Blood Moons (8 page)

As the pleasant calm began to fade, it started to become frighteningly clear to Dara that there might be fates worse than death and insanity in this place. It hadn't really sunk in before. She'd thought that if she just kept her head down, stayed invisible, she could get through this. Well, there was no staying invisible now. Even the illusion of safety inside this cell had been stripped away. She had nothing. No safe harbor.

Except for Tristan. Even if he was a giant gamble she would most likely lose, there was nowhere else for her to turn. Dara was afraid that if he left now, she wouldn't be able to move past this horrible feeling of being completely exposed. She'd panic, and stay panicked for a very long time.

Maybe forever. Maybe she would try her luck and walk through the shielded doorway.

She needed him to distract her, at least for the time being.

Dara slid her fingers into his hair again, molding them to his scalp, and pulled him back to her. Tristan made a rough sound that reverberated in his chest and he settled his weight more fully on top of her, sliding an arm underneath her shoulders to pull her even closer. His mouth took possession 69

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of hers, devouring, conquering, seducing his way to her very soul.

Before, he'd been distracted, caught up in the moment.

Now Tristan took his time, leisurely tasting her, slowly stoking her desire to a flame that burned much lower than before, but so much hotter. Their tongues touched and danced, teasing and light, then deep and hot. Dara couldn't remember what kissing had been like before him anymore.

Certainly not like this ...
nothing
was like this. She was being possessed and she loved it. She reveled in the feeling, in being able to touch someone and be touched without driving the other person away. There was a certain sense of awe and power to see his thoughts and memories, and in the knowledge that he knew what she was seeing and he let her.

Dara wanted to know him—his mind, his past ... everything.

She slowly slunk back into his mind once more.

Tristan groaned and pulled away, resting his forehead on hers. He could feel her hot breath on his mouth and wanted to kiss her again. And keep kissing her. He didn't trust himself to move yet; didn't want to give up what they had. He didn't want to sever the connection between their minds. Tristan
liked
her in his mind. He liked it too damn much and that was a problem.

He couldn't afford to get close to her, not when one or both of them could be dead in a very short time. This brief little escape from reality couldn't happen again. This place ...

stripped away every last ounce of humanity out of a person.

Bled them dry until there was nothing left but rage and 70

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madness. Some fought it with everything they had, and still lost. Others just silently let it all slip away.

Tristan had given up so much already. Maybe too much.

But he recognized that there was a line, a point of no return.

There was something he'd held back for years, had nurtured and protected it; let it lie sleeping so others wouldn't be tempted to exploit it. Something about Dara was waking it to life.

If he gave in ... if he took the risk and lost...

He couldn't. Far too much was at stake. But it surprised him how much he was bothered by that decision.

Dara was unmoving beneath him, her mind still searching his for anything she could find. Curious as a cat. "You could have asked," he told her. He probably wouldn't have answered, but it was a hell of a lot easier than snooping in someone's brain.

She didn't reply. She had no idea how open she'd left herself. Tristan knew almost everything about her now.

She was a librarian. Or used to be, before all this. Lived in a small apartment in the middle of a nondescript neighborhood. No friends to speak of, just a handful of relatives who never visited. Dara was alone not by choice, but because getting close to anyone meant opening herself up to madness. She loved books because people in them were safe.

A writer could allow her a peek into someone's mind without overwhelming her. Showing her only what she needed and wanted to see. Dara buried herself in stories, living life to the fullest through words on a page or screen, pretending it was real.

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She thought her mind was broken and believed she'd never have even a fraction of the happiness she read about.

There was deep loneliness inside her, but an equal measure of joy—thousands of small moments she'd wrenched out of the most mundane things in life, building them up on each other until they balanced the sadness and started to resemble something like peace. Or at the very least contentment.

They were more alike than Dara realized.

But she was much too inexperienced to do that kind of gleaning. Even the little effort she exerted now to spy inside his mind would make her head ache like the devil in the morning.

For both their sakes, he made himself move. Shifting with minimal effort, he raised himself off her and slowly put his shields up. Dara was gently expelled from his mind and, despite the aching emptiness her presence left behind, Tristan forced himself to shut her out completely. By the time he hopped up onto his own bunk, he was in a foul temper again.

And sore as hell, to boot.

But when he closed his eyes, his dreams weren't filled with Dara's soft body beneath his, but that damn empty castle of hers.

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72

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

3rd day of the 4th Blood Moon, 3028

"Again. Try it again."

Dara glared at Tristan, clicking her teeth together. She'd been
trying
for the last seven hours and the task wasn't getting any easier.
"Again, again,"
he kept telling her, "
push.

You have to push your mind."
She'd like to push
him.
Right into the force field in the doorway. The man was insufferable!

He was relentless, as if it mattered whether she learned to do it or not. "Just give me a second," she told him, daring him to comment.

They didn't talk about what happened four nights ago; they hadn't even mentioned it since. By some unspoken agreement they'd decided to just forget about it and move on. Yeah. She wondered how that was working out for him.

For her ... not so well. Dara might have become something of an expert at compartmentalizing during the day, but she dreamed about that kiss almost nightly. And it didn't help that she always woke up in the morning to the sight of Tristan hopping off his bunk half-naked and stretching that gorgeous body of his.

Which four nights ago had been pressing her into her
bunk, while he'd kissed her breathless.

