by S M Olivier
Gifted Connections
Book Four
S.M. Olivier
Gifted Connections: Book 4
S.M. Olivier
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Copyright© 2018 by S.M. Olivier
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. No part of this book can be reproduced in any form, or by electronic means or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.
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Editing by: Jenifer Knox
Cover by: Jenifer Knox
Chapter 1
“Hana, Dul, Set, Net. Hana, Dul, Set, Net,” Troy barked out as we did our warm-ups, counting in Korean.
My connection had an infinity for martial arts that spanned several different cultures, but Troy’s first love had been Tae Kwon Do, so he tended to revert back to that language when doing warm-ups. I followed his instructions as he continued.
“Okay.” Troy clapped his hands enthusiastically. “I need four lines, right here. We’re going to do front kicks all the way down and back.”
He demonstrated exactly what he wanted, and even though he was wearing a shirt, I still had to admire how graceful and powerful he looked. Generally, he preferred to train without his top on, but the presence of the younger ones prevented him from being entirely in his element. He was my Italian Stallion. His short dark hair and clean-cut features, combined with his honey colored eyes with outrageously long lashes, was everything you found in the stereotypical ‘tall, dark, and handsome’ man.
I had to get my mind back on task instead of admiring one of my six loves. I joined the kids and teens in their lines and dropped back into my ready stance before doing as Troy instructed. I looked around at the others and saw enthusiasm in most of their faces, while some seemed disgruntled that they’d been forced to participate in ‘activities.’ Today was martial arts and dance day, followed by either cooking, agriculture, art, or music class.
Recently we found out that a lot of the children had begun acting out due to their boredom. We had come up with a game plan where they were required to participate in two hours’ worth of activities every day. With the beginning of Christmas break, it was a great time to start implementing their new schedules.
Ever since we found out we were losing our gifts, we had all been at wit's end. We had to keep ourselves busy or we were going to lose the little bit of sanity we had left. I seemed to be suffering the most, though; physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Physically, my body continued to betray me. Some days were still fantastic. Other days…not so much. There were days that I couldn’t even muster the energy to leave the bed. On my good days, I tried to make up for those bad times.
Mentally, I still struggled with the decision we had made together. I even questioned my sanity and wondered if I was making the right one. At what point did I take care of myself and not care about the consequences it may bring to others? Then I realized how selfish I was being and found myself sinking into depression.
Emotionally, I wavered between denial and anger. I tried to make the most of my time with my six connections, but I found it increasingly difficult. I knew Remy and Jaxson were still struggling with our decision. That only made me feel guiltier and filled me with more hurt.
“How are you feeling today?” Troy asked as I returned to the starting point.
I smiled and nodded. “Good, want to do some sparring after this?”
He hesitated for a moment before smiling. “If you think you can handle it.”
I nodded reassuringly. “Today’s a good day. I want to take advantage of it.”
He reached up and moved an errant curl off my face, caressing my cheek before he removed his hand. I noticed the guys seemed to be doing that a lot lately. They had been affectionate before, but now they seemed to be even more so. I think they feared losing me to my seventh connection, our eighth connection.
I had tried to reassure them, telling them that I doubted I would even like the usurper, let alone create a genuine bond with them. It wasn’t long ago that I had struggled with finding out I had six men out there, and now the bombshell of the seventh was dropped on us. To make matters worse, we were looking for a needle in a haystack.
We had reached out to all the communities out there and asked them if they had any males between the ages of eighteen to twenty-eight—we were assuming he was around my age. We asked if they could send us any pictures of men that had a mark with no connection. We didn’t specify why or what mark we were looking for, precisely, and still our search was proving fruitless.
We found out nearly a week ago, and it didn’t take long for some of the communities to answer us almost immediately. We were reassured by three of the other groups that they were still helping us search for answers. The good news was that the communications with the communities were stronger, and we now had a photo album full of gifted people with marks. We were able to utilize it to find six pairs of connections for the other communities, which was great for them. The bad news was it only further rubbed salt into our wounds.
We knew there could be thousands of other gifted individuals that may not even associate with a community. We had just hoped since, more than likely, this guy had a unique gift that he was part of one. I wondered if he was like me; maybe he had this gift in him and lived in denial for so long or wasn’t aware of it. It wasn’t often that someone felt the need to “jump” another person, so maybe he was as clueless as I had been.
I found out jumping was the ability to jump into another person’s body. Jumping allowed you to see, hear, smell, touch, and even feel what the other person felt. Unlike my ability to compel, all their senses would be activated. The jumper could also control the other person much like my gift of compelling.
“Okay, now roundhouse kicks, there and back,” Troy said in an upbeat tone as he demonstrated the roundhouse kick down the mats.
