Visions of Heat

CHAPTER 7

She walked closer. "Your eyes aren't quite ... human."

Most people never figured that out, believing they were simply an unusual color. "My beast is stronger than most." And had been ever since that week when he'd survived by turning jaguar and staying that way. Because even a baby jaguar had a better chance of survival in the forest than a ten-year-old human boy. But being in cat form for that length of time at such a young age had permanently changed him.

As if reassured by his calmer tone, she took another step forward. "What does that mean?"

He poured some coffee into a cup. "Milk? Sugar?"

"I don't know."

"Here, taste." Lifting the black coffee to her lips, he watched her take a sip.

She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent as she tasted. He'd never seen any woman do that with the intensity of Faith, never been so aware of the inherent sensuality in the act.

"Good?"

"Put sugar in it," she ordered, eyes remaining closed.

Vaughn didn't follow orders well, but this was different. This, to him, was a kind of play, though Faith probably didn't think of it that way. Too bad. She was playing with a very interested cat and when that cat got interested in things, it didn't like to be denied. "Here." He let her taste the sweetened coffee.

Once again, she breathed deep and savored the taste. "Milk."

"All ready."

A minute later, she opened her eyes. "The flavors are ... unusual." She seemed to be searching for words.

"Do you like it?"

"Like? Psy don't feel like or dislike." She shook her head. "But perhaps that's because I've never been given food of such different flavors that I have a basis for comparison. I. . . prefer the coffee with the sugar but not the milk."

He prepared it for her, amused at the way she tried to word things so as not to admit feeling anything even close to emotion. "Here." Leaving her to take a sip, he walked to the fridge and pulled the door open. "You're hungry and so am I. What do you say to bacon and eggs?" He started gathering the ingredients.

"Okay." She was standing right next to him.

Of course he'd heard her move, but he let her be. She was still scared and Vaughn could stroke rather than bite when he wanted to. He put the bread and other things on the counter and closed the fridge. "Come on, Red. Time for a cooking lesson."

She put her coffee cup beside his. "I'm ready."

He ran a knuckle down her cheek and when she jumped, he smiled. "Are you sure?" This close, he saw that while her skin was creamy, it wasn't the pale white of so many redheads, having a rich undertone of gold that only made it more tempting. "What's your history, Faith NightStar? Where do you get that red hair and this skin?"

"The NightStar PsyClan has many redheads—there is a genetic preponderancy of the trait. My skin is courtesy of a number of genes from both my mother and father." She reached for the eggs and held them up. "I'm in need of nutrition."

He showed her what to do with the first egg and then let her try. "So you're all-American?"

"No. My mother was born in the former state of Uzbekistan and moved to America as a child. It is my father who is a NightStar. He is primarily of Anglo-Italian heritage, though his great-grandfather was of Asiatic origin."

"You know the way you Psy mix it up—watch the heat, sugar." He pulled her hand away when it went too close to the heating unit.

She tugged it out of his grasp. "Thank you. I think the eggs are done."

"Uh-huh." He put them on a plate. "If you put the bacon in that container over there, it'll cook without splatter."

"Why do you know about cooking? In the books I read prior to approaching DarkRiver, predatory male changelings were always portrayed as being very dominant and unwilling to learn domestic tasks."

"I never said I liked cooking. But I can do it if the situation demands."

"What were you saying about the Psy?"

"That the way you mix it up would be more impressive if it was actually human-to-human contact. Instead, it's all done on a genetic level. Unless your parents fell wildly in lust and created you in pleasure?" He watched the concentration with which she did such a simple task as cooking and found it strangely arousing. He had the feeling Faith would do everything with that same level of concentration.

"You know Psy don't feel lust or pleasure." She pulled off the bacon and put it to the side.

He ran his finger down her cheek again. "If your body feels sensation, then lust is always a possibility."

Lucas watched Sascha pace around the bedroom and enjoyed the view. It wasn't bare skin but it was delectable nonetheless—his practical Psy had fallen madly in love with lacey feminine underthings in the months after dropping out of the Net.

"I can't believe you talked me into leaving Faith with Vaughn." She put her hands on hips barely covered by a pure white slip and glared. "He was behaving completely wild last night."

