Chameleon (Supernaturals) (14 page)

“I met a shape shifter once,” Duncan continued. “The bloodlust was strong with him, as it was with her this afternoon. When she was a warlock she had a very delicious smell.”

I was startled by that comment and Duncan chuckled. “Don’t act so surprised,” he teased. “You know you were making Russ’s mouth water too.”

I gasped and felt a hot red blush come up to my face. For some reason I was afraid to look at the boy in the corner no matter how badly I wanted to gauge his reaction to Duncan’s statement. The room went quiet.

After an insufferable silence the Supreme High Councilor said, “I have never heard of anything like this. One cannot simply change species.”

“The girl believes it happens when someone touches her. Skin to skin contact,” Robert explained.

“Curious. We must try it.”

The Supreme High Councilor looked around the circle. He smiled at a man who was unnaturally beautiful and had an ancient look to his features. “Alistair, my good friend. If you would be so kind?”

“Of course, Councilor.”

The man got up from his seat and Robert pushed me from mine. “With your permission, my lady,” Alistair said to me, holding out his hand.

“As if I have a choice?” I grumbled and clasped hands with the man.

I was met with that same familiar wave of energy and then suddenly the man holding my hand changed. He still looked human, for the most part, but there were differences. He was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at him. His eyes were as large as an anime character, his fingers an inch or two longer than they should’ve been, and his ears came to points at the top.

I blinked. “What happened? Why do you look different?”

“You are now gifted with the Sight, my lady. You are seeing through my glamour. Seeing me in my true form.”

“Simply incredible,” the Supreme High Councilor muttered. Abruptly, he turned to the boy sitting in the corner. “Have you any light to shed on the subject?”

The boy sat silently for a moment longer, then nodded. The man I now resembled bowed and then went back to his seat but I didn’t dare sit back down. There was something in the way the council reacted to this strange boy that made me afraid to move.

“She is not exactly fey right now,” he said. His voice was soft, but confident. “She has adopted the traits, but at her core there is something that is still all her. She is pure.”

Another round of gasps and murmurs came from his verdict, and this time even Duncan, Constance and Robert were shocked.

“A pure!” the Supreme High Councilor cried. “Of course!”

“But a pure what?” someone asked. “What is she?”

I thought I saw the hint of a smile on the boy’s lips. “She is unique. A new race of supernatural. And she is the one from my vision. The one of whom the prophecy speaks.”

“You’re the Seer?” I asked.

The boy nodded, but I think he was the only person to hear my question. The rest of the council had erupted into happy cries of relief and astonishment.

“Long have we awaited you, dear girl,” the Supreme High Councilor said. “For now we will be able to stop the resistance and restore the balance in favor of the supernatural. No longer will we be forced to live in fear.”

“But what of the other part of the prophecy?” Alistair asked. “How are we to ensure she is not a danger to us all? How are we to know the one who will keep her on our side?”

Okay, that didn’t sound good. I whirled around to Duncan. “What other part of the prophecy? You didn’t mention any other part of the prophecy.”

“I didn’t think you’d want to hear it,” Duncan said. He smiled and teasingly added, “I was afraid you’d kill the messenger.”

I looked back at the Supreme High Councilor and demanded to know what they were talking about but he wasn’t paying any attention to me, he was talking to the boy. “We need to know whose love she needs. We must know if she is to succeed. Will you look into her future?”

The boy thought it over for a minute and then rose from his seat. “Come,” he said to me. “Take my hand.”

I swallowed hard and wished I were still a vampire because my heart raced embarrassingly fast at the thought of being close to him. My legs wouldn’t move. Duncan poked me in the back nudging me forward and the boy held out his hands, palms up. “I won’t hurt you,” he offered.

I got half way across the room and was hit with a wall of desire that nearly brought me to my knees. I froze in place, gasping for the breath I’d suddenly lost. “The cravings,” I breathed. “Why are they different with you?”

“Different how?” the boy asked.

I couldn’t help the heat that rose in my cheeks and looked away from his face.

“It is because you are both pure,” the Supreme High Councilor answered. “Power attracts power.”

I don’t think it was his power I was attracted to. I felt the need to be near him so badly I was trembling. I didn’t just want to be near him, either. I wanted to touch him. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to kiss me the way Russ had kissed me. The desire for this stranger was so strong it was ridiculous.

“Come,” he urged me again.

“I don’t think so.”

I didn’t budge so he walked to me. As he got closer, the cravings became so intense that I swooned. Duncan shot out of his chair and snatched me up before I hit the ground. I felt weak, but I was still conscious. “Remember what I told you,” he chided me as he helped me to a chair. At least the Seer had stopped in his tracks. He looked scared to come any closer. “Don’t fight the cravings. Just accept the energy. Your body needs it.”

Duncan made sure I was secure in my chair and then looked back at the Seer. “It should be fine now,” he said and then backed off just far enough to give the Seer a little space.

The Seer knelt down in front of me and held out his right hand, palm up. I placed my hand in his and let out a yelp of surprise as I was hit with a tsunami of desire. The Seer put his other hand against my cheek and my entire body began to shake.

“Danielle,” Duncan said sternly. “Stop resisting. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly.”

