Desire the Banshee (2 page)

“How long had he been here?” She folded her hands in her lap.

“Two weeks. When Stan’s control slipped, Clarissa had an uneasy feeling, so she followed him.” Ray threw his arms wide. “She knows a handler isn’t supposed to go into the field. It’s too dangerous. But she did it anyway. Then did she report it? No. She cased his small apartment until another rogue joined him and they left, driving up into the foothills to this campsite. She’s lucky she hightailed it back here. No telling what they would have done if they’d caught her. She saw at least six others.”

That wasn’t welcome news. Rogues didn’t gather. They didn’t play well together. Without control over powers, tinkers and mages rubbed raw against one another. If they gathered, then they were either well trained and up to something, if the secrecy was an indication, or someone powerful kept them in check—a worrisome possibility. The last time a powerful mage gathered talents, Hitler had started a holocaust and world war. The CTF was around, in part, to be sure nothing like that ever happened again.

The CTF brought in para-talents who caused trouble. They did what they could to reform them, helping them get back on their feet or getting them the help they needed. If all else failed, CTF brought in a mage who removed the rogue’s special ability for good. Daisy shuddered. The thought of losing her banshee gave her chills.

Ray plopped into his chair and ran a hand through his brown hair. “We couldn’t chance more than one copter sweep. This is all the intel we have. The numbers at the site. We have a forest mage watching the trailhead, but she’s under strict orders not to approach. She’s counted the arrival of three more cars. Stan is a low-level kinetic tinker. Not enough power to be full mage, but the infrared here leads us to believe there’s plenty to worry about. At least one fire mage and maybe two ice tinkers.”

She nodded. No way to tell with the others, since their abilities wouldn’t change their body temperatures while at rest.

“Vince has gone over the recon and the plan. He agrees this is the best strategy. To send you in. You’re the only one who can even get close.” Ray leaned toward her. He’d always cared for her, more a father than her birth father. With the simple act of taking her hand in his, he nearly nudged emotion out of her deadened senses, but she kept a ruthless hold on it. When emotions ran strong, she couldn’t subdue the power in her that wanted to wallow in it. Ray’s earnest expression still tweaked an amount of affection she let herself enjoy for him. He leaned closer. “You’re different from the rest of us. If they have telepaths, they won’t read you. Stan and his friends don’t know who you are.”

Different
. She chuckled softly.

Ray squeezed and let go. She sighed. “No. They won’t read me. What is it you need me to do?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t want you getting too close with so many para-talents there.”

“I can take care of myself.” But she always had backup—Sean, the man she dare not think about outside of a mission.

“No doubt at all, Daisy. But I know the toll it takes if you have to defend yourself that way.”

She shifted in her seat. “I’m always fine after a little R&R.”

“It takes a toll.” Ray spread his hands on the top of the glossy table. “And not just on you.”

Another little spark deep within and she sat up straighter. She stared at her own hands, nails chewed to the nub. No rings in case she tore herself during a furor. “You mean
him
. Will I ever meet him?”

“No.” Ray shook his head.

She swept the papers into the folder and shoved away from the table. “Tell the mind leech I’m going out there. Get ready.”

“Daisy.”

She interrupted his plea before he could start his usual defense of her handler. “I’ll be in my room. Until the team is assembled and ready.”

The team being her and her handler, as it always was.

The elegant furnishings of Ray’s house never failed to inspire her to keep her arms close. She didn’t want to break anything. The sprawling ranch was not only CTF headquarters, but Ray’s home. A few of his wards—talents without families—lived in outbuildings on the compound, but he kept a room for her for when she came to visit.

Boots clacking on the polished hardwoods, she stepped through the open and airy kitchen and to the stairs down. Filing cabinets and crates lined the brightly lit, clean and utilitarian basement. At the bottom of the landing, she moved to the left toward her suite.

“Ssst.” She opened the outer door. “Suite. Ha.”

Her “suite” started with a bathroom and changing area. She sat to take off her heavy mud-crusted black boots and rolled off her ratty fishnet stockings. The leather mini followed along with the skintight tank. She didn’t bother with a bra. The red thong topped the pile. With her foot, she pushed her clothes to the side. No matter how many times she’d insisted Ray pass along the message not to bother, she always came back to find her clothes cleaned and folded.

