“Tristan.”
Tristan’s eyes flew open, he bolted up and looked around the dark room. For a split second he was disoriented. Then he felt the warmth of Victory curled up next to him. A shaft of moonlight trickled through the window blinds landing on Victory. It illuminated her caramel-colored hair fanned out on her pillow and her heart-shaped face, free of all lines of worry. He noticed that the creamy peach color had returned to her face.
“Tristan, can you hear me?” Wyatt’s voice rang clear in his head.
“Wyatt. You finally made contact, but how can be, I know the grid is still in place.” Then he felt it, a strong vibration of telepathic energy flowing through him. He glanced down into Victory’s serene face, it had to be her.
“I’ve been trying to reach you since you went in. I couldn’t push hard enough to get through the grid. But tonight I felt you. I thought you might have located a breach in the grid,” Wyatt said.
“No. Something even better than that, I think I have stumbled on a psychic amplifier,” Tristan said.
“That’s impossible. True amplifiers are extremely rare. If that is the case, you should have used this person’s ability sooner,” Wyatt said.
“Believe me, I would have had I known. Even she doesn’t know that she is an amplifier.”
“She?” Wyatt asked.
“It’s Victory. She’s sleeping next to me. Being asleep her barriers are down and her natural psychic energy is rippling through. I knew that she had psychic ability, but I didn’t realize that it was this strong.” Tristan said.
“Victory. You’re sleeping in the same bed as Victory. Great. I am hoping you are only trying to put on a good show. This is not the time for a fling Tristan, you two are in serious danger.” Wyatt was certainly not happy about the situation.
“It’s not like that. Never mind, you will have to take my word for it. Nothing is going on, it’s all for show. The woman doesn’t even trust me, for that matter she doesn’t even like me.”
“If you say so. Fill me in on what you found,” Wyatt said.
Tristan and Wyatt communicated until right before the sun came up. Then Tristan lay back down next to Victory and studied her. She was breathtaking, with her flawless complexion, shimmering brown hair and that creamy neck. As he drew his gaze back up to her face, Victory’s jade eyes met his. Without a thought he leaned towards her and brushed the lightest kiss across her lips. She pulled him to her, the softness and warmth of her body hypnotizing him. He claimed her lips and as she responded to him he coaxed her lips apart with his tongue and thrust into the warmth of her mouth. It felt soft and warm, like heaven.
Abruptly Victory pulled back, her eyes large and glassy. “I’m--I’m sorry,” she stammered. What was she thinking kissing this man? For all she knew the only reason he was here helping her was for her research.
A small smile caught at the edge of his mouth. “For what, I could get use to waking up like that.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking. I just-”
“Don’t worry about it Victory. I personally enjoyed it, don’t tell me you didn’t,” he teased her.
Victory slipped out of bed and headed toward the bathroom. “I was surprised to see you still here. Guess I thought you would have left after I fell asleep.” She called back over her shoulder as she closed the bathroom door behind her.
Actually that had been the plan last night. He didn’t even remember what happened. One second he was watching her fall asleep and the next Wyatt was waking him. That frankly wasn’t like him, he never let his guard down.
Twenty minutes later Victory walked out of the bathroom freshly showered and dressed, her hair was pulled back loosely with a barrette, exposing the soft pink skin of her neck. Tristan sat as still as a stalking cat sizing its prey. A small shiver ran up the back of her neck. “I’ll go make some coffee, feel free to use my shower.” She felt like a teenager unsure of what to do or how to act. She headed out toward the kitchen needing to escape Tristan.
“Wait,” Tristan said reaching out to grab her arm before she left the bedroom. He gently pulled her back into the room and quietly closed the door. “I have to ask you something.”
She stood still facing the door deliberately not looking anywhere near his direction.
“You told me that you can only communicate with animals,” Tristan reiterated. “Have you had this telepathic ability since birth or is it something that you developed later in life?”
“I don’t understand what you mean. I told you before, I’m not telepathic. I can only transmit feelings to animals. I can’t communicate with people.” She explained as she turned towards Tristan with a look of confusion.
“You can communicate telepathically. You may not have had the opportunity to practice it, but not only are you telepathic, you are a conduit, a person known as an amplifier in the world of telepathic communication,” he said.
She contemplated what he was telling her, “there is no such thing as an amplifier, that’s a complete tale.”
“They are very rare, but they exist, and you Victory are one.” He explained the events of the previous evening.
She walked over to the loveseat and sat down, processing what Tristan was telling her. Maybe it was possible. Specific past events flashed through her mind, could there be a link? “It’s possible,” was all she said.
“It’s not possible, it is,” he answered.
“Last summer I took a few weeks’ vacation and spent them at our family home with my sisters. Payton was in the process of remodeling the entire house. We had finally decided that it was time to move on with our lives. Losing both our parents almost destroyed us and it took us years to start to move forward. Anyway, Payton was finally willing to remodel the house. But she wanted to keep mom’s office as it was. Willow and I convinced her that she needed to make the space her own. So I took on the project of refinishing mom’s desk. I was preparing to strip it down, when I noticed a bottom trim piece had come loose. I pulled on it and it opened like a small door. Inside I found a thumb drive taped to the back of the trim.” Victory stopped; she was replaying the scene in her mind.
