Any Price

by Faulkner, Gail

  Kenna laughed out loud—it was that or scream. Thomas immediately focused on her with a question on his face.

  “Get used to it, Thomas,” Kenna warned. “This connection thing is going to make me appear crazy.”

  “Ah, you speak to him?” Thomas questioned politely.

  “No, no. It’s this.” She sent Thomas a little push of dry amusement.

  “Oh. I see.” Thomas smiled and nodded.

  “There are more than just three of you,” Kenna accused as she fought the panic saying those words brought. “Who are they? Why do I feel them?”

  “They are our people, just as you are, my lady. The ones who are not like the rest of the world,” Thomas explained carefully.

  “Not like the rest of the world? What exactly does that mean?”

  “You know I cannot lie to you, right? It would be useless and insulting.”

  “Yes, it appears I’d know,” Kenna acknowledged.

  “The reason I ask is to warn you. Do not ask questions you do not want answered yet. Take some time, my lady,” he cautioned with deep concern swirling around the words. “We whom you feel have known you exist, that is our legacy. From the time we were children we have concealed our differences. It seems you have not known any of this. You need to take a little time to assimilate the new information before piling on more. That you knew nothing of your birthright is wrong and we all feel your distress. There is no threat in our knowledge. We wish you only peace and rest.”

  Her heart tightened and Lore immediately responded. “Are you all right? Do you need me?”

  Kenna sighed. She was not all right. She was probably a raving lunatic, but she needed to at least try to let Lore fulfill his responsibilities. Being the hysteric psychotic wasn’t attractive. If she had to be a psychotic, the least she could do was suck it up and be the best crazy person ever. She really couldn’t even fib in this form of communication so she compromised.

  “I will be fine,” was the thought she sent him.

  “Relax,” came back to her. The short command carried emotional input that was both soothing and arousing. He sent his concern, his curiosity and his frustration at being separated.

  So this connection thing had expanded and now included unknown numbers of strangers. It was a mushroom cloud growing at an alarming rate. Cautioning herself to deal with this in small chunks, Kenna turned to Thomas and picked up the threads of that conversation.

  “Do you speak to each other? Can you send thoughts?” she asked Thomas sharply.

  “An adrenaline rush briefly enables this, usually between close blood relatives in an emergency,” he answered calmly. She could now feel him sending her reassurance and strength. Yuri and Julianna joined him. Their combined influence invaded her rising panic with calming reassurance, and yet that they could help her like this scared the shit out of her.

  * * * * *

  In the outer room, Lore abruptly stood. “I must go. We will finish this conversation later. We’ve covered the critical issues. Thank you for your attention to detail.” It was the king dismissing Gregory again. Smoothly, politely, but Lore inserted steel in his tone so there would be no mistake that the interview was over.

  His connection with Kenna was clawing at him. She was terrified and trying to hide it from him. Knowing all that and being separated from her was intolerable. Watching Gregory’s face darken in a frown shot intense distaste through Lore. He needed to get to Kenna. Gregory was going to delay that.

  “Lore!” Gregory abandoned royal titles in his frustration. “We have to talk about the woman. What do you think you’re doing with her?”

  Lore had already turned to the bedroom door. He looked back over his shoulder at Gregory, his eyes were hard as he slowly turned to face Gregory again.

  “The woman, as you call her, is none of your business, Gregory.” Lore’s voice dropped low and harsh.

  Gregory could feel leashed animosity emanating from Lore as the king continued. This attitude was as confusing as the rest of the man’s behavior had been today. It was swiftly becoming insulting.

  The low growl of Lore’s voice continued with its cutting commands. “What I think I am doing with her is even less your business. Refer to her in such fashion again and I will have to do something about it. Don’t force us to that.”

  Lore took a pace toward Gregory. “I will not discuss her, Gregory. I will not tolerate interference with regard to her.” The pause burned with Lore’s enmity as he looked into the angry face of his closest advisor. “Yuri will show you out. In the future, please respect my privacy enough to stay out of my apartment while I am not present.” The words were carefully polite, but the inflections made them deadly threats.

  Gregory’s lips thinned, but that was the only outward sign of his response. He turned to the outer door, which Yuri held open.

  After the door closed, Lore lifted his eyes to Yuri’s grim face. “In the future, if there is anyone in this apartment without an invitation, besides Kenna or myself, they are to be removed with force. Clear?”

  “Of course, your highness. I apologize for this intrusion. It will not happen again,” Yuri assured him.

  Lore blew out a heavy breath in an effort to calm the ferocious, possessive anger and added in a tired voice, “Don’t bust someone over it. Things have changed dramatically since this morning. No one could have known.”

  “Sir, she needs you. I will take care of these things,” Yuri responded quietly.

  Lore’s focus narrowed on Yuri in suspicion. “You feel her?”

  “Yes, my lord. As I said, it is not like your connection. It is a different thing. Now that she is learning how to handle it, she is becoming stronger. Have you not found it so?”

  “Yes,” Lore agreed grimly. He turned to the bedroom door.

