Retrieval (27 page)

“No,
you
messed up the room. But that’s okay; it’ll straighten. Now go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up, okay?” His words were deep and measured, an indication of just how rocked to the core he was.

“Hold you to it,” she whispered and then fell into the arms of sleep.

Chapter 17

“Skylar?”

“Yes?”

“Where are you, child?”

“Safe.”

“I know that, darling. But where are you?”
A loving plea from the lips of a woman whose face she couldn’t remember, but who she talked with in her dreams.

“With Sebastian.”

“Skylar. Child, tell me where you are. It’s important that I know where you are, so that I can keep you safe.”

“You’re just a dream. You can’t help me, but I love you for trying.”

“Skylar. Wake up now, your father is coming, and if I keep speaking with you this way, he will notice and begin to track you. Right now he only has a vague idea of your location, but he’ll lock onto you if we continue. Wake up.”

The beautiful voice had turned so demanding that even in sleep Skylar felt the need to run away from the danger it cautioned her about.

“Wake up!”

The words were a harsh scream this time, and Skylar plunged headlong from sleeping oblivion into the waking blackness of night.

“What the hell?” Skylar whispered as she bolted upright into a sitting position on the bed.

She felt the bed beside her and found it cold to the touch. He must have left her again, so he could go make whatever plans he felt were needed to keep she and her sisters safe. Looking around, she tried to shake off the bothersome dream. The room was an absolute wreck, and then she smiled the smile of a very satisfied woman as she remembered the reason why.

She stretched out the kinks of sleep and performed what she called a systems check. She found that she was a hundred percent better and ready for whatever came her way. She personally hoped it was about two hundred twenty-five pounds of the hottest man to ever set foot on the earth, but with her dream riding her mind hard, she doubted that she was going to get what she was wishing for.

They’d still yet to talk to one another about themselves. She’d been dying to find out more about the man she’d fallen head over heels for. She wanted inside of him to find out what made him tick. What were his favorite foods? What did he do for fun?

“You,” came the response from the doorway.

Sky was startled to see Raina standing just inside the room.

“Huh?” she asked in confusion.

“He does you for fun apparently, you little hussy, and if the condition of this room is any indication, you really, really like it,” Raina teased her.

“Oh put a sock in it already. Jealousy is an evil thing, and right now you are green with envy. Admit it. There isn’t one of you that wouldn’t kill me to take my place right now,” Sky teased back.

“I don’t want
your
place. I just want to be in a place similar to yours,” Kinsey laughingly informed her as she walked in behind Raina.

“Morrissey’s right downstairs. I’m sure he’s available,” Sky quipped.

“Now
you
need to put a sock in it,” Kinsey said with a hard, pointed stare.

“Put a sock in what?” Piper entered the room dressed in a black form-hugging tank top and fatigue pants. She looked ready to do battle at a moment’s notice.

“Her mouth,” both Raina and Kinsey said at the same time before they broke into laughter.

“Ladies, we really don’t have time for fun and games. Hey, Sky? Why don’t you tell us about your little dream just a few minutes ago?” Piper raised an eyebrow as she positioned herself beside the huge window and peered intently out of the curtains.

“No way I bled over,” Sky said with concern as she read each of sister’s minds with no remorse for the invasion of their privacy.

“You did and get out now.” Piper winced and grabbed her head when the pain from her efforts to kick Sky out became overwhelming.

“Stop it, Sky,” Kinsey said as she too rubbed her head.

Raina just stood there waiting for Skylar to divulge her secrets. She was a stoic reminder of just how tough each of the sisters was.

“I’m sorry. I love you,” Sky said and then sent a wave of healing energy toward them all before she got out of the bed.

“Put some clothes on, Sky, and you better make your shoes of the running variety,” Piper said cryptically before she closed the curtain and turned to face them all.

“Why?” Sky stopped and stared at Piper in dawning concern.

“Daddy’s on his way,” Kinsey singsonged with a sneer.

“Skylar? Tell me about your dream.” Piper was like a dog with a bone.

“Where’s King?” Skylar asked in a vain attempt to throw Piper off the scent of fresh meat.

