by Cait London
Owen cursed softly, his lips against her forehead. “That doesn’t sound like a curse.”
“Borg’s curse is like a blanket over the brooch, dark and flowing. It’s so venomous that it burns. The brooch is at my mother’s, and I’ve felt its burn with my own hands. The curse has been waiting for a very strong descendant. Apparently, with everything that is happening, there is one now. We’re strong together, but if he can take one down, the rest will weaken and—”
“And that will do it,” Owen finished grimly.
Leona pushed back and placed her hands over her face. She was becoming too strong, her psychic powers leaping out of control. “Sometimes, when I dream, I’m Aisling. I feel what she felt. I know how terrified she was for her people and how she offered herself instead. She knew that the chieftain—Thorgood—would love her and she loved him…she saw into their future. She also knew that Borg had psychic powers and that he was evil.”
When she removed her hands from her face, Owen stared at the floor, his expression harsh. Leona pushed away from him, furious with herself for revealing so much. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
Owen caught her wrists. “Stop that.”
Leona pulled her hands away and folded her arms around her shaking body. “Don’t you get it? I’m his last chance. This…descendant, this lowlife scum with a bloodline as old as ours and with strong psychic ability, tried first with Claire. When he couldn’t get past Neil—because Neil caused Claire’s energy to be stronger—this beast started in on Tempest. He was actually able to imprint his energy, to get a lock on her. When Tempest and Marcus fell in love, this jerk lost his chance with her. He’s strong enough to use fog…mist…rain to connect with us. He can make us hear things, or think that we do.”
“Hear things? Like Janice thinks she hears things? Someone telling her to kill herself?” Owen demanded fiercely.
Leona nodded slowly. “First, he makes a connection, like through a computer. He probably sounds very normal at first, sending out psychic hooks to find vulnerable and sensitive areas. After that, he plays his games, slowly sucking away resistance to him. Then he begins suggesting, placing his will over his victim’s. Once connected, he can find ways to continue his control and awareness through his victim. It’s like someone is whispering to you, calling your name.”
The violence in Owen seemed to rock the room. “I swear I will kill him.”
“He left enough residual energy on a bag he’d handled in Timeless to almost make Tempest faint. Claire was working on one when she was attacked. Tempest felt that one, too. It’s the same evil. Janice also recognized the bag he’d touched. There were bags around, and other people had held them. But she picked up his energy. I felt his energy on her, that day in the shop.”
“Bastard.”
Owen’s hands shot out to grip her upper arms. “And?” he demanded, as if all that information wasn’t enough. “And what about you?”
“I’m starting to be all over the place, hop-skipping-zooming. I’m starting to pick up bits of threads, the sensations of other people, their emotions. One day a man came into my shop and I knew just what he was. I sensed him. But that man was blond and had blue eyes, not like the sketch…. Owen, he’s strong enough to conceal himself by setting up some kind of psychic mask. It’s apparently effective enough to block me. I guess he wanted me to know that he was circling me, to make me uneasy. Psychic ability doesn’t fare well when the intuitive is uneasy. He took something from me, some small particle of my energy. I think that’s why I heard him call me by the river. Since that day, my dreams have become stronger. Sometimes vision-flashes happen when I see glass or a mirror—especially when I see myself. My image is a trigger back to the original Aisling. She’s been warning me—or I think so anyway.”
Owen glanced at the hallway mirror Leona had covered with a red challis scarf. “So that’s no decorator style.”
“No. When I look into a mirror to put on my makeup, I’ve tried using a sheer cloth. It doesn’t work. I still remind myself of the Aisling in my dreams.” Leona held her breath, then served the last damning tidbit to him. “I think that’s why my grandmother drank and why she killed herself. I think she had to escape someone of that bloodline.”
Owen looked around to the living-room mirror, covered with a scarf. He glanced at the sheers at every window. “Why isn’t your mother affected?”
“Simple. She’s too strong. She studied and practiced. She’s connected with the ocean somehow. She’s stronger by it. Grams never wanted it, and she wasn’t prepared when it opened and devoured her.”
