Bright Star (35 page)

“You understand leakage probably better than anyone.”

“Don’t do this, Jackson,” Rush was nearly begging his brother.

“Energy,” she corrected him patiently while smiling invitingly. Rush’s hand came out to circle her upper arm, but she didn’t seem to heed the warning in that gesture. She didn’t even turn away from him to look at his brother.

“The residual affects a powerful shift has on those involved,” Jackson offered as a truce. His voice lowered again. Even to his own ears it sounded alluring. “It’s not like the excess returning to the Shifter with Perma-Shift. It’s like a mist that sinks in to all around.”

Bright Star nodded, her succulent lips still slightly parted. Soon Jackson couldn’t see her because Rush was standing in front of her again.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he pleaded with Jackson. The emotions he usually guarded were open to his brother. There were dark smudges under his eyes and dark grooves in his cheek. His chin and jaw were covered in thick stubble. He looked tired.

“Then make me stop,” Jackson smirked, knowing that his brother was too guilty to do any such thing. Aware that Bright Star was still listening intently, he spoke loudly enough for her to hear him and hear him well, “Imagine what kind of affects that could have on a baby.”

Even though he couldn’t see her, a faint blue was creeping up behind Rush’s shoulder. Bright Star was a smart woman. She was getting the picture.

“Imagine if it were an unborn baby that was being saved. A baby with a parent that secretly had High Energy of her own. A baby that one day would have High Energy of his own, that gets the process jumpstarted because his big brother saves his life while he is still in the womb.”

Jackson did not look directly at Rush. He knew the pain there would only make him immediately regret what he had just said, what he had just done. He didn’t have to avert his gaze for long. Rush vanished. He just went away.

Bright Star’s eyes ignited. Her mouth fell open again and the word “
Precocial
” escaped from it. She said it again and again. “Precocial.” Her eyes widened and rinsed the room in an azure glow. Rush had known. Jackson had found out only days ago. Now she knew. She had only ever needed one Follower. Only one, and Jackson had ensured that she knew it.

“That is beautiful,” she uttered reverently.

Upon hearing those words, Jackson started to shake his head. “Whatever you are thinking, Bright Star, please know that this is a battle you can
not
possibly win.”

She left Jackson there in the hallway, then. She had many, many things to do in preparation. Many things to do.

I will kill you. I will find a way, and I will kill you
, Rush’s voice was so clear and beautiful in her mind that she forgot momentarily her purpose. It came back to her in full force. She continued on her path.

I have always accepted that I might die
, was her unashamed response.

Shattering

Jackson spent the entire next week in his room. He stared incessantly at the poster of the Milky Way that Rush had given him just last year. He thought about how quickly he had become nothing.

Jackson had lived every moment in his life up until the last two years as a special force, as the center of someone’s universe. Whether it had been his mother or the folks at the Service, he had always been treated with reverence. But what the hell did he know about reverence? He winced at the thought. He’d been a fool. Their home, a veritable urban palace now, was overgrown with Rush devotees who foolishly scurried for chairs to sit in when he was around because they knew he didn’t like them kneeling. They took his brother’s clothing and separated it so that each person received a garment to wash. Rush had been near explosion when he found his favorite t-shirt folded and tucked neatly beneath Destroy’s pillow.

And Bright Star. She had gone back to referring to Rush as “my world.” No, Jackson’s world had been some different dimension altogether. It couldn’t be possible that Jackson had known what being the center of attention was like.

Jackson recognized his jealousy for what it was. He’d learned to do that in the sensory deprivation chamber. He’d learned to accept all things about him that were true. The facts that he absolutely loved his brother and hated him just a little were now clear. Jackson swallowed. He was thirsty.

In the kitchen, Jackson found a beer with his name marked on it. Literally. It did little to cheer him. Monk must have left it. As if anyone would have taken the beer. He drank it in one long draught. Then he heard Bright Star. His body tightened. He pinpointed her in the house. Her breathing was slow and deep. Her chest was rising up and down, up and down, up and down. She turned over. She turned again. She drew her knees up beneath her until her hands fisted in her sheets and her bottom was in the air. She turned again, this time on her back with a forearm flung over her eyes.

Jackson concentrated for two seconds, and he was there. He didn’t even feel the smallest twinge of Perma-Shift. Yet another thing that had changed since he’d gone into Sense Dep.

Jackson appeared on the edge of the bed, his back to her. He felt her move, heard a rustle, then a sigh. Then, warmth stole across his back. He hazarded a glance. Her dark pink lips were parted over white teeth. He could see her red tongue nestled behind them. Her white arm lay across her eyes. Her hair scorched it in a wild fall. A sheet caressed her naked back and thighs. Her bare feet were exposed to view. Small, round toes stroked the bed, then rested. Her breathing was heavy.

Jackson leaned down to press his face close to hers. His lips brushed softly across her silken hair. Her scent was ethereal. He imagined she smelled as Circe had smelled. Beautiful. Undeniable. Disastrous. With lips nestled close to her ear, the words that had haunted him, rattling around in his head for as many months as he had known her slipped from within him to snake their way inside of her, “I hate you.”

Jackson stood up. He walked away. He was satisfied that she hadn’t heard him. Still, he wanted the words to permeate, to hurt. He wanted her to feel pain. He wanted to be the cause of the pain. He didn’t look back. He turned out the light… and was bathed in blue. He stopped.

