Chosen (The Warrior Chronicles #1)(52)

So he did ask permission if he really wanted something. Interesting.

She touched his arm, skin on skin. His mental touch brushed her barriers and she opened up, allowing him a shallow connection. She’d done this a million times before; sharing feelings and sensations with another. Her people used it to establish a connection for support, to train the young or get trained by the old, to share knowledge, or cement a deeper level of intimacy. The last thought called up a picture of Romie, his earth eyes shining with love.

Pain gripped her heart and ripped. Staggering, she felt Cayan’s strong hand bracing her, keeping her upright.

“Sorry,” she muttered, shaking her head a little to get her mind in the right place.

Before she knew what was happening, a deep blast of profound compassion washed over her. Cayan had felt her tortured past and was responding. He hadn’t learned to keep his feelings to himself, and with a deep well of power to rival hers, she couldn’t stop him from intensifying their connection.

He pushed deep down into her, filling her up and merging their power. Her whole body went light. The ground dropped away and her mind soared, pushed so far out that the world became a map of colors. Glittering, glowing, and tinkling, it was like sun flares. Her skin sizzled with the power flowing through her. It danced and played, meeting his. Growing. Blooming, and then blazing. Her eyes started to water and her skin began to singe. It was wild and raw and completely out of control. It was a warning.

“Ease up,” Shanti said through clenched teeth, feeling like she was floating in a void, no sense of direction. She clutched onto his arm with both hands, needing solidity. She felt his hands grab her shoulders then reel her in, needing the same thing.

“Ease up! Pull it back in!” she shouted, pushing at his steady torrent of power. Struggling with it. Molding it. Trying to force it out of her. It was like trying to build a dam in a flood.

Lights blazed brighter, power surged around her, pulling at the seams in the fabric of her being. Her Gift wrapped around Cayan’s, melding the two, and then blazing brighter still. Color bleached and reformed in crystal clear imagery. The brain paths of every living thing for almost a league presented themselves in dots like a heat map. They pulsed and throbbed, matching her body. Emotions flooded her. Intents, desires, motives—her mind was fraying, Cayan’s with her. And then suddenly it all shut off.

Shanti struggled for breath, flat on her back. Wrung out, the hot tingle of warning electrocuted her skin. Beyond that, though, was such an intense joy she was high off of it. It was probably the most grounding of all. A joy that intense was habit forming, and that was a terrifying thing with that much power. Especially with a man she barely knew who had no control.

“Is it always like that?” the Captain asked in a shaky voice, getting slowly to his feet. Lucius was standing between them, white faced.

“No. Do you feel tingling in your skin?”

“Yes.”

“That is not good.”

“I figured. And the elation?” He reached around Lucius to help her up, but she shied away from his touch and hopped up.

“What’s elation?”

“Intense happiness. Almost too sweet.”

“Also not good.”

“I figured that, too.”

“What was that?” Lucius asked with wide eyes. “Your skin burned my hands when I tried to separate you two.”

“It is something best kept to yourself,” Cayan said in a flat voice.

Lucius nodded, troubled. Shanti knew how he felt; she wasn’t much better off. And she certainly didn’t like the speculation in the Captain’s eyes.

“Let’s go.” She nearly sprinted ahead. She had no idea what happened, but it wasn’t the time to dissect.

It was a short walk made long by Shanti’s acute analysis of the boys who had gone before her. They were supposed to leave no trace of their passing. Instead, there were broken tree branches, Gracas’ footfall, Xavier’s large frame knocking down leaves, and any number of little things an experienced tracker would see. Like Sterling, who was on their trail constantly.

When Shanti and crew finally reached the large clearing chosen for that day, the boys were play fighting and horsing around. Shanti cleared her throat. As if she’d shouted, everyone immediately fell into line, facing her in order of seniority. How they figured who was ahead of whom, she had no idea, nor did she care. That was Xavier’s department. To her they were all one and the same, in need of different types of training because they had different skill sets.

“I take it you didn’t hear the three of us coming?” Shanti began, strolling toward them, though not directly in front of them. She didn’t like addressing them in the weird line formation. It was too contrived.

Cayan, however, felt perfectly fine standing directly in front of them, their backs perfectly straight.

“No, s’am,” they answered in chorus.

“Please take a moment to notice how large the men are who accompanied me.” They did. “They made no sound and probably left no trace of their passing. Xavier, how does that correlate to yesterday’s excuse?”

“They are larger, or as big as me, and therefore I have no leg to stand on,” Xavier answered dutifully.

“Precisely. Gracas—you salute me again and I will use that hand to painfully put your face in the mud. Yes?”