"We're all wild, Sascha darling." He wondered if she'd put her panties back on. "Come here."

"It's six a.m. We should be heading out to check if Vaughn managed to keep from driving her into complete insanity overnight."

"I thought you liked Vaughn."

"I do, but he's a little too much for Faith to handle—we might as well have left her with a rabid tiger."

"Vaughn would take exception to that." He liked fencing with his mate, enjoyed seeing fire in eyes that had once held only cold Psy focus.’

"I'm serious, Lucas." She finally crawled back onto the bed beside him. "I'm worried about Faith."

"Vaughn won't harm her."

"Not purposefully." She put a hand on his chest. "But he doesn't understand exactly what it is that he's dealing with. Changelings think touch is always good, but it isn't, not for someone like Faith. I've been thinking about it and I think she really could break under the strain."

He frowned. "She's that weak?"

"No." Sascha's hand pressed down as she rose to a kneeling position. "But she's lived her entire life in a vacuum. What do you think will happen if you suddenly expose her to the air?"

"Shit." Lucas sat up. "Let's go." He trusted Vaughn implicitly, but Sascha was right—the jaguar had been acting unusually aggressive ever since they'd found Faith. He might unknowingly thrust the redheaded Psy over the edge.

Faith sat in the bedroom dressed in her day clothes. Eating with Vaughn had been an adventure. He hadn't touched her again after she'd threatened to leave midway through the meal, but she knew the promise had ended the minute they'd finished breakfast. If she exited this room, he'd start pushing her again.

The odd thing was, she didn't want to remain in here until Sascha arrived. What Vaughn was doing threatened her sanity, but it also ... stimulated her. For the first time in her life, she felt alive in more than the mind alone. Her body had always seemed like something that wasn't quite hers, but now it was very definitely a part of her—Vaughn stretched every one of her senses to the extreme.

And he made the darkness go away.

Getting up, she rubbed her palms on her thighs. There was no logical reason to walk out that door, but Faith decided that today, logic wouldn't help her much. She was in changeling territory, predatory changeling territory. They lived by different rules.

He wasn't waiting for her in the hallway as she'd half expected. Neither was he in the living room. Thinking that he might have stepped out, she walked to the porch and sat down in a chair-swing she hadn't noticed the previous night. The motion of the swing was soothing, but the fact that she couldn't see Vaughn left her unable to fully relax.

The scrape of claws on wood.

She sat perfectly still as a large jaguar walked around the corner and prowled over. The eyes that watched her out of that savage, wild face were familiar, but no less dangerous. He walked past her, rubbing the side of his heavy, warm body against her legs.

The sensation was indescribable.

Her mind tumbled as it tried to process the new information. The slide of fur over clothing, the heavy nonhuman heat, the sheer beauty of the creature so close to her. Part of her wanted to reach out and touch, the part that had lived a life inside of walls so thick there had been no other living presence within touching distance. But another part of her wanted to run. Because this predator had very sharp teeth and he hadn't decided whether she was friend or foe.

He turned and rubbed across her legs once again. Her breath caught in her throat, her heart slamming hard against her ribs. And she knew she'd reached overload level. Her mind was about to go critical—the false sense of security that had allowed her to fence with him this morning was gone under the looming reality of a mental cascade. She pulled her feet up onto the swing and wrapped her arms around her knees. Desperately fighting the closing wings of darkness, she heard a low, throaty growl.

She refused to open her eyes, refused to allow any more sensation into her mind. She had to stop hearing, stop feeling, stop seeing. Maybe then she could control the nerves going haywire inside of her. That was when human male hands cupped her face and everything snapped.

Vaughn felt Faith go completely motionless under his touch. A split second later, her body spasmed with such violence that he knew she'd lost control of it. The second time, he barely caught her before she hit her head hard against the back of the swing, but she was already unconscious.

"No," he whispered, voice raw. He would not allow the Council to win and if he left Faith alone and untouched, they would. It had become imperative to him that this Psy became strong enough to make choices other than those mandated for her.