Flicker.

Flicker.

He turned back. Her eyes were open and radiating; her eyelids flickered as if she were trying to wake but was unable to manage it.

He stood, caught in what had become a tractor beam. He found his way back to her. He stared down and her eyes were wide, but dazed.

Flicker.

Flicker.

Her perfect lips fell open. “Rush,” she whispered thickly. Jackson closed his eyes as he stood before her. She thought he was Rush. She wanted Rush.

“Rush,” the name was whispered again like an incantation.

Jackson kept his eyes closed against the site of her. He worked his High Energy into a ball that would hopefully propel him from this room, from a cooling Hell. He jumped at the feel of soft hands against his abdomen, a delicate finger delving into his navel and swirling to create an immediate tightening below.

“Rush,” she whispered again. Her hands reaching around his hips, drawing him down, down, until he was kneeling on the bed with a knee on either side of her hips. She rolled onto her back and looked up. For a moment, her eyes seemed to focus. Twin beams of royal light piercing Jackson’s pupils. He blamed it on panic, on an adrenal and sexual panic. His mind left his body, a body that, in a blink of an eye, had become different, a replica of another’s with a face that was stolen as well.

“Rush,” she crooned, the word a curse on her lips.

Jackson stretched his stolen body out to lay over her. Her body was trapped between his legs. Her ethereal face with its fine features was cradled within his thick forearms. For a moment, he just studied her. He had wanted her since she had been an orb of light in a puddle of darkening scarlet blood.

“Rush,” she cursed him again.

To silence her, Jackson dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers. He was instantly plunged into darkness as the bright eyes closed and mercifully allowed in the darkness of night. Her lips opened to him and the soft, wet inside was too much of an enticement. Jackson slipped his tongue inside, tasting her. She tasted like light. The light poured into him as he sampled, pressing its way through his body, collecting inside him until he believed it would burst out of him. He needed to be closer. He needed to be
inside
. He lowered his weight all the way onto her and squeezed his eyes shut at the exquisite feel of her plump breasts pressed into his chest. Her puckered nipples pricked him as they demanded. He reached between them with one hand and cupped one of the globes, flicking the starved peak with his thumb.

His lips scored her forehead and cheeks. He sucked in one petite earlobe then traced the shell of her ear with his tongue. A soft whimper escaped her lips and her eyes started to open. Quickly, Jackson brushed his lips over them, commanding them to remain shut. If she would just keep them shut… just keep them shut… he would not need to persist in his deception.

He slid down her pliant body, his kisses now adoring her throat. He was encouraged by her soft, warm hands at his nape, and playing over the muscles in his arm and back. Those hands lingered on him, reveling in the way his body felt. They were encouraging him as he lapped at her hot, softly scented skin.

He worked his way down her throat and over her collarbone. He paused for a moment to savor the sight of her extraordinarily pale breasts with the dark circles and large nipples. Her breasts were large and firm and he could feel the tightening in his body just at the first touch. He held them in his hands then pressed them against his cheeks. Lowering his body down to hers—between her parted legs—he held her breasts as he licked their undersides and skimmed his tongue over their peaks. He heard her moan and felt shame but not enough to overtake the primitive male satisfaction at wringing that sound from her. He took one of the stiff nubs into his mouth as he rolled the other between his thumb and forefinger. Beneath him, her legs slid further open and her pelvis tilted up until her sex was against his abdomen. She was drenched. Jackson could feel the cool moisture on his skin. He bit his lower lip and stilled himself. He had to pace himself or he would be finished before he started.

Recognizing he couldn’t spend the time on her breasts that he wanted, Jackson continued to kiss his way down her softly rounded belly, pausing to dip his tongue into her navel. She let out a quick yelp and Jackson raised his head, praying that her eyes were still closed. They were. He went back to kissing her until he found the neatly trimmed patch of silken red hair. Below it, he could see her cleft. It was already glistening for him. He licked the cleft. Her body went stiff all over, but her eyes still did not open. He inserted one long finger into her, and her breathing went ragged. He sucked hard and explored with his fingers until a primitive grunt was wrenched from deep within her. Her legs began to quiver; then her entire body began to quake. Her ankles flexed against his shoulders, her toes balled tight against his back. Her feminine mist seeped out against his tongue.

Her legs opened and opened wide. They opened wider as her knees bent and her ankles hooked on the edge of either side of the bed. She arched her back as well so that her head was tilted back and her breasts were offered up to him. She would grant him access to every part of her body.

He squeezed tight to hold off the explosion just waiting to be unleashed. He pressed his head into her glistening cleft. He grimaced with the pleasure of how tight and hot her sex was. Slowly, painstakingly, he eased into her, deeper and deeper. He ground his teeth into the inside of his jaw, fighting the urge to pummel her with his body. The control he exerted was causing sweat to collect on his chin and nose as he strained above her. The perspiration bathed her face and neck and she rubbed it into her skin as if she were being anointed. She let her hands travel to her breasts. She touched his chest, then touched her own, rubbing his sweat in there as well. Jackson let out an anguished sigh and slammed into her welcoming heat. Only to find that it wasn’t so welcoming. He plowed through the barrier until he was sheathed to the hilt. What should have been pain for her, instead, produced another bone-deep bout of shaking. This time every shudder, every contraction lavished him, milking him until he exploded inside of her. It was an accident.