Superhero Heat

Mara Kincaid stepped onto the Skyline roof just as the gala alarms began to scream.

The sound tore through the music below, sharp enough to vibrate in her teeth. Guests in jeweled masks spilled through the rooftop doors, champagne flutes flashing beneath the blue-white strobes. Mara kept her posture loose, one hand resting on the borrowed clutch at her hip, though every instinct urged her to find the person who had triggered the lockdown.

She had come alone. She had intended to leave alone.

Then a man in a black dinner jacket slammed into her hard enough to send heat skittering along her shoulder.

“Don’t look at me,” he murmured.

Mara caught his elbow before he went over the parapet. “You’re welcome.”

His gaze flicked to hers. Gray eyes, steady despite the chaos. A thin cut marked his lower lip, bright against his skin.

“Was that gratitude?”

“It was a warning.”

He pulled free, but his fingers dragged over hers for half a second too long. The contact was accidental. It still landed like a spark.

Mara recognized him a moment later. Adrian Vale - publicly known as Nightline, a tactical hero whose gift let him bend electrical currents through his body. He had appeared at enough charity events to become part of the city’s polished mythology. Tonight, without the mask and armor, he looked less untouchable. His jacket was torn at the shoulder. A faint blue glow moved beneath the skin of his wrist.

Mara’s disguise gave her a different kind of invisibility: black silk, a silver mask, and the name of a donor whose invitation she had lifted from a dead man’s mailbox. No one looking for Mara Kincaid would expect her to be holding a flute of champagne and wearing diamonds she had stolen from an evidence locker.

“Move,” Adrian said.

“Why?”

A pulse of electricity raced across the roof. The metal railings flashed. Guests cried out as their shoes skidded on the rain-slick stone.

Adrian seized Mara by the waist and hauled her behind a sculpted planter. The warmth of him pressed through her dress. His breath touched her temple.

“Because the next surge will be worse.”

She should have shoved him away. Instead, she felt the hard line of his arm around her and noticed the clean scent of rain, cedar, and something metallic beneath it.

“Your friends downstairs?” she asked.

“Busy evacuating the ballroom.”

“Convenient.”

His eyes narrowed. “You think I caused this?”

“I think men who glow during electrical attacks deserve questions.”

A reluctant curve touched his mouth. “And women who arrive at a locked rooftop during an emergency deserve answers.”

The planter exploded.

Stone fragments struck the roof. Adrian twisted, taking the worst of it across his back, and Mara drove her shoulder into the attacker’s knees as the figure came through the smoke. They hit the ground together. A masked saboteur rolled away, coat crackling with stolen current, and vanished behind a bank of ventilation units.

Mara reached for the compact pulse-dart hidden beneath her clutch.

Adrian caught her wrist.

“Not yet.”

“Let go.”

“You fire that, you’ll hit the grid.”

She looked past him. Three power conduits ran beneath the rooftop tiles, their protective covers blinking red. The saboteur had overloaded the gala’s private energy system. One wrong discharge would turn the roof into a frying pan.

Adrian’s grip tightened, not painful, but certain. “I can cut the surge. I need thirty seconds.”

“You need a miracle.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

He rose and stepped into the open.

Blue light climbed his arms. The air tightened around him, lifting the fine hairs along Mara’s neck. He placed both palms against the nearest conduit. Current snapped from his fingers into the metal, and his whole body jerked.

Mara saw the cost immediately. His jaw clenched. Blood welled beneath his fingernails.

The saboteur emerged behind him.

She moved before thought could interfere. Mara crossed the roof, seized a fallen serving tray, and hurled it. The tray struck the saboteur’s wrist. A compact detonator spun across the tiles.

The masked figure lunged for it.

Mara intercepted her, catching a sleeve and twisting. The fabric tore. Beneath it, a black insignia showed for an instant: a silver wing crossed by a red line.

The Aegis Relay.

Not a villain syndicate. A hero-adjacent network that supplied intelligence, equipment, and discreet favors to licensed protectors across the city. Officially, it did not exist. Unofficially, half the city’s capes owed it something.

The saboteur drove an elbow into Mara’s ribs and broke free.

Adrian released the conduit with a gasp. The lights steadied, but the roof remained crowded with panicked guests and armed security.

“You saw the mark,” he said.

Mara kept her eyes on the fleeing figure. “I saw enough.”

“Then you know this isn’t an attack on the gala.”

“What is it?”

“A theft.”

The saboteur reached the central antenna tower. A panel opened beneath her hand, revealing a cylinder of black glass.

Mara sprinted....