“I get the picture.”
“The only way he can reach Mother is to make her vulnerable by taking one of us down.” Leona shuddered and whispered, “Nothing can happen to my sisters.”
“It won’t. Why don’t you fix us some breakfast?” Owen walked over to the mirror. He removed the scarf, then studied himself in it. He angled his jaw as if checking a morning shave he hadn’t yet completed.
“Owen? Don’t you have anything else to say—like I’m losing my mind?”
“You’re not losing your mind.” He sat at her desk and started pulling his new laptop out of the shipping box as if she were an ordinary woman talking about a frivolous laundry spot that wouldn’t come out.
She’d just bared her deepest heart to Owen, and he seemed unconcerned. “Listen, I just told you something pretty horrifying, and you’re—”
“Hungry.” Owen opened his new laptop and angled the screen. He moved slowly, methodically, as if considering each move. Then he turned to Leona and leveled a cold angry stare at her. His tone rippled with violence, reminding Leona of Max’s low warning growl. “On second thought, let’s go for a walk, right now. Just put a raincoat over that robe. Just do it, Leona. No arguing for once.”
Leona wasted no time. On her way to her doorway’s closet, she collected the shirt Owen had discarded last night. She tossed it to him. “Let’s go.”
Owen didn’t speak as they entered the low-lying mist, but his expression was grim. His hand remained on Leona’s back as they walked down her porch steps and down the walkway. The morning air was fragrant with the scent of newly planted mums and sunlight had started to burn its way through the mist as they left her cul-de-sac. They walked along a block lined with two-story, well-tended homes, then Owen stopped.
“Where are we going?” she asked. Owen scanned the streets as if he were hunting. They began walking again. His hand stayed at her back, guiding her. “What’s wrong? What are you looking for?”
“That black SUV…just making certain it wasn’t around. Tell me exactly what you feel when you look into that mirror. Why you’ve hung a scarf over it.”
“I just told you: I see images in glass, Owen. Sometimes in my shop’s windows, my windows when they’re not covered by sheers, and in mirrors. Okay, I admit it. I’m a clairvoyant, a precognitive, and probably more…like an empath. I see things…events, so it isn’t just blurred premonitions. I feel things. I’m getting stronger. I’m trying not to develop, but I am whether I like it or not. Owen, as restless as I am, as upset, I could cause my sisters to be affected. Tempest is pregnant. I think it happened yesterday, and she doesn’t know. I can’t let anything happen to my sisters.”
Owen didn’t seem surprised. “Claire is pregnant, too.”
Leona stared at him. “Not that I know of. Why would you think that?”
“It came to me,” he stated warily.
Fascinated, Leona leaned closer. “When?”
Obviously uncertain of her reaction, Owen looked away and rolled his shoulder. “How would I know? Sometime when I was talking with your mother.”
“You connected to my mother’s energy?”
He seemed irritated and uncomfortable. “Don’t get all snarly. I don’t know what happened. It just did…What are you looking at?”
Leona held very still, terror racing through her. In the shadows that sunlight had not yet touched, mist swirled around th
eir legs. It slid beneath Leona’s raincoat and up her bare skin. She watched it slowly wrap around Owen, and, suddenly, Leona couldn’t breathe. “Owen?”
Owen studied her face for a heartbeat, then glanced at the mist around them. He hurried her to a sunlit spot, then took her face in his hands, lifting it to the warmth of the sun. “Take it easy. I’m here, and nothing is going to happen to you.”
“I can’t…I can’t breathe.”
“You can. You will. Do it. Feel my hands? Connect with me, Leona. Do your thing. Get strong.”
Leona closed her eyes. She focused on the hard, rough texture of Owen’s hands. She followed the heated pulse she felt up through his arm. His pulse swerved, churned through a wilderness of fresh woodland scents, and came to rest on a particular strand of forgotten DNA. She glanced up to see Owen frowning. “What?”
“You come from Vikings. That’s why you have those gray eyes.”
