Amy's Advantage (6 page)

“She kept up with you once she found you,” Jordyn said. It
was a statement, not a question.

“Yes. I don’t know how, but it couldn’t have been simple.
Though she didn’t tell me she was my sister until after Chloe was born. I just
thought she was some kind of fairy godmother or guardian angel who had a habit
of showing up when I needed her.” Amy smiled, remembering. “She’s the only one
who ever bailed me out of jail.”

“A wild child,” Cirryc said. “I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be,” she said, dropping the smile immediately.
“Mistakes are easy.” The look on Cirryc’s face had her sighing. Even though
they were probably around the same physical age, he made her feel so much older
with his general attitude and outlook on life. Wild child, indeed. Other than
with her vibrator, she hadn’t had sex in over three years. At this rate, her
abstinence stretch didn’t look to have any expiration date either.

“So why’d you end up in jail?” Cirryc asked.

“Which time? No, never mind. Time to change the subject,”
she said glancing at Chloe, who was starting to stir in her car seat again,
mumbling about her bunny. Amy found the stuffed animal tucked against the other
side of the car seat and slid it under Chloe’s arm. “Here’s Mr. Pink,” she
whispered, patting her daughter’s hand as it instinctively clamped around a
fuzzy ear.

“Mr. Pink?” Cirryc asked.

“Chloe named him.” When Cirryc frowned, Amy said, “He came
in a pink box.”

“Ah.” He didn’t look convinced.

Amy shrugged. “So tell me about the Sleht and why it’s so
important to them to find me and my sisters.”

“It’s your blood,” Cirryc
started, but came up short when Amy blanched. “No, not like that. Do you
believe all that vampire shit?”

Chloe’s thumb popped out of her
mouth and she rubbed her eyes with her tiny fist. Cirryc glanced at Jordyn and
quickly apologized to Amy for cursing. Amy didn’t know which was more amusing,
watching Jordyn keep Cirryc in line or watching a big, strong, super gorgeous
man try to tiptoe around a child’s innocence. His immaturity might irritate her
at times but he did have his really freakin’ sweet moments. “You’re okay with
alien Predators and homicidal, overgrown house pets, yet you doubt
vampires
?”

It was his turn to shrug.
“Predators and Slayers are real.”

“Try explaining that to the
Houston police.”

“You told the police about the
Predators?” Jordyn asked.

“Yes, the first time. Don’t
worry. Your alternate universe was not exposed. They didn’t believe a word I
said. I had to make them believe I was just the hysterical victim of a mugging
so they wouldn’t lock me in a padded room and take Chloe away. I didn’t say
anything to anyone after that, except for Aurora and Ellyna.”

“We need to talk about those
attacks.” He looked over his shoulder at Chloe, whose eyes were fluttering open
and closed as she teetered on the edge of waking up. “Later.”

Amy raised her eyebrows at
Cirryc. “Back to the blood.”

“I’m starting to feel like the
official historian of the rescue team between you and your sisters. I should
write out a welcome pamphlet for the incoming Mystic daughters that would
explain how the ancient ruling houses of Ilyria royally fu—messed up.” He
twisted in his seat to see Amy. “The original war started with five brothers
who decided to use the powers the gods had given them to take over each other’s
land instead of using them the keep the peace in their own kingdoms.” He tilted
his head toward Chloe and gave her a pointed look. “Most of that part of the
story is pretty gruesome.”

“We can skip it.”

He nodded. “Well, your ancestors
were the only clan not to take sides, so the gods took the powers from the
Royals and put them in your family line of Mystics. This, of course, made
my
ancestors angry and they hunted down the Mystics in retaliation.”

“Mystics? Like witch doctors or
mediums?”

Cirryc’s eyes squinted as he
searched for the right words. “Not exactly. Originally, I think your ancestors
held a lot of powers similar to the Prophets in Ilyria now, but a lot of our
history from before the wars has become lost. But the Mystics definitely were
opposed to the fighting and their resistance caused many other families to
doubt the rightness of the Royal Wars. So my ancestors decided Ilyria would be
better off without the Mystics altogether.”

