by Rebecca York
Doe she really believe that?
What does it matter? Hurry and get out of there. You don’t have much time.
Before Sophia could ask another question, the communication snapped off.
Jason stood up and started looking for the clothing they’d discarded. “Nice of her to warn us. Get dressed.”
She pushed herself off the bed, trying to take it all in. Her words came out in a stammer. “If . . . if . . . I run away, I . . . may never get back to the order.”
“And if you stay here and let them take you captive, you will probably never see me again. Or your sister.”
“But Cynthia gave us twenty-four hours.”
“We don’t know what happened back there, or who talked to her. I’m sorry. She could be using the excuse that we came to my house. All I know for sure is that Cynthia must be too unsure of her own power to give up control of the situation.”
The harsh words landed against her like stones—because they were both frightening and true.
Still, she couldn’t stop herself from saying. “Are you asking me to choose between you and the Sisterhood?”
He kept his gaze fixed on her. “I’m not asking anything. I’m laying out your choices.” As he spoke, he pulled on his clothing, then strode out of the room.
Panic was like a thick cloud, choking off her breath and her thoughts.
She reached for the clothing she’d so carelessly thrown off. A few minutes ago, she’d thought she and Jason had time to find Tessa. Time to work out their relationship. Suddenly she didn’t have either luxury.
She stumbled out of the bedroom to find Jason standing rigid as he stared out the window at a cloud of dust advancing toward the house.
He looked back at her. “Too bad I don’t live farther from the spa.”
She nodded.
“I’m getting the hell away before she carries out her threat to operate on my mind.”
“You said you wouldn’t run away.”
“That was before she changed the rules. Do you want to come with me—or stay here and wait for Cynthia?” he asked in a voice that made her chest tighten painfully.
“I want to go with you.”
“Then we’d better make tracks.”
She looked at the dust cloud. “They’ll see where we’ve gone if we take my SUV.”
“Yeah.”
He paused for a moment. “I could leave a nasty surprise for them.”
“Like what?”
“I could blow up the house the moment someone opens the door.”
“No!”
“All right. Your call. Come on.” He strode to the closet and picked up a backpack, which he hooked over his shoulder with one strap. Then he hurried to the rear door, and she followed. Shielded from view by the house, he scooped her up and slung her over his shoulder so that her head rested on the top of the pack.
“This won’t be the most comfortable ride you ever had,” he said, as he clamped his arms over her back and legs.
She gasped as he began to run away from the house, into the desert. No ordinary man could have carried her like this and run in the heat of the Arizona sun. Not for long. But he was no ordinary man.
As he moved between the cactus plants and the low trees, putting distance between himself and the house, she realized he must have been prepared to get away in a hurry. Maybe not from the Ionians but from the man they had met in the desert. The man who had abducted Tessa.
The hot air rushed past her, stinging her eyes. The bright sun beat down on her head and shoulders as Jason ran into the wilderness.
How long could he keep up this pace?
She raised her head and looked back toward the house. He’d said he could make it blow up. And he’d said he wouldn’t do it. Was he telling the truth, or telling her what she wanted to hear?
PULLING to a halt, Cynthia climbed quickly out of the car and stood with her hands on her hips, looking around the property that Jason Tyron had bought.
It hadn’t been difficult to locate this place, once she’d known the name Jason Tyron. And once Eugenia had admitted they’d gone to his house instead of the cave.
From the outside, it appeared to be a modest abode, not what she’d expect from a Minot. Was he really different from the rest of them, or was he just trying to make sure they thought so?
Ophelia, Vanessa, Rhoda, and Lysandra joined her in the yard. She’d asked for volunteers to come here with her, and they’d agreed. They had always been loyal, sisters she could count on in a crisis.
Ophelia pointed to the SUV. “They’re still here.”
“Maybe.” Cynthia looked toward the house, wondering if Jason or Sophia would rush out. She directed the women to circle the building, assigning each of them a position. When she judged everyone was in place, she knocked firmly on the door. There was no answer.
“Come out,” she called in a confident voice. “We have you surrounded.”
Again, nobody answered.
She took a deep breath, wondering what she’d find inside. When she reached for the knob, it turned easily. Was this a trap?
She wasn’t going to let the others know that she was worried about that. Or anything else. Like the conversation she’d had with Sophia about the missing Ionians. She’d known about them, of course. It was written down in the secret notes that one high priestess passed to another.
As far as she was concerned, all three women had fared badly. But she wasn’t prepared to discuss their fates with anyone.
Switching her attention to the present problem, she looked around the house. The living room was empty, and she took in details. He was an orderly man. And he’d made himself comfortable here.
“Hello?”
No answer.
With a growing feeling of disquiet, she hurried through the house. She could see that Sophia and Jason had been in bed together. The bedding was in disarray and the room smelled like sex.
But they were gone.
