Drawn to Her Warriors: (Her Warriors Book 1) (Reverse Harem Sci Fi Romance Serial)

by Rebecca Baelfire

  I pulled my scarf up over my face to keep the cold and snow off, leaving only my eyes visible. Another reason I loved winter—even when it wasn’t all that cold out, the cooler months offered the perfect excuse to bundle up and keep all my skin covered, thus minimizing the chance of physical contact.

  One of the other tenants in the building pushed past me, his fingers brushing mine before I had a chance to move away.

  In an instant, my mind’s eye filled with an image of an old woman on a hospital bed, sickly. His mother; the familial bond electrified the unwanted connective thread between us.

  Then a man’s angry face in his, yelling about some job he’d screwed up. I stumbled, pain blazing across my mind with a hundred jumbled thoughts and a stab of emotional turmoil.

  “Sorry, miss.” The man leaned in, concerned. Before I could step away, his hand took my shoulder. I spasmed, pulling away, but not before more of what filled his head tore across my consciousness.

  His boss, shouting at him again. My neighbor’s anger, near postal rage, slashed like glass.

  “I’m…I’m fine,” I managed.

  He stared at me like he couldn’t figure out why I shrank from his touch, but my head spun too fast to reassure him more than I had.

  Yeah, being looked at like I was insane was something I’d grown used to. This kind of thing represented half the reason I’d never gone out to clubs with, or even met Jake, why I hadn’t gotten a job with a reliable income that paid the bills. And, why I’d never had a proper relationship with a man I’d not invented in my books.

  Stumbling to the nearest wall, I leaned on it, knees weak. That man hadn’t been wearing gloves, but I was. The connection shouldn’t have been that strong, allowing for so much emotion to reach me when he hadn’t touched my skin.

  “Jesus.” I shuddered at the severe emotional upset he must have felt in order for me to pick up that much from him.

  Breathing shaky, I remained leaning against the wall until my head cleared and the rush of adrenaline ebbed. His adrenaline. A need to help him, to somehow make things better for that man, tugged at me, but I shook it off.

  Years ago, when this power made itself known, I’d quickly learned one thing. Getting involved in other people’s problems brought nothing but heartache. It probably sounded cold, but emotional distance from the minds of others kept me sane.

  Temptation called me to retreat to my apartment, alone. Safe. No. This appointment was my last hope for a real life. I had to see it through.

  I hitched my purse up on my shoulder and made my way toward Madam Valentine’s.

  The Tenants in 505

  Well, so far, so good.

  At least the house looked normal from the outside.

  Sandwiched between two brownstones, Madam Valentine’s place of business looked more like an ordinary residence than a psychic’s shop, except for one thing.

  On the first floor of a two-story walkup, a bright neon sign sat in the window, with her name in heavily flourished pink letters. A little showy for my taste, but she had to draw attention to her business somehow.

  Still, questions abounded. What did the inside look like? Would she have one of those silly beaded curtains she’d come out from behind, sectioning off the back room where she read fortunes? A hokey crystal ball on a table, run by a hidden machine that made it appear to be filled with smoke when she touched it?

  I rolled my eyes, looking at her house from across the street, once more almost turning tail for home. I couldn’t help imagining the woman dressed in some ridiculous, gauzy getup, all sequins and bangles that rattled like old bones when she walked.

  The thought punched a hole through the hope I’d been holding onto.

  As always happened when I got close to a solution, the thought of having to remain cut off from any semblance of a life hung over me like a dark cloud. No. Today, that would end. Today, I would find a way.

  I pounded that thought, and with it, all the hope I could muster, into my own brain. I would not give up.

  Taking a deep breath, I crossed the street and walked up the short flight of stairs to the door of the house. I knocked. The door opened just wide enough for a woman with a bob of shoulder-length wheat-blonde hair to stick her head out.

  “Yes?”

  “Hi…um…I’m Rayne, here to see…” I cleared my throat, feeling suddenly silly. “…to see Madam Valentine. My appointment is for eleven.”

