Pandora’s People 2: Keely Page 5

  Keely opened her mouth, ready to protest both out loud and psychically, but West spoke before she could form words on either level.

  “Of course, sir. We’ll be there right away.”

  Thank you. Out.

  Maxwell’s presence faded. Keely eyed West with concern, still stroking his chest. “Are you sure?”

  “Boss’ orders.” He smiled wryly. “Though I’d much rather stay here.” He kissed her soundly, then went back to the table to eat his breakfast. Reluctantly, Keely, too, returned her attention to her food. She’d likely need fortification before she had to face Maxwell.

  * * *

  “You want to do what?” Keely stared at Maxwell in bemused shock. “I really don’t think it’s a good idea. Not this soon.”

  “Keely --” West began, touching her knee lightly under the table.

  “No!” Her gaze whipped to him. “It’s too soon. You need recovery time.”

  Maxwell folded his hands on the table. When he spoke, his voice was calm and measured. “If we give him any more time, it may be too late to find out what actually happened. You yourself said his recovery mechanism was remarkable.”

  “That doesn’t mean he can launch a full-scale psychic endeavor less than twelve hours after that kind of an attack.”

  “Keely --” West broke in.

  “I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “I believe it should be my decision.” West’s touch, drifting a little higher on her thigh, softened his words, which he had spoken carefully. “I think the gravity of the situation warrants some risk, and I’m willing to take that risk.”

  Keely opened her mouth to protest again, then closed it. A sharp rush of panic flooded her, and she tamped it back as thoroughly as she could.

  “Of course,” she finally said. “I’m sorry. I just…”

  “I understand.” West turned to Maxwell, who was watching without watching, his gaze carefully averted but still obviously taking in everything. “Could we have some time alone?”

  “Of course.” Maxwell pushed to his feet and left the room, quietly closing the door behind him.

  Keely regarded West in silence for a moment, gathering her thoughts, waiting for him to speak if he chose. He didn’t. He only reached across the table and took her hand gently in his.

  “I’m afraid,” she finally said, her voice small and broken. Inside, she had a fist clenched on her emotions, holding them back, keeping them under control. If she let him sense her feelings now, they would become his, and she didn’t want to cripple him in that way. He had to be able to make his own decisions, clear-headed and unimpeded by any influence from her. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  His hand tightened on hers. “I know. But there’s far too much at stake here for me to consider my personal feelings. Or my personal safety, for that matter.”

  She closed her eyes, a spasm of pain passing through her. “That’s what John said.”

  Fingers touched her chin, lifting it. Wrenched with pain, fear, and a sense of impending loss, she forced herself to meet his gaze. The sapphire eyes were soft, damp. A gentle smile curved his mouth.

  “I’m not John.”

  She nodded and reached up to touch his face. “I know.”

  “And…” His finger lifted to tap her lightly on the nose. “You’re not a precog.”

  She couldn’t help a laugh. “No. I’m not. Just a worried woman in love…” She trailed off. She hadn’t meant to say that. But when West leaned forward to gently brush his lips against hers, she knew it was okay. More than okay, in fact -- it was true.

  * * *

  Back in her own rooms with West, Keely let herself relax again -- as much as she could, given the tension still bubbling through her. She wanted to protest again, to talk West out of this, but she knew he wasn’t going to budge. He was convinced this was the right thing to do. And he was probably right, but she was selfish, and afraid.

  She fought her fear back, as well as the panicky anger that accompanied it. “I’ll be right with you,” she said. “Right next to you the whole time.”

  He nodded. “Wouldn’t want you anywhere else.” Pulling her back against him, he kissed her, his mouth exploring hers warmly.

  She kissed him back, tongue curling against his. A sound rose in her throat, unbidden, and she pulled him hard against her, desperate. “Don’t leave me.”

  “I won’t. I won’t, love, I promise.” He bent and picked her up, cradling her against him, still kissing her as he carried her into the bedroom.