“So? It’s said that they came down from the Great Lakes. I suppose it’s possible.” As the sun warmed them, Owen glanced down the streets, first one way, then the other. As if assured that it was just an ordinary morning with someone’s dog barking, and sunlight fingering through the street’s shadows, he turned back to her. His tone was cautious as he asked, “Is it important?”
Viking blood, mixed with shaman, could be very strong. “Probably. Drop in the family name of ‘Wolf,’ add that to the brooch, and there could be a connection. I think you feel it, too. Do you? You do, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t give too much weight to that family name. Feather, bird, hawk, eagle are all commonplace.” Owen’s dark skin gleamed tight across those high cheekbones; his straight, long black lashes gleamed almost blue-black. He seemed to be wading through his thoughts, placing facts in order. “This psychic vampire comes from an ancient bloodline—and you think my bloodline might be connected somehow.”
“I’m thinking…and wondering why I’m standing out here on a chilly morning, wearing only my short robe under this raincoat.”
“So we can talk privately. There’s a surveillance camera attached to your living room’s recessed lighting. It can get angled shots from that mirror. If you feel like you’ve been watched, you have been. There was a little flash at the ceiling. The reflection of the lens caught in my laptop screen. The hidden camera is motion-sensitive.”
“Owen!”
“You think you’re dealing with a psychic. You may be just dealing with a high-tech lunatic. Just who’s been in your house? Who has access?”
“A handyman…Vernon O’Malley. He’s also renovated the shop.”
“O’Malley?” Owen’s tone was too sharp. “Vernon O’Malley is your handyman?”
“Yes, is that a problem?” she asked.
“Probably not. But he’s mine, too. He gets around a lot. Maybe I should have a talk with him.”
“We should talk with him,” Leona corrected and shuddered. “I don’t like the idea of being spied on. I can’t see him setting up electronic equipment, but he has had other workmen in my home. I feel so exposed.”
“He’s got a lot to answer for,” Owen stated grimly.
From his dark expression, Leona knew that Owen wouldn’t stop, danger or not, until he had every answer he wanted…
On their way to the Shaw farm, Owen collected his cup of black chai from the pickup’s holder. After sipping it, he grimaced. “Sugar. They didn’t ask at the drive-in coffee shop, and I didn’t think to tell them. Southern sweet.”
Owen glanced at Leona, who wasn’t happy. “I still think we should have gone after Vernon first. Or to Timeless to see if there are cameras there,” she said.
“I don’t. If there are cameras at your shop, they can wait. It’s probably ruined, but the longer my laptop is in the water, the less chance anything might be on it. I want to know if my laptop had anything that might be a connection to Janice. If this Borg-descendant guy can get others to obey him, we need to be very careful. We need to check everything and make certain that Vernon isn’t being controlled by him. Or that he doesn’t have a whole gang of friends sneaking around.”
Seated between them on the bench seat, Max stared straight ahead. The German shepherd seemed to sense that he was heading for his new home, one with an understanding master and plenty of running room. The Donaldsons had been surprised, but relieved by Owen’s offer to adopt Max. When Leona questioned his sudden decision, he’d explained that German shepherds were born protectors and that they could use a watchdog now.
Glancing at the sweet roll sitting untouched on Leona’s lap, he asked, “Are you going to eat that? Or am I?”
Leona stared at him, her face too pale beneath that fringe of dark red hair; the morning sunlight sending fiery sparks through the strands. “How can you eat at a time like this? We’ve just discovered that my house is bugged. Do you realize that—that camera thingie probably saw me naked? And maybe you? And maybe both of us together, Owen Shaw?”
If he got his hands on whoever was terrifying Leona, Owen wasn’t certain what he would do. “High-tech stuff is great, isn’t it?” he asked darkly.
“Don’t be funny. Returning to my house wasn’t easy after our walk. Are you sure there’s only the one in my living room?” Leona crossed her arms and settled in to brood.
“Pretty sure. Vernon, or whoever this guy is, put the cameras up high, so as to make certain nothing blocked his view. He didn’t have to stand on anything either, so that means he’s tall.”
“Wait a minute. ‘Cameras?’ Where were the others?”