I closed my eyes and did as he said. And suddenly everything was perfect. I melted into the hand that was cupped against my face. It felt amazing. I felt better than I had since this whole mess started. When I opened my eyes the Seer was frowning at me, but it hardly mattered because I was in such a state of bliss.

The Seer took his hands away, and I sighed, sorry to see them go. But I felt wonderful. He’d fixed me in just a matter of seconds.

“I can’t see her,” he said. “I can read her aura, but I cannot see her future. It makes no sense.”

“You can try again if you need to.” I knew I’d regret that comment later, but at the moment I didn’t care. I was slap-happy all of a sudden, drunk off his power. It felt like I’d been starved of affection my entire life and he was here to make up for it.

The Seer glanced down at me and his frown turned to a very sincere smile. He gave me his hand back. “This week must have been very difficult for you.”

I accepted his touch eagerly this time, but holding his hand wasn’t as good as when he’d touched my cheek so I plastered his palm against my face and let out another sigh. Behind me someone laughed. Duncan, no doubt. I didn’t care.

The Seer knelt down in front of me, and I looked into his beautiful eyes, then suddenly I was standing in a dark unfamiliar room. It was a bedroom fit for a king. The moon shone through a pair of sheer floor-to-ceiling curtains, throwing enough light on a large four-poster bed that I could see two figures sleeping soundly.

I could see them, I just couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the Seer, every muscle in his well-defined chest, moving up and down with his slow rhythmic breathing. And there, curled into his side as if she belonged nowhere else, was
me
!

How was this possible? Where was I? How was I standing here and also sleeping there at the same time?

The sleeping me let out a piercing shriek and flew into a sitting position, panting and sweating. The Seer sat up and pulled me, the other me, into his arms. “The same dream?” he asked her.

“No,” she replied. “They’re not dead yet. He hasn’t killed them yet. But he’s going to do something horrible with that blood. We have to stop it! We have to find a way to stop him, Gabriel!”

“Shh,” the Seer said as he pulled the other me away from his chest. He wiped away the few tears that had escaped her eyes in a gesture so intimate it gave me, the real me, goose bumps. “Okay. We will speak with the Councilor again. I am sure he will understand. At his core, he is a good man, Danielle. He will see reason.”

The other me nodded, but I know myself well enough to see that she definitely didn’t agree. Gabriel didn’t buy it either. “If you cannot have faith in him, will you at least try to have faith in me?”

“I—I,” the other me stammered. “I do have faith in you, Gabriel.”

The two looked at each other then, and I got the distinct impression that her admission was a major breakthrough in their relationship—our relationship. I knew what was coming next and it was really strange to be watching it from a third party perspective. I didn’t want to see but I physically couldn’t pull my eyes away.

Gabriel was afraid. His hands trembled as he drew our faces together and then he brought his lips to hers—mine—so tenderly it looked painful. They stayed frozen against one another’s lips for a moment and then slowly the kiss progressed into something deeper. There was no lust, no fire from the cravings, just emotion—an emotion that I was scared to put a label on.

And then the vision was gone and I was blinking my way back into the conference room.

The Seer was staring at me
with concern. I shivered as I remembered the delicate way he’d kissed the me from my dream. My mouth became parched. I wanted that kiss. Desired it so much it terrified me.

Instinct kicked in and I slapped Gabriel sharply across the face. He stumbled back, his hand coming to his stinging cheek.

All the council started talking and they sounded really angry but only Duncan spoke to me directly. “What’s wrong with you? Why did you hit him?”

I ignored him and shouted at the Seer. “What did you just do to me? How did you put that into my head?” The tears that sprang up in my eyes surprised me. “Why would you show me that?”

“I showed you…?” Gabriel’s voice was awestruck. “Do you mean to say that you had a vision?”

“A vision?”

Then I understood, as did the Supreme High Councilor. “Of course!” he said. “At his touch she became like him, a seer.”

I heard voices from around the room.

“Another seer!”

“Think of the possibilities!”

“It’s a miracle!”

“Come, child,” Robert said. “Tell us what you saw!”

I remembered the kiss and looked again at the Seer. His eyes were fixed on me. I got caught in his stare and whispered one word without thinking. “Gabriel.”

The boy’s eyes went wide. “You saw my future?” he gasped.

“F-future?” I blushed fiercely at the possibility.

“If you’ve glimpsed the Seer’s future Danielle, you must tell us,” Constance said.

“I…I….” I looked at the Supreme High Councilor and then to all the faces in the room. Each of them watched me eagerly. I blushed even deeper. “I don’t know what I saw.”

“But you know my name. No one except the Councilor knows that.”

The Supreme High Councilor rose to his feet. The smile stayed on his face, but his eyes narrowed. “We will have no lies in the council Danielle. You have a rare gift and we need your help.”

Anger flared inside me. The Danielle in my dream didn’t trust this man, and looking at him now I was beginning to agree with her. “Why would I help you?” I asked. “Why would I
ever
help you? You had me kidnapped! They forced me to come here! They took me from everyone I love! They didn’t even let me say goodbye to my parents!”

“That was for your own protection,” Duncan said. He put a hand on my shoulder that was meant to be reassuring, but this time it didn’t help. I might have liked him, but he’d kidnapped me too.

“If it was only for my protection then why wouldn’t you let Alex and Russ come with me? They could have helped me feel safe.”