Superhero Heat

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.

Adrian caught up beside her. “That device contains every emergency frequency used by the city’s heroes.”

“Then stop explaining and help me.”

“I am helping.”

“You’re keeping pace.”

“Some people find that impressive.”

The saboteur slammed the cylinder into the antenna housing. The tower shrieked. A wave of force rolled across the roof, throwing guests toward the doors.

Mara grabbed Adrian’s jacket and pulled him down behind the tower. His body landed over hers, one hand braced beside her head. The other settled against her waist.

For one suspended second, the alarms and shouting receded.

His face hovered inches above hers. Rain clung to his lashes. The blue current beneath his skin had dimmed to a faint pulse.

“You’re not a donor,” he said.

“No.”

“You’re not security.”

“No.”

“Should I be concerned?”

“You’re already concerned.”

His gaze dropped to her mouth. “I’m trying to decide whether I should be.”

The words were quiet, almost lost beneath the sirens. Mara felt them anyway. She felt the pressure of his hand at her waist, the careful distance he kept between them, the question in the set of his shoulders.

She could have moved. So could he.

Instead, she said, “You’re bleeding.”

“So are you.”

A thin line of blood warmed her lip. She wiped it with the back of her hand.

Adrian’s expression changed. The teasing slipped away, leaving something more exposed. “You came here expecting to face this alone.”

“I usually do.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting.”

The antenna tower buckled. Adrian rolled them aside as metal crashed where they had been. Mara landed on top of him, her knees bracketing his hips. His hands came up instinctively, then stopped just short of touching her.

That restraint affected her more than contact would have.

“Tell me to move,” he said.

The rawness in his voice caught her. “You could move without asking.”

“I could.”

“But you won’t.”

“No.”

The saboteur’s footsteps pounded toward the east access door.

Mara pushed away, forcing herself back into motion. “Then keep up.”

They reached the door together. The saboteur had sealed it from the inside. Adrian pressed his palm against the lock, but the panel flashed red.

“Her signature is woven through the system,” he said. “I can’t override it.”

Mara drew a slim pick from her clutch. “Then don’t.”

He watched her work. “You carry lock tools to formal events?”

“I like to be prepared.”

“You steal jewelry too?”

“Only when it’s ugly.”

The lock clicked. Adrian’s laugh came out breathless, surprised. The sound tugged at something in her chest she did not have time to name.

They burst into the narrow service corridor. Heat rolled from the machinery below, carrying the smells of hot metal and wet concrete. The saboteur was gone, but a strip of torn black fabric hung from a pipe.

Mara snatched it free. The Aegis mark was stitched into the lining, along with a string of tiny numbers.

Adrian went still.

“You know them,” she said.

“I know what they mean.”

“Then start talking.”

He looked toward the roof, where security teams shouted over the fading alarms. “Those numbers identify a safehouse.”

“Whose?”

His silence answered first.

Mara stepped closer. “Adrian.”

His eyes met hers. “Mine.”

The corridor seemed to narrow around them.

“You’re connected to the Relay.”

“I was.”

“Past tense?”

“I left.”

“Why?”

He looked down at the torn fabric in her hand. “Because they stopped protecting heroes and started owning them.”

That was not the answer of a man trying to protect a secret. It sounded like a confession he had rehearsed and never managed to deliver.

Mara folded the fabric into her palm. “The saboteur used your safehouse.”

“I know.”

“And you still expect me to believe you’re not involved?”

“No.” His voice dropped. “I expect you to believe I’m trying to stop what I helped build.”

The admission struck harder than the electrical blast.

He leaned against the wall, suddenly pale beneath the rooftop lights. “The Relay gave me my first suit. My first contacts. They taught me how to survive the people who wanted to use my power. I told myself I was taking help, not buying loyalty.” He swallowed. “Then they asked me to erase a witness. I refused. They threatened everyone who had ever stood beside me.”

Mara’s fingers tightened around the fabric.

She knew that kind of threat. She knew what it was to have every connection turned into a vulnerability. It was why she had come alone. Why she never gave anyone enough truth to hurt her with it.

Adrian pushed away from the wall. “You can arrest me when this is over.”

“I’m not police.”

“Then what are you?”

The question pressed against the place she kept guarded.

Mara stepped into him until his back met the wall again. “Someone who hates being lied to.”

“I haven’t lied.”

“You withheld.”

“Yes.”

The honesty disarmed her.

His hands remained at his sides. “If you want me away from you, say so.”

Mara looked at his mouth, at the cut she had noticed before, now reopened by the fight. She lifted her hand and touched the blood with one fingertip.

Adrian’s breath caught.

“This is a bad idea,” she whispered.

“Almost certainly.”

“You’re tied to my target.”

“And you’re carrying a stolen identity.”

Her eyes snapped to his.

He did not smile. “The donor whose name you’re wearing has been dead for six months.”

Mara should have been furious. Instead, the knowledge of his attention - of how closely he had watched her - sent a dangerous warmth through her.

“Then we’re both compromised.”

“Looks that way.”

She kissed him before caution could reclaim the moment.

His response was immediate but controlled. One hand settled at her hip, the other rising to cup the back of her neck. His mouth was warm, careful at first, as if he expected her to retreat. When she caught his lapel and pulled him closer, the restraint broke into something deeper.

Rain-cooled air slipped through the open service door. Heat gathered between them. Mara felt his pulse beneath her fingers and the faint electric tremor running through him.

He drew back just enough to breathe. “Tell me to stop.”

“I don’t want you to stop.”

The words left her more exposed than the kiss.

Adrian rested his forehead against hers. “Then tell me what you do want.”

Mara wanted the truth. She wanted the saboteur caught. She wanted, impossibly, to stay pressed against this man until the alarms became someone else’s problem.

Instead she said, “I want the safehouse.”

His expression tightened. The spark between them did not vanish, but duty cast a blade through it.

“You’ll get it,” he said. “But if we go there, the Relay will know I brought you.”

“They already know I’m here.”

“They’ll know you’re with me.”

Mara glanced toward the roof. Beyond the shattered antenna, the city glittered beneath the storm, beautiful and hostile.

She secured the torn fabric inside her clutch. A partial lead. A location. Enough to move.

Adrian reached for her hand, stopping before contact. “We do this together?”

She studied the offered hand. Trust was not a door she opened. It was a lock, a series of tumblers, each one earned.

Finally, she placed her palm against his.

The current in him answered with a soft blue flare.

“Unwillingly,” she said.

His fingers closed around hers. “That’s still together.”

Behind them, the gala doors burst open. Security flooded the corridor.

Mara pulled Adrian toward the emergency stairwell, their joined hands hidden between their bodies. She had entered the rooftop as a lone infiltrator hunting a saboteur.

She left with a stolen lead, a dangerous ally, and the unsettling knowledge that the man she had kissed might be the shortest path to her target - or the person who would make her want to stop looking.

End of chapter one. 7 more chapters and about 16,218 words in the full book.