She sighed, opened her eyes, rolled over and stared up at the ceiling of her bus. She knew they had to be in the Red Rocks parking lot or the bus would still be in motion and Ilya would still be inside with her. Holding her arm up, she opened her fingers and stared at her palm. There was no visible mark, but she felt the faint itch that was often present, reminding her that Ilya had zapped her with something she couldn't get rid of. She hadn't realized how powerful it was, or just how the mark had tied them together. She ran the pad of her finger lightly over her palm. Nothing happened. Nothing at all.
With a little frown, Joley sat up and shoved back her hair. She needed to make her list of pros and cons. And the pros needed to outweigh the cons when she discussed it with her sisters, because she was already lost. She paced across the room to the small kitchen to put on the kettle while she got ready for the sound check. They only had a few hours to get things pulled together for tonight's concert. It was difficult to do two shows in a row, but Red Rocks was worth it to her. She already wanted to go outside and just breathe in the air. She was definitely going to go running and do a little exploring, as Red Rocks had to be one of the coolest places on earth.
She could still feel Ilya's presence in her bus while she showered. Had Steve seen him when he left? She doubted it. Ilya wasn't the kind of man to be seen when he didn't want to be, and somehow she was fairly certain Ilya would try to protect her reputation. And that was going on the pro side of her list. She was definitely making a list of pros and cons to determine if she should sleep with Ilya Prakenskii, because listing them was the only sane thing to do.
She sat down with a cup of tea, her pen between her fingers, drumming on the tabletop and trying to remember all the cons she'd thought of the day before. There had been a lot of them, but that thing he'd done with her palm had tipped the scales right back in the pro direction. In fact, the cons seemed to be permanently wiped from her mind.
Sarah. Before making up her mind one way or the other about Ilya, Joley should discuss the situation with Sarah. After all, she was the oldest and she really gave good advice--even when no one wanted to hear it.
Joley reached for her cell phone, then hesitated. She had time to do a little exploring and she definitely needed exercise. Maybe calling Sarah right now wasn't such a good idea. Everything was so crazy and she really was mixed up; nothing would make sense. There was no way she'd do more than babble and stammer, and she needed to be coherent and thinking when she talked to her sisters about Ilya. Now was not the right time. Besides, they'd talk too long, and then she wouldn't have time to go exploring before she had to do the sound check...
Her cell phone rang and she flipped it open. Joley held the phone away from her ear as Sarah's voice blasted her. "Joley Elizabeth Drake, just what are you up to?"
Joley strove for complete innocence. "I have no idea what you're talking about, I just woke up, and at this precise moment I'm drinking a cup of tea and making out an important list."
"I'm not buying that. You were going to call me and then you decided not to and I could feel the backlash of guilt. What's going on and what do you have to feel guilty over?"
Joley rolled her eyes, thankful her eldest sister couldn't see her. Sarah knew all kinds of things before they happened. She always knew before someone called. "Well, I did want your advice on something, but I just woke up and wasn't certain what time it was, so I didn't want to chance calling and waking everyone up if it was early." She drummed her fingers on the table, looking for a way to distract her sister. "How's Damon doing?"
Joley had grown very fond of Sarah's fiance. He was a good man, quiet but brilliant, and he obviously adored Sarah, and the minute anyone mentioned him, Sarah was distracted.
"He's wonderful. Libby has spent some time trying to help his hip and leg, but the injury is old enough that she's not getting the results she'd like. But Damon says there isn't as much pain. He's in San Francisco today, working on some project I'd rather not know about."
"I'm so glad Libby's able to help him a little. He's a good man, Sarah."
"Yes, he is. And speaking of men, I'm sensing this problem you have involves one," Sarah said, returning like a dog with a bone to the point of her call.
Joley winced a little at the note of suspicion in her sister's voice. On the blank paper in front of her she wrote out Pros and Cons with a line separating them. Under cons she wrote, Gets me in trouble with my sister--received lecture. Because it was coming--and Sarah's lectures were never pleasant, because she knew exactly what to say to make a person feel guilty.
