The Gifted 1: Passions Awakening (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Cara Covington

  “Please, Cheri?” Max knew he had to fix this, and fast. He wasn’t sure what the future really held for him. Cheri said he could walk away, and maybe, that was the very thing he’d needed to hear.

  And maybe it was time for him to take his eyes off himself. This woman had come here, to his world, and he sensed this was a world far different than her own. She’d been given a challenge, and she hadn’t walked away. She’d accepted that challenge. These revelations were tough for him to hear, but this entire situation wasn’t just happening to him. It was happening to Cheri, too. He owed her his attention and his kindness, if for no other reason than the fact that she’d shared herself so generously with them both.

  He picked up her hand and brought it to his lips. “Please?”

  “I was summoned to the Concilium. Our world is governed by a group of twelve—six men, six women, and headed by our leader, whose title is First Mother. And she, in turn, is guided by the Sylph.”

  “I don’t recall much of my study of mythology because that was back in high school,” Tony said “but a Sylph, that’s an air spirit?”

  “Yes. She’s always been a part of our world. She’s very powerful.”

  “So you were summoned?”

  “But not just me. My two best friends—my spirit sisters, Meghan and Diana—were also summoned. It was a surprise to all of us to get to the chamber and see each other there. Although we soon found out our parents had known all about it.

  “When we went inside the inner chamber of the Concilium, the First Mother met us and spoke to us. She told us about the prophesy and that we’d been chosen, the three of us, to come here, to learn to live here, and to wait until the moment when we’d be directed to where we had go. After she told us what I’ve told you, we were given the choice to stay where were or to answer the call.”

  “You chose to come.”

  “We all three did.” For the first time since Max had put his foot in it, Cheri smiled. “It’s been…interesting, trying to acclimate to this world. I’m so glad my friends said yes, too. Sometimes…well, sometimes I get homesick. It’s good that we can get together when we need to.”

  Something in the way Cheri spoke—as if she was choosing her words carefully—bothered him. She’d said she couldn’t lie to them, and he believed her. And yet…

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Six years. I came when I was twenty-one.”

  “I guess you don’t get home often,” Tony said. “And life in The Big Apple, though many say it’s the best city in the world, is still something that would take more than a little adjustment, even for someone born here.”

  When Cheri only nodded, that sense that they were missing something pretty important grew stronger. So Max cupped Cheri’s chin. “When was the last time you went home for a visit?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Can you?”

  “I…” Cheri looked down at her hands. “Honestly? I don’t know. I’m pretty sure the answer to that question is no. Everything I’ve ever heard, everything I know, tells me the journey we undertook was a one-way trip only.” She shrugged.

  “And if we walk away from you, what happens then? What happens to you?”

  “I won’t shrivel up and die, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Max didn’t care for her tone or the way she circumvented his question. “Cheri. If we walk away from you, what happens to you?”

  “I imagine I carry on teaching, which is no hardship for me. I love kids, and I love teaching them. I’ve made a life here. I’d be fine.”

  Except she would be forever separated from her family and her world. And she would have been denied the opportunity to fulfill her destiny.

  For a heartbeat, he had an image of the three of them, surrounded by kids and grandkids, a sense of the fullness of a life well lived. And then that image disappeared, to be replaced with a picture of his father’s study, the room almost unnaturally quiet while he—not his father—read some boring medical journal, the only sounds the ticking of the clock on the wall and the turning of the pages in the magazine.

  I finally understand that saying about being caught between a rock and a hard place.

  “What about those two men on the ship?” Tony asked. “Are they….what did you call them…descendants of the Scorned?”

  “They could be, or they could be descendants of the Chosen. Being born one or the other doesn’t guarantee you’ll be like your ancestors. Not all who are born of the Chosen would be good, and neither are all who are born to the Scorned bad.”

  Max welcomed the chance to take his mind off his recent musings. “I felt energy in them. It felt…dark.”

  “Yes, I felt that, too.” Cheri frowned. “If I’d been open, I would have felt them approaching. But I’ve learned to shield my powers here.”

  “I guess we came charging to the rescue, and that was all the time you needed to get them under control,” Tony said.

  “That wasn’t me. I really wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t expect them, and maybe I should have.”

  “What do you mean it wasn’t you?”

  “I helped, but if you hadn’t come when you did, if you hadn’t whipped out that bit of power and frozen them in their tracks, they might have been able to supplant my will completely. I felt them trying, and by the time I realized what they were doing, I honestly couldn’t stop them.”

  “Are they that powerful?”

  “Yes, and no. It’s kind of like the time to hang on to the branch and not slide down the slippery slope is before you lose your footing.” She shrugged again. “That’s the best way I can describe it.” She looked off into the distance. “Living in this world, I’ve hidden my magic. I’ve managed to keep it all but invisible. I’m not used to letting it show any more or ramping it up.”

  “Maybe you’d better do that,” Max said. “I don’t know what they wanted. I just know they wanted to hurt you.”

  “That’s my take on them, too. Cheri, can you teach us how to do what we need to do?” Tony lifted her hand and kissed it, much like Max had done.