Owen finished the cinnamon roll and licked his fingers. He leaned slightly toward Leona as she brushed a crumb from his lip. He could get used to those soft pale hands touching him. “I found what might have been an ideal place for a camera in my barn. It was aimed right where I had hidden the revolver. I checked the rest of your house briefly when you took that shower. Don’t worry. He wasn’t interested in watching you cook or sleep or take a bath. But I didn’t spot the camera in the living room until this morning.”
Owen glanced at Leona’s body and visually savored the curves he’d held and tasted throughout the night. “As a man, I find that really odd. I could tell you had a great body the minute I saw you. You look good in jeans and that gray sweatshirt and joggers, by the way.”
“Thanks.” Leona relaxed slightly and wrapped her arm around Max. “So then, you don’t think he saw us this morning—or last night? What we did?”
Owen momentarily envied Max; Leona’s soft breast rested against the dog. “I checked the guest room. It was clean…no sound equipment. He could have heard us, if that SUV has high-tech sound equipment in it. You really shouldn’t have gotten up on your desk and sprayed the camera with paint. We might have been able to get fingerprints.”
After their hurried walk, Leona had gone into action the moment they’d just stepped into her home. She’d moved too quickly for Owen to understand what she was doing.
“The paint matched the ceiling’s. I was just touching up,” Leona stated righteously.
Owen glanced at her and found those dark gold eyes staring back. Leona was real mad, the vibrations of her anger pounding at him in the pickup cab. “Sure.” Then he asked, “If you sensed that the guy in the shop was a psychic, could you sense if Vernon was either this psychic vampire or one of his flunkies?”
“I—I don’t know.”
Owen sighed. “Okay. What aren’t you telling me?”
“There’s this thing called ‘blocking.’ It’s like putting up a mental wall to prevent detection or intrusion. Sometimes there’s just that little recognition tug with other people, and you just know they are intuitives. I’ve had customers who seemed to be a little gifted. I was able to work well around them by focusing on my sisters.”
Owen stared at her, and remarked dryly, “Oh, boy. Learn something new every minute.”
He turned back to the county road, glancing at the rock “fence” piled beside it, and the tobacco field leading up to an old
weathered, black barn. Sunshine passed through the places between the boards and crossed into the shadows on the ground. “Strange that we have the same handyman and carpenter, isn’t it? Who recommended Vernon to you?”
“Sue Ann, my friend—or former friend. Vernon helped her husband, Dean, do some remodeling.” She looked at Owen “Do you think Sue Ann is involved?” she asked fiercely, her hand reaching to grip his.
Owen saw fear dancing in those earth-green eyes, and her voice was uneven. “Do you think he saw the pictures of my family? Do you think he heard anything about Tempest’s or Claire’s pregnancies?”
Turning his hand over and giving her a comforting squeeze, he said, “I don’t know. High-tech sound equipment can be set up in a vehicle and catch quite a bit.”
“Vernon is an old-fashioned workman. He can barely use his cell phone or an ATM. I can’t see him managing high-tech equipment.”
At this point, Owen wasn’t certain of anything. “Let me get this straight: You triplets can’t live by large bodies of water. But you think that the pond, the stream, and the river can create a large enough amount of natural water to act as some kind of a psychic portal?”
“A natural triangle. Very powerful.” Leona nodded, speaking carefully as she watched a small herd of leggy thoroughbreds graze in the field’s dew-damp grass, their coats gleaming in brownish red. “Fog and mist are water’s natural extension and we were always more sensitive while in it. We were always stronger together, and Mother was—”
“She protected you.” As if in agreement with Owen’s statement, Max huffed twice.
“I suppose,” Leona admitted reluctantly.
Owen bit into the sweet roll. “Get over it. You know she did her best.”
“Maybe I do know it.” She glanced at him “How can you eat at a time like this?”
“Easy. I’m hungry. By the way, what’s the story on the guy with your mother, that watchdog?”
“Huh?” Leona’s green eyes stared blankly at him, her lips parted slightly. “Who do you mean? What guy?”