  She had his shirt half off him before he managed to deposit her on the bed, buttons undone, sleeves pulled down his arms. As he laid her down, she pulled it the rest of the way off, eager hands moving roughly over his skin. “Never leave me.”

  He said nothing. His emotions had gone blank to her again so that she felt nothing but her own lust. Her desire for him, her need. She didn’t understand how she’d become this dependent on him this quickly.

  She bit at his nipple and he moaned, his hands jerking at her clothes, seemingly as desperate to get to her skin as she had been to get to his. She sucked at him, laved, teeth scraping over skin, hands groping for his ass, his back, his cock, until suddenly he pulled away and shifted down her body, his face plunging between her thighs.

  “God!” The word burst out in a strangled gasp at the hot press of his mouth into her cunt. Teeth slid over her labia, just enough to make her flinch, to make her wet, not enough to hurt.

  He said something against her body but she couldn’t make it out; it was lost in her skin. A sudden flash of his emotion struck her, unexpected against the blank wall his feelings had become to her. Desire, need, and love.

  He loved her. How could he? How could she love him? It was too soon. But the emotion was there, bright and powerful in the haze of sex in the room, before it faded again.

  “West…” she managed. Her hand moved down to clasp his hair, tilting his head a bit, drawing his mouth even deeper into her sex. His tongue flattened against her, stroked her, as her body went taut under him. She was so close already, just moments away from orgasm. But she didn’t want it to end so soon. She focused on the sensation of his tongue sliding over her. Heat suffused her body, like liquid filling her up, pouring into her. She wanted him inside her.

  As if in response to the thought, he began to thrust with his tongue, hard in and out of her. Her back arched, nearly wrenching him up off the bed as her hips twisted, the knife edge of orgasm threatening again. This time she couldn’t fight it, and it poured over her like an ocean wave. Her body undulated under his, drowned in ecstasy. Tears pooled in her eyes and she keened.

  He sucked, licked at her, prolonging the spiraling pleasure until her nails dug deep into his scalp and her thighs shivered. With her entire body caught in a paroxysm of pleasure, she felt him surge over her, hips falling between her thighs, cock sliding into her, deep, like it was meant to be there. Her thighs tightened on his waist, ankles crossing behind his back as she pulled him tighter into the wide V of her thighs.

  He thrust hard into her, as if he had lost all control, pounding her desperately into the bed. His eyes met hers, dark with need, and another orgasm rolled through her, making her cry out.

  His mouth found hers, swallowing the sound, kissing her fiercely. Again his emotions slipped past the strange wall -- desperate need, fear.

  “It’ll be okay.” She heard the words in her own voice without being aware she was speaking. “You’ll be okay --” And suddenly she couldn’t speak anymore as yet another orgasm tore through her body.

  He nodded, holding her close as she shook. He closed his eyes, opened them again. She felt him pulse inside her, finally reaching his own climax.

  “You’ll be there,” he whispered. “You’ll stay with me.”

  She wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question. So she reached for his face, brushed fingers over his lips. “Yes. Of course I will.”

  He nodded and pulled her tighter agains
t him. “Good.”

  * * *

  They sat again around the table in Maxwell’s office, preparing again to pool their power. Except this time, rather than joining to communicate across the ocean with Pandora, they had an entirely different mission.

  “Are you certain you have a clear sense of the psychic markers?”

  West nodded in response to Maxwell’s question. “I’ve sorted through them, and I think it’s all fairly clear. There’s a distinct sort of smell about him.” He gave a small smile, seemingly nonchalant. Keely clasped her hands together under the table.

  Maxwell nodded. “All right, then. Let’s get started.”

  West closed his eyes. Keely took one last look at him, trying very hard not to think of it as one last look, and closed her eyes, as well.

  She opened to West, suddenly feeling close, intimate, joined to him in a way she wasn’t at all comfortable sharing with Maxwell. There was no choice, though -- in order to do what they had to do, she had to let go of those compulsions and lay herself bare before both men.