  “Oh, Rayne Kincade, right?” She smiled, opening the door wide. “I’m Rose Valentine.” She waved me in.

  Rose Valentine wasn’t at all what I expected. Sure, she wore a white-blue crystal pendant around her neck, and a long pearl-white serape, but under it I could see regular blue jeans and running shoes. Her hair framed her face, plain and simply styled, and she had a ready, personable smile. If not for the crystal, on display and slightly oversized, she might have been a regular woman who worked in an office somewhere.

  Relief poured into me, and my hopes lifted.

  “You’ve already told my assistant Bri about the dreams and what you can do, so I won’t ask about those.” She led me out of a worn, but otherwise clean front hall and into a small front living room. “Bri said you don’t like to talk about them.”

  “No, I don’t. I…oh, wow.”

  I stared around at the living room, which doubled as her shop. One half of the room had a set of floral patterned chairs and couch, with a wooden coffee table, all arranged by the window. The other half of the room sported a long bar with a cash register. Only, behind the counter, instead of beer and alcohol, shelves of powders, crystals, and other trinkets winked at me. Candles glowed on all the walls.

  The first inkling of worry nibbled at me, but I quashed it. I’d hear her out, but no way was I calling her Madam anything. “Rose. Is this normal for you, then?”

  She looked at me, while leading me toward the shelves and bar. “Which? Dreamers?” She nodded. “Happens all the time. Is it true you get impressions from people through physical contact, too?”

  The excitement in her voice made me uneasy. I told myself it was just because I wasn’t used to discussing my condition with others and nodded. “Can you help?”

  “Yes. Come with me.”

  I licked my lips and remained where I was. She’d agreed much too fast. I’d only given her assistant the most basic explanation of what happened when I touched someone, and gave a description of the space dream. Was that enough for her to be so certain she could help?

  Nervousness ate at me, but I followed her over to one corner where a table sat, covered with colored pillar candles, amulets, and stones. She turned to me, hands rubbing together.

  “In the dream, you see a spaceship exploding, yes?”

  I tried to control my breathing and swallowed the fear that pulled at me, remembering the violent way that craft always exploded. The feeling of those men’s lives being snuffed out. “Yes.”

  “What do the aliens look like?”

  I never said they were aliens. “I don’t know. I never see them.”

  She tapped her finger to her lips. “They could be one of many species, but you need something that will keep them out of your head.”

  I narrowed my eyes. Shouldn’t she be asking me to touch her, to see what happened with physical contact? And there was something that felt off about the way she kept talking about aliens…

  “We’ll start you off with this.” She handed me red colored rock that hung from a chain, careful not to touch my fingers. Too careful.

  “Wear that around your neck at all times, so that it touches your skin. It’s blessed by the Seeing Gods, and the metallic paint has properties that block other people’s electrical impulses. As long as that magic rock touches your skin, you won’t see their thoughts.”

  Oh, Jesus Christ. I turned the ordinary rock over in my hand and noticed the price. Fifty dollars. For a rock that someone might have found anywhere, and which had been painted with, as far as I could see, any ordinary paint. Blesse
d by the Seeing Gods? Crap. My hopes crashed and burned in flames.

  “And here.” She walked over to a large candle, about the length and width of her lower arm. “Burn this in the bedroom every night before you go to bed. For the whole night. The mystical smoke it gives off will keep the aliens in your dreams from being able to reach your mind.”

  “And how much is the candle?” I snapped.

  “S-sorry?” Rose wrung her hands rapidly, not looking at me. Suddenly a lot less sure of herself.

  Busted.

  I leaned over to the candle. “A hundred dollars. Really?”

  “Miss Rayne, I have to make a living. I—”

  Everything in me wanted to tell her she was nothing but a hustler, but there would have been no point. Operators like her had an answer for everything, and it wouldn’t stop her from drawing suckers in.

