With a Touch: The Guild Chronicles, Book 1

by Rhiannon Leith

  How did Valetti do that job and still maintain the warmth she sensed in him? The passion? His colleague was a cold and heartless bastard, no two ways about it. Aware of his eyes raking over her body, Eva hurried past him, only to find herself pulling at a door which refused to budge. Frustrated, mortified, she pulled harder.

  Valetti’s hand closed on her shoulder, a gentle squeeze of reassurance which rocked her to the core. Then he reached past her and pushed.

  Oh God, she’d been pulling when the door opened the other way. Her face flamed scarlet and her stomach dropped. What sort of idiot must she look like to them? Her first Security detail and she couldn’t even open the bloody door.

  The clerk was smirking, she knew that without having to look. Valetti held the door for her and she rushed through, almost tripping up the steps on the far side. That would be the perfect ending, wouldn’t it? Falling flat on her face. Inside the anteroom three more Security—all built like Valetti, all heavily armed—stared at her like she’d just walked in naked.

  Jesus, was she transmitting sexual frustration today?

  I outrank them, she told herself. And I am not afraid of them.

  “Officers,” she said in her most businesslike voice. “I’ve been assigned to this case. I believe you have details for me.”

  The nearest one glared at her and snapped his fingers. A junior officer handed him a film-sheet file which he offered to her.

  “His name is Rafael Dante.” His steely eyes raked over her, dismissing her. “The leader of a terrorist cell. We want the information he can offer. The details are in his file.” The pips on his collar accounted for the arrogance. A commander.

  She took the file, holding the flexible film steady while the data scrolled across it, but she didn’t need to. Rafael Dante, genius, terrorist and…oh, yes, Hedonist. Everyone knew his name, although the face was elusive. Many thought he was the leader of the Hedonist movement, those who sought to undo the calm order the Guild had imposed on their world. Anarchists, really. Those who lived outside the safety of Guild compounds and their rules. Rafael Dante lived beyond any rules at all.

  They’d caught him.

  And now they expected her to delve into his mind.

  Steeling herself, she finished reading the file and regarded the commander impassively. “Very well. You want locations, names and contacts?” She didn’t know his name. Should she? Was it rude to ask? Shit, this was hellish. “Commander?”

  His gaze didn’t waver. If anything it became colder. Chills crawled across her spine but she couldn’t let him see her unsettled. Damn it, Burgess had done this on purpose. He knew this was exactly the kind of cold bastard who set her most on edge. He couldn’t have picked anyone better than this commander to make her uncomfortable, to frighten and repulse her. How bloody funny!

  “Kaine. You have never been assigned to us before, Ms. Lee.”

  She lifted her chin, a small gesture of pride and defiance and knew at once she had annoyed him. Good. They didn’t have to like each other in order to do this. They both knew where they stood. She didn’t have to tell him that he and all his kind disgusted her. And she knew for certain that Commander Kaine hated psychics, necessary though they were to him. No, not when they could do something he could not. The curl of his lip said it all. Loathing seeped out of his entire body.

  “No, sir. I have not.” Nor had she wanted to be. Ever. But clearly fate and Mr. Burgess had other ideas. “Shall we move on?”

  Chapter Two

  Commander Kaine and two guards followed Eva into the adjoining room, Aidan Valetti among them. They dwarfed her and, to tell the truth, they frightened her. In the centre of the room a man sat at the table, his hands and feet manacled to the arms and legs of the chair. He wore an orange jumpsuit which might have been prison garb from any modern era. In no way did it detract from the man himself.

  Quiet strength simmered beneath his unmoving exterior. His black hair fell over equally black eyes. The sensations hit her in rapid succession, knowledge of what had happened here, of what had happened to him. Dante, she reminded herself. His name was Rafael Dante. He looked halfway between martyr and demon, a near-broken man, but he had not broken yet. All this she knew, just by standing near. They’d beaten him, and more—waterboarding, drugs, electroshock…

  Eva exhaled shakily. When torture fails, they call on us, she thought bitterly. Only as a last resort. That’s how much they hate us. That’s how much they hate him. Hate him for his freedom, for his decision to be free.

