Chosen (The Warrior Chronicles #1)(29)

When she reached the Captain’s house she shook the door and found it locked. She climbed up a beam and launched herself onto the first floor roof. Like a burglar, she ran across to the first open window she saw and burst through. A large bedroom swept out around her with two candles flickering on a bedside table. Two nude figures writhed on the bed, limbs tangled, skin on skin. A soft, feminine moan drifted toward the window.

Oops.

“I need my weap—“

She barely hit the ground in time. A knife twanged as it lodged in the wall behind her.

“I need my weapons,” she said again, breathless, rising slowly with her hands in the air. The man had good reactions.

The Captain was standing beside the huge bed, a sword in one hand, a knife in the other. If she took one step, he would rush forward to meet her, slicing her neck-to-navel in a matter of seconds. Standing with perfect technique, he was powerful and nude, gleaming with sweat and sex. His muscles were substantial and cut and heavenly and it was definitely not the time to notice any of this.

Her mind shuddered to a start as her groin throbbed. “Something is coming. Open up and feel Cayan. Open your mind to it. Hurry! I will not be dying tonight. I am not the enemy!”

His confusion at her having said his real name, something very few actually used, turned instantly to rage. “What the f**k are you doing in my house in men’s underwear?”

His power surged, but it was all outbound—he wasn’t being receptive with it. He probably didn’t even know how. Which meant he was basically as blind as Sanders, but a much better, more thorough fighter.

She should just mentally kill him now. She was back to nearly 100% strength--there wasn’t much he’d be able to do to stop her. Then, a quick look through the house, and she’d have what she needed. She could dodge the coming horde and be well on her way by dawn.

She looked at the girl in the bed, a beauty by anyone’s standards, and what Xavier would call a knockout in this land. The woman was halfway between fear and outrage. But she was also vulnerable and innocent. And if Shanti killed the Captain of these people, they’d all be plunged into vulnerable and innocent—he was the glue to this town. He was the rock of leadership that kept them functioning like a machine.

If she killed one, she’d also kill a great many. Just her luck.

“Get to safety,” Shanti snapped at the girl. “Get your family to safety. The bunker.”

“What are you talking about?” the Captain snarled. He stepped to her in a rush of movement and grabbed her arm—the men in this city were very fond of that hold. A surge of pure electricity surged into her body, searing her. No pain rode the current.

Shanti hesitated, ignoring the fizz of her body. She needed him to use his Gift so he would believe her. Precious minutes were wasting away—he needed to organize getting people to safety. But teaching even barely enough to sense the coming horde was that much farther on the “I’m super powerful” wagon. It’d make it that much harder to take him out when she finally did.

But not teaching him would get people killed, one of those possibly herself. And all her people with her.

Swearing under her breath, Shanti slapped a palm to his chest, the vibe now pulsing between them. Humming. Not pleasure, not sex (mostly), but something else. Something powerful she’d never experienced. Something to do with her Gift.

He flinched, his eyes burning, a wrinkle forming in his brow.

Taking a deep breath, forcing the panic down, Shanti focused on the connection. She had trained many, and worked with even more to a common goal, but she’d never dealt this closely with so much power. He was a thick well of it, swirling and pooling within him, crouching and ready to blast out.

Feeling his slick, defined pec warm under her palm, seeing his pupils dilate as he looked down on her, she was acutely aware that he was na**d and she was nearly so. He was still hard, his length extending the distance between them and lightly touching her belly with its girth. Her whole focus trained on him, on his heat, on his unique mind, currently swirling and shifting, reaching out to her mental touch even as his phallus was reaching out to her body.

She delicately touched his mind, aiming for an extremely shallow connection. With any hope she could guide without teaching—she didn’t need to make their future battle any harder. She was a fool.

Having unconsciously figured out a rough control over his power, he felt the connection and yanked on it, sucking her in and clamping down. He probably didn’t even know what he was bloody doing, but his trap was still just as effective.

Weightless, she fell in head first, feeling a rush she’d never experienced. The ground dropped away and her stomach fluttered, the solidity under her palm the only thing she could focus on. It was too much. Too much power swirling around them, making her dizzy. And then he mimicked her, tracing her mental path back to the source and weaving in, much deeper and more consuming than he should’ve been able to.

“Stop—“ she gritted her teeth, trying to block him out.

Feeling followed him in. Pushed at her, bombarded her.

“No—“ She tried to wrench away. Tried to control the connection. Tried to run if she could. But his complex feelings were so crystal clear she could almost read his mind. And she didn’t want to!

She didn’t want to know that he was concerned she had a troubled past, or his admiration for how she handled herself in spite of it. She didn’t care that he approved of her training and thought she was a caring person underneath her rough handling of the boys. And she certainly didn’t want to know how ardently he missed his mother and father, or the solitary confinement in which he lived his life. She would have to kill him when this was all over, and she would rather see him as the ass**le Captain with a misguided agenda than a real person with all the vulnerabilities and genuine distresses of a moral leader with a lot of responsibility.