“You know damn good and well that Sebastian sent King to a friend of his who is a local vet. Now give over,” Raina demanded, anger weaving through her tone.

“Stop cussing,” Kinsey admonished her sister.

“Screw that. Skylar.” Raina brushed off the reprimand. “What happened in your dream?”

“Give me a second to get some clothes on. Where’s Sebastian?” She looked for her bag of clothes that Sebastian had brought in last night.

“Out doing a perimeter check. They are all out doing a perimeter check, so we need to get this done quick. Oh, and you need to shield us,” Piper warned with her tone and look.

It cut deep, but it was clear to Sky that her sisters were upset about something. Were they angry about her relationship with Sebastian? Surely not. They each knew how overwhelmingly wonderful Sky felt with Sebastian. What was going on?

“Number one, you didn’t tell us about your dreams. Number two, we’re antsy to get out of here. And number three, we’re jealous as hell,” Kinsey said in a light tone that managed to be full of brevity.

“Your time is coming, Kinsey. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure of it. And my dreams are mine alone. I’m sorry that I was so deep I didn’t shield better, but they’re really none of your business. As for leaving? I’m pretty damn antsy myself, but I needed to recover.” She pulled a long sleeved T-shirt over her head.

Stepping into underwear and then a pair of jeans, she pulled on socks next, and at Piper’s pointed look, picked up a pair of Nike Shox to complete her outfit. Pulling her hair up into a ponytail she bound it in place and turned to face her sisters.

“I have dreams sometimes. It’s nothing really. I think of them more as my subconscious warning me to get my shit together. Come on, guys, really. We all know he’s coming right? I guess my mind just wanted to remind me that we’re on a tight time schedule here, and I need to get my ass in gear.” Sky shrugged as she moved around the room straightening up.

“That wasn’t a dream, sister dear. That was somebody speaking directly into your mind. The energy was palpable and much stronger than ours. Whoever was talking to you bled over into all of our minds through yours, and it wasn’t anyone any of us have known before. And they did it intentionally,” Raina said into a deafening silence.

“Not possible. We’ve tested this bond of ours so many times it isn’t funny,” Skylar responded emphatically.

“Yeah, but the strongest one of us all hasn’t been quite this distracted before either,” Kinsey pointed out quietly.

“Okay, you have a point. Is that what’s really bothering you guys? You’re angry about what’s been going on with Bastian?” Disbelief echoed in Sky’s tone.

“No,” her sisters said in unison.

“Are you shielding?” Piper asked in a low voice.

“Yes damn it, I’m shielding,” Sky spit out in aggravation.

“Hey. Don’t get mad at me because you can’t keep your shit together while having Sebastian in your pants,” Piper said snidely.

“Fuck you, Piper.” Sky turned on her sister in rage.

“Calm down, ladies. This is just the sort of thing we do not need right now. Piper, this isn’t the time for any of this. Skylar, how often do you have these dreams?” Raina asked, her eyes a cloudy shade of opaque silver.

“Not often. Over the past few years not at all, but then again, we’ve enjoyed a relatively peaceful period the last five years. They usually only happen when we’re about to encounter problems with Smythe-Ward,” Sky told them between deep calming breaths.

“Can you trace the energy? Can you go back and trace where it came from?” Raina questioned her, not letting up an inch.

“If it was someone in my mind I could, but it was a dream, just a manifestation of the stress I’ve been under, and it happened to bleed out to all of you. I’m sorry, okay. I do my level best to prevent this type of thing from happening, but my guards have been down lately. If anybody could understand, it should be you guys.” She threw each of them a penetrating look.

“This is more than just your subconscious talking to you, Sky. I’m telling you this is someone speaking directly to you, though it seems like they are a million miles away. But okay, I get that you don’t want to discuss this. I get that you don’t even want to admit it could be happening. You just need to know that you are putting all of us at risk by not figuring out what’s going on, and Skylar? That isn’t like you,” Raina said with a stern look on her beautiful face.

She’d had enough. She’d spent her entire life taking care of the women before her, and this was what she got in return?

