Amy's Advantage (12 page)

“Our powers have been fractured and weakened for so many
generations,” Amdyn continued, “even we don’t know what they can do at full
strength. That knowledge has fallen to myths and legends. We no longer know
what is truth in the stories and what was made up for entertainment. What we do
know is that Aurora’s gifts are powerful and that, according to her, they
apparently greatly increased when she got to Ilyria.”

“What does this have to do with Chloe?” she asked him.

“Chloe is descended from two very formidable Mystic lines,
each from a different world. If the potency of Aurora’s magic was multiplied
just by placing her physically in Ilyria and among the powers there, imagine
actually fully merging the two together.”

Amy sat quietly for a moment. Her eyes fixed on some distant
spot as her thoughts turned inward. Finally she looked straight at Jordyn and
asked, “So what’s the problem? Really. What aren’t you telling me?” Tension
shimmered in her eyes as she stared at him, waiting.

“I believe Chloe’s been in contact with someone from
Ilyria,” Jordyn replied.

“What?” Taken aback by his statement, Amy’s brows lifted and
her chin came up.

“She knows specific things unique to the Ilyrian world, like
the name of a bird from the region of our capitol.”

“You mean that bird she pointed out on the hotel’s wallpaper
in San Antonio?”

Jordyn nodded. “They look similar to the
fluudas
and
that’s what she called them. By their Ilyrian name. When she was covered in
bubbles, she called herself Vysaryn. That’s the name of one of the three
goddesses who originally created Ilyria. She’s popular with the children
because we celebrate her part in creating our world with a holiday that
involves candy and games.”

“It could just be a weird coincidence that she made up a
name that sounds similar.” Even as she spoke, her expression showed that she
was struggling with her own explanation.

“Every year, the celebration starts with a reenactment of
the goddess rising from the sea, covered in sea foam,” Jordyn said. “Chloe
mimicked the children’s favorite part, when the goddess flings her arms out in
a blessing.”

“It’s their favorite part,” Siriyn interjected, “because she
tosses special sweets to the children in the crowd.”

“It’s not coincidence,” Jordyn said. “She used some of the
same phrases used in the reenactment.”

Amy absently pushed a stray curl behind her ear as she sat
for a moment, thinking. Finally, she looked up and asked, “How?”

As Amdyn was intimately familiar with the answer to Amy’s
question, Jordyn leaned back in the chair and let his commander take the lead.

“It’s possible that she has a rare telepathic ability that
allows her to see into our world, to connect with someone of similar ability
there.”

“Are you saying my daughter is mind-talking with someone
trying to kill us? Or that at random times she’s possessed by some evil alien?”
She looked around the room as if she were expecting someone to jump out and say
Surprise! Just kidding!
When her gaze made the full circle and landed
back on Amdyn, she asked, “Are you completely
insane?
”

“Now that we know it’s a possibility, we can take steps to
protect her—and you—until she’s old enough to understand how to use her gift to
protect herself,” Amdyn said.

“You’re acting as if you’re completely sure. Like there’s no
other possible explanation.”

Amdyn nodded thoughtfully, holding her gaze. “I suppose the
Sleht could be working through you.” His eyebrows rose. “Or with you.”

Amy exploded out of the chair. “You’re such a bastard. If
you think that I’d bring those murdering sons of bitches anywhere close to my
daughter for
any
fucking reason, you are totally mental and I’d rather
take my chances here on Earth without your help.” As she spoke, she advanced on
Amdyn, who had stayed seated but leaned back as she leaned in so she wouldn’t
actually butt her forehead against his as she got right in his face.

Both Siriyn and Jordyn had stood when Amy jumped up, but
neither moved toward her.

Slowly, Amy straightened, her body radiating anger, her hands
fisted at her side. “So,” she said, looking over at Jordyn, her face flushed
and her eyes flashing in fury, “are we done?”

A strange sense of pride swept through him as he watched
this tiny redheaded warrior stand her ground in the midst of the three of them
in spite of the fear rolling beneath her anger. “Amy, neither you nor Chloe are
under suspicion.” He cut a sideways glance at Amdyn. “But this is a very
serious situation and we had to set out all possibilities.”

“Well, that isn’t one of them.”

“No doubt. However, there is a way Amdyn can check to see if
this is what is truly happening with Chloe.”

Amy took a deep breath and let it out slowly, dropping her
shoulders and letting the heat of her anger drop to a low simmer. She stepped
back from Amdyn’s chair and crossed her arms under her breasts, turning toward
Jordyn. “He’s going to go into her mind, isn’t he?”