Deciding against taking her inside, he was about to stand when he heard the distant noise of an approaching car. Identifying it from the sound of the eco-engine, he used his considerable speed to go into the house and pull on some clothes. He was outside on the swing with Faith in his arms by the time Lucas and Sascha pulled up. Sascha almost leaped from the vehicle and ran up the steps.

"Oh, God, Vaughn!" Her rapidly darkening eyes moved over Faith's silent body. "How could—"

"I know what I'm doing." Sascha might be an E-Psy, but the jaguar wasn't budging on this one point. The cat knew something she didn't, knew it on the deepest, most primitive level. If anyone had asked Vaughn to explain, he wouldn't have been able to put his certainty into words, but that made it no less strong.

"She's so deeply unconscious that I can't reach her and you think you know what you're doing?" Her words were bullet fast.

"Lucas," Vaughn said quietly.

The alpha's eyes met his. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Sascha turned furiously to her mate and when she didn't speak aloud, Vaughn knew she was yelling at Lucas mind-to-mind. Lucas couldn't broadcast speech, but the two had discovered that he could hear her perfectly fine. It made sense given that Lucas's great-great-grandmother had been Psy.

The alpha winced and caught Sascha around the waist to haul her up against his body. "He's a sentinel. He protects. Leave it be, darling."

"He might protect, but that protection doesn't stretch to Faith."

"It does now."

Everyone went silent. "Since when?" Lucas asked.

"Since I decided."

"Fine."

Sascha glanced from one male to the other then shook her head in obvious frustration. "Let me see if she's doing any better." Wiggling out of Lucas's grip, she came over. "She's like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon."

He understood, and because she was one of the few beings he respected, he said, "I won't bruise her wings, Sascha darling."

A smile flirted with her lips at the small tease. "What's gotten into you?"

He didn't reply as she put her hands over Faith's body and tried to read her emotional temperature. The truth was, he didn't know the answer. Not withstanding the promise he'd just made, he wasn't sure about Faith. Her story made sense, yet it could very well be a clever facade. The cat didn't think so, but despite its predatory nature, the cat was sometimes innocent in a way the human male could never be.

"She's shut down to a point where I'd compare it to a coma—I don't know when she'll come out of it."

Vaughn cradled Faith against his chest. "She'll be fine in a few minutes."

Sascha rose from her crouch. "How do you know that?"

"Maybe I'm Psy."

She sighed. "Do I smell breakfast?" Without waiting for an answer, she strode inside the house.

Lucas only spoke when she was out of earshot. "I've never questioned your judgment and I won't do it now."

"But?"

"She's not like Sascha, Vaughn. Sascha could already feel before she came to us. Even if Faith's story is completely true, she's as cold as the rest of her race. Don't forget that."

In his arms, he felt her heartbeat, felt the rush of her blood. "She's warmer than you know."

"What happened?"

"I think you and Sascha both need to hear that. Have breakfast and give Faith time to wake up."

Lucas nodded and followed his mate inside. Vaughn felt a strange tension release from his shoulders. He couldn't quite pinpoint the source, but something about the other cat had set him on edge, though Lucas was his friend in the truest sense of the word. They'd never been just alpha and sentinel. The loyalty forged in the dark days of their childhoods went both ways—he trusted Lucas as absolutely as the other male trusted him. But all of a sudden his instincts were reacting as if the other man were a threat.

Frowning, he returned his attention to the woman in his arms. He had a reason for keeping her outside. From what Sascha had told them since she'd become part of DarkRiver, Psy were used to living in boxes and it seemed Faith had been more boxed in than most. But she'd had no problem walking into a forest on her own so maybe a hidden sense in this particular Psy craved the freedom to be found in the wild.

A tiny movement. He ran his hand up and down her arm, fingering the material of her shirt and stroking her back to wakefulness. As her head shifted against his chest, he used his feet to make the swing sway gently back and forth. Her eyelashes lifted and fluttered back down, then lifted again.

"How was your nap, Red?" He lowered the volume of his voice in an effort to keep this conversation private.

She balled up a fist against his chest. "Why are you touching me?" were the first words out of her mouth. They were soft and a little husky.

