Entering his condo, she kicked her Glam back up to medium-low. She was having fun with it. They had a drink then retired to the bedroom. A tiny puff of pheromones was rewarded with a slow, sensual undressing as he stripped her in a shower of kisses and caresses. She had worn some of her mother’s lingerie under her black dress. He stepped back from her and his eyes traveled over her, still wearing the garter belt, hose and four-inch heels she had bought to go with the dress.
“My God, you look fabulous.”
He took her on the bed and she surrendered completely. Lost in sensation, floating in a sea of pleasure, her entire being centered where their bodies met, culminating in blinding fireworks. Completely submerged in ecstasy, she was barely aware of his climax building. He crested, crying out and exploding into her. When he spilled his seed inside her, she realized that in her frenzied lust she had forgotten about a condom. His energy flowed into her, triggering her, and she rode higher and higher as he continued to thrust deeply into her. She felt herself glowing, and then with a final thrust, he stiffened and rolled off her asleep.
Savoring her feelings, his energy pouring through her, she put her hands between her legs and massaged herself, arching her back as she teased herself to orgasm again.
On the drive home, she tried to work up some kind of feelings of guilt, running through her mind the issue of draining him, then the casual way she was approaching sex and using men for her pleasure. The guilt wouldn’t come. She felt so marvelous, so full of joy and life that she couldn’t understand why she hadn’t always done this.
She met Cindy for lunch on Sunday and they spent the afternoon together. Once again, she felt as though she was being watched as she approached Cindy’s apartment, but couldn’t actually detect anyone.
“But, they have to eventually figure it out. If I did a guy every Friday and he missed his entire weekend, wouldn’t he notice after a month or two?” Brenna asked.
“You would think so, but they don’t. They remember going on the date, they remember the sex, but draining them befuddles their minds, and they don’t seem to connect it. They don’t seem to remember being out, or what caused it. Believe me, I had the same question when I was young, and Maureen had the same answer. I picked up a guy at a bar every other Friday night for three months. You would think he’d run when he saw me coming, but he greeted me with a smile every time. Telepaths are different, they know what happened, and some of them get smarter, but most don’t care. In the telepath community succubus sex is considered the ultimate experience, although with a price. I’m sure that’s not fair to a lot of women, but that’s the way we’re perceived.”
That evening, she found herself at a bar, wearing her Glam and practicing using Influence to attract various men. When a tall, handsome young man struck up a conversation she enjoyed, she went home with him. Walking the short distance home, she realized she didn’t know his name.
~~~
Monday afternoon, walking home from the university, she thought she caught a glimpse of a familiar face, and extending her awareness, realized that not only Robbie, but Jared and at least two more telepaths she didn’t recognize were in the vicinity. Arriving home, her scans detected the same telepaths now clustered at varying distances around her house. Later that night, they were still there. More arrived later and the people from the afternoon left.
In the morning, she scanned again and found another changing of the guard taking place. The new people followed her to work, and she felt various members of the group everywhere she went all day. It was obvious she was being followed, under surveillance around the clock. By then, she had identified Jared, Robbie, Rebecca, and a Protector named Jeremy among those following her or watching her house. The others were unfamiliar to her. She went out that night to a bar and had a beer. Her followers kept tabs on her, and she was sure Rebecca had actually entered the bar for a few moments and then left, waiting across the street.
She had a dinner date with Collin that night. When he showed up dressed nicely in jacket and slacks, she answered the door wearing jeans and a t-shirt, her feet in house slippers.
“Are we still on for tonight?” he asked
“Why don’t you tell me? You probably know more about what I’m doing than I do,” she half-snarled at him, a dangerous smile frozen on her face.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Oh, come on, you can’t stand there and play innocent. You must either be really pissed off, or else you’re some kind of voyeur. I may not be trained to your standards, but I do have enough command of my Talents to be able to tell I’m under surveillance.”
“Huh?”
“Tell me you’re not getting reports from the people you have following me. You probably know how many times I pee each day.”
“Brenna, look, you’ve got it all wrong. We’re concerned about your safety, we’re not monitoring your personal life.”
“Right. Everyone I see, everything I do, twenty-four hours a day. Telepaths. Are they listening in to the people I’m with? Do you get a blow-by-blow report, or do they just keep that little pleasure for themselves? Shit, Collin, at least you could have the decency to tell me I’m being watched so I can make my own decisions about how discreet I should be, how much I’m comfortable sharing with strangers. But I’ve just been blithely wandering around, doing what I please, and thinking I still had some privacy in my life. You tell me I’m a Goddamned succubus, train me to use it, then follow me around to see the show. That’s just fucking grand.
“I’m taking my privacy back. Call off your dogs. I don’t need your concern for my safety, and I sure as hell don’t need anyone monitoring my life and my decisions and who I’m with and where I go and what we do when we get there. Tell Seamus and Callie they can take their wealth and their privilege and stick it up their asses.”
Her face flushed and her eyes dilated with only a thin ring of blue, she stepped closer to him. “And tell that snake Rebecca she doesn’t have to pretend to be my friend anymore,” she hissed. “I’m sure it will be a relief for both of you to be free of me, not having to pretend you like me when all I am is an assignment. Go to hell, Collin, and keep your Goddamned Clan out of my life.”
