Genesis (14 page)

Disorientation swam over me. We were
drifting, just like that…without warning. I clutched my head when
he finally stopped. My lungs tightened immediately in response to
the confining space.

The earth closed in on me, stealing my
composure, bringing my nightmares to life. I swallowed hard,
staring at him, willing myself to ignore the rapid rise of my pulse
and the ache in my lungs. “Take me back.”

“
No.”

“
Take me back!” I
screamed.

“
Not until you have learned
to control your mind well enough to block me.”

The rock walls closed in on me like an
iron maiden. I was one second from curling into a tight ball before
anger lit my veins.

Fine. He wanted to be that way? I would
do it myself. I closed my eyes, intent on finding another place to
be. Preferably a different realm.

Nothing happened. I tried
again.

It didn’t work. I gave him a stony
glare. “How far down are we?”

“
That doesn’t
matter.”

“
The heck it doesn’t! How
far down did you freaking take me?”

Air. My lungs constricted tighter. I
needed more air.

“
Then make some,” he said,
flicking a dismissive hand.

I glared at him. “I was right. I can’t
trust you at all. The first chance you get, you have to show me how
much more powerful you are than me. How you can control
me.”

He shifted uneasily. “That is hardly
what I am doing.”

How had I thought he was attractive?
His middle name should be Control and his last name
Freak.

He folded his arms across his massive
chest. “Are you quite done?”

A flicker of light behind him caught my
attention. At second glance, the room was rather spacious.
Actually, I could barely see the far wall. My mind had created a
hell that wasn’t really there. I nodded. “Rant over.”

“
Good. We need to get to
work.”

Three hours later, my skin glistened
with sweat and my hair might as well have been dunked in a river.
Oh that sounded good. Who knew mental exertion could drain you
faster than running at full speed for hours?

Jett motioned me forward.
“Again.”

My spot against the cool wall was just
too good to give up at the moment. He blasted my mind with images,
haunting and violent.

“
Stop it!” I yelled,
crouching into a ball.

“
Would you rather I dig
around in the compartments of your mind?” He smirked. “This seems
like a good one.”

Brody’s blue eyes shimmered into view.
Gah. Now he had gone too far. “Get the heck out of my head,
Jett!”

His dark smirk mocked me. “Make
me!”

I was so sick of hearing that. He had
no right to access my thoughts or memories or embarrassing
fantasies that might just have included him a time or
two.

He had the nerve to smile at me. Broad
and wolfish. His low tone tripped me up. “Now we’re getting
somewhere.”

Huh?

“
You’ve just about gotten
it.”

“
Wait. I have?”

“
Telling you would give me a
hold on your mind. You have to discover this for
yourself.”

Okay, so what had I been thinking
before he distracted me? I glanced at his smug face, and that’s all
it took. This Neanderthal needed to stay out of my head. He didn’t
belong there. None of these people did. What gave them the right
anyway?

The reality of the answer hit me like
an anvil to the head.

I had.

I had let them in just by considering
it.

Jett’s expression shifted. His skin
darkened, his eyes narrowing on me as if they were a sniper’s
scope. He smiled then and this time, it lit his dark eyes. “Well
done, Rayla.”

My jaw fell. “Are you
saying—”

“
That is correct. I can no
longer access your thoughts.”

Holy crow. I did it.

Well, he told me I had, but how could I
be sure?

Staring at him did me no good, so I
changed tactics. I glanced at my shoes and thought “Boy, I wish
Jett would come over here and kiss me.” He didn’t flinch so I went
further. With as much seduction as I owned, I glanced up at him
then licked my lips.

He frowned at me. It was obvious he
wasn’t responding to my thoughts anymore, but what if he was just
trying to trick me? “Are you sure you can’t read my
thoughts?”

“
Don’t do that,” he
whispered. “Doubt is the key to unlocking your mind. You have to
have faith for this to work.”

Faith? Wow. I seemed to remember Luke
telling me the same thing when he tried to show me how to
manipulate water. Taylor said something about it too.

Jett touched my arm. “Are you ready to
leave now?”

I snorted. Did he actually have to
ask?

Oh yeah, I guess he did. I gave him a
sharp nod and a smile.

I’d finally done it. Now all I had to
do was keep it this way.

I slipped into my room after a night
full of revelations, wondering how I could have been so wrong about
Jett. Not only did he have a softer side, he had single handedly
gotten a group of brownies laughing at a not so funny
joke.

Turned out, Jett has an infectious
laugh. It startled me the first time I heard his real one. The
sound could fill a room with one note. From my experience
elsewhere, fae do not pay attention to brownies. At first I thought
he was trying to give me a show, but one of the brownies told me
this was a weekly thing.

Even if, in the end, I didn’t want Jett
as a bondmate, I sure as heck wanted him as a friend. From what I
had already witnessed, he was loyal and kind. Thoughtful beyond
belief, too.

At dinner, he made sure I got the first
serving of everything. Afterwards, he led me into a lounge where he
left me on a couch while he sat at the front of the room telling
stories to the group. I had to admit—they were good, even now the
last one haunted me. It was about a girl that got lost in the woods
and was found by an owl that transformed into a man. The man wanted
to make the girl his queen. When she refused, he turned her into a
mouse then ate her. It was way scarier when he told it, but wow,
this man had more sides to him than the Pentagon.

A soft knock interrupted my thoughts. I
ambled over to the door—too beat to worry about a robe. The silk of
my nightgown wasn’t see-through anyway.

