Touched by Darkness (29 page)

Focus,
he told himself. He pulled the crystal from

beneath his shirt, held it in his left hand, centering

himself mentally and spiritually. He cast protective

shields around Kara and himself, around Alex, and

the entire house. Dropping the crystal, he offered

his hands to Kara, his left up and his right down.

She wiped her palms on her pants, like she'd done

the first time. He felt her resistance, her hesitation,

saw her chest heave, before she fitted her hands to

his. Her skin was cool, yet the effect of the contact

was instantaneous. Slashes of blue and red

exploded on the edges of his peripheral vision; his

nerve endings tingled—again, without any

initiation. Her palms quickly wanned against his,

and the air sizzled around them.

A deep breath, and then he commanded the rise of

the energies. It was like opening a floodgate and

releasing an avalanche of pure electricity. There

was no buildup to the sexual surge. It burst upward

like a geyser, rushing through the first three chakras

so fast and furiously, they snapped open with pops

that sounded like gunfire. Kara gasped and jerked

backwards.

He tightened his fingers around her hands. "Stay

with me," he ordered in a guttural voice, although

he was just as shaken.

He was rock hard, his erection straining

uncomfortably against his jeans. It took all his will

to marshal his control and maintain his focus on the

energies. By the Light, this was no way to perform

a conduction.

"Oh, God," Kara gasped. He could feel her tremors.

"Damien, I can't—"

"Yes you can. Breathe! And let it happen. You can

do this, Kara."

Yet it took everything he had to ride the turbulence

as it roared through his chest and up his spine. The

crystal resting against his chest pulsed with the

energy of the great Tuaoi stone to which it was

linked. Brilliant light and heat flowed through him

and for a moment, the mystical veil that separated

lifetimes raised, and he could see the glistening

green lands of Atlantis, the sapphire blue water

surrounding it.

He could feel the purity and power that had

resonated in the magnetic disks in the sacred

Temple, where The One had spoken directly to the

Children. He was connected to his birthright, his

past, his future. The light gathered and burst into

his head with a blinding flash, brighter than a

thousand suns, spilling over between his eyes. The

veil dropped back down, the brief moment of

divinity gone, but the spark had ignited the seeking.

Now all seven chakras were open, and the energies

circulated through them so fast, his body felt jerked

around like he was on a roller coaster. Colors

whirled past like photo flashes.

He projected through his sixth chakra and its

companion third eye, locking the link to Kara's

third eye, and ensuring the psychic images

projected only in the upper chakras. This would

keep them in the Sentinel realm, and hopefully

prevent the Belian from detecting them.

"We're there," he managed in a relatively level

voice. "All you have to do is hold on, Kara. Hold

the link."

She clutched his hands in a death grip, and a groan

escaped her lips. Or maybe it was a moan. He

doubted she was capable of more communication

than that. He wasn't sure he could utter a coherent

word himself. He needed to be inside her, needed

her legs wrapped around him, to be claiming her,

allowing the sexual surge to build to a crescendo,

creating a vibratory rate that would attune to the

Belian's energy pattern and break through its

psychic barriers.

Belians were tied to the lower, Earth-bound

chakras, which resonated on the vibratory level of

sexual energies. He needed to tap into those

energies for the clearest images. And damn, his

body needed release.

But Kara had said no sex, and coercion was not an

option. No Sentinel would ever take a conductor by

force. So he gritted his teeth, and dug deep and

wrenched his focus back to the images he was able

to discern through the third-eye link. He committed

them to his photographic memory as they flashed

by in one-second bursts.

Throughout the process, sexual need rode him like

a razor-edged sword. He could feel the heat of

Kara's body, could smell the musky scent of her

need, could hear the hammering of her heart in

conjunction with his. But discipline and training,

along with his iron will, managed to override the

physical deluge.

The psychic images began dissipating, and he

initiated the process of bleeding off the energy into

the ethereal and sealing off the chakras, this time

from the top down. The rocking motion slowed, the

various chakra colors faded in fog like wisps; the

link between him and Kara evaporated like a sigh

on the wind. Tiny aftershocks tingled through him,

and he knew she felt them as well.

He released her hands and sat back in the chair,

drawing deep breaths. The psychic, higher-chakra

energies continued to calm, but not the adrenaline

and sexually laced energies of the lower chakras.

His body screamed for release, and he was still

painfully hard, his jeans about three sizes too small.

It was a lot more difficult to diffuse physical

energy. He shoved the chair backward to a safer

distance.

He'd never experienced such a powerful

conduction. This one had been even stronger than

their first one. It had required all his power to

control the energies, so he could only assume it had

upended Kara. He saw she had her own struggle to

get air into her lungs. Her body shaking, she braced

herself with a hand on the couch cushion.

"You okay?" he managed to ask.

With a barely perceptible nod, she sank against the

cushion behind her. Her chest heaved as if she were

struggling for air. "White," she said slowly. "I kept

seeing a white expanse. And it was
moving.
That

doesn't make any sense."