“This just gets better and
better.”

“Don’t worry. That was a long
time ago.”

“Thank god for small favors.”

“Anyway, it took several
generations for my ancestors to realize the gods were serious and that there
wasn’t any way to go against the gods and keep their powers. Not only did the
gods set it up so we had to protect the Mystics, the heirs have to mate a
Mystic to increase the powers in their children. That’s where your blood comes
in. The powers are locked in your blood and we need those to defeat the Sleht.”

“Great. So far as the Royals are
concerned, Mystics have moved up from traitors to obligatory breeders.”

He shook his head and muttered a
quiet curse before continuing. “No, that’s not what I meant. You’re the most
important part to the whole prophecy. Our world will fall to the Sleht if we
lose you. Yes, my ancestors screwed up. By the time we figured out that any
chance we had of keeping our world depended on protecting the ones we’d been
hunting, the powers were fractured and the Mystics were all in hiding. A lot of
them were already dead and the rest became really hard to find.”

“Imagine that. Mystics with
trust issues. According to Ellen, the Royals haven’t come too far in being able
to be trusted since those Original Five.”

Cirryc looked truly baffled by
her comment. “Yeah, I don’t get that. Do you have
any
idea how hard it
was to find you guys? Ever since your mom left with you and your sisters, we’ve
been looking for you. Your mom didn’t leave us much to go on. The whole city
was under attack and she took off through a random portal without telling
anyone she was leaving and no one knew which world she had jumped into. Then
she died before she could bring you back and all of you disappeared.”

For the first time, Amy felt the
searing burn of anger Ellen had known for years. “She didn’t just
die.
She was murdered because someone
did
find us. Easily and quickly.”

She’d been a baby and didn’t
remember anything about coming to this world, but not Ellen. The scars her
sister carried from that night weren’t all just physical. Though she’d actually
shared very few of the details, Ellen still held that memory, every moment of
the attack that had killed their mother.

All levity in Cirryc’s manner
disappeared. A harsh, cold expression cut away the boyish features, and for the
first time she glimpsed the dangerous determination of a formidable man
underneath. “We know,” he said. “We just don’t know how or who. Yet.” He looked
over at Jordyn, who met his glance. “But we will.”

Both men turned their eyes back
out toward the road, but their thoughts had turned inward, leaving the truck in
silence except for the radio and Chloe’s kicking against the bottom of her
seat. Above the finger she had hooked over her nose while sucking her thumb,
her green eyes were wide as her gaze darted back and forth between Jordyn and
Cirryc. When neither one made any further comment, she turned her head toward
her mother and with a loud smack, popped her thumb out of her mouth.

“Snack!” she demanded.

* * * * *

She stood alone by the edge of
the frozen lake, her back toward him and her arms tightly wrapped around
herself for warmth. Looking smaller than normal in the midst of Colorado’s vast
winter white, her unnatural stillness in a place she’d sought out for solitude
underscored a concern that had been growing in him for weeks now. Though he
could make an approach in complete silence, Kayn had made no effort to muffle
his footsteps as they crunched in the heavy snow and so was surprised by the
severity of Shyrana’s startled reaction when he laid a hand on her shoulder.

Spinning around to face him, her
dark-blue eyes remained unfocused for a moment, as if her gaze was still fixed
on a distant horizon and not the large, angry man in front of her. Her alarmed
shriek abruptly cut off when she recognized him, but her face, paler than
normal, remained tight as she breathed out in relief.

A second before her defenses
slammed back into place, he saw the vulnerability and yearning she’d had for
him in the past. The moment flashed in time, but the sudden knowledge that
those emotions were still inside of her razed over him and turned his body and
soul inside out with the ache to hold her, comfort her, have her.

He forgot his reason for
searching her out as his mind sped back to the last time she’d been soft and
willing beneath him, his name falling in sweet whispers from her lips in a
caress as gentle and arousing as her touch had been. She’d come to him and he’d
kept her wrapped in bliss for hours, unable to exhaust the number of ways he’d
wanted to—

“What do you want?”