It wasn’t her fault if her handler touched the outfit she wore after a big sexfest. Because, with his telepathic senses, when he gathered her things, he picked up on what she did when her banshee flew out of control. And the banshee liked sex without strings. Lots of sweat-inducing, rough and raunchy sex. Nights of pleasure she walked away from.

She
loved
cock. She
liked
men, but she didn’t want them in her life. If she had a boyfriend—or heaven forbid, a husband—their first fight would be nothing short of disaster. She’d let loose her wail and all the neighbors would drop dead, not to mention what would happen to her lover. She bit the inside of her mouth. The iron taste of blood reminded her to never think about what had happened to her one and only boyfriend.

With a kick at the pile of laundry again, she took a deep breath. She wasn’t sure if she wore the clothes to punish Sean or herself, but she couldn’t stop doing it. She couldn’t stop the banshee from picking up men and didn’t want to. It was a chore to quash emotion at all times so she wouldn’t fly out of control. When she wasn’t buttoned up, she overindulged. After every wail, she couldn’t bring herself to lock it down until she’d gotten gorged on sensation. Every mission it became harder and harder to come back. The banshee in her didn’t want the leash. But Daisy always brought it in. If she didn’t, she’d go rogue, fall into her emotions and never come out. She rubbed her gooseflesh-covered arms.

She slipped on a comfortable, loose sheath dress and entered her room. It was soundproof and padded, the only piece of furniture was a bed bolted to the floor. They kept it that way to protect everyone from her wail and she liked the simplicity and security.

She stretched out to wait and tried not to worry over the first massing of rogues since World War II.

It didn’t bode well.

Chapter Two

Sean opened his eyes. She was here.

Daisy sparked in the sleepy dredges of his consciousness, a soft brush against his mind like a scratch he couldn’t itch at the base of his skull. His cock, hard and throbbing, begged to be stroked, but he didn’t have the time.

The damp and tangled sheets clung to him as he struggled out of bed. He pushed back his matted hair and stumbled toward the shower. If previous missions were any indication, he’d best be prepared. He had to shower and eat before her unique ability to connect with him made him forget to do the most mundane things. Like answer his texts.

With a quick sidestep, he swiped his mobile from the desk. The messaging light blinked. Raymond had sent him a heads-up, but he’d missed it after turning in early. He’d ignored all Ray’s texts and fallen face-first into bed, attempting to put the last mission with Daisy behind him. He lived for his job as handler, but nobody else on this planet made him weary like Daisy O’Grady.

Nobody else put him through so much hell, only to give him what no one else could.

Sounds.

Sweet, grating, grinding, loud, soft, musical and brash, all the sounds he’d taken for granted as a boy. All the sounds Sean hadn’t heard for himself for fifty long, lonely years until she’d walked through the door a decade ago. As head of CTF, Ray would’ve turned her out then. She quickly proved uncontrollable, a danger to them all, but thank heavens Sean had been able to reason with Ray. His best friend took a chance and she’d proven herself. She’d learned to control her emotions and lock down her powers until they were needed.

Daisy stayed, all the while putting him through agony. He wouldn’t give up a moment of it. Before heeding the call of the shower, he messaged Ray.

Sean: Hey boss man. Got mission files. Ready 4 go.

Ray: You have time. Get some rest. I’ll send up food
.

Sean: Don’t need babysitter.

He put down his mobile, effectively ending the conversation. Once the shower temperature reached a nice steam-bath level, he stepped in.

God, he missed the hiss of the spray. Water ran down the drain at his feet, swirling.

Silent.

He stared down at his stubborn morning wood, made more unruly by him waking with Daze in his mind. A frequent occurrence and one he had only one solution to. With a fistful of liquid soap, he gripped his cock at the base and stroked with a firm hold. He shuddered and didn’t dare wish someone else’s hand replaced his with eagerness instead of firm efficiency. His hips rocked forward and he closed his eyes.

His fantasy wandered where it so often did, nearly exclusively.

Daisy.

She’d taunt him with her wicked words. Her smile would be knowing. Her fingers would skim over his flesh. And she’d kneel at his feet, lick the slit in his cock before lapping at him.

