Free [Psy-Changeling 12.1] Hide and Seek by Nalini Singh

HIDE and SEEK
Nalini Singh

Kaleb telepathed Sahara when she wasn’t by the old tree stump in her father’s backyard where he’d said he’d pick her up.  Sahara.

I’m here. Come find me.
It had been a long time since he’d played this game with her, but he knew it well. The most important rule was that he couldn’t cheat by using her face as a lock to teleport directly to her location—as he’d done the first time she’d invited him to play hide and seek, back when they’d both been children.

He could still remember her exasperated face as she told him that wasn’t the point. Hands on her hips and leaves in her hair from where she’d been hiding under a bush, she’d said, “You have to hunt, Kaleb. That’s why it’s fun!”

Today, more than fifteen years later, he first entered her father’s home to check she wasn’t inside. Thankfully, it appeared Leon Kyriakus had gone off to his medical practice already so Kaleb didn’t have to interact with him. It wasn’t as if Leon had anything against Kaleb. It was more that Kaleb didn’t understand how to act with a man who was quickly developing a tendency to call him, “son”. 

Paternal-type contact was a complete mystery to Kaleb. At times, when Kaleb accompanied Sahara here at her insistence, it appeared that Leon forgot who it was he was talking to. Those times, the older man treated Kaleb as Sahara’s and therefore a member of the family—since Kaleb was Sahara’s in every way, he had no issue with Leon’s behavior. He just didn’t understand it. 

Why doesn’t your father view me as a threat?  he asked after checking the house.  I assumed he’d tolerate me because of you, but he is actively welcoming.  Very few people in the world trusted Kaleb enough to turn their backs on him, but Leon treated him with a kind of absentminded affection.

It was...strange.

Sahara’s telepathic voice entered his mind.  You brought me home. He knows you’d die before causing me harm, and so of course you’d never hurt him. You know that.

Kaleb did...and yet he still didn’t understand Leon Kyriakus, perhaps never would. The single adult male he’d truly known as a child had been a monster, pain and fear the only things Kaleb had experienced at his hands. Kaleb wasn’t sure he could ever overcome that scarring, the part of him that lived in the void—a void forged in blood and torture—capable of trusting only one being on the planet on that level. 

However, he would continue to be cordial to Leon Kyriakus, because unlike the male who had given Kaleb half his genetic material, the other man was a true father. One who had never given up on his child...and who had never tried to separate Sahara from Kaleb. That, Kaleb would’ve never forgiven.

Leaving the house after checking all the rooms aside from Leon’s because he knew Sahara wouldn’t use that as a hiding place, he went directly to the biggest tree in the NightStar compound. It was much larger than when they’d clambered over it as children, its branches even thicker, but one thing remained the same. Sahara had managed to climb up to perch on the highest possible branch that would bear her weight. Hands on the branch and jeans-clad legs kicking out, she waved. “I’ve been waiting for you!” She patted the branch. “It’ll hold you!”

Kaleb looked at the solid trunk, the wide branches, thought about the fact he hadn’t climbed a tree for well over a decade, and took the first grip. The roughness of the bark was familiar, as was the lingering warmth the tree seemed to retain on sunny days. Even the chill of winter hadn’t stolen that. As a Tk, Kaleb was more physically adept than most people, but he tried not to use his ability here. Some of it was impossible to block—telekinesis was part of his blood, as reflexive by now as breathing. However, he made the climb as relentlessly physical as he could.

Hauling himself up onto the branch beside the woman who had first taught