She still blushed to remember it. Not from embarrassment that it had happened, but because she may just have found someone she could have sex with, without the potential side effects. At least of the psychic kind. It was a giant pink 73

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elephant in the room that they refused to acknowledge, but all Dara wanted to do was kiss it.

Er ...
him
. Kiss
him.
Again. Longer.

Tristan rapped his knuckles on the floor. "Head in the game, Dara."

And then there were the consequences of that night to deal with.

The monumental headache, which had caused her to deplete all of her assigned painkillers already, had been just the beginning. In the last few days, her life had narrowed down into a routine: wake up, ogle Tristan (she could swear he swaggered around shirtless on purpose just to remind her of what he wouldn't allow her to have), go to breakfast with him, daydream about something very erotic and extremely ill-advised (as he was a telepath, after all), train her mind, shower in record-setting time, come back, train some more, sleep, dream about Tristan.

"I have a headache," she told him, stalling for time.

It was a problematic routine.

Problem one: showers. Dara had used to enjoy soaking under hot running water. Now her goal was always to get in, get done, and get out, without confrontation. Twice now she'd tarried long enough for the other women to catch up. The first time, she'd gotten odd looks, but left when they'd decided to approach her. The second time, a fight among the men had distracted them long enough for her to escape.

She was officially on the map now. Whenever she walked into the cafeteria these days, people noticed. Hence, her "out"

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time had gotten cut down even more. Sometimes she got so claustrophobic in the cell that she couldn't breathe.

Problem two: food. Since her outing, Tristan had become glued to her side. It was her amazing good luck that he (A) seemed to be feared and/or respected by the others, and (B) he was determined to keep her safe. If someone got too curious or friendly or verbal or close, one look from Tristan Hunt made him back off. Far off. This was usually followed by another hasty retreat into the cell.

Dara didn't really know why he even cared. Her foray into his mind hadn't offered any clues as to his character, only a jumbled mess of images she couldn't unravel. Maybe he was trying to redeem himself. Or maybe it was one big mind game to get her to believe he was really her friend before he attacked.

He had to know by now that she would possibly ...

probably—okay, most likely—be open to round two with him on that bunk. At times, he looked at her with so much fire in those intense green eyes of his, Dara thought she might go up in flames. Other times he just stared off into space and his shields lowered just the smallest bit. Just enough for Dara to catch a hint of something that made her breathing quicken.

But most of the time Tristan was his usual hard-nosed self, headstrong and curt; the ever-present grumpy, sleep-deprived bodyguard.

In any case, she was grateful for his protection. The unfortunate drawback to this was that Tristan was more paranoid than even she, which meant less food time, ergo less food for Dara.

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And problem number three: training. Case in point, right now.

"You'll have an even bigger headache by the time we're done. Now do as I say."

Did the word
no
mean nothing to him?

"Perhaps you misunderstood me," she said tightly, balling her hands into fists. "I've had enough for the day." At first, the realization that he was like her had been a comfort. It explained why she couldn't read him and provided her with an ally. Now it was an annoyance. Tristan was like a gadfly always buzzing around, mostly in her head, driving her insane with his little tests and exercises. She felt all of ten years old again, learning to spell absurd words that she would never need to use in real life. Dara had never asked for this
ability.

She hadn't wanted it then, and she didn't want it now.

Unfortunately, it didn't work like a muscle. She couldn't lose it by not using it and Tristan was a relentless teacher.

Her training was almost round the clock. She was hungry and she was exhausted, and she wanted to just shut him out and sleep.

He didn't care one bit.

Tristan stopped playing with a balled-up piece of paper and lowered his knee to stretch both his legs out in front of him on the floor. His back was to the wall and his legs were so long that his feet hid under her bunk. He raised his head to look her in the eye.

It infuriated him that she kept resisting his teaching methods. The woman had so much potential and refused to utilize it. With any other skill, Tristan wouldn't have given a 76

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shit. But this wasn't something she could afford to neglect.

She was putting both of them at risk by leaving herself vulnerable.

She continued to piss him off, not because she was incapable—the woman might actually be a stronger telepath than Tristan—but because she was in denial, deliberately making an idiot of herself, hoping it would all go away on its own.

Tristan didn't suffer fools very well.

He let himself into her mind to drive his point home.

Dara tried to stop him, but her shields weren't strong enough to even slow him down and trying to do so only gave her a real headache. He did it on purpose, crawling around in her mind like a snake, coiling and shifting, making her feel as if he were rearranging her brain.

Finally she stopped her feeble attempts to get him out and let him do as he pleased. He made sure it hurt. Tristan did not have to be felt at all if he didn't want to be. He could hide in someone's mind, crouched in a dark corner where the person didn't feel anything more than maybe a niggling memory of something he couldn't quite recall. It was a potent power to wield and he was trying to teach Dara how to develop her own skill to his level.

Tristan tortured her a little longer before he withdrew, allowing her to take a breath. "I wasn't even half trying," he told her quietly. She had no idea how important it was for her to harness the power of her mind. Tristan knew better than most what a toll it took to be a telepath and not be able to control the things his mind did. Dara was going through the 77

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same thing and still she refused to try using that gift to her advantage. Her resistance was hurting her even more, and pissing him off in the process. He released a tense breath. "I'll say this again. Try to hear it this time. You
need
to strengthen your defenses."

"I've been doing perfectly fine with the ones I have so far,"

she snapped, massaging her temples. Her hair fell forward, hiding her face. It was like a glossy lure to wrap his hand in, tilt her head back, and kiss the resistance out of her. Tristan banished that thought instantly.