by Bethany Aan
“A ship?” the medic asked, his head snapping up, hope shining in his eyes. Hunter grinned lopsidedly at him.
“We don’t know which one yet, so don’t let it get out, but Ri made contact with one of our refugee transports tonight.”
The warrior’s smile was brilliant, and he bowed his head toward her in respect as he hurried to follow orders.
“I was asleep and dreaming,” Arianna told Jace. “And I think I was touching Hunter. Our energies seem to grow quite a bit when we combine them.”
“That makes sense,” Jace murmured, flicking toggles and punching up commands on various pieces of equipment. “What we know of the brain of a Reader is that it somehow is able to attract and hold energy that ‘regular’ brains can’t. We still don’t know why, but we know that it does, and we can measure it. I’ve never heard of one Reader’s power enhancing another’s, though. That’s new. Hunter and Sean are the first we know of that is occasionally able to take pain from the injured.”
“I can do that, too,” Ri admitted slowly. The men both looked at her. She shrugged. “I’ve always been able to heal. Usually just in times of extreme duress. My baby brother once got stung by a hornet. He was deathly allergic to bee stings. He was going to die. There was no way to get an ambulance, a medic, there in time.”
“What did you do?” Hunter asked curiously.
“I picked him up, held him as tightly as I could, and prayed with all my heart for help.” She smiled at the memory. “This brilliant, white light shot down through my head, all the way down to my toes, encompassing both him and me. Then it left, a split second later, and when it did… there was no bee sting. No swelling, no anaphylactic shock, nothing. My brother was fine.”
“And you?” Hunter asked gently, sensing more. She frowned and shook her head.
“I smashed the hell out of the hornet, for stinging him. I was a nervous wreck. He was only five, so he didn’t really think much of it. But I knew what could have happened, and what did. When our mom came home from work, he told her about it. She… didn’t take it well. Things like that just aren’t accepted in our world.”
“But you saved his life,” Jax pointed out, looking confused. “On our world, you would be considered a hero.”
“On mine, people prayed for my wicked soul, because only God is supposed to be able to heal. So since I’m not God, they figured the power that saved him had to have come from evil.”
“That’s idiotic,” Hunter snorted. “All power comes from the gods. It is how you choose to use it that creates good or evil.”
“See,” Arianna said, throwing up her hands in frustration. “That’s what I’ve been saying for years! You get it!”
“Of course I do,” he said, grinning at her. “But then, I am a healer, as well.”
“Okay, if you two are done admiring each other’s godlike statuses, I would like to do this,” Jace said, chuckling. Hunter and Ri grinned at each other, then sat on the scanner as Jace instructed them to do. “So, you were asleep, Ri, and apparently snuggling.”
“Yup,” she agreed happily, nudging Hunter’s arm with her shoulder. She felt his contentment through the touch.
“It seems that each time we share energy,” Hunter said slowly, analytically, “Our connection gets deeper, stronger.”
“Is that normal?” Jace asked, looking at his brother. Hunter shook his head.
“When I Read with Mom or Dad, Sean, or any of the others, we just… touched minds. With Ri, it’s different. It’s like our minds… intertwine with each other, almost like we have the same brain, the same soul, for just a moment.”
“Is it the same with you?” Jace asked Arianna softly. She looked up at Hunter, sharing an intimate look with him.
“Yes.”
“Must be nice,” Jace sighed beneath his breath. Ri felt the stab of envy he felt for his brother and mate. But he shook that off and forced his attention back to the matter at hand. “What I think I’d like to do is take scans of each of you at rest, then while Reading a normal person, Reading each other, then Reading each other while touching. The last scan will be of the two of you, joined mentally, with Ri trying to reach our mystery commander out there in space, if possible.”
“If I can,” Ri promised.
For an hour, they took all the readings that Jace wanted, repeating some exercises several times just to be sure he was getting accurate results. Jax sat at the main station, taking notes on all of the data while Jace studied the scans. Finally, for the last scan, he had them both lie on the wide scanner bed, facing one another. Hunter, recalling how he’d sent Arianna the coordinates, reached up and held her face between his big palms, resting his forehead to hers. Jace started the scan immediately, then told Ri to try to project herself out toward the ship.
Closing her eyes, Arianna opened her mind to Hunter’s energy, allowed it to swirl into her, flow through her, expand to fit her body, then she released her own, augmenting his. They fed on each other’s energy that way for a moment, letting it build. Ri focused on the touch of the mind out in space, remembering what it felt like, how it looked inside her head, the brilliance, the shimmering vibrancy of the colors. With a shout she didn’t know she let loose, she sent her mind soaring through the atmosphere, out into the vastness of space, in the direction she had gone before.
Her mind homed in on the other as though it was a beacon shining brightly through the void. With an exultant burst of energy, she found the commander of the ship in his office off the bridge. She felt his surprised smile as he recognized the touch of her mind, and she allowed him to sense her return grin. Wordlessly assuring him that they were just doing an experiment, she flitted about in his head for a moment. She got an intense feeling of desire from him, the need to meet her, to see her in person. She laughed and let him know that it would be soon. Then she was able to focus on his eyes. Just his eyes. Strange, that she could see everything else, but not his face.
