Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(39)

The fear that was her constant companion ballooned. Darkness rose like a tidal wave, rushing up to swallow her.

Her blood pressure dropped. The pull began. Her arms and legs trembled, then went slack.

Miles caught her arms as she slid off his body, and crouched down to hold her. “Lara? What’s wrong?”

“Greaves,” she gasped. “Doing something. To my head. Pulling.”

“Lara, get inside! Of my mind, understand? Like you did before!”

She could barely speak, with that huge fist squeezing inside her head. “You . . . don’t feel it?” she croaked.

“My shield is really tough,” he said. “So get inside! Come on! Find a way, before he f*cks you up!”

Blood was trickling from her nose. Pain filled her consciousness. His pleading voice faded. Get inside. Like before. Get inside! Lara!

She forced the words out, fighting to stay conscious. “Leave . . . me,” she whispered. “Can’t. He’s got me. Can’t . . . go farther. Run away.”

“No.” He lifted her right into his lap and cradled her, arms clamped around her body. “I can’t run anymore. I’m not leaving you.”

Why? She wanted to ask, but words were gone.

The last part of her mind that functioned at all came into focus. The grim concentration she’d earned and honed, in those long, dark months of captivity. She’d struggled every day to find her calm center. A place that lay beyond fear, anger, and crushing boredom.

She floated back from the pain, the clutch of compulsion, to that Lara behind Lara, who could not be controlled . . . and the vortex seized her like it had been waiting for her. She took off.

The momentum flung her wide and fast into chaos. She raced through inner space, exulting. Sensed the Citadel, with perceptions that were completely apart from her normal senses. The wall, its massive grinding gears and moving parts. Her dance. Swaying, unerring steps. Over, under, through . . . and she was inside.

She gasped in relief. The pain was gone.

So strange, though. She was still conscious. She was not in a trance. Her vision was still doubled, as if the Citadel were a waking dream, but she was acutely aware that a big, gorgeous, terrifying man was cuddling her on his lap while melding minds with her.

She felt raw, naked, exposed. Confused.

The feedback loop of feelings made her body hot with shame. She was inside his mind now. He had to feel everything that she felt.

“I’m in,” she whispered.

“I know.” His strangled tone said it all.

She was embarrassed by the giddy sexual awareness. All those sex dreams. Months of them. For her, it was as if they’d already had a blazing affair. God knows what it felt like from his side.

He turned his back to her again. “Mount up.”

She gripped his shoulders, which she could barely fit her fingers around. Her inner thighs, wound around his waist, felt every detail of him through the shapeless jersey fabric of her pants, right down to the holstered gun at his side and the studs on his pants. She was still weak and hollowed out from Greaves’ attack, but Miles ran faster than ever.

All she could do was hang on. Try not to disgrace herself.





Thaddeus Greaves surveyed the ruins of the dining room. Coffee carafe overturned. Fresh orange juice, hurled across the pristine white tablecloth. His ham steak, grilled to perfection, was stabbed through with multiple shards of window glass. Glass glittered in the bread basket, the fruit salad, the black truffle and mushroom omelet.

Had he not shielded himself telekinetically the instant he heard the gun, he too would be full of those shards. It had been a question of nanoseconds, or perhaps a touch of precognition. His telekinetic abilities could stop bullets, so he stood in the middle of the shattered window frame, in silent invitation. No bullet that came his way would ever reach him, but the muzzle flash would be a useful indicator of where the attacker was located, saving precious time.

The shooter did not take the bait. After a minute or so, Greaves walked down the stairs, to the sound of various other windows shattering. He stopped at the corridor on the first floor, startled by the still body and bloodied face of Briggs, a member of his personal security unit, sprawled across the corridor. Briggs was a telepath, quite a strong one. And even he had gotten no warning of the attack to come.

In the security center, Dexter lay moaning on the floor. Yeats was unconscious on the ground. Useless idiots. Not a peep from his current telepathic sentinel, either. His staff was worse than useless.

Anabel’s sprawled body downstairs was a distasteful sight, if not unexpected. He stepped carefully around the blood, not wanting to soil his loafers, and peered into the gaping door of Lara’s cell.

Only Hu lay inside, wheezing and whimpering.

Greaves ran upstairs and out onto the grounds, by now lit by floodlights. His remaining staff ran around, frantically trying to give the impression that they were doing their job. It was too late to maintain that fiction. But there would be time enough to express his displeasure later.

He sent his perceptions ranging. Wide and diffuse, like ripples in a pond. On, and on . . . approaching the edge of his range.

Yes. There she was. He’d savored Lara’s distinct flavor on that exciting telepathic ride through her inner dreamworld. Amazing power. So like Geoff’s. Such potential, if only she could be reasoned with.

It was just a matter of time, of course. He would be charming, patient, and eventually she would bend. And if he could unlock her shield . . . the thought elated him. She was the only person besides Geoff who had ever blocked him. If he could penetrate her shield, learn its secrets, perhaps he could breach Geoff’s, too.