  As he entered, Lore was a bit surprised at his relief. Thomas was nowhere near Kenna and it soothed some small part of him. Needing other males to keep a certain distance from his woman was a primitive feeling he’d never encountered before. A territorial awareness he was not comfortable with because it was threaded with deadly intent.

  Nodding to Thomas, Lore held the door for him to leave.

  Kenna opened her eyes as soon as she felt Lore in the room. They stared at each other a long moment after Thomas left. Complete privacy was a shock. It had come so abruptly and been so long awaited. Lore felt unprepared for the relief of it but harshly aware of his urgent need to touch her. Unable to quiet that craving, he was at the same moment determined not to rush her.

  He’d closed the conversation with Gregory in response to the spike of fear he’d felt in her. She wasn’t ready for what he needed, but there was no escaping it either. Lore looked away. Glancing at the closet then back at her, he smiled. “I see you made yourself comfortable,” his low voice growled. She was in his clothes. He liked that. In the past, he’d never liked it when a woman put on his clothes. Everything about Kenna was different.

  “It felt like the right thing to do, your highness,” she answered softly.

  Lore’s eyebrows rose at her use of his title. “Feeling the need for distance?” As he spoke, he moved away from her to the bed and started removing his period costume.

  “Feeling a lot of things and all of them are insane. I’m a mess,” she answered honestly, but didn’t look away from him as a stranger might as he began removing clothes.

  He concentrated on getting out of the costume for a few seconds. When he’d managed to remove all except the tights, he glanced at her before turning to the closet. “I’ll be right back.”

  This intimate connection was a bastard to deal with. Not strangers, not lovers, so wrapped around each other it was hard to tell where he ended and she started.

  Undressing with her in the room underlined the intimate relationship. Moving away from her to do it, letting her feel that she had choices was all the space he could give her. She wasn’t ready to plunge into a physical relationship. He wasn’t able to let her stay out of one. Beyond
that, he suspected the nature of her needs wouldn’t allow her that freedom either. The converging pressures were immense and unrelenting.

  In the closet, Lore hissed a curse, pausing to gather control. He was driven to establish his claim on her. She felt the same pull but fought it hard. Her morals, her lifelong views of self-respect and the intimacy of a sexual relationship not being casual were wearing her out. Knowing she was tired of the battle and yet unable to give it up made him ache. His recurring urge to remove her pain was difficult to contain.

  Going in the closet was supposed to help him resist the impulse to free her of her internal battles by simply taking charge again. She wouldn’t have resisted him but nor would he be able to say she had chosen to be with him. She could never doubt that her body had been surrounded willingly.

  He’d always been a dominant male in his personal life, but this was more. He wasn’t sure if it was more because she was incapable of hiding her struggles from him or because of the rapid changes they were experiencing. His natural instinct to manage her pain and fear was not comfortable for either of them.

  Kenna closed her eyes as his fine backside disappeared. Have mercy. The man was handsome and built like living rock. All hard muscles and flexing strength, though if he clenched his jaw any tighter, it’d break. What did he do? Spend all his free time in a gym?

  “I train what little military we have,” he answered calmly, reappearing in jeans and pulling on a t-shirt. “Three times a week. You’re not really interested in this, are you?”

  “I didn’t send the question. I thought it to myself.” Kenna didn’t move as she voiced the disturbing fact.

  Lore stopped in front of her, hands resting on lean hips as he regarded her half-reclining form on the couch. “We’ve been getting better at communication.” He frowned slightly as he tried to be nonchalant about hearing her thoughts.

  “Better is not the term I’d use for it.” A surreal cold enveloped her.

  Now that she knew others could feel her, she wasn’t sure how much they could know of her thoughts. Lore had just answered her mental musing. She hadn’t directed the thoughts to him. Nor had she actively tried to block them. What if all those others were getting a clearer channel into her brain? What the hell would that mean? How did she turn it off?

  Was it only this morning that she’d been a nearly normal person? Okay, maybe not all that normal to begin with, but clearly not a perpetually paranormal, mind-reading freak of nature! She’d only been a part-time freak of nature back then.

  Lore dropped to his knees beside her. She was curled into the arm of the couch. The instinct to shield her was overwhelming. His long body bent over hers as he gathered her into his arms without disturbing her position.

  “Not a freak, little one,” he whispered, his mouth in her hair as he surrounded her with his large body, offering comfort in its most basic form. His instinctual male beast would give her the safety she craved in any form he could.

  Thick arms encircled her as she turned her face into his neck. They needed this contact. The firm but tender embrace gave them both some relief. She knew what he was doing and was grateful.

  “Oh yeah? How did you know that’s what I thought? Because it was just a thought, Lore, and you answered it. Can you read every thought I have?” Kenna questioned shakily.

  “I don’t think so. I guess, well, I don’t know. You’re right. This is different and strange. But whatever is happening to us is happening to both of us. We can handle this together. What we need is more information. If I were a really smart guy, I’d call Yuri in here and question him about that shit he told us in the car. Being alone with you is such a luxury that I can’t bring myself to do it.”

  She pulled her face out of his neck and looked up at him. “Do you feel the others too?”

  “Others? What others?” Lore demanded.