Jordyn nodded.

“Will it hurt her?”

Amdyn stood. “No. I’ll be as nonintrusive as possible.”

“If you can do that, why are you even bothering to ask for
my consent?”

“It violates our laws and traditions to link with a person’s
mind without their permission unless it falls under certain exigent
circumstances.”

Arms still crossed, Amy adjusted her position to face Amdyn
fully on. “If I refuse, will Chloe be one of those exceptions?”

“Since it is a matter of safety for both you and her and a
likely way the Sleht have been gaining privileged information that affects not
only you and her, but all your sisters, and through them, our entire world,
yes. But we are asking for your understanding, approval and cooperation.”

Amy glared at Amdyn for a long, solid minute. Amdyn, the
most even-tempered and restrained of the cousins, let her have her time, simply
standing before her and waiting for her to come to a decision.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jordyn could see Siriyn
struggle with the inaction of the moment. He’d jammed his thumbs into the front
pockets of his jeans and was tapping his fingers on his thighs in impatience.

Every time Jordyn had seen the two in the same room
together, Siriyn had been studying Amy with a somber concentration he’d rarely
witnessed in Siriyn in all the years he’d known him.

At first, Jordyn had thought Siriyn’s scrutiny was a natural
byproduct of his expectation of finding his mate in Amy. Yet as the day had
worn on, unlike his cousins when they’d found their mates, Siriyn had made no
overt move to claim her as such. In fact, he seemed to be holding back and
wrestling with some inner demon where she was concerned. Uncharacteristic for
the youngest heir, known for his hotheadedness and leap-before-you-look take on
life.

Siriyn glanced at Jordyn, his dark-amber eyes veiled in a
face pulled taut by tension. He raised his brows in question, but Jordyn subtly
motioned for him to wait. He knew Amy would make the right decision if left to
it on her own. He wasn’t disappointed.

“Okay,” she said. “What do we need to do?”

Chapter Seven

He knew she was outside his door before the knob started to
turn. She had stroked his mind fully awake, asking for permission to come in.

Kayn stretched out under the comforter, linking his hands
behind his head, enjoying the soft, almost hesitant mind touch of Shyrana.
Minutes before, he’d been on the edge of sleep, his thoughts rolling through
the events of the day—Esraina’s arrival and what it meant to all of them to
have the last of Magdalyne’s daughters found, the closed-door meeting Amdyn had
called with her, Jordyn and Siriyn.

But every thought kept circling back to Shy. The joy in her
face when she saw Chloe, when she played and helped care for the child, was
something he’d never seen in her before. The pure, unadulterated happiness
beaming out of her as she held Chloe and read a book to her after dinner was a
transforming shift from the serious and somber countenance she’d worn for days
on end lately. When she came out of the house this afternoon with a smile on
her face, he felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut, it hit him so hard.

He knew he was skirting the edge with the woman. She twisted
him up as no other had ever been able to and that made her dangerous. Made him
dangerous for her too.

It had been weeks since he’d kept her busy in his bed when
he knew the first of Magdalyne’s daughters were set to arrive. He’d had his
reasons, which he wouldn’t share—with anyone—and she’d yet to forgive him.
Their interaction on all levels had gone ice cold except for the occasional
civil interchange and that only when necessary.

At first when he’d felt the brush of her mind, he thought
he’d already drifted into dreams. He’d dreamed of her often enough lately to
make that more believable than her standing outside his door, asking to come
in.

Her mind nudged against his again, a thin thread of
impatience weaving through her request. The longer she stood outside his door,
the greater their chance of being discovered. Most in the farmhouse suspected
there had been something going on between them, but Siriyn was the only one who
knew for sure. He still had no idea how his cousin had found out, but
regardless, both he and Shy had their own reasons for keeping everyone else out
of their business.

She didn’t know the depth of the powers the gods had given
him. She, like the rest, assumed that he, being the “spare” heir of the First
House, had been mostly overlooked by the gods and only given some minor powers
good for party tricks and impressing women to get them into bed. Both of which
he’d played up at various times in his life.

He’d actually discovered his favorite power while fucking
one of the Elders’ daughters at a Gathering. She’d made more noise than he’d
expected and a guard had come to investigate. Not wanting to face the
censorship of the Council and his family, not to mention the retribution of an
angry Elder, he’d focused all his energy on wishing not to be discovered.

Power surged sharply when the guard had approached, but he
hadn’t known what it meant at the time. They’d been fucking in a shadowy
alcove, but it wasn’t so dark that they’d be well hidden, especially when the
guard walked right by and looked directly toward them. The man hadn’t paused,
even when the girl had let out a frightened squeak when she saw him looking
right where they stood.