The door slammed shut. God, what a cock-up I’ve made of this, he thought. He was shaking.
As soon as he got back to the Baltimore compound, he called Callie. “We have a problem, and it’s my screw up. Brenna tripped to my watchers, and seeing as I never had the brains to tell her we had her under protection, she blew sky high. She told me in no uncertain terms that she is through with the Clan, and if I personally should want to commit suicide, she’d load the gun. Not exactly in those words, but the meaning was clear enough, especially with her riding the killing edge.”
“Shit.” There was silence on the other end of the phone for a minute, then, “I need to get Seamus on this call. I’ll call you back. And Collin, it’s not all your fault. It was her family’s responsibility to explain how we live, not yours. Seamus or I should have talked to her.”
She called five minutes later. “Okay, tell us exactly what happened, and the exact words she used,” Seamus said.
He told them, keeping his opinions and editorial comments out of it. At the end, he heard a deep sigh from Seamus.
“Not your fault, Collin. I went through the same thing, oh, about sixty-some years ago. Only I was really stupid, I was doing the things she accused you of. It was only after Callie and her mother threatened to leave me and go to Europe, with Gertrude threatening to keep my daughter from me until she was fifty, that I wised up enough to understand a young woman’s intense need to believe her privacy is sacred.
“Callie, we’re getting old. One of us should have remembered that and sat the young lady down and explained things.”
“He’s right, Collin,” Callie said sadly. “Of all people, I should have paid more attention. Damn. And you say when she mentioned Rebecca, that’s when she rose to the edge?”
“Yeah, it was pr
etty obvious she felt betrayed, that Rebecca had become friends with her under false pretenses. It might not have been so bad, but you know I’ve been dating her. When I picked her up to go to West Virginia, she had an obvious Glow. I was surprised and I think I let it show. Judging from the way she phrased some things today, she obviously thinks I’m spying on her and whoever she’s seeing. From her point of view, she has every right to be pissed. I would be if I thought someone was stalking me.”
“And anything we tell her now will sound as though we’re just covering our butts,” Callie said. “Explaining our personal privacy restrictions when protecting family will just sound like we’re making something up after the fact.”
“All right,” Seamus weighed in. “First thing, we don’t make the situation worse. Leave her alone, let her cool off. Pull your people back, out of range, and Rebecca is off her protection detail as of now. And for God’s sake, talk to Rebecca, and make sure she knows she’s not to get anywhere near her. I don’t need those two going after each other, and I certainly don’t want to see Rebecca dead. And that’s what could happen. I don’t think Rebecca is capable of hurting Brenna. I wouldn’t want to be someone Rebecca thinks is a threat to Brenna. But from Brenna herself, Rebecca would try to protect herself, but she wouldn’t fight back.”
“I think it’s going to hurt Rebecca real bad, and I don’t think Brenna would really hurt her, not physically or mentally.”
“Collin,” Callie cut in, “I don’t think any of us know what Brenna is capable of, especially when it comes to Rebecca. Twice she’s risen to the edge, and both times it was because of Rebecca. If she feels betrayed, even worse if she feels she’s been played for a fool, she could explode. We’re talking about a twenty-two year old woman with a full array of Talents, and whether she’s been trained how to use them or not, she knows they’re there. I wouldn’t put it past her to trigger something nasty. From what she’s told me, she’s triggered Talents in the past and didn’t understand what she did or how she did it.”
“Better a short-term pain than a long-term death,” Seamus said. “That relationship will heal, given time and the rest of us staying out of it. It’s her relationship with me that worries me. I love her, and I don’t want to lose her again. So, we leave her alone, pull back out of range.”
“Do you know her range? Does she know her range?”
Seamus sighed. “Pull back as far as possible while still keeping her in sight. You may have to double or triple the Protectors assigned, and have half of them looking outward. Rebecca stays away from her, and I want a full explanation made to her, no half measures. If it takes you three hours to explain it and get her acceptance, spend the time. I don’t need her wandering off half-cocked.
“Let it be a lesson to you, Collin. If she does come back, her security will be reporting to Callie as long as you’re chasing her skirt. Got that?”
“Got it. Lesson learned.”
“You weren’t around for our last blowup about this sort of thing, but I’ll just say Callie’s security reported to Gertrude up until her death, not me, not Rory. And if you don’t set up something like that when you have a daughter, or a wife, you’re a damned fool who deserves the castration you’ll get.”
~~~
Rebecca knocked perfunctorily on the open door to Collin’s office, sauntered in and sat down.
“Close the door, please.”
“Why, are you going to yell at me?” she asked as she closed the door and sat back down.
“No, I want to slow you down if you try to escape.”
She smirked. “So what’s up?”
He explained his encounter with Brenna that afternoon, and the strategy to let her cool off, pull back her protection, and hope that, in time, they could approach her to try and reconcile. Rebecca listened to him in silence, up until he got to the part about her staying completely away from Brenna.
“Whoa, stop right there. That isn’t going to happen. Look, Collin, I can straighten this out, she’ll listen to me.”