"Joley?" Sarah prompted. "Tell me what's going on."
"Well..." Joley tried to hedge, but that wasn't too smart with Sarah. "It's just that I've been considering having a relationship and I'm trying to be practical." She was fairly certain she heard a snort, and then Sarah was coughing. "Did you choke on something?"
"Sorry. You're being practical--over a man?"
"Hey! I don't think that comment was strictly necessary." Joley was indignant.
There was a small silence. "Really? Who is he?"
Joley pressed the point of the pencil so hard into the paper it broke. Of course Sarah would ask. "Ilya Prakenskii."
There was a silence. Joley felt the gathering explosion and rushed into an explanation. "I don't think he's any of the things everyone says he is. I really don't. He's just too--nice." Even she winced when she said the word. Nice wasn't a description one could use for Ilya.
"He's dangerous, Joley. Dangerous is not nice. You stay away from him."
Her palm itched and she rubbed it over her thigh. "He has all the same gifts that our family has, Sarah--but the gifts are little different. When my magic touches his, or our auras get close, they merge and flow together. I can feel the difference in the way he summons and uses energy."
"I noticed that when he was holding Hannah to him," Sarah agreed. "And Hannah spent a lot of time connected to him, and she tried examining the way he gathered and cast energy, but he's cut off. His aura was too dark, hiding everything from her."
"Well, it's definitely different. I know you've been studying the books our ancestors have on the ancient ways, and I wondered if you ever came across anything in our history about marks." Joley drummed out a nervous rhythm with the pencil on the table. "Maybe something to do with binding two people together, or claiming, or I don't know, anything, any mention at all."
"Are you talking about your hand? Describe the mark."
There was comfort in her sister's matter-of-fact, practical voice. That was Sarah, getting to the heart of the matter and gathering information.
"That's the problem, Sarah. There is no visible mark. I can't describe something to you I can't see. There are times when my palm itches and other times I think I see a faint color, like a bluish-purple, but it's never strong enough to be certain and it fades quickly." With a little sigh, she took her pencil sharpener out of the drawer beneath the table and began shaving a new point on the pencil. She had the feeling she'd be doing it a lot.
"When you do see the color, is it linear? Vertical? Horizontal, or all over the place?"
"It's in the exact center of my palm and it appears almost to be two circles intertwined, but that could be my imagination. Most of the time there's nothing there at all." She examined her palm. It looked smooth and unblemished.
"Joley." Sarah bit her name out between her teeth. "Why didn't you ever tell us about this?" She sighed when Joley didn't answer. "I want you to describe to me how you got it again. Exactly. Every detail you can remember."
Joley resisted the urge to hang up. The mark was private. Very intimate. And she felt almost as if she was betraying Ilya by describing the events to her sister--although they'd all been there when it happened. "We were at the Caspar Inn dancing. Prakenskii was there and he made me mad. Nikitin had forced me to sing and then he wanted to meet with me. I said no and Prakenskii turned his back to me and was walking away. I pushed energy at his back. It was just a little shove and maybe I should
n't have done it, but he'd been lecturing me and disapproving of me all evening. I was sick of him. I was only trying to make him stumble, but the energy came back on me. I heard crackling and popping, like electricity, and I could see sparks all around my hand. My palm burned, for just a moment, really burned, deep inside. I remember I sort of yelped and held my hand."
Sarah sighed heavily again. "The girls shielded you from him, but he didn't even turn around."
"That's right. My hand hurt so badly, and we decided to leave. I was angry enough for a confrontation and Abbey was worried, everyone was, because he seemed to be so powerful. As I walked past him to leave, he reached out and took my hand. His thumb slid over my palm just once, and he let go, but as his skin touched mine and continued a brushing movement, it was as if he wiped away all the pain." Even as she described the gesture to her sister, Joley felt that amazing touch all over again, the single brush of skin to skin that sent flames racing through her body, marking her inside and out.
"When did you first notice the discoloration?" Sarah's question drew Joley back from the memories.