He was a natural teacher. The children avidly watched him and listened to him. Even the children that didn’t seem too keen on participating. I joined in the line once more and smiled that my body wanted to respond and engage. Sometimes life put things in perspective. I hadn’t realized how much I had taken for granted until I couldn’t do the simple things like opening a bottle of water or even the ability to get out of bed.
Recently, my body had begun betraying me, without warning. It was hypothesized that I had another connection out there. My gift had behaved in this manner in the past, protecting me when I wasn’t consciously aware of it. Now it seemed like I was losing the ability to the do even the simplest tasks. My gift wanted me to find my other connection, and until that happened, my body was taking the brunt of it.
Even though it was pouring down rain, I was glad for the times the sun would shine.
“Okay, do the roundhouse kick, but when your back leg lands, I want you to stay on the balls of your feet. Then you need to pivot and take your back leg like you’re doing a back kick but swing it at a forty-five-degree angle,” Troy explained patiently.
I did my roundhouse kick but continued to fail to make my spinning hook kick look as graceful as he did.
I tried to follow his instructions once more but could feel myself losing my balance yet again. Today he was taking it easier on me, and we were just working on my technique. My enthusiasm for sparring
had waned the longer we trained the kids. I had been with them every step of the class, learning the basics, even though I hadn’t needed them.
Some of our more belligerent pupils had begun to act out, and it had become mentally draining to get them back in line. It was during those times that I wished I had the full use of my gift. I would have had them complying to our instructions without all the attitude and disrespect.
I had already been cautioned that my gifts would be sporadic and unstable. I didn’t want to risk draining myself unnecessarily or risk hurting an essentially innocent teen. Needless to say, I wasn’t using them anymore. The students had been taken from an ordinary life and dropped here; they were bored. I understood their angst. I just didn’t agree with it.
“Try to move your head in the direction you want it to go.” Troy took a firm grip of my hips, then turned my head in the direction he wanted me to look.
“Are you trying to distract me?” I teased as I felt his hands splayed across the dip in my waist.
“Is it working?” He chuckled with that glint in his eyes.
I turned around, grabbed his face, and kissed him passionately. “It would, but I have to go help Drake in the kitchens now. He has eight very sullen teenagers and five overly rambunctious children.
Troy laughed once more. He picked up a towel to hand it to me before grabbing his own. “Raincheck?” he asked hopefully.
I smiled up at him. “Definitely. I’ll come to your room tonight.”
He smiled triumphantly before wiping the sheen of sweat off his face. “Excellent. It was also smart of you to help get this ball rolling with the kids here.”
I laughed. “Half of them hate me for it. When I suggested it, I didn’t think they would implement the new program immediately. I thought we would at least warn them instead of telling them they were now losing over two hours of their days on their Christmas vacation.”
“I think Pops saw it as a good way to keep us busy and focused on something other than our current dilemma. Plus, some of those kids were going down a dark path. I should have recognized the signs sooner. They were sneaking off to the vacant levels, smoking pot, hooking up, and goodness knows what else.” Troy gave me a reassuring side hug as we started to make our way out of the training gym.
“You would know the warning signs,” I teased him. “I forgot about your city friends that liked to run wild.”
He grinned and shrugged. “Why did you think my mom kept me so busy, well that and the other reasons?” he trailed off. His mother had kept him out of the house as much as possible to avoid letting her son see how abusive his father had been towards her.
“Kade said as much. His parents kept him and his sister busy for that reason, too. Idle hands and all that.” I leaned into him briefly once more when we reached the hallway.
It was because of my fifteen-year-old brother’s suggestion that I had even thought to suggest the programs. He saw the warning signs, and he didn’t want our younger siblings to be influenced by their new friends. That and spending days in bed doing nothing but school work and sleeping had grown boring after a while.
“See you at dinner?” Troy asked as he pulled me in for a kiss.
He didn’t give me a chaste kiss. It was more sensual…demanding, even. His hands stroked my back and dipped dangerously low on my bottom.
“You know it.” I smiled at him as we pulled away, slightly breathless.
Looking at him and knowing how great my guys had been in my time of weakness, I couldn’t imagine ruining our dynamics. It was perfect just the way it was.
The new program that we were implementing had the children and teens doing martial arts for three days a week, and the other two days were spent in another activity that required physical exertion. Remy had the children on the two non-martial art days, and other operatives had volunteered to assist him. Troy had volunteered to do the martial arts program, with Butler acting as his second in command. Butler had almost as much martial arts experience as Troy and had a vested interest in the program.
Butler was one of the operatives we had met over a month ago. He always had a friendly rivalry with Troy when it came to sparring. He was also a single father, with his eight-year-old and twelve-year-old on the base with him. It was amazing how much personal things I started to learn about the other operatives here once I was forced to slow down.
