“May I?” she asked Lucan, reaching out for the lid of the box.
At his nod, she lifted the clasp and opened the container. Her slow exhalation joined several others as the Atlantean crystal was revealed. All of the Order and their mates had seen the unusual, egg-sized object at the Boston command center upon Jordana’s return. But seeing it again did nothing to dim the reaction again now.
Just looking at it, no one would mistake the crystal for anything found on Earth. It was silvery, yet clear. Smoothly polished, yet it seemed to sparkle with thousands of tiny facets beneath its surface. Where it sat in the center of its titanium box, the crystal seemed to pulse with mysterious life.
“There are really four other crystals like this somewhere?” Gabrielle asked, moving closer along with everyone else.
“According to the Atlantean who took Jordana captive, there are,” Lucan said. “Two were stolen from their realm ages ago. Only one remains with their queen now. Another is with the colony of Atlanteans who defected from the realm. And this one.”
Jenna glanced at Brock. “I have to do this. If the crystal can tell us anything more about the Atlanteans or the Ancients, I have to know. We all have to know.”
He nodded as he caressed her cheek with the back of his big hand. “I don’t fucking like it, but I’ll be right here beside you.”
She turned her mouth toward his palm and pressed a brief kiss there. “I’m ready to do it,” she said, glancing to Lucan. “I want to do this.”
When he gave her a nod, Jenna reached into the box to pick up the crystal. “It’s warm.” She lifted it into her hands, holding it as if it were fragile glass. “It’s getting even warmer. I can feel some kind of vibration in its core. It feels powerful . . . alive, somehow.”
She closed her eyes, concentration pouring over her pretty face. Only seconds passed before the glyphs on her hands and arms began to pulse and fill with color.
“I don’t like what I’m seeing, Jen.” Brock’s warning was grave, full of dread for his beloved. “You’d better put it down now, baby.”
She gave a faint shake of her head, but didn’t speak. Lucan wasn’t even sure she could speak in that moment.
Her hands closed tighter around the crystal as she sank deeper into whatever had a hold of her now. Light began to emanate through the gaps between her fingers.
“Jesus Christ,” Brock growled. “I’ve never seen this happen to her before.”
Lucan agreed. Everyone gathered there fell into an uneasy silence, but Jenna seemed oblivious to everything but the crystal. Lucan muttered a low curse. “Okay, we’re done here.”
Brock was already reaching for his mate. “Baby, let it go.”
The instant he touched her, energy arced out of her body and sent the massive warrior flying across the room.
Holy. Hell.
Brock came up to his feet with a look of horror on his face. “Jenna!”
He raced back to her, but was stopped a foot away as if a wall of steel stood in his path. Lucan tried to grab for her then, and he too was blocked by an impenetrable field of energy.
Jenna’s dermaglyphs started to glow. Her eyes remained closed, but behind her lids they moved rapidly, caught in a dreamlike state.
The light inside her swelled. Her hands glowed as if on fire.
With no further warning, the energy erupted outward. Streaks of light shot out in all directions, as bright as the sun.
Every Breed male in the room shielded their eyes from the blast of pure white energy. Lucan and Gideon grabbed their mates close, while Brock roared Jenna’s name.
And then, just like that, the light was gone.
Lucan lifted his head to find Jenna calmly placing the crystal back inside its box. Brock flew to her, pulling her into a frantic, protective embrace. “What the fuck?” he rasped thickly. “What just happened?”
She was breathless, her glyphs still churning and alive on her skin.
Brock ran his hands over her. “You’re not in pain.”
It wasn’t a question. The Breed male had the unique ability to absorb human suffering into himself with a touch. His talent would tell him if Jenna felt any kind of distress.
He glanced at Lucan and the others, then shook his head. “She’s unharmed.”
“I saw it again,” she murmured. She drew out of Brock’s arms her big hazel eyes wide. “I saw the night of the attack on the Atlantean realm again.”
Jenna had seen many glimpses of history through her biotech link to the Ancient’s memories. Twenty years ago, she’d first seen the destruction of Atlantis, which had been the first the Order had learned of the violent war between their otherworlder fathers and the second alien race that had inhabited Earth in secret for an even longer period of time.
“They used Selene’s crystals against her,” Jenna said now. “The night of the attack on her realm, the Ancients used the power of two Atlantean crystals like this one to destroy them. They weakened the realm’s defenses, then they unleashed the explosion that washed away everything in its path.”
“The Ancients had crystals like this too?” Gideon’s mate, Savannah, asked.
Gabrielle turned to Lucan. “Jordana told us that two of the five had been stolen a long time ago. Did the Ancients take them, Jenna?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “My memories haven’t told me that yet, but it seems likely now.”
Gideon’s blond brows lifted over the rims of his pale shades. “If the Ancients were able to defeat Selene and her legion using two crystals like the one we have now . . .”
Brock picked up the thought, his arms still wrapped around his mate. “And we know there’s another one with the colony—”
“Hell, yeah,” Darion interjected, his mouth spreading in a broad grin. “And we happen to know someone with ties to that colony now.”
Lucan nodded. The pursuit and elimination of Opus Nostrum was paramount, but if what Jenna just reported was
