Firewalkers: Dreamer

by Shiloh Walker

  Sage lost consciousness, his face going gray, his hazel eyes rolling up, body going limp. Two hands, strong and steady came up. One touched Sage’s crown, stroking the thick black hair, and the other rested on Kelly’s shoulder. Kelly felt the vast reserve of power as Caris opened herself up to Kelly’s healing, allowing the younger woman to tap into the empath’s power.

  When Kelly pulled away nearly thirty minutes later, her bouncy ponytail had gone limp and wet with sweat, and her face was pale. But she was smiling tiredly and able to settle down on the floor beside Sage, stroking her fingers down his brow and studying his face with assessing eyes.

  “If I got a rush like that every time I did such a healing, I would rarely have a crash.” Kelly offered a crooked grin as Caris resumed her curled up spot at Sage’s head.

  “I seriously doubt you’d bother with filling a person’s reserves when you healed them…unless it was Sage.” Caris smiled easily, lifting one shoulder, laying the pad of her finger on Sage’s brow and touching, testing. With a relieved smile, she looked up at Kelly. For the first time, she could touch him without tensing up. There was no screaming headache that she had to shield against, no tearing pain, no muffled feeling inside her head, nothing. He was truly resting. “He’s gonna hate knowing that he relied on you this time.”

  Kelly grinned, a little flash of pride showing in her eyes. “He raised me to be able to take care of myself, and others. He ought to be proud of himself. If I can take care of him—” she caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth and dropped one lid in a quick wink. “Well, he did the job, well, didn’t he?”

  Sage had taken over the job of raising Kelly from the time he was nine, and Kelly had only been five. For five years, until Morgan had found them, he had done everything he could to be a father after their parents had been killed protecting them from those who would have destroyed them. Unlike many of their brethren, their parents had loved and protected them. It had been their grandparents who had reported them.

  Sage would never forgive that. Caris knew he had done his best to shield Kelly from it, but Kelly wasn’t likely to ever let it go completely. If they had been able to get to the people who had taken their parents from them—but Morgan had ensured that would never happen. Morgan was good at that.

  “Hmmm, look at what we have here. Kelly Monroe,” Miguel purred from the stairs where he was leaning over the banister, his dark, Latin eyes pinned on the redhead with dark, hungry interest.

  “Maguire,” she corrected. Her marriage to Jed Maguire had been short-lived. But a marriage, nonetheless. The stunt pilot had died in a jetcar crash only three weeks after they had been married—very much against her brother’s orders four years earlier. The twenty-five year old woman had spent nearly a year in a depressed state. She had finally come out of it when Sage had appeared on her doorstep, holding the broken, battered body of a young Firewalker girl whom he had rescued from execution.

  He had grimly placed the child in Kelly’s arms and said, “Are you gonna mourn yourself to death? Or join us?”

  Kelly had saved the child, and never wondered why Sage had wasted precious time bringing the child to her when a teleporter almost always traveled with a healer when saving a child. He had saved this child, then brought the child to his sister, so he could save her as well.

  “You are lookin’ mighty fine, amiga.” Miguel’s deep baritone rolled over Kelly’s skin like a silken caress and she shuddered, closing her eyes and clenching her hands in her lap, focusing on anything other than those sweet, melted chocolate eyes. “You gonna stay and play with us a while, sweet?”

  “I don’t play, Miguel. I stopped playing a long time ago.”

  Of course, playing with him held certain attractions—

  Damn it. She dug her nails into her palms and opened her eyes, smiling sweetly at him. “If you’re in the mood for play, you can go upstairs and join Jeza—she sounds like she needs a playmate. Me, I like my friends more grown up.”

  “Ouch,” Miguel said mildly. One corner of his mouth curled up slowly. “Pretty girl like you ought to play from time to time, chica. You come find me when you’re ready, Kelly. Si?” And then he strolled on upstairs, his tight butt catching her eye before he disappeared from view.

  Chapter Ten

  Jax studied the man in front of him.

  He looked far too ethereal.