Shy’s abrupt question shook him
back to their present situation. She’d made it patently clear lately that she
wanted nothing more to do with him, using the excuse that he’d kept her from
doing her job as the intra-world telepath for the retrieval team. He knew there
was something more going on with her than that, especially as Magdalyne’s last
daughter had finally been found. Her withdrawal had been too abrupt and instead
of being relieved at the success of their mission, she was becoming more
uptight by the day.

“Amdyn’s looking for you,” he
said. “Apparently you were blocking his mind, so he sent me to find you.”

“I was trying to get through to
Bornyn,” she said, referring to the authorized intra-world telepath on Ilyria’s
side of the connection who kept them in contact with information from their
homeworld. “It’s been harder than usual. Is Jordyn back?”

“No.” He frowned at the strain
on her face. Without thinking, he brushed the tips of his fingers across one of
the dark circles under her eyes. “Shy, what’s going on?”

She jerked away and started up
the path toward the farmhouse. He caught up with her in two strides and took
her elbow, turning her back to face him. “Tell me. Let me help.”

“Tell you? You? Mr. Secretive?
Why should I tell you? Why don’t you tell me what’s going on with
you
?
Ever since my brother found Bethany, you’ve been acting weird and always
wanting to know where everyone is, showing up in the middle of things you don’t
belong in. And what the hell is your problem with Amdyn?”

Even standing in the middle of a
snow bank couldn’t cool the instantaneous volcanic rage that rushed up through
him. The damn woman was going to get herself hurt. “Why don’t you just read my
thoughts? Why bother to even ask me when it would be so much easier to just
telepathically link to my mind?”

Shy’s eyes grew dark with
emotion. A level of violence he’d not seen in her before stirred in their
depths. “Hmmm. Why haven’t I thought of that? Oh, that’s right. You block me
out completely
every time I try
.”

“Don’t get pissy just because I
just won’t let you go any deeper in my thoughts than you let me go in yours.”

“I can’t let you into my head.
You know that. Not while I’m linked to an Elder from Ilyria. It takes a lot out
of me to hold a connection through the dimensions.”

“You’re linked to Lyra—”

“Lyra’s been my best friend
since we were children and the path between our minds is well established.” The
midnight blue of Shy’s eyes flashed angrily as she shook his hand off her arm.
“The only link I’ll ever have in my life that will be closer will be with my
mate—” She sucked in sharply and stopped talking.

A living fire of electricity
arched between them and desire, as basic as it was primal, shot through Kayn.
He wanted to touch her, hold her. Hell, he wanted to drag her back into his bed
and fucking ignore the rest of the world for the next year or ten. Instead, he
took a step back.

Slowly, she blew out a breath
that frosted in the air around them. “That is, if I decide to accept a mate.”
With a vehement shake of her head, she squared her shoulders. “Which I don’t
even a have a right to be thinking about until everyone is safely home.”

“Shy, no one—”

Abruptly she turned and started
back up the path to the farmhouse. “You said Amdyn wanted to see me. I need to
go.”

This time, he didn’t stop her.

Chapter Five

Chloe!

Amy jerked awake so suddenly
that she was sitting up in the bed before her eyes had fully opened. A shaft of
pure panic lanced through her and broke into millions of painful shards under
her skin as her hand shot out to reach for Chloe, instinctively knowing she
wasn’t there even before her hand landed on the empty spot beside her. She
launched off the bed, ignoring a violent rush of nausea as she forced back the
blinding fear that threatened to lay her out flat as her eyes swept over the
small hotel room.

Suddenly, she heard the sound
that started her heart beating again and rushed reviving breath back into her
lungs. Chloe’s delighted laughter bounced out of the bathroom, followed by a
loud splash. Pushing back the Stygian shadows that had a moment ago hooked
their claws into her worst fear, she took a deep breath and literally headed
toward the light.

