by Jen Talty
A thick, gray smoke appeared, swirling around, covering their bodies and the structure standing in front of her like a low-hanging dense cloud.
“What the hell?” She took a step back, but the atmosphere Gabe created with the flick of his fingers wouldn’t let her out from under the protective wrap. He hadn’t had that skill the last time she’d seen him.
That she knew about.
She cocked her head, pulling out her weapon, only the smoke curled around it, snatching it right from her fingers. “That’s not fair.”
“Nothing about my life has been fair since my mother died, so save the pouty face for when it will work on me. Like when you’re naked and those long sexy legs are wrapped around my body.” He twisted his wrist and the front door flew open. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”
She chose to ignore the sex talk. “You think I’m going in that house with you while you’ve got this shit floating around?”
He pointed down the street. “This protective bubble is the only thing that is shielding us from Caleb Snow and his assholes who want to suck the life out of all of us. So, you really only have one choice, and that’s to trust me and get the fuck inside.” He didn’t give her a chance to respond and shoved her up the steps and through the front door.
She stumbled into the foyer, surprised that the family room looked exactly the same as it had the last time she’d been inside, which had been about three years ago. “I’m shocked you never sold this place.”
“I promised my mom I wouldn’t.”
“You also promised your mother you’d look after me, and you’ve done a pretty fucking shitty job at that.”
“Actually, no, I haven’t. But I can see how you, my brothers, and your sisters would believe I betrayed all of you.”
“You did exactly that.” She tossed her backpack on the dark-brown leather sofa and scurried down the hallway into the kitchen. “Any food or drink in this place?”
“It’s fully stocked. Help yourself.”
She went right to the fridge and found herself a beer and some frozen pizza. She tossed him a cold beverage while she managed to heat up the oven and placed the pepperoni pie on the rack inside. Jumping up on the counter, she swigged her beer, letting the bubbles tickle the back of her throat. Being in his presence fucked with her ability to think straight. Maybe getting a slight buzz would clear that up.
But if it didn’t, it would sure as shit relax her just a tad.
I could use some help here. Is there anyone out there?
For the last half hour, she’d been trying to contact her siblings and their significant others, but so far, they’d been unresponsive.
Which sucked.
Someone should have gotten back to her by now. Granted, Alexis and Hunter deserved some time alone, but the other four? The least they could do was check in.
Fuckers. She inhaled slowly, clearing her mind of all other thoughts, focusing on her sisters and the bond she had with them. She needed to punch through the psychic realm and reach one of them and let them know where she was currently located.
Gabe leaned against the island and sipped the longneck. “You’re wasting your energy. I’ve got you blocked, and Mallard and Riley are doing the same with the rest.”
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
She tossed her head back and laughed. “Right. You expect me to believe that.”
“I need you to not only believe, but trust it.” He tipped his beer. “But even if you don’t, you’re going to have to do things my way, or we all could die. Worse, your sister’s baby, and the future of the New Order will die as well.”
“The new what now?” She arched a brow. “I thought we were all the Collective Order?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Willow Raven.” His lips drew into a sexy smile and he waggled his finger. “I have, unfortunately, been sitting on the sidelines, having to watch with my hands tied behind my back as the events of the last months played out. So, I’m aware of Savanah being kidnapped and Hunter being tortured. I know that Kim is my sister and that Caleb and his stupid so-called security foundation tried to basically suck her aura out and that they want to tap ours to control the psychic plane and use our collective powers for evil.”
“And? Your point?”
“I know everyone is developing new powers and sharpening the skills they already had. What the rest of you don’t know is that the four couples that sit at the Collective Order table are the oracles that merge the psychic world with the paranormal universe, creating the New Order.”
Willow remembered reading in the book, A Psychic’s Guide to Crossing Abilities by Riley Jacobs, where the author mentions a couple of times the group, the New Order, but never in reference to anything paranormal. If anything, Riley shoots down the connections to witches, warlocks, vampires, and all other creatures of the night.
As did Dimitri Orgaloph, the last great Oracle of the Collective Order in the late 1800s, whose daughter foreshadowed the four sisters and the quadruplet brothers of the future.
Dimitri watched as his kind were misunderstood and mistaken for witches and warlocks and burned at the stake. That was the reason he sent his sons into hiding. In all of Willow’s and her sisters’ research, they had yet to find out what became of Dimitri’s other children.
“Give me your hand.” Gabe stretched out his arm. “Let me show you something.”
“You’re lucky I came here with you, but don’t expect me to go anywhere else.”
He closed the gap, wedging his hips between her legs. A bolt of electricity fired from her head to her toes. She gasped when he took her hand, and sparks literally flew between their skin. He jerked his hand back.
“What the hell?” she whispered.
“That’s never happened before.” He shook out his hand before taking her once again. “I don’t have the kind of connection that I have with you with anyone else.”