His hand turned, twisted as he’d want her to do as she held the base of his cock while she slipped her mouth around him. Sucking and flicking her tongue.

His mouth opened and the spray of water trickled onto his tongue, down his throat. He stroked faster and leaned into his hand braced on the shower wall. He moaned, not hearing himself, but feeling it in his chest as it grew tight.

What might he do, for one night with her, a night with no regrets, no repercussions and no ties? The way she lived her life—a way he couldn’t do—the hint of it made him thrust into his hand with desperation.

The climax rushed over him, releasing the tension, and he slowly let his muscles unclench. He blinked down at the swirling water at his feet, bubbles disappearing below. That’s where his sex life ended. Down the drain.

There could be no woman in his life. Not even Daisy. He had nothing to give. All he’d be was a burden, and he couldn’t live with himself that way.

No time to stand here feeling sorry for himself. He had a mission.

Shrugging it off best he could—which was never permanently, he hurried through the rest of his wash, stepped out and dried off in front of the sink mirror. Instead of a comb or brush, he swiped fingers through his black hair and tested the roughness of his stubble. He grimaced. No time for a shave—he’d wasted enough time stroking off in the shower.

He tugged on his worn-in jeans and a plain black t-shirt. Barefoot, he moved through his sparse bedroom in his suite at Cinder to his overflowing office, piled high with research books and all the paraphernalia he’d collected over the past half century.

Sitting heavily in his chair, he picked up the folding picture frame next to his computer monitor. On one side, three grinning men stood with arms slung around one another, Raymond and Griffin Cinder flanking him. Fifty years ago, they broke ground at CTF. Sean, at eighteen, had been willing to do anything for the brothers who had taken him in. The brothers had offered him their last name, but he’d kept the name “Twenty”, a reminder there were people like him out there, lost in the system that didn’t bother to give them real names, only numbers.

The picture could have been taken yesterday. They didn’t look much older than they had a half century ago. As mages, they aged slowly, but didn’t live forever. More time for him to suffer through this life, but he gave his all to the Cinders.

He ran a finger over the other side of the frame. Daisy, long black curly hair gleaming in the sun, sat on a bench in the garden behind the main house. Watching, he’d stayed out of her sight. She didn’t know he’d taken a snap of her with his mobile camera. She’d never seen him face-to-face.

With a last caress across the glass covering her image, he put the frame down and opened the files for the mission. Rogues gathered in the Appalachian foothills in a remote camp. Not good. At all.

Doing what he did best, he put his hand on the keyboard and ran title searches for the property of the rogue compound. He followed the tax money and pulled up satellite maps of the area. The camp belonged to a corporation, Nelson Holdings. After following several dead ends, he ordered more in-depth reports through his connections and put aside the search to uncover the company. He’d have to wait for news on that front.

Nelson. There couldn’t be a connection to their Coordinator, Vince Nelson, but para-talents obviously ran in families. He shook his head. Nelson was a common enough name, even in the small world of talents. Last time he’d seen Nelson, the older man had assigned him a new recruit, the artist. Intriguing talent, that, to draw images and bring them to life. After this mission with Daisy, he couldn’t wait to work with the artist teen again, help him through the hormones and the infusion of blooming power. It was a confusing time, and he should know better than most. That was probably the reason he always got the rescued teens.

Bowing over the reports, he counted all the red and yellow smears from the infrared shots. It looked like a total of twenty-five. Rogues rarely moved with others unless in a committed partnership. Finding three together was rare enough. Twenty-five together had devastating possibilities.

Secrecy paramount to survival, if they didn’t belong to a family, para-talents were loners. The Cinders had taken to rescuing orphans and the displaced after World War II. Their first, Sean came from a halfway house they visited after the war. The brothers then rescued several other teens from various rogue predators. The Cinders dedicated themselves to keeping an eye on rogues, defending norms from them and keeping mishaps out of the news. After receiving the help they needed, most of their all but adopted children had left home to create their own families. The Cinders numbered fifteen on site, another three, like Daisy, lived mostly on their own, but the ties never went away.

