Devotion

Martin pressed his long-fingered hand down his white, button-down shirt, as if straightening it, pushed his shoulders back and lifted his chin. He spoke with a faint trace of an Irish accent and lilt, as if he'd had many years' practice in hiding it. 'As we expected, the Daemoni are preparing for war. Their attacks on Amadis villages may have stopped for the time being, but they're making plans to grow their army.'

The statement sent a chill up my spine. Building their army meant attacking and infecting Normans–changing them into vampires and Weres. Of course, that meant the Amadis must fight back by converting the newly turned as quickly as possible, saving their souls and growing our own army at the same time.

'They won't let Tristan–or Alexis–go easily, of course,' Martin added. 'They will fight for them, harder than ever. Since we have them protected here, they appear to be in the midst of making plans for flushing them out. I recommend we keep them here on the island as long as possible, for their protection.'

'I disagree,' Armand said. 'They need to mainstream. The boy is getting old enough to remember what he sees here. He cannot know our secrets, since he will …'

I didn't hear the rest of Armand's sentence–I didn't have to, though, to understand he and others would want to protect the Amadis secrets from Dorian, their future enemy.

Rina broke into my mind.

'Alexis,' she said, again sounding as though she yelled in my head, automatically grabbing my attention. 'Have you started?'

I pressed my lips together and wiped my palms on my dress as tendrils of anxiety slithered in and around me.

'Focus on the mages,' Rina instructed. 'They are the only ones who could block me. You do not need to worry about the others.'

I pulled in a deep breath, tried to blow out the tension inside me and commanded myself to proceed. The discussion of when we'd need to mainstream resided in one part of my brain, while I used another part to conjure my cloud. I envisioned enlarging the black cloud beyond my head, which took more effort than ever before, probably because nerves tried to hold it in. With effort, I pushed it out to enshroud Charlotte, who I thought would be a good start. Nice and safe.

She wasn't completely focused on the conversation either, but silently cussed at Mom for dragging her onto the council with all of its hellishly boring meetings, when she could be out fighting. Although, she also admitted to herself, she was happy to be paired up with Mom again and couldn't wait for the paybacks Mom owed her for this meeting. Paybacks that involved margaritas on the beach and working with me. Hmm … what does that mean? I couldn't linger on that last thought, though, and forced the cloud to Martin, but didn't stay long with him, either–his mind was focused completely on the discussion, and he was Owen's dad, after all. A pang of guilt stabbed at me for invading his parents' thoughts in the first place.

My head already began to ache as I concentrated on moving my cloud along to Armand, and then, following Rina's instructions, onto the next person, the were-falcon (a brief dip into her thoughts confirmed my theory of her being a bird). As everyone else discussed exactly how long we should stay on the island, I continued coercing my cloud around the table, taking my time with the mages. I learned nothing from their thoughts.

'We do not know for sure about the boy,' said a beautiful woman with raven hair and eyes, and skin the color of smooth caramel. Wearing an intricately embellished, gold sari, I figured she came from India and discovered she lived part of her life as a leopard when I checked her mind. I couldn't help the intrusion, although she wasn't a mage, after that statement about Dorian. Did she know something the rest of us didn't?

'Of course we do, Chandra,' said the Italian blond man I'd seen in the village earlier. They had called him Savio and, I learned now, he was a were-shark. He and Armand were definitely on the same team, a team against Tristan. And, apparently, against Dorian. I didn't like the French vamp and the Italian Were. Not one bit. 'You are always optimistic, but all boys go to the Daemoni. That's how it is, how it's always been.'

'There is nothing wrong with having hope,' Chandra thought, but she didn't respond aloud to Savio's dismissive statement. I supposed she didn't know anything, but simply wanted to hope, as I did.

'We will give them as much time as they need. Alexis needs to learn our ways before returning to the Norman world,' Rina said, putting that line of conversation to a temporary end. Surely they'd give us a move-out day sooner or later.

Although I hadn't learned anything useful, I needed a mental break and allowed my cloud to disintegrate before my head exploded.

'As long as they're trying for a daughter, who cares where they are?' Minh, the Asian witch with the green hat, asked. If she hadn't been talking about me, I would have giggled with surprise at this little, soft-spoken woman bringing up the topic of sex. But she was talking about me. And her topic wasn't sex, not really. It was the daughter I'd failed to give them.

The next daughter was a hotter topic than I expected. Everyone had something to say. They were more concerned about this subject than anything they'd discussed so far, even more than they were about the Daemoni's preparations for war. After all, without a daughter to rule in the future, the Amadis would fall, regardless of what the Daemoni did. Having to face everyone in person made me feel worse than ever about this failure.

Armand went so far as to demand proof that Tristan and I were proactively working on this.

'Armand, you are not in France at the moment,' Martin said. 'That is not an appropriate question.'

Armand banged his fist on the table. 'We deserve to know.'

'We are working on it,' Tristan said. 'I personally guarantee it.'

My face heated and surely became redder than the tomato on Minh's hat. To add to my complete embarrassment, Solomon spoke up as a witness to confirm we were, indeed, working on it. Once again, I wanted to crawl under the table and never come out again.

My head pounded. The concentration of listening to everyone's minds, the frustration of not learning anything and the tension of this topic were like hammers taking turns on my brain. I felt so inadequate, in more ways than one, and didn't want to disappoint Rina again. Since I hadn't brought her the next daughter, I could at least do better with my so-called gift. So I tried once again, painstakingly pushing the cloud to only the mages, besides Owen, Charlotte and Martin.

The conversation heated, though, making concentration on anyone's thoughts difficult. Voices grew loud and hands waved about as everyone's emotional investment in this became clear. I tried to ignore the feeling of being personally attacked, even as my breaths grew shallow and my soul felt as though they physically pounded it. Just focus on your task. Don't worry about them. Tristan will take care of it.

But it was too much. The emotions–mine and everyone else's–overwhelmed me. My wall I kept so carefully in place crumbled. The thoughts came crashing in, wave after wave beating at my mind, swirling and tumbling about, pulling me under. I couldn't distinguish thoughts from spoken words, let alone specific voices, except those I was most familiar with.

'Give them two years.'

'Too long. One year.'

'No, six months.'

'There are other possibilities to consider, too.'

'Not Tristan. Never right. Shouldn't be here. Owen … the right mate.'

I gulped for air. My heart raced. I had no idea what thoughts Rina could hear or if she totally depended on me, but I was failing. A silent scream to her or Tristan or Owen that I needed help clawed at my mind, but I held it back, afraid I'd lose control and everyone would 'hear' me, ruining everything.

'We don't need deadlines or other possibilities,' Rina said. 'Tristan and Alexis are supposed to be together, their souls are made for each other. We must trust the Angels. They have told me there will be a daughter after Alexis.'

'I feel that truth. Tristan and Alexis have a daughter in their future,' Mom added.

'Not good enough. We need a daughter now!'

'We must take this into our own hands.'

'Stupid women. Basing everything on their feelings and non-existent messages from the Angels. Of course Alexis won't get pregnant. We already have the girl. We just need to keep her hidden a little longer …'