Not only had his gift kept him hidden, once the girl had
started breathing again, she’d been incredibly hyped up from the close call and
had given him one amazingly wild fuck. Later, he’d spent some time working
through his gift, finding out that unlike his younger brother, who could blend
into his environment and “disappear”, he could alter a person’s perceptions so that
they couldn’t see or hear something or someone who was right in front of them.
It was a gift he’d kept to himself—again for his own reasons.

Shy’s questioning touch started to withdraw as he hadn’t
responded to her request and continued to keep his thoughts blocked from her.
He reached out with a single word. “Come.”

Slowly, quietly, the door opened and Shy slipped inside,
carefully closing the door behind her. The curtains were parted, allowing the
moon to light the room with a dim, pale glow. He preferred to see the sky
through his windows when he was dropping off to sleep and when he woke in the
morning. And he especially loved looking at Shy bathed in the soft silver of
moonlight.

“I need…you.” Her whisper was soft. Seductive.

He should be used to the magic in her voice by now, but it
still got to him. Still opened and pulled at the deep parts of him. He didn’t
know if she truly needed him or just sex. Part of him enjoyed the fact that she
thought she had to manipulate him by using the enchantment she could lace
through her words to get him into bed with her. Another part of him felt a cold
fury build that she actually
would
try to manipulate him after all this
time.

As she pulled the snug sweater off over her head, he
realized he didn’t care. It had been too damn long since he’d been inside her
and a sudden punch of lust knocked the air out of his lungs as her breasts
bounced inside the lacy bra.

She glanced at where his cock was starting to tent the
comforter. “May I take that as a yes?” she asked, stepping further into the
room where a dim column of ghostly light from the waning moon shafted through
the dark.

He shifted to lean up on one elbow as he tossed the covers
back. Her midnight blue eyes raced over his body with a hunger he recognized.
She shimmied out of her jeans, socks and shoes and then stood by the side of
the bed, letting him look. Lacy panties matched her lacy bra. She’d worn one of
his favorite sets, the lace soft, white and stretchy. Her nipples were hard and
he knew from experience that the two bands of lace that made up the sides of
her panties met at the top of her ass cheeks to disappear between them in a
single strip.

As she ran her hands up her thighs, stomach and over her
breasts, she watched him closely, not quite as confident as she’d been in the
past. Slowly, she lowered the straps of her bra and then reached behind her
back to unhook it. Her long, dark hair fell over her breasts as she leaned
forward to let the bra fall to the floor. She slid her fingers under the lace
of her panties, but he stopped her before she could shed those too.

“Leave them on,” he instructed. He didn’t know what was
going on inside her mind. She was keeping him blocked as strongly as he was
keeping her out of his thoughts. He didn’t know if she was just horny or
playing some sort of game, but she had come willingly to him and handed him the
reins of this particular rendezvous and he wasn’t about to hand them back.

He wanted her so badly he was nearly blind with the need,
but he refused to allow her to take him so easily. Not after what she’d put him
through the last several weeks.

At his beckoning gesture, Shy stepped over her bra and knelt
on the bed next to him. He splayed his hand over her stomach and leisurely ran
it up and over her breasts, rotating his palm over each nipple as he came to
it. Shy closed her eyes as her breaths quickened. Her hands gripped her thighs
as she let him squeeze and tease. He moved his hand down over her stomach and
slid his thumb under the lace of her panties. She’d always liked her pussy to
be clean shaven, so his thumb skimmed over smooth, sensitive skin.

His hand pulled away as Shy leaned forward to kiss him,
pushing him onto his back. As soon as her lips touched his, she went from
reticent and entreating to ravenous and demanding. Her mouth opened over his
and she swept her tongue against his, her hands rushing over his chest and
shoulders. His hands came up to cover her breasts and she hummed low in her
throat as he pinched her nipples between his thumb and forefinger.

Kissing her way from his throat to his chest, she ran one
hand down his side and over his hip and then to his cock. Her touch was firm
enough to set fire to his entire body and light enough to push him to the edge
of begging. The woman definitely knew how to turn him on.

He tried to get into her mind, but her defenses were fully
up and truly impregnable, as only a full telepath could make them. The only
thing she was allowing him to sense was the lust burning her up inside. Buried
deep beneath it, he could barely sense a driving desperation, but the cause of
the desperation was hidden. As soon as he even brushed up against it, his mind
was pushed away and blasted with erotic images of times they had been together
in the past.