Jett leaned against the doorframe, his
intense eyes finding mine within seconds. My heart stuttered just
enough to make me completely aware of him. “I—I wanted to check on
you, to make sure you didn’t need anything before I retire for the
evening.”

I yawned, bringing my fingers up to
cover my gaping mouth. “I’m okay.”

He nodded yet lingered in the hall as
if waiting for me to ask him in. Wasn’t the best or worst idea in
my mind. I pulled the door open further.

“
Would you like to come in
for a while? I don’t have anything to offer you to drink, but I
guess we could talk…” I followed his gaze down the length of my
body.

Heat shot through me so fast I nearly
hyperventilated. I inched the door to cover myself. Who opened a
door dressed like I was anyway? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I hadn’t noticed just how
clingy my nightgown was or the chill in the air. Those two things
did not a good combination make when a girl was trying to
not
attract a man. My face
flushed, and I couldn’t meet his eyes.

“
Maybe tomorrow night?” he
said softly. He didn’t even laugh at me.

I nodded and shut the door. Man I was
such an idiot. Jett had no desire to be my friend. That had been
clear in his dark eyes just now. What was I doing? I must thrive on
torture because I was getting pretty good at inflicting it on
myself. How was I ever going to decide who to bond with when I kept
adding men to the mix? I’d told Taylor I wasn’t going to bond with
anyone, but I knew these people wouldn’t let me out of it that
easily. Besides, the unmasked truth really was that I was still
trying to get out of making a decision.

The next morning came too soon,
especially since I waited up half the night for Mom to come to my
room. As tempting as it was to go check on her at three in the
morning, I didn’t want to cause her any trouble. Theran was too
unpredictable. She’d assured me he wasn’t abusive, yet something
nagged at me about their relationship.

I didn’t have anything better to do, so
I had lain in my huge bed, letting the stars above keep company
with my thoughts. Reflecting on my encounters with the lords hadn’t
helped calm my mind as I had hoped it would.

They all had redeeming qualities. Each
one of them could get me to laugh, make me sweat with horrible
need, or just talk my ear off. I realized I was waiting for some
sign to tell me who was best for me.

How was that any different than letting
the council pick my bondmate? So instead of just getting angry with
myself for being dumb, I made a list for every lord with a likes
and a dislikes column. To my dismay, they stacked up pretty evenly.
To my utter surprise, Jett led in the likes category.

Now that I had seen him around actual
people, I had to admit he wasn’t that bad. If I chose him, he’d be
in my face for a small eternity, but that might be nice if we could
get along.

Speaking of getting along, Heath led
the dislikes category because all we ever did was fight. Could I
spend so much time with someone I purposely tried to make angry for
the fun of it? Yet we had some wicked chemistry.

My heart sped up even thinking about
him. I’d been doing that a little too much lately. I needed to
stop. Every night since I left Lombarda he had starred in my
dreams, and every morning, I had awoken with an ache in my soul. As
far as I knew, Heath was nothing more than a scoundrel who didn’t
really care about anyone or anything. At least I kept telling
myself he was because if I was wrong about that, well, I didn’t
want to go there.

Zach was next in line for the dislikes
because I even though I’d spent more time with him that the other
lords initially I didn’t know a dang thing about him. Still, he had
gone through literal torture to keep me safe. That had to count for
something, and it showed just how much he cared about
me.

Luke was the same, but his unstable
emotions scared me a bit even now. I just didn’t know if he was
ready for bonding after going through what he did. The same thing
applied to Zach, but he seemed to have gotten over the trauma.
Luke, not so much.

And Taylor, well, he’d already closed
that door as far as I was concerned.

No matter what, I would decide before
we went to rescue my family. Even if I didn’t tell anyone who I
picked, I had to do it for my sanity. As it was, I could now say, I
liked all of them. I had to discount love because of the compulsion
they had all used on me. I just needed to pay attention to the
little things, because I was pretty sure the lords were equal where
the big things were concerned.

A bit later I lifted my weary body up
off the bed, wiping Heath’s image from my mind. This was getting
more than a little ridiculous. He was stalking my dreams which had
to my way of dealing with how he had spurned me at the bonding
ceremony. I didn’t want to think about him anymore, besides, the
too bright room made sleeping impossible. I figured it should be
late enough to try to find Mom.

After a quick shower, I made my way to
the dining hall. Halfway there that same strange awareness hit me.
I turned, looking up and down the corridor, but nothing was there.
My eyes said I was completely alone, yet my body told me I wasn’t.
Without any other encouragement I stepped up my pace. I would have
sworn I heard a low hiss just then, but I didn’t wait around to see
if I was right.

The minute I made it to the lower
level, my trepidation eased. Paranoid. I was just being paranoid
again.

I inched into the room, and heavenly
aroma’s beckoned me. Everywhere I looked people I didn’t know
stared back. I pulled my hair forward as if it could shield me from
their scrutiny.

Jett’s deep voice startled me. “Did you
sleep well?”

Commanding my muscles to relax, I
glanced at him. “I’m beginning to think Stalker 101 was your
favorite subject in school, sneaking up on unsuspecting victims
like you do.”

He laughed. “Victim?” His voice lowered
to a playful pitch. “Oh, Rayla. You don’t know the meaning of the
word.”

All lightness between us vanished. I
whirled on him. “The next time someone takes you against your will
to use you as a human incubator, come talk to me, until then, you
can take your—”

Without a moment’s hesitation, he took
me into his arms. His words fell out in a fevered rush. “Forgive
me. I’m not very good at joking. You seem to like humor. I just
want you to know me before you leave.”