Chapter 1: Introduction
The Watchtower’s main monitoring hub was silent except for the low hum of servers and the rhythmic tap of keystrokes. Kael leaned against a bulkhead, arms crossed, watching her. Barbara Gordon was a study in focused motion, her spine straight, the lines of her Batgirl suit defining the lean muscle of her back and shoulders as she worked. Her auburn hair was a tight coil at the nape of her neck, just visible below her cowl. To anyone else, she was impenetrable. To Kael, she was a locked box, and he itched to warp the metal until it sprang open.
He pushed off the wall, his sneakers silent on the polished floor. The very air around him seemed to thicken and bend, a barely-perceptible shimmer that followed him like a heat haze. He stopped behind her, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from her body, to catch the clean scent of her soap under the ozone and tech-smell of the tower.
“You’re so serious all the time, Batgirl,” he murmured, his voice a low rasp near her ear. He didn’t touch her, not yet. “I bet you don’t even know how hot you look when you’re focused.”
Her fingers didn’t falter on the console. They kept moving, executing commands, but the muscle in her jaw tightened. “Batman said to let you do what you want.” Her voice was flat, a controlled monotone that gave nothing away.
“He did, didn’t he?” Kael’s smile was a slow, wicked thing. His eyes, a swirling, amused gold, trailed down the length of her back to where the gray spandex of her pants hugged the curve of her ass. The sheer, entitled boredom that gnawed at him found a new outlet. A pulse of his power, a silent, invisible command to the reality of the fabric, and it softened, grew just a fraction looser.
He reached out, not with his power, but with his hand. His fingers hooked into the elastic band at her waist. He pulled it outward, away from her skin, and peered down into the gap he’d created.
Plain black silk panties. Simple, functional, utterly at odds with the violent sexuality of the gesture. The sight of them, that intimate, vulnerable scrap of fabric against her skin, sent a jolt of pure heat straight to his gut.
Barbara went utterly still. The tap of keys stopped. She didn’t turn. She simply stared straight ahead at her screens, her breathing the only movement. Then, with deliberate slowness, she brought a hand up, touching the comms unit in her ear.
“Batman. Situation update. Kael is… engaging. Directive confirmation remains in effect?” Her voice was still eerily calm, a tactical report.
A static-laced growl filled her ear, audible even to Kael. “Confirmed. The directive stands. Do not escalate. Let it play out.” Batman’s voice was devoid of any emotion, a hard-edged command that was also a profound abandonment.
Kael heard it, and his grin widened into something predatory. “See?” he whispered, his breath hot on her neck. His other hand came up, not to touch her, but to hover over the back of her suit.
The material there dissolved silently, not torn, but unwoven at a molecular level, revealing a wide stripe of her pale skin, the bumps of her spine. “He knows what I am,” Kael said, and now his palm landed, flat and possessive, on the small of her bare back. “So fucking arch your back for me, Barbara. Now.”
She complied.
Her spine curved into a taut, graceful arch, pressing her ass back against his groin. A low, hungry sound escaped him as he used his grip on her waistband to yank her pants and panties down to her thighs in one rough motion. His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her hips, holding her there, exposed and utterly vulnerable to his gaze and his touch. "Good girl," he breathed, the words a filthy promise against her skin as his free hand moved between her legs.