  She pushed those potentially dangerous thoughts to the back of her mind. Seemed to be her day for having them.

  Two guards took their position on either side of the door. Eva had to resist the temptation to glance back to see on which side Valetti stood. She pushed him from her thoughts as well. Had to. He was a distraction she didn’t need right now, one which irritated her. The commander stopped by another chair, bolted to the ground like the one holding their prisoner.

  Eva sat down without glancing at the Security officers. She fixed her whole attention on Dante.

  When he looked up and their eyes met she almost wished she hadn’t.

  “Rafael Dante,” she began the formal warning, “I am a Guild psychic and I have been summoned here to interrogate you this day, the third of—”

  “This is not being recorded,” Kaine said. “There will be no official hearing. Get on with it.”

  Eva stiffened again, angry at his interruption, and at what he was saying. He was asking her to violate Dante’s human rights. He was asking her to pillage through the prisoner’s mind to get what he needed. All this was unspoken, but she could feel it. And if she didn’t cooperate…

  Her eyes locked on Dante’s once more and she saw understanding there. Pain, suffering, and rage, but understanding. Was she just as trapped in this as he was?

  “Very well.” She focused her mind on Dante’s, narrowing her consciousness until he was all that existed, all that mattered. Walls rose before her, pushing her back and she blinked, surprised. “He’s psychic too,” she said, to no one in particular. “And strong. Very strong.”

  The corners of Dante’s lips quirked up, but he kept his face otherwise impassive. She could not break through to him with her mind alone. Not unless he wanted to let her in, to show her what he’d endured as he had when first she entered.

  Eva’s stomach folded in on itself. She was going to have to touch him, to make this far more intimate than she ever wanted it to be. Bile rose in her throat, and she got to her feet.

  “What are you doing?”

  She passed Kaine without looking at him, circling the table and Dante until she stood behind him. “What you asked.” She pulled off her gloves and tucked them into the pockets of her jacket. Her hands tingled in the dry air of the cell, or perhaps it was Dante’s proximity.

  A movement by the door caught her eye. Valetti flinched and stiffened, returning to his statue-like position as a guard. But he had started forward, hadn’t he? To what? Stop her? Defend her?

  Eva exhaled a ragged breath. She didn’t want to do this. Everything in her screamed that she should not, that it was wrong to violate someone this way. But at the same time Guild training dictated that she obey a command and trust those in authority over her.

  It was her job.

  She didn’t have to like it, just do it.

  Her hands came to rest on Dante’s shoulders. His muscles tightened with her touch but otherwise nothing happened. She needed closer contact and there was only one way to do that. Skin to skin contact.

  Skin to skin, with another psychic, one possibly as strong as she was. Eva had never attempted such a thing. And he knew it. The thought rippled through her body like warm caramel and her heart sped up. Beneath her grip, Dante moved, shifting in his seat expectantly. He knew what she planned. And he was ready for her. That scared her.

  Before she could allow her doubts to stop her, she slid her fingers to either side of his neck.

  S
he met a moment of resistance, like the dent in the side of a bubble, the moment before it burst. Eva pushed harder and then Rafael Dante wilted before her.

  A wave of pleasure swept over her, quickly followed by one of pain. Her mind cried out, and his joined hers, a duet of mental sound that reverberated to her core. A series of images flared before her mind, blinding her with their intensity. Rafael and a woman, laughing, happy together; Rafael holding the same woman, limp and lifeless in his arms; Rafael armed and angry, debating with several other people; Rafael bent over a computer sheet, examining data…

  Images flicked before, like thumbing rapidly through the pages of a book. They’d cornered him, a dead end at the bottom of a series of alleyways. The stunner had taken his feet from under him but he’d kept consciousness, struggling still to escape, to fight. So they’d beat him. And beat him. The flash of a hypodermic, the sting in his skin and darkness billowed around him, like ink in a jar of water. The world went dark and slid away.