"Why aren't you seizing again?"

Night-sky eyes blinked and, sitting up, she used both hands to push her hair off her face. "You're correct. Why am I not having another seizure?"

Surprised, he had no response. Sascha and Lucas came back out at that instant. The look on Sascha's face when she saw Faith, awake and apparently aware, was priceless. Lucas had grabbed a couple of chairs from inside the house and now placed them so they faced Vaughn and Faith. "Sit."

Sascha obeyed, hands full with two plates of food. "You okay?" she asked as Lucas took the bigger plate off her hands.

"I believe so." Faith rubbed her temples. "All my shields are holding against..." She paused and seemed to have to force the next words out: "Against the PsyNet." There was something very relieved about that statement, and suddenly Vaughn knew Faith's greatest fear. When she made a move to get off his lap, he had the urge to force her to stay, but that very urge made him let go.

She stood on shaky feet and took a deep breath. "Yes, I think I'm fine. Though the block against talking about the PsyNet is quite strong."

"Tell them about your vision, Red." He'd guessed what she'd seen, but he wanted her to talk about it, confront it.

She covered the small distance to the railing and seemed to focus her attention on the solid green of the trees. "It was another vision of heavy, formless darkness—the beginning. It'll build up until there's a murder to relieve the pressure. At least that's how I think it works. I've never had any contact with a killer before."

"Why do you call it darkness?" Lucas asked.

"I can't see anything in detail. I merely get a sense of darkness." It was as if she could find no other word to describe it. "There's evil in the darkness, a malicious intent I understand, though I've never before experienced those things." Her voice held an underlying thread of strain Vaughn could almost taste. "I think it's because I'm somehow actually him for the time I'm having the visions."

"Is any of that normal?" Sascha laid her fork down on her plate.

"No." Faith's back straightened and she finally turned to face them. "I usually see extremely clearly, details down to serial numbers, but it's all very clean. I'm never a participant."

"But not this time." Vaughn didn't like how she'd separated herself from the group when it was obvious she needed to be held.

"No." Her eyes were bleeding to black again and the effect was eerie. "It's like he reaches out and grabs me. I couldn't snap out of the vision until you touched me."

"Come sit here," he ordered, at the end of his patience.

She shook her head. "You won't keep your distance."

"That's exactly what you need."

"Who are you to make that judgment?"

"I saw something in your room this morning. Come here and I'll tell you what."

Her eyes were completely black by this point and full of suspicion. She took a few seconds to think about it before coming and sitting down on the swing ... as far from him as physically possible. The cat wanted to snarl, but the male knew when to demand and when to let be.

"What did you see?" she asked. "You're not Psy—what could you possibly have seen?"

"There was something around you when you woke. A physical blackness that looked real enough to touch."

"Vaughn, are you sure?" Sascha leaned forward.

"It was like a shadow sticking to her."

Faith had absently begun to propel the swing back and forth. "I don't understand. None of my visions have ever manifested like that and I've been monitored since I was three years old."

"But you've never had these kinds of visions," he pointed out, struck by the delicacy of her profile. She was so easily breakable. He'd never put a bruise on her, but others weren't so careful and the Psy Council was made up of monsters.

"No. That's why I came to you. I need to know how to stop them."

Vaughn glanced up and caught Sascha's pained expression as she answered. "Faith, I'm sorry, but I don't think you can."

Faith's hands tightened on the edge of the seat. "I have to find a way. If I don't, I won't be able to function at acceptable levels."

"You didn't come to us because you wanted the visions to stop." Vaughn waited until she looked at him. "What you want is the ability to control them—so you can see what it is that your mind's trying to show you."

She shook her head. "No. I don't have the capacity to handle the visions. Why would I want them to continue?"

Looking into those ebony eyes, he closed the gap between them. "Because then you'll stop feeling guilty about your sister."

Her body turned to ice and she stared straight ahead. "I'm Psy. I don't feel guilt."

"There was nothing you could've done." He pressed his thigh against hers, forcing her attention back to him. "You were never trained to deal with the kinds of things you're seeing now."

"I shouldn't be seeing them in the first place."

"Why?"