This time there were no tiny flames, but the heat between them was undeniable, though she did her best to ignore her desire. Gabe had betrayed her trust, lied to his brothers, and turned his back on his country. The only reason she’d agreed to meet him was because she had to find a way to force him to see the error of his ways so they could set the past aside, move forward, and fulfill their duties.
Only, it wouldn’t be done without them sharing a bed.
The cosmos would have to deal with that.
“Trust me. Whatever fire we had, it’s been put out, and nothing can ignite that sucker.” She laced her fingers through his massive ones, gripping tight as flames filled her heart. Heat flowed through her veins like water rattling the pipes before spewing from the showerhead. “I was shocked I was even able to find you telepathically.”
He chuckled. “You looked for me almost every day. Just because I blocked you from finding me, doesn’t mean I didn’t know you were there.” He winked. “And it doesn’t mean I didn’t peek in on you every once in a while.”
“I’d know it if you were spying on me.” She narrowed her eyes and mentally shot daggers into his heart. When they’d been kids, she could feel his every breath. If he were hurt, the pain registered in her mind. At any given time, she could find herself in his space, even if they were thousands of miles apart. However, the moment he’d tried to pull her into his betrayal, she walked away. She might have tried to check in on him, having her sister shield her, only to fail miserably. She doubted he’d done the same considering how cold and uncaring he’d been. His only focus had been the sale of stolen military information to foreign governments.
“Whatever,” she mumbled as her surroundings changed from Gabe’s childhood kitchen to an outdoor scene where she and her sisters and he and his brothers sat around the table that had been part of everyone’s vision of a potential future.
Something they had learned along the way was that there was the one future that they were all working toward.
And then there were the offshoots, and each one of those forks in
the road took them down a different path.
Many would protect them from the Elite Brotherhood and those that wanted to suck them of all their powers.
Of course, they didn’t know which was what half the time, and the goal was always to get to where all eight were at the table in the final vision, which is what came into her mind’s eye.
She swallowed.
“It’s a beautiful sight, isn’t it?” He held their entwined hands up and kissed her palm.
She nodded. No point in denying how special the vision had become. Brett sat at one end of the table with Hazel to his right. She held his hand and smiled. Chad was to his left and next to him was Savanah who showed a baby bump as well, though not as big as Alexis’ who sat next to Hazel, but across from Hunter. Gabe stood at the head of the table with a goblet in his hand and held it high. In the vision, she glanced up at him with a smile on her face and admiration in her eyes. “I’ve seen this a hundred times.” Each time it changed slightly as a piece of the puzzle snapped into place. It seemed everything they did brought them one step closer to ensuring the Collective Order would balance out the psychic realm and all their powers would forever be protected. “And now that we’ve found you, all we needed is for you to do the right thing and all our fates are sealed.”
“I’ve always done that,” he said as he lowered his chin. “I know it doesn’t seem that way, but shortly, you will see that everything has been for the greater good. And for us.”
“I don’t believe that.” She should push him away, but instead, she rested her free hand on his shoulder. “I can’t believe that with everything you’ve done.”
“But it’s always been for us. And sitting at that table, on the land that is rightfully ours, is only moments away, but only if we can find and stop Roger and his faction.”
“Roger? As in Riley’s half brother.” Willow rubbed the back of her neck. Over the last few weeks, she felt like she’d suffered from severe whiplash from the different directions she and her sisters had been pulled ever since Savanah had been kidnapped.
Gabe nodded. “He’s a direct descendent of Dimitri. If we follow the line, he’s his great-great-great-great-grandson and because Dimitri couldn’t sit back and let anyone in his family die, he hid his other children. From what I could find out, the other boys died, but not the line Roger came from, and his entire purpose has been to harness psychic power and control it. His father and grandfather trained him how to do it, and they have been selling the process to foreign governments, but mostly to help them hone the process while trying to find all of us.” Gabe rubbed his other hand over her palm, and her siblings and his brothers disappeared. The scene in the wooded area with the table was replaced with the family room in the very house they were sitting in and she sat on the floor with two little boys who climbed all over her, calling her mommy.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Cute little buggers, aren’t they,” he said with a proud smile. “They have your wicked curiosity and my devilish charm.”
“That’s not a possible future because there is no way in hell you and I are ever getting back together.” She yanked her hand away. “We’ll never share a bed again.”
Harshly, he grabbed it. Thick, dark smoke swirled around their arms, snaking through their bodies, holding her still. “Here’s a possible future for you if we don’t.” He waved his hand through the smoke, tossing it toward the ceiling.
A group of children went running through a field screaming, looking over their shoulders. Bullets pelted them in the backs. They dropped to the ground, facedown. Blood pooled around their little lifeless bodies.
A group of people carrying large guns appeared. They stood over the children, kicking them to make sure they were dead.
Willow squinted. All the air in her lungs escaped as she noticed the children. “Who are those people who murdered all those innocent souls?”
“The only one I know for sure is Roger. The rest I’ve never seen before.” Gabe reached out and pulled all the smoke back to his body. It hugged him, swirling around him, before evaporating into his skin as if it were part of him, much like an aura, only without the color and emotion.