You have Hunter’s eyes! she thought.
The man sat up straighter, startled at her revelation.
You can think in words? he tentatively asked in return, then... Hunter? You know him?
He is my mate, she told him proudly. So is Jace. Do you know him, too?
The man didn’t answer for a moment. When he did, she felt the raw emotion in him and wondered at it. She got the sense that he was swallowing a lump in his throat. Before she could analyze the feelings, her energy began to flag, and she sensed Hunter’s energy growing weaker.
I have to go back, she said, regretfully. It takes a lot of energy to do this, apparently.
But you’ve only just got here, the man’s mental voice was soft, regretful.
Hunter is grounding me, feeding me energy. He can’t keep that up for very long. I have to go. I’m sorry.
Wait! His mind called out to her. Tell Hunter and Jace… keep their curiosity in check until I can come keep an eye on them.
Who are you?
Just tell them that. Then you’ll know. There was a sweet mental caress, then amusement. Their mate, huh? Now I really can’t wait to meet you!
Why?
His answer was a chuckle that for some reason left her both unsettled and excited at the same time.
When she drew back into her body, Hunter was pale and breathing heavily, shaking with the effort of grounding her. Arianna felt fine though. Realizing he needed help, she quickly urged some of her energy into him, bolstering him until he looked better and was almost back to normal.
“Wow,” she breathed against him once he had recovered a bit.
“Yeah,” he agreed, holding her close. “Wow.”
Jace let them sit up while waiting for the results of the scan, and looked at them expectantly.
“Hunter, did you hear the message he sent?” Arianna asked, cocking her head at him. He shook his own.
“It’s like before…I could barely sense him at all. I know it’s someone I know, but other than that…”
“Maybe this will help. H
e said to tell you, both of you, to keep your curiosity in check until he can come keep an eye on you.”
The men froze. Hunter’s face showed his shock as he looked at his brother. Jace’s eyes were shiny with… hope? She sensed their desire to believe what she’d just said, but also their unwillingness to hope too much.
“He has Hunter’s eyes,” she felt compelled to tell them, for some reason thinking it would make a difference.
“Sean!” Hunter breathed, his face dissolving into a brilliant smile of pure joy. He clasped Jace to him, the brothers exchanging huge bear hugs. “It’s Sean!”
Jace and Hunter swept Ri into their arms, holding her tightly, murmuring over and over again their thanks for finding their brother. When they let her go and stepped back, she was staring at them.
“Brother?” she whispered. The men nodded. Ri’s brain called up the memories of Hunter at the cemetery, telling her of his former team, how it had originally included all four of his brothers.
And that in his society, teams tended to share their lives with one woman. She stared up at her mates, her throat working though no sound came out.
“Um, guys?” she was finally able to croak, “Does this mean that I’m going to have another mate?”
The echo of Sean’s mental chuckle reverberated through her mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Hunter promised to answer her questions about their mating traditions, but Jace insisted on looking at the brain scans first. Ri frowned at him, knowing they were stalling.
“I think I’ve figured something out,” he said excitedly, bringing up several scans. Ri and Hunter crowded together to see the screen. Jace grinned at them. “The one on the right is Hunter’s brain. It’s a bit dimmer than yours, Ri, which is no more than I suspected.”
He got a grunt from Hunter and a scowl that promised mayhem of a brotherly fashion, once they were done here. Ri choked back a chuckle.
“But look at this area, right here.” Jace tapped the screen, enlarging the images on both pictures, showing the same areas of the brain. Ri narrowed her eyes.
“Mine is really bright. What does that mean for your scans? Back on Earth, I think it means empty spaces.”
“The bright areas are where there is a special kind of electrical activity, the kind that we associate with what you call ‘psychic’ powers. Our physicians know that this particular kind of energy is unique in Readers, and is capable of sort of... absorbing similar energies from those around you. So, even though I don’t have Reader abilities,” Jace said by way of explanation, “My brain still emits this wavelength.
“Most peoples’ minds put it out, but can’t pick it up. But Readers can. And once they’re trained, Readers can also send that energy back out, altered, so that they can subtly touch others’ minds. You and Hunter are able to help ease pain, calm people down, shut them up… That ‘mom voice’ you use sometimes, Ri, is a great example. When I had you use it earlier, the activity in this area of your brain spiked, flashed brilliantly. Hunter’s did the same thing when I told him to give orders like he meant it. But his wasn’t nearly as bright.”
“Which is strange,” Hunter said thoughtfully, “Since I am many years older than Ri, and have been trained to use my Reader abilities from a very young age.”
“Exactly,” Jace said, looking at Ri with new respect and a bit of awe. “I would love to perform more experiments at some point, but for right now, I want to point out that, if you are indeed able to have children, Ri, their brains could, theoretically, be a wonderful mutation of your species and ours.”
“Meaning Hunter’s children could have the same enhanced abilities that I do?” she asked. Hunter found her hand and held it, sending her the joy he felt at the thought of such a thing happening.