"It does, actually, because I think it was a white

truck that was being driven."

"A truck..." Her eyes narrowed in concentration.

"An
F.
I saw an 'F' floating on the white."

Damien was surprised she could recall that much

from the light-speed images. "You're correct,

because it was a white F-150 Ford truck."

She considered that. "It could have been a white

truck I saw. Do you think that's what the Belian is

driving?"

He closed his eyes, turned inward to focus through

his third eye. "I'm getting that impression."

"Great. That's about as helpful as River Road and

the live oak. The Ford F-150 is the truck of choice

around here, and white is the preferred color,

because of the heat. There are probably three

hundred of them in the area."

He let himself drift on the ethereal plane a little

longer, sifting through the images again, then he

mentally clicked off, settled back into his physical

body. "Even so, it's a clue, and I've got precious

few of them, against this Belian." He drummed his

fingers on the chair arms. "That's basically all I

got."

"It's so little to go on." She shifted upright and

immediately groaned, her hand going to her head.

"Another headache," he said, but it was a statement,

not a question. He could feel the pressure pounding

through her head, could sense the pain radiating off

of her. "Maybe you'd better lie down."

She just stared at him, her eyes large in her flushed

face. Cursing silently, he lunged up, resisting the

urgent need to adjust his jeans.

He grasped her shoulders, turning her and lowering

her to the couch, just as he had the first time. He

could feel the burning heat of her skin through the

delicate, feminine sweater she wore. It was

unbuttoned partway down, revealing the alluring

slope of her breasts and the matching camisole

beneath, as well as the outline of her taut nipples.

She obviously hadn't changed from her work

clothes, probably hadn't even thought about it, not

during the crisis with Alex. Now Damien wished

she'd taken time to put on the sweats she'd worn the

first conduction. Not that anything could dampen

conduction-induced lust.

She swung her legs onto the couch before he could

do it for her. He stepped back, intending to retreat

to the relative safety of the chair. A shudder ripped

through her. Her body vibrated with intense sexual

need—as did his.

He could have resisted that, could have called on

his higher self and his honor as a Sentinel to respect

her request that there be no physical intimacy. He

could have returned to his chair, and continued the

discussion on the conduction images with relative

calmness.

But she lifted a hand toward him. "Damien—" She

stopped, dropped the hand. Her gaze locked with

his, myriad emotions flooding from her to him.

Fear, grief, and the need for comfort. She looked so

vulnerable... so alone.

Her world was not only coming apart, it was

colliding with a horrific past. But she wasn't giving

in without a fight. She was courageous and fiercely

determined to defend her child. She was allowing

herself to be subjected to the emotional and

physical drain of conductions to help fight a

monster, despite her past experiences.

Yet at the end of the day, with her friends and

neighbors dying— murdered—her child in danger,

and the life she'd built threatened, she had no one to

turn to.

He was not a man who knew how to be gentle, or

give comfort. Nor was he a man to woo and soothe

a woman; all things feminine and soft were totally

alien to him. He was a trained tracker and

executioner, the sole purpose of his existence to

hunt Belians. His was a solitary path, free of human

relationships and emotional entanglements.

Yes, there had been numerous female conductors in

his life, along with steamy, uninhibited sex, but

never a commitment beyond performing

conductions to identify a Belian. However, most

female conductors played the game willingly, either

for the rush of the danger or the exceptional sex.

The world's permissive societies gave rise to many

conductors of both sexes, who didn't balk at

working with several Sentinels, and didn't expect

anything beyond the temporary, conduction-based

liaisons.

Kara wasn't like that, and she had entered into a

committed relationship with her Sentinel, suffering

the inevitable consequences. With Damien, she'd

been unwillingly drafted into service.

Now she was paying a heavy physical price for the

bottled-up energies that were normally released

during sexual conductions. He saw the lines of pain

etched on her face as she pressed both hands

against her head, could feel the throbbing in her

temples. The headache was obviously escalating

into a major migraine, and her libido hadn't calmed;

he could still sense her need.

He might not be able to offer her emotional comfort

or reassurances, but he could banish the headache

and ease her body's relentless demands.
Not a good

idea,
his analytical side argued. Even as every

instinct he had told him to back away, he walked

back to the couch.

He stared into her shimmering gray eyes, found

himself kneeling beside her, unable to leave her

like this. Her torment was too great. He reached

out, cupped her face, marveled at the satiny texture

of her skin.

She allowed his touch, turning into his hand. His

own lust resurged like fast-flowing lava. "Let me

ease you," he said hoarsely. "Let me take away

your pain."

He slid his other hand behind her neck, rubbed

away the tension. At the same time, he sent

soothing, calming energies into her head and a

subtle command to end her headache. The pain

eased, but her body was still as charged as a live

wire.

He moved his hands to her shoulders and down her