“What did you find?” Tristan asked gently, trying to prompt her to continue.
“My mother’s personal diary, or at least part of it. Mom had a tough time conceiving. She didn’t get pregnant with us until she was thirty-four. In her file I found a brief mention of her work on the fertility drug she was using. I assumed she fine tuned the drug to her specific DNA for maximum benefit.”
“Your mother was a geneticist?” Tristan asked.
“She was a brilliant geneticist and molecular biologist,” Victory answered proudly.
“Doesn’t seem like that would play into your psychic abilities at all,” Tristan said.
“You are probably right. But what if they did more extensive changes?” she asked.
“They?” Tristan asked.
“She and Dr. Ryker,” Victory said.
“Dr. Ryker?” Tristan asked.
“Yes, he was also a masterful molecular biologist. Mom mentions his name a couple times when referring to her pregnancy.”
“So you have a lead, someone else that you can ask about what happened. When this is all over go and ask Dr. Ryker,” he said.
“I can’t. He left work to go on vacation in England fifteen years ago and disappeared. No one has heard from him or seen him since,” Victory said.
“No friends, no family, no one has ever seen him again?” Tristan asked.
“As far as I know he had no living immediate family and his only friends were work colleagues.”
“I see. So now you are beginning to think that maybe these abilities of yours are somehow linked to this genetic tinkering?” Tristan asked.
“It’s certainly possible.” Victory sat silently, staring out into space.
“What do your sisters think about this whole thing and your mom’s files?” he asked.
Victory sat awhile longer, staring. Then she turned and looked at
Tristan. “I never told them. They were so freaked out when I first explained to them that I could communicate to animals, that I couldn’t bring myself to tell them about mom’s files and how it might somehow affect them.”
“Do they have any special traits?” Tristan asked delicately.
“Nothing that I am aware of, and nothing that they have ever mentioned.”
“Then it’s possible that this is just an ability you were naturally born with,” Tristan said.
“I guess, anything is possible,” she answered, concluding that it was looking more and more like the fertility drug was the cause.
* * *
Victory was astounded at the rate of cellular change in her samples. She wasn’t sure what the outcome would be for the man in the lab. She did think that if this rate of change kept up, they would be seeing some type of changes in him very soon, although she had no clue as to what they may be. She rolled her shoulders for about the hundredth time in the past hour and rubbed her temples, trying to relieve the obsessive buzzing that had taken up residence in her head.
“You look tired doc,” Tristan commented.
“Not really, I have had this nagging buzzing in my head. Not quite a headache but irritating all the same,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Thanks.” She looked up at him from across the counter.
He had been trying to make a telepathic connection with Victory on and off all afternoon, but all he seemed to be doing was causing her pain. He could see from her expression that it was time he took a break or tried a new approach. He got up from his chair and walked around to the side of the work station where she sat.
“Take a little break,” he told her as he approached from behind. He put a hand on each side of her temples. “Close your eyes and clear your mind for a minute. Think of the ocean, the waves rolling onto the beach; hear its gentle sound in your mind and take deep cleansing breaths.”
Victory did as he instructed and thought of the waves, forgetting all the pressure of the experiment for the time being. The buzzing was still there but it seemed to be dropping into the background, all but disappearing.
“Victory, can you hear me?” Tristan tried again to establish a telepathic connection with her.
“Damn,” she responded rather curtly, putting her hands up to her temples and pulling his hands away from her. She opened her eyes and looked up at Tristan. Max, who was sitting quietly in the far corner reading a magazine, looked over at them, a note of question in his glare. “Thanks for the break, I feel better, but we have a ton of work to get back to,” she said as she pulled free of his hands.
Had he finally made an initial connection with her? Tristan wanted to continue, but since they drew Max’s interest he felt he should leave any further communication attempts until they were out of anyone else’s ear shot. This would give Victory time to recover from his morning attempts.
It was a trying day. Tristan left the lab early, claiming there was nothing left for him to do the rest of the day. After he left, he wandered about the compound to do some recon.
Victory decided to take a walk. The fresh air would clear her mind and a little exercise would do her good. She had been walking for at least an hour when she realized that she left the compound and wandered deep into the lush forest that blanketed over half of the island. At home, walking in a forest was something she did often and usually by herself. So being out here on her own didn’t immediately concern her. It was, however, getting close to dusk and for her own safety she knew that she should start back to the compound within the next thirty minutes or so.
As she finished that thought she felt a wave of agitation from the animals in the forest. She stopped, took in a deep breath, and focused on the local inhabitants. She picked out a group of wild goats a few yards away, all of them displaying signs of stress and tension. She felt a strong breeze blow through the jungle floor. That must be the problem. She had overheard people in the compound talking about a storm blowing in later today.
Victory turned around and headed back toward the compound. She would pick up her pace and be back in time for dinner. In mid-stride she froze. The same group of goats was heading away from her and she gauged them to be approximately three hundred yards away from her. There it was again, she wasn’t merely imagining it, utter panic engulfed the group. Goose bumps rose on her arms; this wasn’t about the storm, something menacing was entering the area. Before she realized what she was doing she dropped down to the forest floor, trying to camouflage herself against a large tree dripping in moss. She slowed her breathing and listened to the animals. A threat. Whatever was coming was a threat and she was right in its path.