“Yes,” Jace said simply. “Now though, there is one other possibility, and we will have to see what comes of this, but…”
“What?” Hunter asked, arching a brow at his brother. Jace shrugged and sat back, looking at Hunter soberly.
“Sean.”
Hunter’s hand clenched around Arianna’s, almost to the point of pain. She felt his consternation, but he blocked his thoughts before she could figure out the source of it.
“We agreed that we would be her only mates,” Hunter growled. Jace nodded.
“Yes, but when we did so, it was with the belief that all of our team was… gone. Sean’s alive.”
Hunter made a frustrated noise, then rose and started pacing the room.
“He will expect at least to get to know her, you know,” Jace said. Ri glared at him.
“So does she have any say in any of this?” she asked acerbically, “Or does she just go with the flow and accept a complete stranger as a mate, just because you guys happen to share DNA?”
Jax, who had been helping out all night, snorted before he could cover the sound. When Jace and Hunter turned their glares on him, he shrugged with a huge grin on his face.
“You have something to add, warrior?” Hunter growled. The man shook his head, chuckling.
“No, Commander. I was just thinking how wise my leaders are, to have chosen the woman they did for their mate.”
Well, hell. What could they say to that? Ri grinned at the warrior. He gave her a fond salute then went back to studying the other data Jace had asked him to look at.
“Doc,” he said after a moment, interrupting the glaring contest Arianna was having with her mates. They were desperately trying to figure out what to tell her about their brother and welcomed the distraction. “I found something interesting.”
“Put it on the main,” Jace said, turning back to the larger screen before him. Ri couldn’t make any of it out, since it was in their language. She decided then and there that she was going to learn their written language.
“It’s obvious that when both the Commander and his lady-“
“Hunter and Ri, please,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t think we need to stand on formality right now. We’ll be here all night.”
“Uh… Hunter and Ri… When they were both Reading, look at the energy levels.” He pointed to a particular peak. “This peak, though, is from when they were Reading each other. The energy is more than double what it was when they were Reading one of us regular guys.”
“I see that,” Jace murmured, scrolling through the results quickly. Ri saw more spikes, each one higher than the last, and figured that those correlated with the other experiments Jace had told them to perform, each one requiring more energy activity.
“So when Hunter grounded me and I went ‘astral’,” she said, “What happened? The chart ends.”
“Your output was immeasurable by our current equipment,” Jace said succinctly. He pointed to a straight line that ended at the edge of the chart, then showed her another peak, much lower, but still higher than all the others. “This is Hunter’s peak. I don’t think he’s ever measured that high before, but now that he knows he has the capability, I doubt he’ll stop there. Or let us forget it.”
Arianna doubted it, too. Hunter’s smug grin confirmed both their suspicions.
“But yours, Ri… we don’t have the ability to map that at the moment.”
“Sir, I can easily go in and change the test parameters, if you like, to allow for exponentials.”
Hunter and Jace both looked at Jax with a bit of surprise. He grinned and shrugged.
“You guys aren’t the only ones who can master lots of different subjects. I have been working toward mine in computer science.”
Jace smiled at him proudly and nodded.
“That won’t be ready for several hours,” the warrior said. “So if you want to take a break until then…”
“I think we should,” Ri said. She felt wonderful, but she sensed that Hunter was a lot more drained than he was letting on. He shot her a rueful grimace, his eyes asking her to keep that knowledge to herself. She smiled softly and caressed him with her mind. His eyes softened and warmed. “I don’t know about thes
e big guys, but I’m starving.”
“Ah, our mate desires nourishment,” Hunter said, helping her down off the desk she’d been sitting on. “Jace, are you coming? I need to know whether to fix food for two or three.”
“Ah… two,” Jace said, never taking his eyes from the data. “Jax and I will send someone to get us something when we are ready for a break. You two get some rest. I want to do some more work later this afternoon with you.”
Ri leaned down to hug his shoulders, pressing a kiss to his cheek and snuggling for just a minute. He bent his head down and kissed her forearm where it crossed over his collarbone, then leaned back against her for a long moment.
“You are remarkable,” he breathed so that only she could hear. She smiled against his ear and kissed his neck.
“So are you,” she whispered back. Squeezing his shoulders before releasing him, she sighed. “Don’t work too hard, love.”
“I won’t,” he assured her absently.
She knew he was lying, but she smiled as she left him, anyhow. He was so cute when he was geeking out.
“Now, about your brother,” Arianna said a little while later, once she and Hunter had finished a light breakfast out on the balcony. The stars were still out, though a faint sheen of purple was edging the mountains to the east.
“Jace?” he asked rather absently.
She rolled her eyes and moved to sit on his lap. He blinked at her when she hitched her skirt up and straddled his thighs, looping her arms over his shoulders and clasping her fingers behind his neck. Leaning over, she kissed him. Not hard enough to raise his ardor, but enough to focus his attention to her, instead of whatever was occupying his mind.
“No, silly,” she laughed lightly. “Sean.”
“Sean’s alive,” Hunter said in wonder, his hands moving to clasp her hips. He grinned up at her. “You found him.”
“He found me, Hunter,” she reminded him. At his questioning look, she continued. “You remember more than a month ago, when we felt that presence on your ship?”