“Rebecca, she was riding the killing edge this afternoon, and the two people she was most angry at were you and me. She feels betrayed. She thinks we played her for a fool, and she’s pissed off enough to eat nails. Just let her cool off for a while.”
“Bullshit. She’s hurting. She doesn’t need to be left alone, she needs someone to talk to, someone she can vent at maybe, but someone to listen and understand and sympathize with her position. She’s rational. Once she understands, this will all blow over.”
He leaned back in his chair and regarded her. Then he sent her a memory burst, giving her the full flavor of that afternoon’s diatribe.
Rebecca saw his memory of Brenna that afternoon and was left shaken and suddenly sweating. She straightened, stretching in her chair, and drew a deep, ragged breath. “Okay. Yeah. I see what you mean. That’s just a little bit scary. But Collin, she’s not like that. You know her. She’s the kindest, sweetest, gentlest woman I’ve ever met. She makes Mother Theresa look like Attila the Hun.”
“Mother Theresa has a black belt?” Collin rolled his eyes. “You’re describing the Brenna we’ve both come to know, but it’s not the only Brenna. Rebecca, there are two things you need to consider. One, succubi are natural predators. No matter how sweet and kind you might think Brenna or Cindy are, they are genetically tuned to hunt and take down prey. We might not have seen it, but it’s there. People think of succubi as soft and fuzzy, but historically they’ve been some of the most dangerous warriors the Clans have fielded.
He leaned forward, arms on his desk. “Two, O’Donnell didn’t get to where it is in the world by being kind and gentle. Seamus may come across as a big, old teddy bear, but he built a group of rag-tag refugees into the single strongest Clan of telepaths in the world, and he didn’t do it all by being kind and gentle. O’Donnell as a clan has survived millennia, and they did it by being stronger than everyone who wanted to kill them. They have tempers, they’re stubborn, and they’re winners. Her mother was the most effective operative we had, and her personality was just like Brenna’s. That didn’t keep her from assassinating people. That is also genetically a part of who she is.”
“Okay, I’ll give her a couple of days to cool off.”
“No, you’ll stay the hell away from her until Seamus and Callie judge it’s safe. They want to develop a strategy to get her to listen and give us a chance to explain, to make good, and let us show we’re trustworthy.”
“Collin, I’m not going to wait for Seamus and Callie. I’m telling you, if you leave her alone too long, she’ll think we’ve abandoned her, and that’s her greatest fear, to be abandoned again.”
He thought about it. “You really don’t have a choice in this,” he held up his hand as she started to come out of her seat, “but I hear and concede your point about abandonment. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll tell Seamus and Callie they need to bring you into the loop on this, listen to you, and consider your advice in figuring out what we need to do. In return, you’ll promise to be a good team player and not go off on your own. Deal?”
She eyed him, "What's the catch? Why are you being reasonable?”
“I think you’re right. I also think some of their reasoning is correct. If you think parts of what they think are wrong, and they think parts of what you want to do are the wrong thing, then I think the best thing to do is put you together to figure out what will work.”
Rebecca peered at him trying to follow what he was saying. “Sure a lot of ‘thinks’ in that statement, boyo. Are you thinking straight?”
He sighed. “Hell no, I’m not thinking straight. I just screwed up any chance of a relationship with the only woman I ever really cared about. The chances that she’ll ever forgive me are close to nil. But I feel responsible. If I wasn’t trying to date her, she might not have blown so high. I can understand how she must feel if she thinks I’m spying on her and her boyfriend.”
“Well, boyo, you get me a sit-down with Callie, and I’ll b
e good until then. That’s all I’ll promise.”
~~~
Brenna found it really wasn’t hard to fall back into the life she’d had before the Clan became her focus. She was enjoying teaching her classes, she was making progress in her research, and she had men falling all over her. What more could she want?
There had been a couple of requests for interviews from fringe publications after her paper was published, and she’d turned them down. But the request from a respected, mainstream German newspaper was different. She agreed to the interview, and the reporter asked reasonable, intelligent questions, not trying for sensationalism or a weird paranormal angle.
She could tell he was personally intrigued, and when she offered to show him the equipment and the readings she was recording, he jumped at the chance. She hooked him up to show him his readings, planning to compare them with some of her subjects. But her plans changed. She subtly tried to read his mind, but there was something wrong there, and she felt uneasy. He believed his story about working for the paper and his reason for being there, but it just didn’t ring true somehow.
After she showed him out, she pulled out readings she’d done on herself, and they confirmed her suspicions. The man was a telepath, but when she read his mind he was a norm. She wished she could ask Callie or Collin about it, but she’d closed that door.
~~~
The following day, she found a letter from Callie in her mailbox.
Brenna,
I can’t tell you how sorry I am for the misunderstanding. I blame myself for not telling you we had put you under protection. We did it with the best of intentions, and for what we felt were good reasons, but that is probably what you would expect me to say at this point.
All the members of our family have security protection. There are a number of reasons for this, among them the issues we have with rival Clans. But it is also common practice in very wealthy non-Clan families. Kidnapping and other crimes are far too common.
The Telepathic Clans Omnibus Page 14