  It amazed Max that lying in this bed, seeing Tony with Cheri, he didn’t feel the least bit jealous. The three of them together just felt so damn right together. “Can you help us to use our powers, too?”

  “The magic is already growing within you. I can sense it now, and it’s a lot more powerful than it was just a day ago. I’ll do what I can to help you. Mostly, it’s recognizing what it is within you—its presence—and then for you to practice using it so that you can control it. It’s like exercising a muscle. You have a muscle, and you have control of it. Working it over and over strengthens it.” Cheri shrugged. “In a lot of ways, for us, magic is just another muscle.”

  Then she frowned. “I didn’t get a good read on those two men. I really don’t know how powerful they actually are. I think we need to stay away from them for the time being. That means we need to practice someplace where they aren’t, someplace where they can’t sense our power and, therefore, be drawn to us.”

  “Bermuda is kind of small,” Max said. “They were on the ship when we left it, but who knows where they are now.”

  Cheri grinned. “Maybe the biggest thing the two of you have to do is adjust your thinking. What’s that expression that’s popular these days? Ah, yes. You have to learn to think outside the box.” She looked at Max and then Tony. Then she lifted their joined hands and said, “Don’t let go.”

  “What the hell!”

  One moment they were lying naked in a king-sized bed in a resort hotel in Hamilton, Bermuda. And the next they were standing, fully clothed, in a grassy field beside a very nice-looking cabin in what appeared to be the middle of a forest.

  * * * *

  “You can let go, now.”

  “What…where…how did you?” Max couldn’t get the sentence out. Tony wasn’t doing any better. He was looking all around, sniffing the air, as if questioning his senses.

  Cheri tried no
t to laugh out loud. “We’re at a private cottage in Colorado. This is where my best friends and I come to spend time together. I happen to know they won’t be needing it for the next little while. We’re also very far away from those two gentlemen we left in a stupor on the cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean.”

  “You…you just brought us from Bermuda to Colorado in barely a heartbeat. I didn’t hear any incantations, I didn’t feel like I was falling through space or flying. I…” Tony shook his head. “This contravenes the laws of physics!”

  Cheri grinned. She leaned in closer and lowered her voice just a bit. “I know! That’s why they call it magic.”

  “But magic is supposed to have rules and guidelines and spells and…stuff.” Max sighed.

  Both men looked adorable, if confused. Cheri thought perhaps she ought not to say that out loud. Instead, she addressed their questions, the ones they’d implied with their statements.

  “Somewhere along the line, here in this world, some very logical thinkers must have gotten together and decreed that, if there is going to be such a thing as magic, then there had to be rules and guidelines and such. I think that because these people believed magic was only fiction, they needed those parameters for some reason.” Cheri met Max’s gaze first and then Tony’s. “The rules that govern the behavior of myself and the rest of the Gifted are rules we’ve agreed to abide by as a society. Beyond that, the only real rule when it comes to magic, I’ve already told you. Magic is.”

  “Huh.” Tony looked around. “So you just…”

  “Think things, situations, whatever it is you want, into existence. Yes. Having said that, one of the rules we have as a society is that we don’t steal. So I won’t, for example, just make any car you want appear before you—like, say a Jaguar. I can do that, but I won’t. It has to be paid for. But I can buy you a car, and then I can make it appear wherever I want it to appear.”

  “So this place…” Max looked at her, his one eyebrow raised.

  “We bought it shortly after we arrived here in this world, from funds provided to us by the Concilium. And before you ask, yes, legitimate funds amassed in the usual, legal way. I don’t know all the facts, but there were trusts set up at one point and invested and managed by those chosen by the Concilium for that purpose. However, when we’re here and we want lights and water and food? That is all created by our magic.” She could see they were having trouble wrapping their heads around the difference. “Magic is energy. So we use magic to power our lights and draw water from a well—which was in place when we took possession of this cottage. We can use our energy to create simple things, tables and chairs, and the like, because we can envision the simple form. Magic, as energy, can also be converted to food, which at its core, is...”

  “Energy. It’s a lot to take in.” Tony shook his head. “I’m having trouble wrapping my head around those first two words. Magic is.”

  “There’s no need to take everything in today.” Cheri hugged Tony. Then she hugged Max. “For now, just focus on identifying the power that is within you. It’s a force, an energy, and it’s a part of you. The more you use it, the better you’ll get at using it, using it and controlling it. We’re here to do that. Being here, in the proverbial middle of nowhere, will prevent collateral damage. We also can’t be detected by anyone else of power, even if they were standing just out of sight. This is a safe place for us.”

  She didn’t go into details. This property, and it was vast, was protected by magic—not just her magic and her cousins’ but the magic of the Concilium.

  “Okay.” Max nodded. “Where do we start?”

  “With meditation.”

  “Finally, something I can grasp,” Tony said.

  The grass was soft here, so Cheri sat down, cross-legged, and got comfortable. She inhaled deeply, exhaled, and then let herself relax. Max and Tony both did the same so that they were sitting, knees nearly touching, in a triangle.