  Her brow wrinkled. “When I sat down, I tried being quiet and finding the connection, the ones to Yuri, Julianna and Thomas, it worked. But they’re not the only ones I feel. There are others, many others. I asked Thomas if there were more than the three of them and he said there was. He was so calm about it. I asked who they are and why I feel them. He told me not to ask questions I don’t want answers to. That’s when you felt me panic.”

  Kenna was panting as she finished her explanation. Clutching him tightly while her eyes darted back and forth between his, her agitation rose as his shock flowed through her. Lore didn’t bother to repress a frown as he grasped the quantum leap this convoluted mess had taken. Whatever switch had been flipped, its ripple of power was spreading way beyond the two of them and the few people surrounding them.

  It took concentration to control a brutal defensive reaction as he held her trembling body. She was exhausted, both mentally and emotionally. The way this kept spreading and twisting, along with the male-female chaos churning between them, had her completely drained.

  Her resources had been stretched thin an hour ago. The woman in his arms now felt exposed and vulnerable. Even in his arms she wasn’t safe and that was fucking wrong. He couldn’t defend her from some strangers invading her mind and that offended him on every level. Even the new ones he was developing through this constantly changing experience.

  First, he wasn’t going to share her with anyone, much less with a mass of strangers who could slither into her head. Second, he wasn’t going to share her with anyone! If he counted down past the top-ten items of unacceptable crap he was willing to kill to correct, he might get past the not sharing part and get on with a list of what was fucked up about this.

  Still kneeling beside the couch, holding her tightly, he bellowed, “Yuri, get your ass in here!”

  The commander opened the door immediately and stepped into the room.

  “What the fuck is happening to Kenna?” Lore demanded. “And don’t tell me you don’t know.” Rising slowly, Lore shifted to settle Kenna on his lap. A fierce urge to shield her beat at him, requiring he wrap his body around hers.

  “My lady is in a difficult position, sir. It would be better if Julianna explained,” Yuri calmly replied.

  “Why?” Lore demanded. “Why can’t you explain it?”

  “I am not a first daughter. The first daughters have held the knowledge while our royal first daughter has been absent from our homeland. Julianna will be here any minute. I have called her.”

  Just then Julianna entered the room. After bowing deeply to them, she smiled in her regal way. “How may I help, my lord and lady?” she asked calmly.

  “What’s happening to Kenna? Yuri says you can explain the others she feels. What is this connection between us and why is it growing?” Lore demanded.

  “Indeed,” Julianna agreed cheerfully. “It grows when the royal first daughter connects with her One. The only One.” Julianna paused as if that should be evident. The blank stares meeting her gaze prompted more explanation. “You, my lord, are the One for our royal first daughter. The One makes the royal first daughter whole, and that is very good.”

  “What does that mean, Julianna?” Lore questioned, trying not to frown. “We already know we’re connected in ways that are different from regular couples. Tell us why. We need to know how to turn it off.”

  “Off? There is no off. She can’t quit being who she was born to be. You can’t quit being who you were born to be.” Julianna’s brow wrinkled.

  “Start at the beginning. Explain it. Explain it like you would to a child,” Lore repeated calmly.

  “Of course, my lord. The beginning. There isn’t time for all of it, just some. The dinner is soon and we must dress my lady,” Julianna dithered.

  “Fine, start now,” Lore made it a command.

  “Yes, yes. Before this time, um…before, there were more than one type of people. Many types of people lived among us. Many who were different from humans. Those differences made regular humans afraid. Regular-type people hunted and killed the different ones. But here, in this place, the regular people did not hunt their
friends. However it could not be stopped. There came the inquisition, witch hunts, regular people sent by that age’s Christian church just looking for a reason to kill.

  “The people you feel, my lady, are all blood relatives of yours or mine, most very distant relatives now. We have been called Keepers, Children of the Gods,” Julianna shrugged. “We are different and that means we always hide our differences from regular humans.

  “You are the Royal First Daughter of the Keepers. The bearer of, oh what is the word? Perhaps the beacon…no, not exactly that, ah…antenna? Descendent of the queen we lost, you returning completes the children of the Keepers,” Julianna ended, and smiled at both of them as if that were supposed to explain everything.

  After a frozen pause, Kenna asked carefully, “Julianna, how do I complete those people?”

  “You have found your One,” Julianna enthused. “The One with whom you are complete so you complete us all. We can hear. We are united. We are whole once again. Only a royal first daughter brings this joyful freedom. She connects us all. We have been mostly silent since your ancestor lost her One to death.”

  “How many? How many of these people are there and can every one of them hear my thoughts?” Kenna’s voice shook as she asked the question. Julianna’s explanation created more questions than answers, but this one was paramount.

  Julianna’s hands flew to her cheeks in shock. “No. No. Only the royal first daughter makes us able to hear each other’s hearts again. We do not, cannot…ah, come to her heart uninvited. My family is bound to your family in the old ways. We can feel you but not listen to your thoughts. Others cannot enter your mind, my lady. I don’t know how many of us there are. We will find out through you.”

  Lore and Kenna stared at Julianna, stunned at the enormity of what she said. “So you’re saying,” Kenna started carefully, trying to grasp the huge concepts involved, “that we are humans who are not as human as everyone else?”