Page 41 of The Edge of Dawn

THIRTEEN

Her ka’qui—she definitely projected ka’qui—was wild.

He’d never experienced anything like it.

And he was beginning to suspect that the extent of her Talent was far greater than what he’d first thought.

Humans were unpredictable.

Look at Ashrael’s mate, who’d manifested such immense power even though she was completely untrained.

What if she was the same?

A human shouldn’t be able to invade his dreams. In the realm of his kind, such a feat was almost unthinkable. If it were any other being, he would have been on extreme guard. Perhaps he would have killed them already.

But her…

It was obvious that she was utterly guileless. She had no idea of her latent potential. Of how rare and potentially dangerous she was.

Her sheer unawareness was almost comical. She didn’t even realize what she’d done.

The mental blast she’d projected had felled every single unguarded mind within a large radius of the mine, including the humans that had just arrived in a primitive flyer—presumably to help their fallen goons.

He’d killed two of them before the others had fallen like stunned insects, and for a moment, even he had been overwhelmed by her psychic power.

Standing in the blazing sunlight in the middle of a dusty wasteland, he’d been momentarily frozen.

By another’s psychic power.

Him?

It was unthinkable.

Like a shockwave spreading outwards from an exploding bomb, her terror, agony, and despair had been projected with vicious force.

And swirling in the confusion had been some of his darkness, too.

Surprising him.

Ashrael was right. When he’d taken over her body, he must have imprinted some of his consciousness on her.

That was bad.

Her fragile human mind wasn’t equipped to deal with his personal horrors.

Somehow, he’d felt responsible.

So he’d slammed down his defenses and broken free of her all-consuming aura. He’d moved as fast as he possibly could, bypassing the rickety metal ladder and instead dropping down the shaft into the welcome subterranean coolness.

He’d found her leaning against a wall, her broken body on the verge of collapse, a torrent of wild thoughts surging from her unguarded, unfettered mind.

What a fucking mess.

Some of it was his doing, probably.

He’d done the only thing he could think of. He’d come behind her and pressed his hands against a point on her neck where a certain nerve crossed over. Humans and Kordolians were different but also the same in many ways. If they were similar enough to be able to fuck and produce viable offspring, then surely, this part would be the same, too.

Pressure over this area activated a certain part of the nervous system and induced a calming response—that was the theory, anyway.

---