The bathroom door was ajar, and
with the blackout curtains pulled over the single window in the hotel room, the
light spilling through the crack made the only dent against the otherwise
darkened room.

Clarity came back, and with it,
the memory that Jordyn had decided to stop at this mid-level hotel and send
Cirryc on to the farm by himself. If everything was as it should be, Cirryc
would return for them sometime tomorrow. If not, they’d go to Plan B. However,
Jordyn hadn’t revealed what that might be.

Nudging the door open wider, she
leaned against the doorjamb, arms and legs crossed, taking in the
bubble-splattered bathroom before her.

Mr. Pink was wrapped up in a
fluffy white hand towel on the countertop, his two long ears hanging off to one
side, damp and limp. In the tub and up to her chest in a mountain of bubbles,
Chloe grinned, her green eyes bright with delight. More bubbles perched on her
nose and cheeks, dripped off her chin and plastered her dark curls to her head.
When she saw Amy, she froze, dimpled hands hovering over the water, ready to
splash and send bubbles flying, and her mouth rounded in a comical “O”.

Jordyn, on his knees beside the
tub, the long sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows, looked at her over
his shoulder. Bubbles covered his hands, rested in random wet patches on the
front of his shirt and even dotted the top his head. He turned back to Chloe
with an expression of mock alarm. “Uh oh,” he whispered conspiratorially. “We
woke Mommy.”

Immediately, Chloe giggled and
slapped her hands over her mouth, inadvertently flinging a stream of wet
bubbles across Jordyn’s pants.

Amy tilted her head and raised
her eyebrows. “It looks like you’ve used half a bottle of bubble bath in here.”

“Pretty close.” Jordyn lightly
flicked the bubbles off the end of Chloe’s nose before shaking the excess
bubbles off his hands.

Even covered in rose-scented
bubbles, the man exuded a potent masculinity that had her body warming with
unexpected desire. Seeing him so at ease and playful with her daughter revealed
a side of him that surprised her, pricking her interest in the man even more.

He stood, brushing bubbles off
the front of his shirt as he straightened. The damp material stuck to his
chest, outlining the well-defined muscles underneath. Jesus, the man was just
so damn sexy. Cirryc might be hot in a picture-perfect, boy band kind of way,
but the man in front of her had a sex appeal that went far deeper than a
heart-stopping smile and bulging biceps—though she had never seen him smile and
there was nothing lacking in his biceps.

As far as she could tell, there
was nothing lacking anywhere else either.

Jordyn fixed his hair with one
quick shove of his fingers through the short strands and then picked up the
sodden towel he’d been kneeling on and tossed it over the shower rod. Amy’s
gaze immediately zeroed in on his ass, driving her horniness up to new levels.
God, she was pathetic.

“You seem pretty comfortable
around children,” she said, dragging her mind away from wandering further into
hot-flash territory. “Do you have a wife and children of your own on Ilyria?”
If she hadn’t been so focused on his body, she would have missed the fleeting
ripple of tension that skated through him at her question.

“No, I don’t.” He dismissed any
further questions by gesturing to the small pile of clothes balled up in the
bathroom sink. “We had an applesauce incident.”

Pressing her lips together to
keep from smiling, she nodded. She was quite familiar with Chloe’s incidents.
She looked at the stuffed rabbit. “And Mr. Pink?”

“He was the first casualty.” He
leaned around her to grab a dry towel off the shelf beside her.

“Of lunch?” she asked, trying to
ignore the scent of him she’d caught as he moved so close beside her. Damn
pheromones. The man must be a pheromone-pumping machine. Either that or her
receptors were wide open. Damn receptors.

Efficiency in motion, he swiped
the towel over his arms and clothes. She watched him dry his hands and felt the
warmth tingling through her body start to swirl and heat low in her belly. He
was the kind of man who would be good with his hands. She’d be willing to bet
more than a few dollars on that.

“Of dinner.”