  “Turn your focus inward. Open your senses. Let yourself feel your power. It’s a living, breathing force within you.”

  Cheri loved meditation and used it whenever possible to help keep herself centered. Usually, when she sat down at the end of a day to indulge herself in this, she could feel the tension in her shoulders and at the base of her neck begin to ease.

  Of course having had two very explosive orgasms not an hour before had pretty much blown all her tension out of the water.

  She drew in a deep breath and then let it go. Centered, she opened her eyes. Both men sat, eyes closed, and close enough for her to touch. She’d never seen their faces look so unguarded and knew they were looking deep within themselves.

  “It has been here all along,” Max said. “And now I have a name for it.”

  “May I come in and look?” She thought she might have to explain that, but she didn’t. Both men knew what she meant, and both men gave permission. In turn, she opened herself to them, allowed them full access to her thoughts, her memories.

  They stood, the three of them, in a small glen, protected by a wall of iridescent mist that surrounded them. Each man held in his hands a tiny ball of colors—swirling, twirling colors that pulsed, as if breathing.

  “Incredible.” Tony opened his eyes and turned to face his friend.

  Cheri grinned. Yes, you can communicate with each other. You can see into each other’s minds, or mine, or anyone’s but…

  Not to be done lightly. Max’s thoughts came to her easily.

  Or, among Gifted, not without permission. That is why I asked, first.

  Then, as if it had been choreographed, they left the mists behind and were once more sitting in the grassy lea.

  “This will be very useful when I have a patient who can’t communicate.” Tony nodded. “This power we have, it’s not to be used frivolously, is it? No, of course not.”

  “It depends on your definition of frivolous.” Cheri grinned. “The Wiccans here have a creed that is very close to what all who live by the Gifted laws hold dear—‘and it harm none.’ If you use that as your guidepost, it’ll make things easier. Of course, there is one exception to that creed.”

  “Evil.” Max’s expression turned serious.

  “Today was the first time I’ve come face to face with evil, and yet, I recognized it once the two of you arrived.”

  “We haven’t courted you,” Tony said. He had an expression on his face she’d never seen before. Then he held out his hands, accepting the bouquet of roses that appeared. He handed them to her.

  “Thank you.” She lifted them to her face. “They smell wonderful.”

  Max tilted his head. Then he grinned. “I was going to give you wine. But I think we could all use this instead.

  The tray that appeared on the ground between them held a carafe, cups, cream, and sugar.

  Cheri laughed. “Perfect. I really could use a cup of coffee just now.”

  “I can’t believe how easy this is,” Tony said.

  Max tilted his head to one side. “It’s because the power has been in us all along—it’s familiar with us. It knows us and has just been waiting for us to recognize and begin to use it.”

  “Yes. In the homeland, we come into the use of our powers on our twelfth birthday. But that power is as much a part of us from birth as are our hands or our feet. A baby is born with both but doesn’t know how to use them on day one. That is something that comes in due time and with several falls and mishaps on the way. But your power has matured inside of you. Now that you’re aware of it, you just have to get used to using it.”

  “The power isn’t to be used sparingly or only for really important things?” Tony asked.

  “There’s not a limited supply if that’s what you mean. Generally speaking, you can use it at will.” Cheri shook her head. “Let me just add one little bit more on that. We’ve connected, and I don’t mean the entire physical thing, exactly, but that which is in you recognized that which is in me. That happened the first moment we saw each other before the Eugenia even
left port. When that happened, it was like the power in me gave the power in you a jumpstart. You’re of the Gifted, now, not just descendants of the Chosen. When—if—we become mated, our power will join. It will become like one entity that is in all three of us.”

  “And if we hadn’t connected? Could we have used our power, not having seen you?”

  “Theoretically, yes. But it’s possible that using it might have temporarily depleted it.” Cheri sighed. “There’s a lot I don’t know about how the powers of descendants work or don’t work. One thing the First Mother said was that, for some of the descendants, using their magic would result in their magic being depleted for a period of time.”

  “That didn’t happen to us when we froze those two men—well, not that I know of,” Tony said.

  “No, I would have known if the power within you diminished even for a moment. It didn’t become less. It became more.” She spread her hands. “I think I’ve told you just about everything I know. The Concilium couldn’t answer all our questions simply because we would be walking paths never before taken.”

  “I guess we just have to figure things out as we go along.” Max shook his head. “Being anal, those words should scare the hell out of me.”

  “I know the feeling.” She raised her cup to Max. “Good coffee, by the way.”

  Tony laughed. “It’s certainly the best coffee he’s ever made.”

  “It pains me to agree with you,” Max said. “But at least now I know the secret to making a good cup of coffee. It truly is magic.”

  “So if I wanted to bring something here, say, from my apartment to amuse myself or please myself, that’s okay?” Tony asked.

  “Of course. If it’s yours, you can do as you will with it. Did you forget to pack something for your vacation? That will never be a problem again.”

  Tony looked at Max, who grinned.

  “Not exactly,” he said.

  He pointed behind her, and Cheri turned around and grinned herself when she saw the king-sized bed. “I like the way you think, Dr. Delvecchio.”