  Eva pressed deeper, trying to see before his capture, but the darkness surrounded her. She licked her lips, the sensation of her own tongue on her lips startlingly vivid in the recesses of his mind.

  “Come on,” she willed him. “Before they get ideas about drugging you again. Or worse, turn you over to a cell to wipe you. Let me help you. Please, Rafael. Let me help.”

  His life unfolded, or the part of it he would share. His lost wife, the joy he’d known with her. Those thoughts snapped off as she reached them. No. He wasn’t sharing that. Rafael Dante was an activist, a leader, an organiser, a man who lived his life to the full, indulging himself in every pleasure… All the things they said he was, but not a terrorist. Not a killer.

  So why did they hate him so?

  She wavered, her head swimming as if she was in an airless room, too hot or too tired. Was he playing with her? Drawing her further in just to—

  Music surrounded her, a rising series of notes like a spirit taking flight. He stood before her, not the beaten, broken man in the cell, but free, whole, strong and breathtaking. Eva found herself naked before him. Shock seized her first, then shame. She wrapped her hands around her body, backing away from him.

  He reached out, catching her wrists in his impossibly strong grip and he unfurled her arms, revealing her like a flower in sunshine. With his eyes upon her skin, her breath quickened and her head swam again. But he didn’t touch her, other than to hold her wrists, lifting her arms higher and higher. He held her with but one hand now, the other reaching for something overhead.

  For a moment she wondered if she had been drugged, or if he was somehow deadening her mind with his, or making her body betray her. And it did. Desire uncoiled within her, melting away her fears and resistance, to reveal a single, desperate ache. Unable to stop herself she pushed her hips towards him in a mute plea. All Rafael did was smile.

  With a deft movement he tied her arms above her head, leaving her helpless as he studied her. Her body burned for him, but at the same time she was afraid. So desperately afraid of what he would do. Of what she would do.

  “Don’t fight it,” he murmured, and his voice rang through her mind and all around her. “Let us help you, Eva. That’s why we’re here, after all.”

  We’re here…

  Another footstep sounded behind her and she tried to twist around, tried to see.

  “Don’t be afraid,” said Aidan.

  Their hands met on her skin, brushing away her fears and doubts. Their mouths met before her and they kissed with a passion that threatened to consume her. And when they turned their attention back to her, it did.

  Aidan dropped to his knees, opening her legs with determined hands. Rafael kissed her, his hands roaming over her breasts, lingering on the taut nipples, pinching them, rolling them. She cried out, her voice lost in his kiss, while below her hips bucked against Aidan’s wickedly dexterous mouth. His tongue caressed her labia, her clit, drank down everything she had to give him. Her body tightened, clenching and unclenching, as if it tried to draw him into her and hold him there forever. Her mind grasped for help, for support and found…Rafael…

  This wasn’t Rafael’s memory, she realised. This was something else. Someone else…

  Dante. She ripped her mind free from his touch. He was playing with her, manipulating her. She hadn’t broken through his barriers. He’d allowed her in so he could toy with her mind and sound out her strengths. And her weaknesses.

  Rafael Dante was no killer, no matter what they said. Dark, tortured, deeply wounded—oh, so deeply wounded—but not a terrorist.

  But that didn’t make him harmless. She realised that now.

  Eva opened her eyes to look for Aidan, seeking comfort in his blue gaze, but instead saw Kaine glaring at her. The warm connection of fingertips to Dante’s skin kept her calm, held her fears in check. She could feel his pulse, strong and certain. It stirred her heart. He didn’t seem so helpless anymore.

  “Well?” The commander folded his arms across his chest.

  “This is not the man you’re looking for.”

  “Nonsense, of course he is. Rafael Dante is a wanted man.”

  “Yes, but not a terrorist, not a killer. What do you really want to know?”

  Kaine’s face turned white with rage. “He’s wanted for the murder of his wife, for a series of bombings, for a thousand different things. I want the names of his associates, Lee. Now!” He spat out the final word and Eva jerked back, terrified in spite of her determination.

