“Nah,” Owen guffawed, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers behind his head. “Rina’s the only one who can do that. Besides, how can she hear his and not ours?”
“Maybe she’s not trying and doesn’t have control.”
“There’s no way,” I said, shaking my head.
Tristan continued to peer at me, his eyes full of curiosity. “Try me.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “This is crazy. I can’t read your thoughts, Tristan.”
“Just try,” he urged. “You are unique.”
“Of course I am,” I muttered.
“Remember that connection you spoke of yesterday?” he asked.
“I didn’t hear your thoughts, though. If I did…” Well, life would’ve been quite different while he’d been gone. Our connection, if I was right about it in the first place, didn’t exist through the mind, though. We were connected through our hearts or our souls…or our blood.
“No, it would have been too much of a distance. But it could be some kind of a precursor,” he said.
I glanced at Owen. He apparently dismissed Tristan’s idea. He stared off into the distance, seemingly lost in his own world, not paying attention to us. Good thing—our conversation had become a little too personal for comfort. I looked back at Tristan. Anticipation lit up his face.
“Fine, if it’ll make you happy,” I said with a sigh. “How do I do it?”
“I’m not exactly sure. Telepathy’s an ability they couldn’t give me—never theirs to give. My guess would be to open your mind and just listen.”
I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind of all my own thoughts. That’s harder than it sounds. As soon as you tell yourself to not think, you’re still thinking. So I gave myself something to think about: a black, empty space, like a big cloud of nothingness. And then I grew that cloud so it seemed to expand beyond the confines of my own head. I pushed it out farther and let it spread out on its own, eventually drifting out to enshroud the guys. Thoughts of it not working started to poke into my cloud and I almost gave up. But then I heard Tristan’s voice singing an old rock song loud and clear in my head, sounding almost like his real voice. “Here I am…rocked you like a hurricane.”
ere I am I burst out laughing. I thought I rocked him. Now he laughed. Oh! He heard me! He nodded.
Then a vision appeared as if I imagined it myself—the destroyed Caribbean room wavered into view. And then images of a naked woman and man in the heat of passion, their arms and legs entwined. They weren’t Tristan and me, though. They were Owen and…
“Owen!” I gasped. I didn’t even want to know the identity of the woman. It was bad enough to see him in the vision when I thought I’d been seeing Tristan’s memory.
Owen jumped with surprise. He squirmed in his chair with obvious discomfort.
“Sorry. I didn’t really think you could,” he said. “I didn’t even know you were trying.”
“I wasn’t trying. It was just there,” I said, exasperated. “Ugh! I need to learn control.”
“Yeah, you do,” he muttered.
“Trust me—I don’t like it anymore than you do. I don’t want to go through life like this.” I shook my head, trying to erase the image of Owen’s fantasy as if my mind was an Etch-a-sketch. “That’s really scary.”
Tristan’s eyes bounced back and forth between us. He lifted his eyebrows. Hurricane Owen wants to visit our Caribbean island, I tried to tell him with my thoughts. He grinned. He apparently “heard” me.
“Rina controls it so she only hears thoughts when she wants to,” Tristan said. “She can teach you how to tune the rest out.”
“I hope so,” I muttered.
“Yeah, me, too,” Tristan thought and Owen’s thoughts echoed his.
I pressed my forehead against the table and put my arms over my head, trying to make the “voices” go away. I imagined sucking the cloud back in and making it disappear. Either both of their minds went blank or I was able to close my mind to them. I couldn’t hear the guy out on the boat anymore, either.
“I am never doing that again,” I finally said.
“Yeah, let’s try something different,” Owen said, jumping at the chance to forget the whole thing. He looked around. “We’ll start with the easy stuff. See if you can make the chair move.”
“Uh…how?”
He shrugged. “I use magic, so I can’t explain it for you.”
“Magic?”
“Uh, yeah, warlock,” he said, flipping his hands toward himself, as if this title was as obvious as the blond hair on his head and I was blind. “Warlocks use magic.”
I felt my eyes bug out of my head. “You’re a warlock?”
He chuckled. “You didn’t know? Thought you would’ve figured that one out.”
I closed my gaping mouth and tried not to stare in disbelief. But holy crap! Owen—my Owen, who I’ve known for years now—is a freakin’ warlock! My mouth opened again, but I was too stunned to speak. I pulled in a deep breath and composed myself. Apparently, these were things I would have to get used to.
“That’s, um…unexpected. So, you’re not really Amadis?” He threw me a dirty look. “Sorry I don’t get it yet. I mean, were you converted?”
“Third generation good,” he said, proudly smacking his chest with his fist. “Rina’s mother converted my grandparents. All I’ve known is the Amadis way of life.”
“Wow…a warlock.” I shook my head, still amazed. I knew, of course, that Owen wasn’t normal, that he could do things regular humans couldn’t, but I’d assumed he was Amadis in the same way Mom, Tristan and Rina were. I thought shielding was one of his quirks, like my sixth sense or Tristan’s paralyzing power or Rina’s telepathy. Never had I expected actual magic. “That’s really crazy, Owen. So that’s why you didn’t stop aging—you don’t have Amadis blood like Tristan and me?”
“Right. I’m warlock through and through. We get really old, though, so I’ll be around at least as long as you.”
“Is that a threat?” I teased.
He smiled. “Nope. It’s a promise.”
“So, do you have a wand or a staff or anything?” I almost laughed at my own question. It sounded outrageous when I said the words out loud.
“Have you ever seen me with one?” He asked with a snort. “Those are for witches, wizards and sorcerers. I just use my hands.”
“Witches, wizards and sorcerers?” I stared at him in disbelief again. These creatures all existed in my books, but in real life? I wondered if a line between fiction and reality even existed. It seemed to all be blurring together now. Apparently, my fiction was reality. “What’s the real difference between you…you…?”
“Mages,” he said.
“Right. Mages.”
“You were pretty much right on target in your books,” Owen said. “Witches and wizards are your everyday magic people. Don’t get me wrong—they can be very powerful. But sorcerers have the greatest magical power and they’re able to boost it by pulling more energy from the world and the atmosphere. We don’t have any sorcerers in the Amadis. They’re loners, so no one has been able to get to them and they’re probably too power-hungry anyway. And then there are the warlocks. We have more power than witches and wizards and we’re physically built to fight—stronger, tougher, faster. Our most powerful magic comes out when we’re fighting.”
“So that makes you an ideal protector.”
He grinned. “Yep. And you happened to get one of the best.”
“One who caves into a pretty face and a steak dinner,” Tristan muttered.
Owen scowled.
“Please don’t,” I said.
“No, he’s right,” Owen said, his voice heavy and the lines appearing between his brows. “I should’ve known better. And I do take full responsibility for it.”
“It’s in the past, remember? Can we get back to business?” I suggested. My eyes darted between them until I felt the tension release. “So, what do I use, if not magic?”
“It’s just power,” Tristan answered. He held his hand out and drew a line in the air with his finger. With the scraping sound of metal against concrete, the empty chair slid across the balcony floor. “Just concentrate your