Victory remained on the ground against the tree for what felt like an hour, but she knew it was only a fleeting period of time. The forest around her had gone eerily silent. A low guttural growl came from the area of the wild goats. Was it a large cat, or maybe even a wild boar? Whatever it was she decided her best bet was to try to link to it telepathically and steer the animal away from both her and the goats. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Her thoughts located the source and she tried to comfort the animal. Her eyes flew open and absolute terror flooded her. It was here, she was being stalked by something threatening, furious, and a little too intelligent. She tried to turn the animal away from her but its approach was imminent. She must get out of here, but her legs seemed embedded in the ground. She had only one thought: “Tristan!”
FIFTEEN
The meeting with Logan and Noah was successful. The two men located one weakness in the security grid. They updated Tristan and set in place their escape plan for if and when the need arose. Tristan in turn relayed all the information he had acquired. He was heading back to the compound and glancing down at his watch. With any luck he would be back in time to join Victory for dinner. Suddenly terror flashed through his mind and gripped his heart.
“Tristan!”
It was Victory. She had made contact and she was terrified.
“Victory, what’s wrong. Talk to me.” He was already changing direction and heading into the forest.
“Tristan, can you hear me?” Tears coated her words. He never heard her so distraught before.
“Yes, I hear you. Where are you? What’s wrong?” Tristan responded without breaking his stride.
Victory laid deadly still, her mind feverously searching for a connection to Tristan. “I’m out in the forest, something ominous is stalking me.” She wasn’t sure Tristan could hear her or understand what she was telling him. Each time she listened for a response, all she heard was a loud buzzing in her head. Was that Tristan, maybe he could he hear her.
Tristan was running full out, but he wasn’t sure exactly where she was. He knew that as soon as he was away from the compound he would easily pick up her scent, but for the moment there was a flurry of odors, simply too many other scents to pick her out. She wasn’t responding to him, which probably meant that she was not able to understand his thoughts, but he heard her.
“I’m trying to send him away but he keeps coming. He’s something very intelligent and I can’t steer him away. Can you hear me Tristan?” Victory felt panic begin to overtake her. She couldn’t let that happen, she had to stay in control in order to try to get through to Tristan. Panic would trigger her adrenal glands and give off a stronger scent to the approaching predator.
Tristan finally put enough distance between himself and the compound. He stopped, cleared his mind and filled his lungs with a deep breath taking in all the scents of the forest. He caught her scent cone, but there was something over the top of it. Animal or man, he couldn’t figure it out. This was impossible, he could distinguish everything by its scent. The only explanation was that there was both animal and man somewhere close in the area. The two scents were so intermingled that he couldn’t separate them. This meant they had to be right on top of one another; maybe someone else was stalking this animal. He turned toward Victory and ran as if her life depen
ded on it.
Victory could hear limbs breaking and the sound of rustling vegetation as someone or something slowly moved through the forest. A cold sweat broke out on her body and a single tear ran down her cheek.
“I could run,” she thought to herself, but didn’t realize that Tristan had heard her. A blanket of warmth wrapped around her, grounding her, urging her to stay put. “Tristan?” It had to be him. She couldn’t understand the thoughts he was trying to send her, but she understood his meaning. He was trying to comfort her, to let her know that she wasn’t alone and to keep her from running. She knew that, knew she shouldn’t run. Whatever or whoever it was would be on her in an instant. He, she was sure now that it was a he, was cunning and very intelligent, and trying to flush her out. She felt that for certain, but still the need for flight tugged at her. “Please hurry.”
The terror in her mind tore at Tristan’s heart in a way nothing ever had before. He needed to be there soon, or this thing would be on her. He could smell the scent strongly now, but was still unsure of what it was. What he did know was that it was only approximately ten yards away from Victory. Tristan stopped. She should be here. Where was she?
“Victory, where are you?” He whispered into the wind. Tears and fright were filling her mind, he might lose her connection any minute from the complete anxiety she was feeling. “Victory, focus, listen to my voice. I need to know where you are.”
“There’s a large tree covered with moss...”
The tree was right in front of him, where was she? Her scent permeated the air around him, yet still he couldn’t locate her. He caught a slight movement on the trunk. She almost completely blended in with her surroundings. He never saw (or not saw) anything like it. He reached out and grabbed her with one hand at the same time covering her mouth with the other so she would not scream.
“Thank god, Tristan,” she gasped.
“Use your mental link. We’re not out of danger yet.” He breathed the words in her ear. Had he been alone, he would have turned and faced the oncoming threat. But right now his only thought was to get Victory out of the path of danger. He picked her up and headed for the river. Using his keen sense of smell he honed in on the approaching predator. It was closing the distance quickly. Then he saw the river and as if on cue the sky opened up and dumped sheets of rain, and the air was split with the boom of thunder as a jagged bolt of lightning went to ground.
Chasing Victory (The Winters Sisters) Page 12