“We didn’t ask you for that. We didn’t ask you to give up your entire life to make sure that we were protected. Hell, Sky, we’re strong in our own right. Sure you’re the ultimate combination of us all, but none of us asked you to give up anything to care for us. It’s like you’re the mother, and we’re the children. Shit, we’re all the same freakin’ age for cripe’s sake. We are equals in this, and we want to protect you just as much as you want to protect us.” Kinsey’s voice rang with the truth of her convictions.

That took the wind out of her sails quick, fast, and in a hurry. Breathing deeply she blew the inhaled air out in a rush and sat down in the huge easy chair beside the bank of windows.

“Okay. I guess you told me,” Sky said in a somewhat defeated voice.

She’d treated her sisters as if they were practically invalids, even though she knew that any of them on their own were more than a force to be reckoned with. Maybe those mothering instincts Kinsey was just bitching about had been encoded into her DNA along with all the other mess.

“Please, no time for pity parties. We have things to discuss right now that demand
all
of our attention. We just wanted to give you time to recover from your, um, what should we call it?” Piper asked looking at the bed, “Your time of self-discovery? Then you went had your dream, and it shook all of us so we came up here to talk to you. Can we please just do that now?”

Piper’s voice was snide, but the unspoken plea was there, and because she loved her sisters more than she loved herself, Sky let the bickering go so she could get as much information as she could about what had been going on while she was out.

“So what’s going on?” she asked them.

Kinsey sat down beside Skylar on the bed, and her other sisters huddled around.

“We heard a conversation between Sebastian and Morrissey that got us wondering just what they were planning while the ‘little women’ sat around and soaked up all the protection. Apparently, Sebastian has been talking at length with the Bonner twins, you remember them right, Sky?” Kinsey asked with a look at Skylar who shook her head to keep her going.

Kinsey had been the one to suffer unspeakable horror at the hands of Peter Dempsey. Bleak’s sister, Talia Moore, had been held by Dempsey and tortured so thoroughly she’d almost broken. It had been Raina who had learned of this through her link with Bleak and had asked if there was anything the sisters could do to ease Bleak’s pain. Kinsey had readily volunteered to infiltrate Dempsey’s stronghold and had herself become a victim of the man’s torture. She’d tried at one point to ease some of Talia’s pain, but the obtuse woman hadn’t realized that Kinsey could channel her pain away from her, and instead Talia had heroically “saved” Kinsey from watching Talia’s suffering. It had taken all of the sister’s combined strength to pull Kinsey out of that one from such a long distance away. Talia Moore had been saved, barely, and gone on to marry one of the Bonner twins, Dare. That was how Sky and the other sisters knew of the men.

“Anyway, Dray Bonner, who is supposedly in love with one Sasha Bennoit, has ties with General Post who recommended Sebastian’s team for this job. Sebastian doubts Post’s veracity and now thinks his former commander is knowingly in league with GenTech. In other words, Dolan Smythe-Ward. Both men are looking into it, but Sebastian informed Morrissey, Bleak, and Rover earlier that their number-one priority is keeping us hidden and safe until he can dispose of the threat to you,” Kinsey said.

“Smyth-Ward will roll over those men like a pestilence. I wish I had more information on Sebastian. And before you ask, I can’t be invasive with him. Don’t ask me to. He’ll have to tell me his past. But he must be hella good at tracking and retrieving.” She shook her head and continued, “I told them about the link between GenTech, the Senate Subcommittee on Genetics Research and Senator Cobb. It must have been enough to get Sebastian checking into things. There is one piece of information I have that you guys may not, and I would have told you before but with almost dying and trying to recover I don’t know, I guess I wanted to make sure before I brought it to you guys,” Sky said and then got up to get the jeans she’d discarded earlier this morning before her bath.

She pulled a picture from the back pocket and handed it slowly first to Piper who inhaled sharply when she got a good look at it. Piper then handed the picture to Kinsey, who took Raina’s hand, and they looked at it together.

Light filled their eyes, and even Piper’s were mysteriously moist. They shared a reaction similar to Skylar’s when she had seen the woman in the picture.

“It’s the lost one isn’t it?” Kinsey’s voice was less than a whisper in the silence.