This situation might call for pulling in all their resources. They couldn’t send Daisy in there alone. She had a mighty talent and could take care of herself, but against twenty-five, even his banshee might fall into a trap.

With a shudder, he rubbed across his chest to ease a pang.

No way could he let her walk into that camp.

With a flick of the mouse, he brought up his messaging window and punched at the keyboard.

Sean: This mission is suicide

Ray: Have confidence in our girl

Sean: She’s not your girl. She’s mine

Ray: Then do something about it

The pang in his chest twisted and took his breath. He flexed his shaking fingers and stabbed at the keyboard.

Sean: No time for that old argument. I won’t send her in

Ray: She’ll go. She’s seen the surveil

Sean: No

Ray: She’s the only one can block a mind probe

Sean: No. I can. I’ll go

Ray: Can’t let you do that, my friend

Their other old argument came back to bite him on the ass. He’d always insisted his inability to hear the world around him meant he couldn’t go out there. Ray’d pushed until he finally gave in, allowed Sean to pretty much seclude himself in the CTF compound. But now he needed to keep Daisy safe.

Sean: She’ll never make it out of there

Ray: You know she can defend herself

Sean: She doesn’t like to do that

Ray: She uses her talent if she has to

He was breathing hard, the rapid back and forth made his fingers tense over the keyboard. If cornered, Daisy would let loose her wail. Maybe she could get in and out of there, but the cost could be high. All those gathering rogues might not be lost causes. She could kill them all in a matter of seconds. He’d be barraged with the images of that and it would kill her to live with the aftermath. And, maybe more importantly, they needed them alive to find out why they’d gathered.

Sean: If she loses control of her emotions, she won’t be able to stop herself

Ray: You know how to control her

Unable to read the last line again, Sean put his face in his hands. He pushed back in his chair and lunged to his feet. When he passed through his small living room and out into the hallway, he stopped cold. He should wait here, in his room. He shouldn’t go downstairs.

Every time he touched her clothes, a little bit of him died. This last year, he’d picked up on increasing tension in her. Pulling in the banshee had become increasingly harder. To compensate, she’d taken to more blatant behavior, hitting the bars even more frequently. If not for his work with his other recruits, he’d have lost it by now.

He’d wanted to lock her in her room—with him inside—and throw away the key. He couldn’t let that happen. First, there was the insurmountable problem that if he joined talents with her, he’d scramble her brains.

When he entered a brain telepathically, he burned neurons and paths. The one time he’d done so, before he learned to control it, he’d driven an innocent teacher insane. He’d only wanted to see if he could learn the texts by pulling it from her. He lived with that guilt every day, but the worst was the first time he’d seen Daisy. Before she’d turned to see him enter the room, he’d fallen into her. He hadn’t been able to control it. Some thread of connection snapped, and in his shock, he was able to stumble away. It scared the living hell out of him. He’d run and never stopped—never getting too close to her again.

The other reason he couldn’t join talents with her was simpler. She’d see him for what he was—a nobody with a handicap, a chip on his shoulder and a real problem leaving the walls of this house.

In a sense, he did leave this house. When they linked, she took him outside into the world and into the racket of the crowds and civilization. Twisted as it was, she meant for him to gather her clothes and left him those psychic images of confusion, loneliness and desperation. It was the only way he could touch her. More than anyone, he understood her carnal pursuits took away her darker emotions.

With an effort, he closed his door behind him and passed through the corridor to the stairs. Down three flights without running into anyone who’d be awkward with him, he paused before he opened the basement door.

Eyes closed, he reached out with his mind to reassure himself she waited in her soundproof room. To protect others, she wouldn’t open the door again until time for the mission.

The small scrap of red on the floor brought a rash of heat over his chest. He’d been with a few women before he mastered the hormones that ruled him as a young man. The fumbling, the solid wall of air that seemed to thicken in his head the more he touched a woman’s flesh, and the pitying glances after. He didn’t miss sex. Hadn’t had it in going on forty years, and the last time had been a doozy. In bed with a woman he’d dated for months, a norm, he’d been unable to stop himself from understanding what she broadcast—not even needing to push inside her, which he would never do to anyone ever again. But touching made it nearly impossible not to catch thoughts.