  “I didn’t kill her.” Rafael’s voice echoed through her mind, even though she wasn’t touching him anymore. “I would never have hurt her, just as I would never hurt you. You know that already. He’s lying, but you know that too. It’s all right, Eva.”

  Frozen there, longing to reach out and touch him again, Eva didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t force the information out of him, didn’t want to hand it over to a sadist like the commander. But what else could she do?

  “Eva,” he whispered into the depths of her consciousness. “Touch me.”

  It was the plea of a lover, of a man who knew pleasure in all its connotations. But to her? To a woman as cold and frozen inside as she was on the exterior? Her shaking hands moved back to his neck and she felt him reach for her again. She glanced up, turning her head to look for—

  “Don’t move, sweetheart. Don’t give him away.”

  Aidan. He was talking about Aidan, about the man she’d seen as her lover, as his lover. “I don’t…I don’t understand.”

  “We’re here for you. To save you.” Before her mind could process that, his lashed out, sending two words out into the world like the crack of a whip. “Now, Aidan.”

  Aidan’s hand moved in a blur, snatching his sidearm from the holster and firing on the guard to his left. He slumped to the wall and slid down, stunned by the weapon. Aidan turned and fired on Kaine. His weapon half drawn, the commander dropped like a stone. Aidan didn’t pause, fluid as a lion in action. He surged across the room, pulling a hypodermic from somewhere. He grabbed Rafael’s arm and plunged the needle in.

  Then he dropped to his knees, staring into Rafael’s face. “It’s okay. Tell me it’s okay. Rafe? Can you hear me?”

  Rafael lifted his head, the drugged vagueness draining from his eyes to be replaced with a frightening intensity. “Of course I can hear you, Aidan. You’re shouting. Get me out of this thing.”

  Eva backed away. She should sound an alarm, get help. There were armed guards outside the door, weren’t there? If she could just make it…

  She sprinted for the far side of the room, throwing herself towards the door, but before her hands could touch the handle, Aidan seized her, overpowering her and pinning her against the hard planes of his body.

  A body she could recall knowing more intimately than her own.

  She wriggled, trying to free herself, a sob bursting from her lips when he tightened his grip, immobilising her.

  “Gently, Aidan,” Rafael warned. “Eva, we’
re here to help you.” He had already retrieved the commander’s weapon and stood just behind them. With his mind and body cleared of the drugs by whatever Aidan had given him, he looked even more formidable.

  “I don’t know either of you!”

  “But we know you. Or at least we knew your father. Eva, we’re here to get you out of the Guild’s clutches. Just as he wanted. Do you understand me?”

  Her father? Ice lanced down her limbs and she stopped struggling to stare at Rafael. She had no memories of her father. All she knew was that her mother had been alone and so desperate she’d sold her own daughter.

  With a single, decisive movement, Eva brought her heel down full-force on Aidan’s shin. He gave a startled cry and she slipped his grip, throwing open the door.

  Burgess stood there, weapon in hand. The other guards slumped on the floor around him and her boss—her miserable, narrow-faced, hardass boss—shot her.

  Eva’s legs turned to rubber, and grey fog, dense as cotton wool, rose up around her. A stunner, she though with some relief, as strong arms caught her and lifted her before she could fall. Rafael, she realised. He held her now as gently as a baby.

  And then the darkness took her.

  The world swayed and Eva clung to the darkness where she was safe, where nothing could touch her. But it was like grasping at smoke. The shadows slipped away to grey and then to white. Light. Non-artificial. Daylight streamed through a window above her. But it was their voices which reached out to her and pulled her into consciousness.

  “Doesn’t act like Harmon’s daughter.” Aidan sounded doubtful. Only when he spoke did she realize the soft cushion beneath her head was his lap.

  “She took you out pretty quickly.” Rafael laughed softly. “Sounds like Harmon’s daughter to me.”

  “What are we going to do with her, Rafe? We were going to talk to her, not knock her out and grab her.”

  “I know.” A hand stroked her hair, wrapped a curl between his fingers as if testing the softness, so tender an intimacy that her breath shook despite her determination to keep it calm, to keep her consciousness a secret. “But sometimes you have to improvise.”