We were also realistic in the fact that there could come a time that we would have to leave the base for an indefinite period of time. If we got any leads about my seventh connection, we would have to go. We wanted to have a hand in the new programs but needed to ensure it would continue running in our absence.
The other program we had during martial arts was a dance class for those that weren’t martial arts enthusiasts. Noah oversaw that program with Curry, a friend of Adams—the girl I despised here. They utilized a new space created in one of the lower levels that they were trying to convert as the new educational center.
With the absence of school this week, the teens were going to their next mandatory activities; music, agriculture, art, or cooking. They had a choice of which one they had a greater proclivity towards. Will, Jace, and Natalie—another operative—were the instructors for music. Jaxson was assisting the Illinois team’s brother-sister duo, Texas and Georgia, in the agriculture class, where they were going to learn how to grow crops, among other things. Megan and one of the other members of the Illinois team were teaching art. Drake had volunteered to teach cooking with a few of the other cooks in the kitchen.
I entered the kitchen to see that, just as suspected, most of the teens were busy goofing off or showing complete disrespect to Drake and his assistants. That was the reason why I elected to come here instead of the new music room Jace and Will were teaching in. I knew no one would dare show them the same insolence they were showing Drake and his cooks. I figured he may need a little extra help. That, and I was lucky if my stick figures were discernable, and I wasn’t keen on learning how to grow things just yet.
I took a seat on one of the prep tables and quietly watched the troublemakers for a few moments. When I’d had enough, I stood up and looked at them pointedly and then walked over to them.
“If you continue to behave this way, I won’t hesitate to get your parents,” I told them quietly, so as not to interrupt Drake.
Drake had jumped into teaching with both feet, and that’s why it bothered me that these teens were blatantly insolent. He had worked on lesson plans and recipes he planned to do with the kids to include baking and basic savory dishes. He was the only one that put any effort to keep this ‘class’ interesting for them. Since Jace was once a teacher, he didn’t need to come up with any new lesson plans. He had his old ones to utilize.
One of the teens looked at me with a challenge in his eyes, then smirked. “Ask us if we care.”
I knew it was hard to take me seriously on appearances alone. I was petite, and most of the teens were taller than me. Without makeup, I looked like I could fit in with them comfortably.
“You do realize who she is, right?” Victoria, a senator’s daughter and one of our newly gifted tweens, asked as she came up to us.
When Victoria first came to us, she had been a rollercoaster of emotions. She had been sullen and angry one moment and then friendly and funny the next. Her mother had died in a car accident, and she had blamed herself. Then her father had moved her here, just in case mandatory gifted registration commenced. The bill was still in the Senate, waiting for the votes to pass or throw it out.
Lately, she had adjusted to her new environment and hung out often with Micah and Patrick. I think both boys had a crush on her, but it was clear by her actions and words that they were definitely in the friend zone.
One of the teens made a loud scoffing noise, drawing my attention back to them.
I knew these teens were in the classroom with the seventh and eighth graders. Therefore, they really had no clue who I was, unless their parents talked about me. They woul
dn’t know me by looks. At least I didn’t think they would. I knew that me and my connections were now a hot topic of discussion here. With our gifts, it was a given. Only our close friends and family knew our new predicament. We hadn’t even told the Illinois team; we didn’t feel like it was something they needed to know yet.
“This is Blake Thomas, and that’s her connection Drake.” Victoria gave them a pointed look.
They gave us a surprised look before immediately joining the rest of the class near the prep tables. I gave Victoria a grateful smile before I headed to where the younger children were waiting patiently for their ingredients. It was no surprise to me that only Kade was in this class. The others barely showed any interest in cooking.
Micah had started his music lessons, which surprised me since he hadn’t shown any interest in it before. Ella had also elected to attend music class. Alex—no surprise—was on the lower level in the greenhouses with Jaxson. If and when those interests changed, the children could change their electives next semester.
Drake came to our table and gave us the ingredients to the cake they were baking today. The laminated recipe was taped onto the prep table along with a stand mixer. It was a basic recipe for a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream icing.
“Is this a cup?” A little girl of around six held up the half-a-cup measuring cup.
I shook my head with a smile. “No, it’s the larger one,” I said loudly enough that the other four at the table could hear. I held up the measuring cup and pointed at the handle. “See? It says one on the handle.”
“Can we eat this when we’re done?” another younger boy asked hopefully.
I smiled. “That’s the plan. We’re going to let you taste a small sample of it after it’s complete, but the rest of it will be served for dessert tonight,” I explained.
They quietly cheered. I wasn’t going to add that Drake and his staff were also going to verify if the cakes were even edible before serving them. We expected a few of them may not be, especially if this was their first time in a kitchen.