  The white hair, the blue eyes…he looked like an angel, a heavenly creature. Until you focused on those eyes. Morgan could keep the fury in check for hours. But right now, it had escaped and fiery red flames danced behind those eyes.

  Jax suspected he now knew what Morgan’s gift was.

  “You cannot fight a war without an army, Morgan. And it is a war you fight. You must fight it like a soldier.”

  Morgan’s fist clenched. Slamming it on the arm of the chair, he closed his eyes. Dragged in air, blew it out.

  Fighting for control, Jax suspected. Why? He didn’t like hearing how totally he was being torn apart? It wasn’t his fault…he was doing his best to lead these people.

  “I know,” Morgan snarled finally. “But I am not a fucking soldier. And I trust none who have gone into the military. They brainwash people these days. So what am I to do?”

  Leaning forward, in an urgent voice, Jax said, “Lead them. But not randomly. You need to separate and assign leaders, not individual agents. You need soldiers, real soldiers.”

  “You are a soldier.” Morgan lifted his gleaming blue eyes, the reddish flames glinting just behind the cool blue. “Are you asking to lead my people?”

  Jax laughed. “No. I am no fool. You guard your people with a ferocity that even a blind man could see. But I can help.” Arching a brow, Jax said, “Are you willing to allow it?”

  “To keep my people alive, to protect the children, I will do whatever I must.”

  “And hate every second that you relinquish control, won’t you?” Jax queried quietly, lifting a coppery golden brow and shaking his head.

  Morgan acknowledged it with a small smile. Then he leaned forward. “You will lead half of my people, Jax. Caris, Sage, and Manuel will be your lieutenants. I’ll break the people down into two groups. And I’ll be keeping Dustin with me—I don’t think it is wise to send him with you.”

  “No, I’d think not. Why do I get the feeling this should have been much harder?” Jax narrowed his eyes, studying Morgan closely.

  With a grim smile, Morgan rose. “You get to break the news to Caris. She won’t like knowing that she’s being pulled into the thick of it all, away from her safe, quiet ranch out here in the middle of nowhere. But we need her.”

  Caris was so angry she couldn’t breathe—her heart was racing, her head was pounding, and her body was trembling with the intensity of her fury. Her skin felt tight and itchy, and her pulse was throbbing just behind her eyes.

  “You bastard.” Caris felt the words squeeze through her throat as though over broken glass as she stood staring into Jax’s beautiful blue eyes, that deep dreamy blue. Now almost dispassionate as he met her gaze levelly. “Don’t you understand? I can’t be around that many people.”

  “You can. You prefer not to. It is easier for you. And I do not blame you,” Jax replied. Cocking his head, he stared at her, studying her closely. “You are needed, so badly. Your people suffer and die. And you all must learn to band together and fight like soldiers, like an army, a unit, not individuals. You have strong, powerful shields that you hold without a thought. Do not tell me that it would trouble you to live amongst others.”

  “I can’t.” Caris stubbornly turned away, folding her arms around her body. The suffering of so many out there, not just her brothers and sisters, but all of them. They were slowly having the life sucked out of them by the World Government, not just the Federated States, but the governing power of the planet, the one that said it sought to make life better for all of them. It mandated who could have children and who couldn’t, who could have animals and who couldn’t. Who could o
wn land and who couldn’t. How many children, how many animals, how much land, all to protect the planet’s resources, they claimed.

  Yet the planet still suffered. The people still suffered. The children who were born underground, outside the governing jurisdiction were left to fend for themselves, uncared for, unwanted, unloved. They were rife with disease, malnourished, desolate wide-eyed creatures. It was from them that many of the Firewalker children came. And Jax wanted her to go out among them.

  “I won’t.”

  “You have to.” Jax stood at her back now, his heat warming her chilled body as his hands came up to rest on her shoulders and he lowered his lips to her ear. “They suffer, Caris. And will suffer more and more until you unite and fight back the way you know in your heart that you must.”