  It shouldn’t matter, she supposed. It wasn’t as if her budding relationship with West could ever be a secret in a community where probably a good third of the population were telepaths. She’d faced the same conundrum when she’d gotten involved with John. It was disconcerting. Even more disconcerting was the knowledge that at least a few of the precogs in the group even knew how long the relationship might last.

  Although none had seemed to know she would lose John. She didn’t know if that would have made it harder or easier -- or if perhaps he would still be here had someone sensed his impending death…

  Impatient with herself and her wandering thoughts, she brought them carefully under control. She had to stay focused; any disruption could sabotage their entire mission.

  The attack yesterday had been so abrupt, so intense, Keely was surprised West had been able to recreate any of the identifying psychic markers he could use to track back to the attacker. But he had, and apparently he thought they were strong and clear enough for him to find his way to the force that had invaded their minds. With Maxwell and Keely there as buffers and protection, that was exactly what West was going to do.

  It was a delicate operation. The three walked a fine line as West began the first questing forays. The additional strength and shielding from Keely and Maxwell was necessary to protect West, but it also increased the size and strength of the psychic tendril they probed with, thus also increasing their chances of detection.

  Keely held herself very still physically, her breathing nearly imperceptible. She had entered a conscious meditative state, in some ways nearly asleep but in others so keenly aware it went beyond her normal wakeful state and into a state of finely tuned hypersensitivity. She could barely sense Maxwell in their triumvirate; he, too, had brought his state of awareness into intense, finely honed control.

  Feeling West begin to probe, slowly, carefully extending his awareness to seek out the markers he’d identified, Keely shifted her own awareness to follow him. Although she couldn’t yet directly sense the person he sought, in order to directly manipulate that person’s emotions, she set a sort of feeler ahead of him, an aura of calmness that would hopefully minimize West’s chances of being instantly discovered once the attacker was traced.

  Maxwell, for his part, seemed to be sorting out the psychic markers. As West refined and clarified them, Maxwell extended them, augmenting the strength and range of West’s search. Keely settled into her mostly passive role and fell quiet.

  With his eyes closed, slowly sinking into a near-trance state, West finally began to let go of some of the trepidation and doubt that had been plaguing him about this venture. He knew it had to be done, regardless of the risk to himself. And after twenty-four hours of recuperation, assisted by Keely’s ministrations, he was certain he could handle it. He was only tracking the intruder, after all, not trying to defeat him. This was purely a reconnaissance mission.

  He brought his mind back into focus, letting his inner sense be taken over by the feel of the intruder’s psychic markers. The candidate pool had to be small -- there were only so many aberrants in the world, after all, and most with the power to launch that kind of attack could only do so against a target within a five-mile radius. Unless they were up against something new, something far more powerful than anything any of them had seen before, the attacker had to be within or near the town limits of Skara Brae.

  There. Had he imagined the blip of recognition, or had he actually pinpointed the source of one of the markers? It was hard to pin these things down sometimes; his power a nebulous web of sensations, certain signs, and pure gut instinct.

  Another. A third. West had it. Whoever had attacked him lay within that psychic nexus of recognizable characteristics. He fished forward carefully, comforted and sheltered by Keely’s presence surrounding and protecting him as he probed, so carefully, so quietly. Maxwell’s psychic presence lay more quietly in the background in his head; his attunement with the other man was not as strong as it was with Keely, but the masculine presence added to the protective scaffolding around his mind.

  The markers came together, definitely coming from the same person. Just there… Exact identification was a trickier business, requiring him to open himself just that little bit more, just enough, sliding past the protective shield he and the others had created.

  Keely’s presence was a quiet surety next to him, gentle, protective, a soft fleece of comfort. Maxwell’s contribution felt crisper, harder inside his head, more of a shell to Keely’s cocoon.