"In the beginning, my hand just kept itching like wounds do when they're healing. Eventually that stopped--now the itching only comes back when he's near, or when I am thinking about him, or when he's talking telepathically to me. And recently I discovered that there's some connection between the mark he put on me and the two of us. It connects us..." She searched for the right word. Just thinking about what Ilya did with that mark and his mouth left her damp and needy all over again. "It connects us in a physical way. I suspect it enables him to speak telepathically to me over greater distances."
There was no way she was going to admit to Sarah that the connection was sexual, that Ilya had given her an orgasm simply by manipulating that spot on her hand.
Sarah made a little noise that alarmed Joley.
"What? Have you read about this?" She carefully drew two circles intertwined right above the words Pros and Cons.
"I've read references, pretty vague ones. There are a few entries in some of the diaries about a male line with similar gifts. Once in a while one of our ancestors crossed one of theirs."
Joley rubbed her palm along her thigh, then realized that rather than trying to brush the mark off as she used to do, she was now brushing her palm slowly back and forth in a caressing motion. She snatched her hand back. "That doesn't sound particularly bad."
"Well, at one of the points when the male line clashed with our line, it was because a woman had come to the Drake women and claimed someone had marked her with a magical symbol, two circles intertwined. She claimed it bound her to this man and she suspected he was a witch or a sorcerer. She seemed frightened. Of course they took her in."
"I don't like the tone of your voice. This doesn't have a good ending, does it?" Joley asked. She pressed her hand tighter against her body, suddenly afraid. It was one thing to contemplate having an affair by her own choice, but it was something altogether different to think she didn't have free will in the matter.
"Well, even their combined powers and skills couldn't break the bond between the man and the woman. No one knew what happened--just that she got up one night and left the house. He was waiting for her. She went off with him and they never heard of her again."
Joley took a deep breath. "So there is some documentation about another family having similar powers to ours, only male."
"Yes, although I can't find anything in our time, or even Mom's. I can call Mom and ask her if she's read or heard anything more. She always studied the history of our family, and I don't have near the knowledge she has."
Joley swept her hand through her hair, twirled strands around her finger and bit down on her lip, trying to decide. "Ask her, Sarah, but..." She trailed off, not wanting to alarm her sister any more. Just the fact that she would consult her mother would elevate Sarah's warning radar.
"You're in way over your head, aren't you, Joley?" Sarah asked.
Joley rubbed her hand along her thigh again. "I don't know. But whatever mark you read about is on my palm, and I'm fairly certain it has somehow, chemically or magically or both, tied me to Ilya Prakenskii." On the paper in front of her, she drew a double circle on the pro side started to draw a line through it and then left it.
"And you're contemplating a relationship with him?"
Joley had known Sarah wouldn't let her off that easy. She sighed, knowing that if she wanted help she would have to confess, tell the absolute truth and hope her sisters would think of a way to save her.
"I'd have to say it's too late for contemplation. I'm obsessed. I wouldn't admit that to anyone but one of my sisters, but he's all I think about day or night. It's more than obsession. I swear, Sarah, it's like he's become the blood in my veins." She gave a small, derisive laugh and drew her fingertip over the circles on the paper. "How cheesy is that? He's the air in my lungs. I breathe him in and out with every breath I take." And she was cold and lonely without him, without the heat of his body, the heat of his gaze, his voice in her head driving her crazy. "It's like we're merging together. You know me. I may have bad taste in men, but I've never been obsessive and I've never needed a man. Ever. But I need him."
"If Prakenskii is bothering you, Damon and I can fly out today if we have to and get you through the rest of the tour."
"No, it isn't like that. It's more me than him."
"I can't imagine that. You don't exactly chase men, Joley. They chase you."
"I threw myself at him the other night and he turned me down," Joley confessed. "And he spent last night with me and didn't do much but get me to sleep."
Again there was a small silence. Joley counted to ten while her words sank in. She imagined Sarah with a little frown on her face.
"You don't sleep with anyone in the room. You never did even as a child."