She ran to the back door, and threw it open, startling Vanessa.
“They’re not inside?”
“No.”
Shading her eyes, she scanned the desert. Far away she thought she saw a dust trail. Too small to be made by a vehicle.
Vanessa came up beside her, following her gaze.
“That must be him. On foot. Did he take Sophia with him?”
“She’d never keep up.”
“He could carry her.”
“And run at full speed?” Too bad they hadn’t taken his powers away.
“Or is she hiding around here?”
Anger bubbled inside Cynthia. Anger that Jason Tyron, and probably Sophia, had gotten the better of her. Had one of her sisters warned them?
Contemplating the act of disloyalty made her hands clench. If someone had aided them, she’d find out who it was and punish her.
Could it have been Eugenia?
The notion that a sister of Eugenia’s status would do such a thing made Cynthia want to scream, but she controlled the show of emotion. This was no time to fall apart. She had to solve the problem.
Struggling to speak normally, she said, “We’d better find out if she’s here. And we’d better not take too long. I want to discover where he went. If we don’t find Sophia, we will join our minds in a wider search.”
LOOKING back, Sophia saw that Jason was making a trail in the red dirt. Someone could follow, but not in a vehicle, because the route he was taking wound around the red rocks, into gullies, and up the other side.
He rounded an outcropping of rock and stopped, dragging in lungfuls of air as he set her down, then looked back the way they’d come.
“No cloud of dust behind us. It looks like we got away—for the moment.”
“You can’t keep this up.”
“We’re almost there.” Taking the pack from his shoulder, he pulled out two bottles of water and handed her one. They both drank thirstily.
He rested for a few minutes, then held out his arms. She knew he was pla
nning to pick her up again. Instead, she clasped him tightly to herself, hanging on with every ounce of strength she possessed. She had abandoned her sisters and come with him, and she needed reassurances that it was the right thing to do.
When she raised her face, he lowered his and their lips met in a frantic kiss. As they broke apart, he said, “I know this is hard for you.”
She nodded wordlessly, still trying to come to grips with what had happened.
“We have to trust each other,” he said, and she knew it was true. Certainly, he had to trust her, because she could reach out toward her sisters at any time.
When he picked her up again, she could feel that he had less energy than before, but he started off at a brisk pace, changing direction, angling off to the right. After another fifteen minutes, they came to a small grove of cedar trees, where he set her down.
Moving into the trees, he pulled away loose branches he’d stuck in among the limbs to reveal a jeep.
“Your getaway car?”
“Yeah.”
They climbed in, and he tossed the pack in back, then started off across country again. But now the route was manageable by a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Ahead of them she saw a lot of green vegetation that told her they were coming to a creek. They forded it and kept driving, along the riverbank until they pulled up beside a low log cabin nestled under sycamore trees.
“This is yours, too?”
“Uh-huh. While I was looking for a home base, I was also scouting around for a good place to lie low.”
He drove around back to a shelter where he could park the jeep.
She followed him to the cabin door and then into a room about fifteen feet square with a bed, two chairs, a desk, a stone fireplace, and a small kitchen unit along one wall. “Sorry, the bathroom’s behind the carport,” he said.
“I can handle that,” she allowed, looking around at the minimal accommodations. They were rough but comfortable enough.
Crossing to the kitchen area, she opened a cabinet and found it stocked with the kind of dehydrated food someone might pack on a camping expedition.
Without turning around, she asked, “You think we’re safe here?”
She wanted reassurance, but he wasn’t going to simply relieve her anxiety.
“I hope so. But there are several problems. I’m going to assume that the Ionians are using every method they can to find us. Which includes their mental powers. If we try to send our minds out toward Tessa, one of your sisters may pick that up.”
“Then we should get out of here. I mean out of the area. The farther away we are, the harder it will be to find us that way.”
“We can’t. Where do you suggest we go? South? East? North? West? Any direction may take us farther from Tessa and make it harder for us to find her.”
She made a moaning sound. “You’re right, but you’re not making me feel any better.”
“I’m trying to be realistic. As soon as we pick up some clue about where to find Tessa, we’ll leave here. Okay?”
She nodded, because he’d proposed the only option that made sense.
“Did you buy this place the way you did the other property ? I mean, could they find it through the property records, if that’s how they found your house?”
“No. I’m actually renting it. A private transaction.”
“I hope that helps.”
“Can you set up some kind of mental shield?” he asked.
“The two of us might do it. But that would make it harder for us to find Tessa.”
He nodded, looking resigned. “We should try to connect with her as quickly as possible.”
“Can we do that without making love?” she asked.
“You’re tired of me already?”
She laughed. “No. You’re too much of a temptation.” He reached for her, gathering her close. “I know what you mean.”
They held on to each other for a long moment, then he led her to the narrow bed, and they lay down together.
