the Southeast council headquarters’ third floor. Cleaning up and converting Alec’s newly purchased warehouse had taken second priority after reestablishing the supernatural clinic last year, but signs of renovations were everywhere. She hadn’t wandered during her last stay, but now she passed several clean rooms with fresh coats of paint before finding Andrew and Julio.

Julio was nodding along with the music undoubtedly playing on his earphones while he sanded a spot on the wall, and Andrew wiped his arm across his forehead as he picked up a damp rag. “Want to help?”

“Sure.” The view might help her stop brooding, in any case. Explosive orgasms aside, she hadn’t managed to spend much time getting to look at Andrew without lust and empathy fogging them. As long as she didn’t touch him… “Toss me the rag?”

He did, and the muscles in his arm flexed as he waved to the far wall. “That one. We’re not quite done sanding this side of the room yet.”

Bare arms. He should always have bare arms. She caught the cloth and moved where he’d directed, but couldn’t resist the urge to peek at him again.

He was beautiful.

If life was fair, she’d be able to savor touching him. Instead of awkward, jumbled encounters, there could be slow seduction. Kissing. God, she wanted to kiss him, just feel his mouth on hers and enjoy a growing urgency that didn’t swallow them both whole. To have an orgasm that was more than misfiring synapses and emotional overload. She wouldn’t have the knot of worry in her gut, the fear that needing him had so badly damaged the foundations of her control that she’d never master her gifts when he was there to make the world fuzzy.

The damp rag left wet streaks on the wall as she swiped it in slow, aimless circles. If life was fair, it would just be the two of them in the room. So easy to picture Andrew as he was now, sweaty and covered in plaster dust, muscles flexing, eyes dark… The way he looked at her before empathy exploded, like he wanted to touch every inch of her.

They’d never been naked. He’d never even gotten a hand into her pants, or under her shirt. She’d never felt that beard against her breasts, or her stomach, or—God help her—her thighs, and the mental image of Andrew coaxing her knees apart threatened to blow her brain into little pieces.

She wanted life to be fair.

His hand closed over hers as he corrected her technique. “Straight lines down the wall.”

He was breathing too hard. So was she, but oxygen couldn’t be making it to her head, because the world was fuzzy around the edges. All she could see was her hand, trapped under his. If she eased her other hand up the wall, would he catch that one too? Pin her to the wall and skate along the darker edge of the fantasies she tried to pretend she’d never had?

His fingers slid down to her wrist, closed around it firmly for a moment—and let go.

In a second, she’d be panting. This arousal might be in her head, but it still twisted up her body.

Tightened her nipples, made her ache. Made her wet. She rocked back and found Andrew still behind her, and arousal had curled around him too.

His erection pressed against her, and she could see the dizzy, frantic series of events unfolding before her as if she had Julio’s precognition. His hips rocking against her ass, maybe one hand drifting around her body, into her pants, pressing between her legs until the rough touch of his fingers sent her-Julio. Oh Christ, if Andrew’s touch shattered her control, her projection wouldn’t just affect him.

Kat tore away from his body with a whimper, stumbling so hard she slammed into the opposite wall.

Julio jumped back and plucked one of the buds from his ear. “Kat, what the hell?”

Air whistled through her teeth as she stared at him, taking in confusion in upraised brows and a hint of concern in his widened eyes-And nothing else. No arousal. No desire—thank God, no lust—and relief weakened Kat’s knees until she slid to the floor with a soft thump. “You can’t feel it.”

“Uh, feel what?”

Adrenaline was making it worse. Her heart pounded until the world throbbed with it, and she couldn’t make herself look at Julio. Not with Andrew a few feet away, intense and barely contained. She had to wet her lips twice to speak. “Andrew?”

His answer shouldn’t have been an answer at all. “Julio, get out.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Kat caught a glimpse of Julio scrambling toward the door. A moment later it slammed shut, and she sucked in a breath. No, panted. She was panting, tiny hitching breaths as the intensity of