  Carefully, precisely, deftly he peeled both layers back, exposing the tip of his perception, reaching out so carefully to take in what lay just there, right in his reach.

  The markers came together as he reached toward them. They coalesced like the images in a kaleidoscope, forming pieces of the whole but still distorted, broken into patterns that could only be interpreted correctly if you looked at them just so.

  There was something familiar in that pattern. Something he knew. He nudged forward just a bit more, seeking that last vestige of clarity that would tell him what exactly he was looking at --

  Pain stabbed into his temple, violent, precise, and so intense he lost all semblance of awareness for several seconds. A hot poker through the brain, igniting flames behind his eyeballs, inside his ears. He had never experienced such agony.

  With a jolt, he opened his eyes. He was back in the conference room with Keely and Maxwell. His vision was obscured by a red haze. He blinked in an attempt to clear it and felt something thick and hot, viscous, moving down his cheeks. Blood.

  He could do nothing but stare. He was a morass of pain, the questing fingers of his consciousness burning as if they’d been amputated, then cauterized.

  He opened his mouth, feeling a scream of pain in his throat, but nothing came out.

  And then everything went black.

  Chapter Six

  He wasn’t dead. Watching his prone form in the hospital bed, Keely had to keep reminding herself of that. He was so still, his face pale, eyes unmoving beneath lids that seemed parchment thin. His chest moved almost imperceptibly with his breath, but at least he breathed on his own, without mechanical aid.

  She’d been sitting next to his bed for hours now; she didn’t know for sure how long. Over and over she reached out to him. A faint tremor lay within his consciousness, as faint and tenuous as his breathing, but she couldn’t quite seem to reach it. Once again, she closed her eyes, focused on him, on that tiny spark…

  Behind her, someone softly cleared his throat. Keely swiftly quelled the piercing stab of startlement that struck her, for fear it would further harm West if he sensed it.

  Not that he can sense it. The small voice of pessimism in the back of her head wouldn’t go completely still. Not that he can be harmed any further.

  Keely opened her eyes and turned slowly. Maxwell stood behind her in the doorway to West’s room, a look of concern and frustration on his fa
ce.

  “Keely,” he said gently. “You need to rest. And eat. You’ve been here twelve hours.”

  The revelation struck her numbly. “Have I?”

  “Yes, you have.”

  She nodded. “All right.” Slowly, she pushed herself to her feet. With a last glance back at West, she followed Maxwell out the door.

  * * *

  In spite of only picking at a turkey sandwich, Keely felt clearer headed with food in her stomach. She sat quietly, sipping her tea, while Maxwell sat nearby, as if she needed to be supervised to be sure she was actually eating.

  She glanced up at him. His brow was deeply furrowed, and he regarded her with more than a little concern.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  She nodded, took another drink of her tea, and set the cup down carefully. “I have to go after him.”

  “No.” Maxwell spoke the word curtly, shook his head. “You don’t know what happened to him, or who did it. You could be drawn in, and we could lose you, too. We can’t afford that.”

  Her fingers clenched on the handle of her teacup. She could feel her hand shaking, but she held it under firm control, moderated the trembling of her voice as she presented her argument. “He holds knowledge now that we need. If nothing else, I have to try to fetch it.”

  Maxwell shook his head. “You don’t know that. As far as I was able to tell, the contact was broken and he was put out of commission before he really knew who he’d made contact with. Add that to whatever damage might have been inflicted…” He shook his head again sharply. “No. It’s too dangerous. If his mind has been torn up -- you could get lost in there, never find your way back out.”

  At least I’d be with him, she thought, but didn’t say it aloud, knowing Maxwell would simply use her irrationally high emotions against her.

  “We need him back.” She tried to keep her voice steady, but she could barely get the words out, and her voice cracked.

  With a gentle smile, Maxwell reached laid a hand over hers. “Get some rest, Keely. You’ll feel better if you get a little sleep.”