Last time they’d been frantic, and too needy to keep from pushing each other toward orgasm. This time she hoped they could control themselves. They’d gotten a flash of communication from Tessa during climax, but they needed a longer period to establish real contact.
He slipped his hands under her T-shirt and stroked her back, then brought his hands around to the front, touching and caressing her through her bra.
“When you were a teenager, did you do stuff with boys?” he asked, and she knew he was trying to lighten their mood.
“What kind of stuff?”
“Everything but go all the way.”
She laughed. “Yes. The order is strict about some things but it’s always been very permissive about sexual experimenting.”
“So we’ll make a pact now. At least for this afternoon. Nobody’s pants come off.”
“You’re trying to make me crazy, right?”
“I’m trying to get us to a level where we can search for your sister without going over the edge.”
She nodded, drawing in a quick breath when his fingers dipped into the front of her bra and inched down toward her nipple.
“You’re trying to imitate a teenage boy stealing a feel?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ll make it easy for you.”
She sat up and pulled her shirt over her head, then unhooked her bra.
When he drew in a quick breath, she grinned. “I’m taking you at your word. No nudity below the waist.”
“A lot of good that’s doing me,” he said, capturing her hand and carrying it to the front of his pants so she could feel the erection straining against the fabric.
He closed his eyes as she pressed her hand against him, then cupped her breasts in both hands, tugging at the nipples before sucking one into his mouth.
“The trouble is, teenage boys didn’t have your level of skill.”
He moved his mouth far enough away to say, “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Then he blew on her hardened nipple, sending a shiver of heat over her body.
Feeling dizzy, she reached to pull at his shirt. He helped her get it off, and they fell into each other’s arms again, stroking hands eagerly over naked skin.
She wanted more, but she knew he was right. They had to keep the temptation to a manageable level.
Both naked to the waist, they lay down again, holding each other. Touching. Exciting.
Almost unbearable heat built between them, but this time they had an unspoken pact to keep it under control.
She let the intensity of the contact fuse their minds. For long moments, her total focus was on him. Then she caught a glimmer of something else.
When she felt the sudden tension in his arms, she knew he felt the outside mind, too.
Hoping it wasn’t Cynthia, she strove to send her thoughts outward. At first, she couldn’t get anything more. Then she heard Tessa’s voice inside her head.
Sophia?
Yes!
Thank the universe you found me. You’ve got to help me.
Where are you?
In . . .
Suddenly, she stopped speaking.
Tessa?
She heard her sister gasp. You’re with him?
Yes.
You can’t trust him.
As though the connection had never existed, it clicked off.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
JASON FELT HIS insides clench as Sophia focused on him.
“Does she know something I don’t?” she asked in a strained voice.
He kept his own gaze steady. “No.”
“Then how do you explain that warning?”
He struggled not to shout his answer. “I can’t. She knows I’m a Minot. I guess she assumes a Minot can’t be trusted.”
Sophia took her bottom lip between her teeth, and he knew that she was wavering. He wanted to grab her and shake some sense into her, but that would only prove his violent tendencies. Every time he thought they had things straightened out, somethin
g else happened to make her doubt their relationship.
“In the cave, I opened myself to you,” he said in a thick voice. “At the spa I told your sisters about my parents. And that the Minot are doomed to be endlessly reincarnated unless they can stop the cycle. What else do you want?” He glanced across at the kitchen. “If I bring you a knife, I could lie still while you carved me up.”
She shuddered. “I don’t want to do that.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, and he could see the warring emotions chasing themselves across her face. She’d been under the control of the Sisterhood all her life. Changing the rules had to be so hard for her.
In desperation, he asked, “Do you want to see one of my past lives?”
“You can show me?”
He swallowed. “I think so.”
“All right.”
Feeling trapped, he grabbed his shirt and put it back on before lying down on the bed. He’d made the suggestion. Now he wished he could take it back.
“How will I know you’re not making it up?” she asked as she put on her bra and shirt.
“Maybe you won’t. And you can go back to your sisters and tell them they were right,” he bit out, unable to hid his desperation.
When he had wakened from dreams where his soul inhabited another body, he’d always struggled to throw off the memory. It reminded him of what he’d been. And he never liked the picture. Now he was going back to one of those times. Worse, he was going to take Sophia with him.
But how could he manage it with her as a distraction?
“What do we do?” she asked in a voice she couldn’t quite hold steady.
“I think you have to let me get into another persona first, then touch me. Hopefully, you’ll experience it with me.”
“How will I know when you’re there?”
“Probably because of the expressions on my face,” he answered without elaborating.
This wasn’t going to be a pleasant experience. It couldn’t be. He had to be brutally honest, to let her see the worst of what he had been and what he could be again if she threw him to the wolves.
He tried to shut that last image out of his mind as he closed his eyes and struggled to pretend he was alone.