"I know. But I did last night. He said he couldn't stand me not sleeping, and he was going to guard me so I could just relax and sleep all night--and I did."
"And he didn't touch you?"
"He kissed me."
"And?"
"Rockets. Holy cow, Sarah, he's like the greatest kisser of all time."
"That's not good."
"Actually I told him I was putting that in the con section of my list, but he said I couldn't." She couldn't help the bubble of laughter in her voice. She touched her lips, tingling at the memory.
"I'm going to talk to Mom immediately." Sarah sounded more than a little alarmed. "Don't do anything stupid, Joley. If Prakenskii really comes from this other lineage, you could be in real trouble. In the diary, our ancestors wrote that the woman who came to them was terrified of the man who marked her. She was very religious and thought maybe he had made a pact with the devil. The house should have protected her along with all the protections the Drakes could muster for her, yet for some reason, she left the house in the middle of the night and went to him. That doesn't make sense when she was safe."
Joley could have told her why. If the man had been like Prakenskii, he had seduced her with his voice. He had pursued her day and night, until she was in such a state of arousal, she couldn't fight him anymore. "I'm going to be careful. Find out everything you can and call me. I hear a lot of commotion outside. They'll be setting up soon and calling me in for a sound check and I'd like to get in a run at least."
"I love you, Joley. If you need me to help you fight him, I'll come. All of us will."
"I'm good for now. Love you right back. Kiss Damon for me." Joley hit the end call button and sat for a moment, pressing the cell phone to her chin. She had no idea what she was going to do. On the con side of her list she wrote, Scares the hell out of me.
She broke the lead in the pencil twice as she wrote out The hand thing. She wrote it half on the pro side and half on the con side. Frowning, she was about to add the kiss right in the middle between the two columns as well. And while she was thinking about it, she was pretty sure talking telepathically to her day and night, in an attempt to s
educe her, had to go smack in the middle also. She hadn't exactly consulted Sarah over that little piece of information. The pencil snapped in half. Joley took it as a sign she needed to go running.
It was bright outside. She hadn't pulled back the privacy sliders in the bus, and the light from the sun nearly blinded her. Whipping out her sunglasses, she pushed them onto her nose and stepped into the parking lot. Steve would have a fit that she went running without him to guard her, but he had to be tired from driving all night and she didn't want to disturb him.
She looked carefully around her, her breath catching in her throat. Red Rocks was beautiful. The bus was parked in the lot behind the amphitheater, and she looked up at the surrounding natural walls of towering rock that always took her breath. It was as if nature had created an amphitheater with a perfect acoustic sound just for the sheer love of hearing music and then had provided the most beautiful backdrop it could offer. For someone like Joley who was all about sound and nature, it was almost perfection on earth. She loved the natural rock formations, the layers and layers of sandstone that had been there millions of years, slowly rising until they were the majestical towers of red rock creating the walls of the theater.
Joley took a deep breath and let it out. Coming to Red Rocks always revitalized her. The sandstone formations, the prehistoric footprints of time rising above her like a cathedral, were inspiring on every level. It had been difficult to talk everyone into a back-to-back concert, but she was grateful she had. She walked toward the stage, where she could hear a commotion as the crew began to set up.
She noticed a couple of Nikitin's guards with dogs searching the rows of the amphitheater. He must have decided to attend, and his security was doing a sweep right along with hers. Loud voices coming from behind several crates attracted her attention. A few of the crew looked uneasy when they saw her, glancing hastily away or acknowledging her with a slight nod of the head. Curious, she moved closer to the commotion.
Jerry and Brian had evidently caught up with Dean, and the discussion didn't appear to be going very well. Dean looked angry, and he was gesturing obscenely at Brian. Joley had to fight her natural inclination to go join the fray. It hadn't been fair to force Jerry and Brian to confront Dean. She was the one who had forbidden underage groupies at the parties. It was her rule and ultimately her decision to fire Dean if he had broken it. She was putting her manager and Brian, her best friend, in the position of looking like the bad guys. She really had become a diva, although, in the music business, everyone knew it was always the star's decision that carried the weight.
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