  What made me do it, I didn’t know. Maybe I was so desperate for an answer to my problem, I needed to eliminate any lingering doubt in the woman’s skills before I left her house. I ripped off my glove and grabbed her hand.

  Images and emotions slashed at my thoughts, intense and jumbled, and all the more so because I allowed nothing to buffer the connection between us.

  A sad older lady, sitting on one of the floral chairs, Rose holding her hand. A large crystal lay on a table between them. Rose chanted in some nonsensical language that was probably meant to sound mystical, with a few English words thrown in. She said something about the woman’s dead husband trying to contact her. The woman handed over another wad of bills. Greed rolled off Rose, so strong it left a metallic taste in my mouth.

  “Hey!” Rose tried to rip her hand away from mine the moment I gripped hers, but I held tighter, unable to resist the nervous fear in her eyes. I glared at her, going for an intimidating look I hoped made up for my lack of height and curvy figure.

  “I know what you are, Rose Wilder.” I pulled the name from the jumble of her scattered thoughts.

  Her eyes went huge. “What are you doing?”

  “Reading you.” I lowered my voice to a frightening whisper. “How much money did you take Miss Gallagher for?”

  Her face paled. Good. I’d set the stage for the takedown.

  “If I catch you cheating anyone else, I’ll spread the word of your trickery so fast, your head will spin. Shut this place down.”

  “You can’t. You wouldn’t.”

  I released her and gave her a predatory smile. “Have a nice day, Rose.”

  Without another word, I turned and walked out.

  Would she actually close down, frightened of being exposed for the con she was? I didn’t know, but I’d scared the hell out of her, and it felt good.

  For the record, I had no problem with someone who essentially had the same power as me making a living from it. If they were for real. But I hated cheats, liars, and hucksters.

  Damn it. I’d broken my rule about not getting involved, not only deliberately letting myself see into her head, but using what I knew to take her down. But I couldn’t have walked away without acting, knowing she was taking advantage of others. Most of the time, my abnormality caused me nothing but loneliness and pain. It felt good to be able to put it to use.

  Once outside, the euphoria of my accomplishment quickly wore off. I leaned against the wall of one of the houses down the street. Shaky, my head pounded with the onslaught of that woman’s emotions.

  I put my head back and closed my eyes, taking deep breaths, waiting for the headache to subside. Once it did, awareness of my situation sank in.

  What a bust that had been. Now I was back at square one. Stuck with a very real condition that would never leave me, and caused too much pain to be of any use most of the time.

  By and large, being alone didn’t bother me, but after having hope dangled in front of me only to have it snatched away made the thought of returning to my isolated existence heartbreaking.

  People passed by on the street, and I pressed to the wall, avoiding the smallest hint of contact. Tears stung my eyes. I pushed them back. I thought of Jake, his invitation to a night out, and my throat tightened.

  Would I ever meet him?

  Fuck, I wouldn’t cry out here. I was enough of a freak already without people seeing me blubber like a fool.

  I pushed off the wall and walked down the street toward my apartment, shuffling through the snow and cold, both of which felt empty now, sucking the energy out of me.

  Twenty minutes later, I arrived at my apartment. Home, where no one could judge me, where I could shut the world out, and the only person’s emotional upsets I had to worry about were my own.

  I unlocked my door and pocketed my keys, ready to spend the rest of the day eating takeout I would order online and pounding out more sexy adventures with Kal’tarr the Space Pirate.

  Wrapping myself up in the worlds I created allowed me to shut out the isolation my condition brought. In the heads of my characters, I became someone else. For those hours I wrote, I ceased to be Rayne, freak of nature. I became a dashing space pirate, or a kickass alien princess. A merciless alien king, or a warrior about to meet her one true love who would show her there was a better way to solve problems than with a laser pistol.

  I became spontaneous and brave, capable of facing anything, freed of the anxieties and panic that kept me from the world. Love was within my reach. Love, romance, friendships. Family.

  Most of the time, I refused to let the isolation get to me. But when faced with another painful dead end, the depression tended to hit me hard.