  “I’m not a soldier, damn it. I can’t fight—”

  Jax’s hand slashed through the air by her head just before he turned her to face him. “I do not ask you to lift a weapon and take down your enemies, but you need to be able to face them, and stop hiding in your safe little world. You hide away from the people who need you. You are not a soldier, this I know. Leave the fighting to the soldiers, but at least do what you can, while they are doing their part.”

  “Do you have any idea how exhausting maintaining my shields all the time would be?” Caris felt empty, drained, battered. He was pulling her out there. No ultimatum had been delivered, no awful choice, what I say or else… Instead he had whispered of the suffering. And all but called her a coward.

  None of them knew, though, what this would cost her.

  Except maybe Sage. He had been around her far too long not to be aware of just how deep her particular gift—or curse—ran.

  Lifting her chin, she met Jax’s eyes levelly, inclining her head. Then she lowered her lashes, shutting herself off from him, closing herself in. Letting Caris out now could be deadly.

  “Morgan, you can’t do that to her,” Sage growled, stalking into the office where Morgan was barking into the comm at some poor agent who had attempted to refuse to leave her post.

  Morgan held up one hand, arching a brow.

  “No. I’m not waiting.” Narrowing his eyes, he focused on Morgan’s face, concentrating. His head was splintered with pain by the time he was back, holding the spitting, snarling handful of Chasteen Dunn, who was still holding her comm, as though arguing with Morgan was of any use now. “She’s here. Problem solved.”

  “Weren’t you supposed to lay off the teleporting for a while?”

  “Are you trying to drive Caris insane?” Sage returned sardonically. “You got any idea what it will do to her to send her out into a crowd on a mission looking for Firewalker kids?”

  “Caris is stronger than she thinks. Stop trying to baby her,” Morgan said flatly. He flicked his eyes to the telepath, Chasteen who was still swaying from the impromptu trip Sage had given her. “Chas, get out. Get sick somewhere else.”

  She stomped out in a huff as Sage glared at Morgan, blinking incredulously. Then he narrowed his eyes, furious. “Baby her? You fucking think I’m babying her? Have you ever seen what happens to that poor kid when somebody touches her unshielded? Do you have any idea how badly it drains her to hold that kind of shielding up constantly? She is a full-blown empath. Even the slightest touch causes full linking. And she doesn’t even need to touch. Just looking at a person will do it. And a person in turmoil needs only to be in her vicinity to cause a link. Which means Caris will either go mad from the onslaught of emotions, or she will have to go shielded, all the damned time. She will never have time to let her guard down.”

  “You’re exaggerating,” Morgan mused, tapping his pen on the desk. “We have other empaths among us.”

  “You have touch-empaths. You have thought-empaths. You have healer-empaths like Kelly, and you have other agents who have a trace of what Caris has. But none have ever been like Caris. She is a touch-empath, a thought-empath with healing abilities, telepathic abilities, and the dreaming. That dreaming lets her drift into other people’s dreams, sometimes even pulls her into them,” Sage snapped. “You have nobody like Caris. You are throwing her out to be slaughtered and nobody knows what it will do to her, not you, and not that bloody vampire who swears he loves her so fucking much.”

  Jax slid into the bed behind Caris, eyeing her slim back with thoughtful eyes. The black silk that covered it made her skin glow like ivory in the dim light of the room. He wanted nothing more than to tear it from her.

  But he held his hands, his temper.

  He could feel a coldness radiating from her.

  Not just temper, but a true coldness, as though the temperature of her body had lowered.

  “Are you not well?” he murmured against her neck, cupping her in the curve of his body, stroking his hand up and down her hip. The scent of her, the feel of her flesh, the aroma of her blood flowing under her skin rushed straight to his head and hardened his cock, even as he waited for her to answer.

  “I need to rest,” she said woodenly.

  “You are tired?”

  “I will be. Forever.”

  Jax involuntarily clenched his hand over her hip at the flat sound of her voice, at her odd words. And something else…something that was missing. He couldn’t feel her. He could no longer feel Caris. That sweet, achingly warm presence that had lingered inside his heart, his mind. She was gone, retreated inside that body, shuttered down, closed off.