Abruptly, Amy was yanked out of
her mental wandering. “What?” She blinked and dropped all semblance of
nonchalance. “How long have I been sleeping?”

“A little over six hours.”

“Oh my god.” With a jerky
movement, Amy pulled a section of curls away from her face and tucked it behind
her ear. “I was just going to lie down for a moment. Did Chloe sleep most of
the time too?”

“No.”

The ramifications of his answer
shook her. “I slept through Chloe getting up? Eating and taking a bath?” With
two fingers, she picked up Chloe’s shirt, which had applesauce smeared down the
front. “And where did you get the applesauce?”

“Room service.” The words
emerged slightly muffled as he rubbed the towel over his head and face to
remove the last of the bubbles.

“I slept through
room
service?
”

“You were out cold for awhile
there.”

She dropped the shirt back onto
the pile. “I can’t believe I did that.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have
done that.”

“What? Sleep?” Jordyn ran the
towel around the back of his neck and then replaced it on the rack. “You needed
it. You were exhausted.”

Her throat tightened as she
watched her daughter play in the bubbles. “That’s no excuse,” she whispered.
“If I slept through all that, I could sleep through something happening to
Chloe.”

“Look at me,” Jordyn said,
tilting her head up with his knuckle under her chin. He leaned closer until his
face was just inches away, his eyes serious and intent on hers. “You needed
sleep. Your body and mind shut down because your instincts knew Chloe would be
safe with me while you slept. Your instincts were right.”

She closed her eyes. “But—”

“No buts.” He waited until she
opened her eyes again and looked at him. “You have good instincts, Amy.” His
eyes darkened when he paused, before saying, “Trust them.”

Trust them. Trust
him,
he
meant. She could see it in his face. Feel it in his touch. And there was more
there. In his touch, in his eyes. Awareness slammed into her as the heat and
need that had been stirring in her suddenly flared to life with a vengeance and
found its mirror image in the silver depths of Jordyn’s gaze. Nervously, she
licked her bottom lip and then caught it between her teeth, holding her breath
and waiting. Wanting.

Jordyn’s gaze dropped to her
mouth and Amy’s heartbeat launched into overdrive. Slowly, the back of his
fingers brushed her throat as he opened his hand and gently pressed his
fingertips against the pulse throbbing at its base. Her lip slid from between
her teeth as she dragged in a ragged breath. His thumb skimmed over her bottom
lip, and for a moment, she was sure he was going to kiss her.

Instead, he dropped his hand and
straightened. “I’ll order you something from room service while you finish up
with Chloe.”

She blinked. Frowned. Tried to
clear her head. “What?”

He gestured to Chloe, who had
started to slap the water. “You haven’t eaten since breakfast. What would you
like?”

Before she could get her mind to switch gears to answer, he
picked up what looked to be a gold dagger encased in a leather sheath. The
covering was delicately and beautifully tooled, even though it had obviously
been worn regularly. With the ease of practiced movements, Jordyn fastened the
weapon to his forearm with thin leather thongs attached to the casing, handle
toward his hand.

“What is
that
?” she squeaked.

He glanced up at her to see what she was looking at and
seemed mildly surprised to find her gaze locked on his arm. “A
quantar
.”
He rolled his sleeve down until the wicked-looking knife was covered and then
rolled down the other sleeve. “It’s a symbol of my position in Ilyria’s
military.”

“It’s a
weapon
,” she hissed, trying to keep her voice
from carrying to Chloe’s ears.

He answered with a simple, “Yes.”

“Here we recognize rank with pins and badges,” she said,
having a hard time looking away from where the knife was so easily hidden under
his shirt.

“I’d rather face an enemy with a knife than a badge.”

Well, okay. He had her there. “Our soldiers don’t go into
battle without their weapons,” she said, feeling rather defensive of her
adopted home planet.

“Exactly,” he said, staring at her until she got the point.
“Now, what do you want for dinner?”

“Ummm….a hamburger, I guess.”

Jordyn’s eyebrows rose in surprise when Chloe adamantly
added, “French fries!” without missing a beat.

