Amaryllis

uneasy.

'I can't think of anyone better suited to the job than you, Trent.'

'I'm a little busy at the moment.'

Sheffield appeared to realize that he was not having his customary effect. Amaryllis saw Lucas's energy barrier shimmer beneath a renewed onslaught of focused charm. Sheffield was strong. Very, very strong.

The woman standing next to Sheffield put her fingertips to her forehead, as though she had developed a splitting headache.

Lucas fought Sheffield's psychic power by easing more energy through the prism that Amaryllis had created. She held the focus for him. The waves of hypnotic charisma receded.

A battle was being waged on the psychic plane. It was a silent skirmish between two very powerful talents. This sort of thing was supposed to be impossible. It was like some- thing out of one of Orchid Adams's novels.

Sheffield's jaw clenched visibly. He took a step closer to Lucas, The attractive woman at his side looked haunted now. Perspiration dampened the hair at her temples. Amaryllis knew she was struggling to hold Sheffield's focus.

There was a surge of energy and then, with astonishing suddenness, it was all over. The silent warfare ceased. The last remnants of Sheffield's enthralling charm vanished in a heartbeat.

Sheffield, sweat glistening on his brow, nodded abruptly to Lucas and moved off to talk to someone else. The woman with him trailed unhappily in his wake.

'He burned out his prism,' Amaryllis whispered.

'No wonder he's never submitted to testing and certification. He's strong.'

'Stronger than you are, do you think?'

'Maybe. Who knows?' Lucas smiled faintly. 'All the power in the world won't do him any good unless he finds himself a prism who can handle his talent.'

Chapter 13

Lucas awoke very suddenly right after midnight, the dream still vivid in his mind. In the nightmarish images he had been running through the wild, thick jungles of the Western Islands, searching desperately for Amaryllis. She was lost somewhere in the impenetrable foliage. He had to find her.

He opened his eyes and gazed into the dark shadows of Amaryllis's bedroom. Adrenaline still pounded through his veins. He was damp with perspiration.

He reached for Amaryllis, found her, cradled her close against him. Even now, wide awake as he was, a part of him was still afraid that she would disappear, just as she had in his dream.

Amaryllis stirred in his arms.

'Lucas? Is something wrong?'

'Hobart Batt, my counselor at Synergistic Connections, called today. He gave me an appointment for the personal interview. Two days from now. At four in the afternoon.'

'What a coincidence.' Amaryllis sat up slowly and wrapped her arms around her knees. Her eyes were dark and mysterious in the moonlight. 'I got a call from my counselor, too. Mrs. Reeton made my interview appointment for Friday also. Clementine said I could take the afternoon off from work.'

It was all happening too fast, Lucas thought. In the beginning he had signed on with Synergistic Connections because the company had a reputation for efficiency as well as for working with high-class talents. But the matchmaking firm was proving to be too efficient for his taste.

'It will take the agency a while to find some suitable candidates for us,' Lucas said. 'Everyone knows class- nine talents and full-spectrum prisms are difficult to match.'

'It might take weeks or even months,' Amaryllis said on a hopeful note.

But eventually the agencies would find a man for her, Lucas thought. He had another painful vision of Amaryllis's future. In this one she lay in bed, waiting for the faceless stranger who was her husband. It was worse than any nightmare.

'Lucas?'

Desperation gripped him. He was cold. Ice cold. He needed Amaryllis's warmth or he would surely freeze to death.

Lucas reached for her, pulling her down beside him, easing her onto her back. Wordlessly she raised her arms to enfold him. He sprawled on top of her with rough urgency. He sought her mouth, found it, claimed it.

His hand went to her soft breast. He felt the nipple tighten at his touch. She gripped his shoulders as though she would never let him go. Her legs parted for him, wrapped around his waist.

He moved his hand lower and splayed his fingers across her belly. The tensed muscles beneath the silken skin signaled her readiness, as did the warm dampness between her legs. He drove himself slowly into her, hungry for the welcoming heat.

She was tight and hot and slick. She seemed as desperate for him as he was for her. The response should have banished the ghosts of his dream, but it did not. It only served to make them all the more vivid.

He was going to lose her.

In a last, despairing effort to drive the visions from his head, Lucas silently groped for the mind link. She was waiting for him there on the psychic plane.

There was a flicker of vertigo and then he saw the prism. It was a strong, brilliant crystal construct created from Amaryllis's psychic energy. Lucas poured energy through it in a torrent. He made no effort to focus the bands of light. Instead, he allowed them to dance and shimmer in endless, rippling waves.

The ebb and flow of energy pulsed with the rhythm of the lovemaking, building swiftly in intensity. Lucas could feel Amaryllis in every part of himself, mind and body. For this moment in time they knew each other in every sense of the word.

The startling intimacy of the link meshed with the physical intimacy of their passionate embrace. The combined power of both psychic and sensual energy succeeded at last in driving out the icy chill that had invaded Lucas's bones.

But even as he gave himself over to his shuddering climax, Lucas knew the joy was very temporary.

The jungle waited.

'Lucas?'

'Yeah?' Lucas roused himself just enough to tighten his grasp on Amaryllis.

'I've been thinking about what happened at the Sheffield reception tonight.' Amaryllis propped herself up on one elbow. 'We haven't talked much about it.'

'What's to discuss? Sheffield's a very strong talent, and he's got the ability to project charm and charisma. He's chosen a career path well suited to his psychic skills. His high school counselor would be proud of him.'

'Lucas, this is not a joke.'

He exhaled heavily. 'You still don't have any proof that he or Unique Prisms is operating illegally.'

'Sheffield wasn't just radiating charisma tonight, he actually tried to manipulate us with it.'

'I hate to be the one to tell you this, but there's no law against that.'

'Because the issue has never arisen,' Amaryllis retorted. 'It's supposed to be impossible to use psychic energy the way Sheffield used it tonight.' She frowned. 'Although Professor Landreth was always reminding us that there was still a lot we did not yet understand about the whole phenomenon. He said psychic powers were evolving so quickly in humans that there was no way to predict what directions the trend would take.'

'Amaryllis--'

'Professor Landreth said that the volatile evolutionary situation is just one more reason why the Code of Focus Ethics is important. The code is the only way to govern the effect of psychic powers in society.'

'Yeah, yeah, I've heard that rationalization before.'

'It's a justification, not a rationalization,' Amaryllis said. 'And I'll tell you something else, the prism who worked with Sheffield tonight must have known that what she was doing was wrong.'

'True. But don't be too hard on her. Sheffield burned her out within a minute or two once he started pushing her limits. You see? Nature took care of the problem. You don't need to put Sheffield or Osterley in jail to deal with