Normally he wouldn’t mind, but she was keeping too many
secrets for him to trust her enough to go completely under her spell. Even when
they were sleeping together regularly, they’d never trusted each other enough
to let the other in completely. He’d thought it was their natures, but lately
had begun to think it was something else.

Reaching down, he covered her hand with one of his, stopping
her mid-stroke. Surprised, she lifted her head and asked, “You don’t like what
I’m doing?” He knew she’d purposefully laced her voice with a sexual purr that
made his cock jump in her grasp.

He ignored her question. They both knew the answer to it.
“Why are you here, Shy?” he asked.

Her fingers tightened around the base of his cock. “Isn’t it
obvious?”

“Nothing is ever obvious with you. You hide beneath too many
layers for anyone to know what’s really going on inside that mind of yours.”

She frowned. “Maybe all that’s going on with me is that I
haven’t had sex in weeks and just really want to fuck. Hard and long.”

His blood fired at her words but he kept his tone
dispassionate. “Maybe,” he replied. “But I think you’re all wound up inside
about something you won’t share and you’re looking for a release.”

“Are you saying you don’t want to fuck me just because I’m
stressed?”

“No.”

“Are you saying you’re not interested in fucking tonight?”

“No.”

“Then does it matter why I’m here?”

Yes. It mattered very much. But she wasn’t going to give him
any answers tonight. And then there was the fact that she was willing and naked
in his bed. Even if his mind could come up with a million reasons not to trust
her, his body didn’t care. “No.”

She ran the tip of her tongue over her top lip. “So why the
hell are we still talking?”

Letting go of her hand, he cupped both sides of her face,
holding her still for a moment longer. Not knowing exactly what he was looking
for, he searched her eyes, but found in her gaze only a provocative promise of
carnal pleasure. An ache that was deeper than the ravening sexual hunger dug
into his heart and hardened there.

“Well?” she asked, stroking his cock again now that he’d
released her hand.

His eyes narrowed. “Get to it then.” He saw the glimmer of
surprise in her expression as he pushed her head toward his cock, but she
adjusted quickly and the silky weight of her hair fell across his stomach as
she shifted to take him into her mouth. For a second, the hot slide of her lips
over the head of his cock had bright spots of light flashing in his eyes.
Instinctively, he arched his back to push in deeper, but she lifted her head to
flick her tongue over the small slit in the head.

Inhaling slowly, he brought his thundering pulse down a beat
and grabbed her thighs, guiding her into the position he wanted. Soon she was
straddling his face, the lacy panties thinly veiling her open pussy and her
breasts brushing his stomach. She supported herself with one hand on the bed
beside his hip, leaving the other and her mouth free to work his cock and
balls.

From his youth, he’d taken pleasure in pleasing women, in
watching them react to his touch until they were overtaken by their own
ecstasy. It was easy for him to be a generous lover. He enjoyed handling a
woman’s body and seeing her lose control because of what he could do to her.
Taking his pleasure always with or after theirs.

But tonight with Shyrana was different. He’d let her take
what she wanted and give her everything she demanded. Eventually. But she would
know first that he had demands as well. Tonight, though he would play her game,
they’d play by his rules.

He reached down and squeezed her breasts. Not brutally, but
hard. “Make me come in your mouth Shyrana,” he said. Even though his voice was
raw with desire, the tone was imperious and arrogant. “Take me in deep. Swallow
me.”

She hesitated and he sensed alarm flutter through her
thoughts. Never before had he demanded submissiveness out of her before.

“Or,” he pushed, “you can leave.”

Alarm was replaced by anger and then determination. She ran
her tongue around the head of his cock once more and then did what he’d asked.
Pushing forward, she took him fully in, her mouth tight and hot around him as
her tongue pressed against his shaft. The constriction of her throat teased the
head of his cock briefly before she pulled back, her lips closed around his
shaft as she pulled up its length. Quickly, she went down again, this time
cupping his balls with her free hand and then gently squeezing as the head of
his cock pressed into her throat again.

He loosened his grip on her breasts, allowing them to bounce
against his fingers as she bobbed up and down. Her tongue swirled as she moved
up his shaft and flattened to rub as she moved down. Moving faster and pressing
more firmly with her tongue, she was shooting him into the stratosphere much
quicker than he wanted.

“Not so fast, sweetheart. We have all night.” His hands
skimmed up her sides to her hips and then settled on her inner thighs. When her
fingers traced the seam between his balls while she sucked the head of his
cock, he hissed with pleasure and slid his fingers under her panties to caress
her pussy lips with his thumbs as his fingers pressed the supple curves of her
ass.