“Children don’t miss much,” Amy said.

“Something we need to talk about,” he said. “After dinner.”

But after dinner, Chloe insisted on some serious playtime.
Since Jordyn didn’t want them out of the room, they built a fort out of the
blankets, desk and chair and then played Chloe’s favorite game, hide-and-seek.
By the time Chloe had quit playing peek-a-boo and truly fallen asleep, Amy
really wanted a shower. A hot shower. Hell, what she really wanted was a hot
shower with Jordyn and an end to her three-year abstinence stretch.

She tucked the blanket up under
Chloe’s chin and kept her thoughts to herself. There would be no steamy hotel
shower sex with Chloe in the next room. No matter how strong the attraction
might be between Jordyn and her, her world revolved around only one thing at
the moment and that was getting Chloe to safety.

Jordyn glanced up from watching
the news as she stood and finished adjusting the bedspread. “I’m going to take
a shower,” she said.

He nodded. His usual economy of
speech and action had returned once he’d walked out of Chloe’s bath. Whatever.
She was a grown woman with a child, on the run from alien psychos and their
killer pets. No matter what her libido said, she didn’t have time for wild and
crazy sex and this obviously wasn’t the time or place. Damn it.

That fate seemed to conspire
against her getting laid wasn’t half as irritating as the man presently
flipping through the TV channels. With a grumpy mumble, she dug out her sweats
from one of the plastic bags doubling as a temporary suitcase.

It wasn’t enough that the man
she was stuck with in a hotel room had this hot, dark and sexy thing going on
that made her want to fuck him until they were both too exhausted to stand, but
he kept sending her mixed signals. One minute looking at her as if he wanted to
eat her up—good
god
, how amazing would
that
be?—and the next he
was giving her the silent treatment. What the hell was up with that? What was
up with
him
? Either he wanted her or not.

She stalked into the bathroom,
but didn’t slam the door. She did not want to wake up Chloe and have a tired,
fussy child to deal with when she was feeling tired and fussy herself. Turning
on the water, she took a deep breath and decided she was losing her mind. Too
much insanity and not enough sleep. Normally, she was pretty good at staying
focused and settled like she needed to be, but a girl could dream about being
wild and crazy and carefree again, couldn’t she? Even if just for a minute?

And sex. God, she wanted sex
again. And with a real live man. Wanted to feel more than just a
battery-operated release. She wanted the heat and weight of a male body on top
of her and in her. Wanted to be kissed and caressed and wrung out with passion.
That was something her trusty vibrator just couldn’t do.

She’d probably made a fool out
of herself in front of Jordyn, which would embarrass her if it wasn’t his
fault. The man had to know what kind of effect he had on her, so he was either
shy or an asshole.

Whipping her shirt off over her
head, she rolled her eyes at herself. Dear god, she was a mess.

To be honest, she didn’t know
what was going on in the man’s head. He’d been put in charge of protecting her,
not fucking her, so maybe it wasn’t that he was playing hard to get, maybe he
was just trying to stick to whatever rules Ilyrians had on their missions. And
it wasn’t like she was anyone’s definition of irresistible temptation. Hell,
she’d been out of the game for so long, she’d probably lost her touch anyway
and forgotten how to play. Plus, with a child, the rules had permanently
changed for her, though she was still figuring all that out.

And now Jordyn was complicating
things. It was so much easier to ignore one’s sex drive when there wasn’t a
tall, dark, sexy man looking at you as if you were a Hershey’s candy bar and
his favorite flavor was chocolate. Her libido didn’t stand a chance with him
around. If she did go crazy, it would definitely be his fault.

Out of the corner of his eye,
Jordyn had watched Amy gather clothes and toiletries and head to the bathroom.
Her whole body, every move she made, telegraphed anger. Something had changed
in her from when she tucked Chloe into bed and when she stood and walked across
the room. He had no idea what had gone through her mind to flip that switch in
her head. She didn’t clarify anything either before she closed the bathroom
door.