Interesting.
“You work for him and the Elite Brotherhood, right?” She posed it as a question, but she really meant it as a statement. “Is this little parlor trick something you learned from him?” She wanted to get under Gabe’s skin and piss him off. Gabe didn’t like it when anyone patronized him, and he didn’t like being confronted. “Because I think it needs work.” She gave Gabe a little shove and jumped from the counter. “I need to get back to my family and you’re coming with me.”
“No. You don’t. And we’re staying right here, for tonight.” He stood in the middle of the doorway between the kitchen and the hallway to the family room with his arms folded across his chest. “Until we locate Roger and put an end to his and Caleb’s terror, none of us are safe and that means I can’t be reunited with my brothers, and you and I can’t take our rightful spot at the table until we complete our task.”
“I can’t believe I’m even going to entertain this, but dare I ask what that is?”
“We need Roger to believe I kidnapped you.” He reached out and fanned her face. “He needs to think I still want the destruction of the Collective Order and that I don’t want the psychic realm and the paranormal universe to unite.”
“You couldn’t kidnap me if you tried.”
He leaned in and brushed his lips over hers, sending her into momentary shock. She gripped his shoulders for support. His kisses had always been powerful and passionate. She remembered the first time she dared him to take her into his arms. It had been at her first liberty call and they celebrated her survival of boot camp.
Their first lip-lock turned into a long weekend in a hotel where if they put on clothes other than to answer the door for takeout, it would have been a miracle. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. She cleared her throat. No way would she let him charm her out of her pants, much less into playing his little game.
“I didn’t have to try. You can’t leave. But I’d rather you were willing to work with me. That you chose to be with me.”
She shoved him to the side and raced toward the front door. The faster she ran, the farther the door became. She pumped her arms and legs. Her lungs burned, but try as she might, she couldn’t get past the kitchen entryway. “What the hell have you done?” She stopped, resting her hands on her knees as she sucked in deep breaths.
She tried to call out to her sisters and their mates, but the barrier grew strong and tall between her and the outside world. It wasn’t an evil force—she could sense that—but it didn’t make her feel any better that she’d been cut off from her family.
Her lifeline.
And now she was stuck with the one man who’d not only broken her heart and betrayed his country, but he’d turned his back on his family and his destiny.
While she had no desire to spend any time with him, she had to in order to fulfill the legacy, and she would do her part.
She owed her sisters that much.
“I’m not the bad guy here. I never have been,” he said with a calm and kind voice.
“That’s bullshit.”
“Then I guess we do this the hard way,” he said. “You can’t get out. Even though your powers and skills will be growing by leaps and bounds now that we’re together again, mine are still stronger and more cohesive, and I’m letting Caleb help me keep us trapped.”
“You’re doing what?” She jumped the five feet between them and punched him in the arm. “How fucking dare you.”
“Ouch.” He rubbed his biceps vigorously. “If it makes you feel any better, Mallard and Riley are well aware of the situation.”
“It doesn’t. Mostly because I don’t believe you.” She wanted to believe him. She wanted to have him back in her life and in her bed. If only she could trust what he said was the truth. She missed him so much tha
t her heart pleaded with her brain to ignore the warning signals and all the doubts that crept into her mind. “When I agreed to meet you, it was supposed to be just us. You promised me we would talk things through and that you’d come clean.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing. You’re the one who refuses to listen.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a couple of calls I need to make. I’ll set up my laptop for you so you can go over some of the information that I’ve found out about the future, the past, and how it all should play out. I’ve also got an outline of a plan on how to flush out Roger, but I’m thinking you’ll have a better one.” He tapped his finger against her temple. “You were always smarter with stuff like that than me.”
“I’m smarter in general.”
“I won’t argue that point.” He turned on his heel and double-timed it back to the kitchen where he flipped open his computer. “I haven’t been briefed on what you and the rest of the family know and have experienced, although I’ve watched a lot of it unfold, but what’s on this computer should fill in a lot of blanks.” He set it on the wood top. “I also kept a journal. My entries aren’t long and not every day, but it gives some insight into what was going on with me and why I had to keep quiet about what I knew. I’ll be upstairs. We can talk over dinner and wine in a few hours.”
“You can’t keep me here like this.” The harder she pushed against whatever the protective wrap was around the building, the tighter a hold it had on her muscles. It was as if it had an aura of its own and it weaved itself into her body. It even managed to worm its way into her mind, tickling her thoughts, massaging her memories, making her want to sip from the cocktail of the past and sample a taste of what the future was supposed to hold.
“Kitchen is fully stocked. Enjoy.” Without another word, he disappeared up the back stairs.
She made her way to the window overlooking the back alleyway. Her childhood home connected to the row house on the same street in the beautiful city of Baltimore. She stared at nothing as tears burned the corners of her eyes. She had no choice but to work with Gabe. It didn’t matter if he was working with Caleb or not, as long as Gabe led her to Caleb and Roger so she could bring them down and make sure the Collective Order regained their strength and power.