  “Is this my punishment?” he growled, unable to keep the threat from his voice as he spilled her onto her back, looming over her.

  But Jax felt his heart rip open as he stared down into those amber colored eyes, a single tear spilling out and trickling down her cheek as Caris responded simply, “No. It’s mine. My curse. My punishment.”

  Then she rolled back onto her side, curling up into a ball, staring into the night.

  She was sulking.

  Jax was certain of it.

  He had thought Caris would be different than other females, but he was wrong about that apparently.

  As they waited for their assigned group of people to arrive, he selected the people Caris would train, careful to keep them limited only to the empaths of the group. I am not a blasted fool, he thought, stalking around the perimeter of the outbuildings as Sage led his group through rigorous workouts.

  Miguel had defected from the army and had established their “boot camp” as he called it. They did that physical workout every morning. Already, even after only two weeks, Jax could see much physical improvement in the health of the agents, no, the army. Their army.

  Their warriors.

  And Caris was still silent, still cold.

  She was sitting face-to-face with a girl barely fifteen, both of them with palms up, close but not touching. Working on shielding, Jax knew. He was familiar with the technique of it, if not the actual training. Empathy was a rare gift on his planet, and Caris was truly unique, very powerful.

  Her reserves, her sources of power were near limitless, as though she drew from something other than within.

  She just had to realize she was as powerful as he knew she was.

  And get over her own damned pride.

  Before he died of wanting her. Or the chemicals building inside his body drove him mad. He had to have her, soon.

  But damned if he’d beg.

  Damned if he’d ask. Never again.

  Each time he had turned to her in the night of late, she had been that cold, distant, still creature. And the past week, she had slept the sleep of the dead, not even stirring when he entered the room.

  “Stewing?”

  The low, angry voice behind him had him closing his eyes and muffling a sigh. Shortly after Morgan and his people had left, Jax had realized that a number of the people weren’t very happy with Morgan’s decision. But Sage was downright furious. Oh, he was doing his job. And on the whole, he agreed, Jax suspected. But not about Caris.

  “This doesn’t concern you, Sage,” Jax said coolly. />
  Sage cocked an arrogant brow as he strolled around him and braced his back against a rough wooden pillar. Studying the old, rough style of the house, Sage murmured, “Her parents knew what they were doing when they built this place for her. Her mother had a little bit of empathy. Just a little. But they knew. Caris was only six when her gifts emerged. The empathy came first. She was in school, and the school thought she was mentally retarded or insane. Even tried to have her committed. But Larelee fought the board and insisted she could school Caris at home, saying Caris was just very sensitive to people’s moods, very shy. That was why, when a child came in upset it hurt her so badly. They taught her shielding, though I don’t know how. But can you imagine how terrifying it would be, six years old…and the onslaught of all that emotion?”

  Jax grimaced. “It would be traumatic indeed, feeling the emotions of other children.”

  “And the adults. You see, she walked in on a teacher being raped,” Sage said flatly, straightening up and hooking his thumbs in the loops of his jeans. “I don’t know the details. But she was six. And every time thereafter, once that teacher returned and saw Caris, she couldn’t help but think of what had happened to her. Caris had to relive it with her.”

  Jax closed his eyes. “I did not know of this. But it changes nothing. Her shielding is strong. She maintains it all the time. She can function in the world and will—”

  “Tell me something, oh great teacher on the mountain,” Sage drawled. “Have you noticed an unusual change in Caris over the past few days?”

  Jax couldn’t stop the snarl that slipped past his lips, couldn’t keep his teeth from flashing as his hands flexed.

  Sage laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes. It will only get worse. Caris has more than one way of shielding. You don’t even have an inkling of how she would have to shield to deal with people on a broad spectrum, and on a daily basis. Get used to it. That’s the Caris you’re gonna be living with.” He nodded toward the still, pale reflection of the woman Jax had fallen in love with. “She can’t let herself out unless she wants to risk going mad. Not with so many unshielded people around. It would be—”