  I glanced around my apartment, seeing it, really, truly seeing it for the first time in a long while. My living room usually looked cozy, inviting. Now, with its desk and writing space, too small to even allow for a TV or a proper living room set, it looked claustrophobic and desolate. On my desk, a twenty-five inch computer monitor served as a TV just fine, since most of what I watched was online. My kitchenette stood in an alcove off to one side, barely large enough for one person. Bookshelves lined every wall, overflowing with romance novels.

  So, this was it. This apartment, my writing, paying bills, sleeping alone, would always be my life. Would I ever be able to have a relationship, feel a man’s arms around me, his lips on mine?

  “Ugh. Knock off the pity party, Rayne.” Disgusted with myself, I put my purse on the single hook by the door, adding my coat and scarf there. “Time to crank out your bestseller.”

  I locked my door and turned up my music, letting the sound of my writing play list fill the apartment. Carly Rae Jepson pumped through my computer speakers and I tossed my one-person ramen into my microwave. I was just settling down to start a chapter when a knock made me look at the door.

  “Shit. What now?” The last thing I wanted after that charlatan was to deal with anyone else.

  Another hard knock.

  When I opened the door, a harried delivery boy thrust a package toward me. He handed me a computer tablet. “Sign here, please.”

  I carefully took the box without allowing our fingers to brush. When I took the tablet, a thankfully vague flurry of emotions and images flitted through my mind, all too fast and weak to even make them out. The images flashed, little more than a kaleidoscope of colors and sound, and all of them from him, because I was touching something he was holding on to. I thought I saw a scantily-clad woman in a doorway, asking him if he wanted to come in. His fantasy, or something that happened before he crossed my path?

  Once the delivery boy left, I closed and locked the door, then studied the package.

  Plain brown wrapping covered the parcel, which looked about half the size of a small microwave. Except it felt like a cement brick sat inside.

  “Wow.” I marveled at the weight of the package, straining my arms. “What the hell is in here?”

  And who the heck could the package have been from?

  Other than Jake, I had no close friends, and I grew up an only child, with parents I hadn’t spoken to in years. No one I knew would have sent me a packa
ge like this.

  A pathetically intense excitement pulled at me. Carrying the box to my desk, I was about to open it when I noticed the name and apartment number on the parcel. Both were wrong.

  “John Smith, apartment 505. How the hell did he end up delivering this to me?” I looked back at the door where the delivery boy had been. He’d be long gone now.

  505. My mysterious neighbors down the hall. The ones Raul had been trying to get rid of, and who might be cooking meth.

  Great. I’d have to give the package to the rightful owners.

  Intrigue and dread swirled, a potent mix. I’d been so curious about my neighbors. Taking the package to them meant a chance to dig into the mystery, but it also meant interaction, which risked more of what happened when I’d left the apartment that morning.

  The memory of the intensity of that man’s emotions flooded back on me, but I shut it down and left my apartment for 505.

  Nearing the door, I sniffed the air. The usual smells that filled the hall inundated my nose. Some kind of spicy, foreign cooking, a musty smell from the hall carpets, and the smell of cat from the apartment to the left of 505, but I didn’t smell anything burning or chemical.

  I knocked on the door, but no one answered. Inside, a TV played, loud enough for me to make out gunshots and explosions.

  Again, I knocked. Feet shuffled. The door opened.

  My jaw dropped. A Colossus of a man took up the doorway, all muscle and tanned skin, head brushing the tall doorframe. Stripped to the waist and wearing black slacks that hugged muscular legs, his large arms and chest bulged powerfully. His features looked like they’d been carved by a god, with a hint of a five o’clock shadow framing a strong jaw.

  He looked hot enough that his bright orange socks, though odd, didn’t annoy me as much as they would have on someone else. Almost imperceptibly, his gaze raced up and down my frame, then lingered on my lips. I had to have imagined the way he drank me in, because it looked as though he liked what he saw.