Page 333 of Primal Bonds

At first, all she saw was the water. Then her vision shifted somehow so that she saw her reflection instead. She kept breathing, slowly, evenly.

She pictured Merry, adding details as she’d been trained. The teenager’s sharp, lively face. Her serious hazel eyes and her rare but contagious giggle. The wiry, exuberant curls. Her lanky body and love of bright colors.

Rosana’s mouth curved. Merry was adorable, the little sister she’d always wanted.

Minutes passed with nothing happening. Her mind wandered.

She dragged it back, focusing on Merry with a grim determination. But although she conjured up a photo-perfect picture of her friend that would’ve pleased even Colm, that’s all it was—a picture conjured up by Rosana. Not a vision.

She expelled a breath and straightened up. Maybe scrying just wasn’t her thing. Not every Seer could scry, right?

“Discipline, Rosana, it’s all about discipline—and belief in yourself. If you think you can’t, then you can’t. Belief is as important as skill.”

Her head snapped back. She cast a guilty look around. She could’ve sworn Colm had ’ported into her room to remind her of Rule 3. But it was empty except for her and the scrying bowl.

She set her back teeth and glared into the water. “I’m trying,” she growled as if the sardonic Irish sun fae was actually present, shaking his mane of blond hair reprovingly.

She’d disturbed the surface. She waited for the ripples to smooth out and then focused again.

The water in the bowl grew dark and still as a deep-jungle pool, and then she saw Adric. On his motorcycle in a shadowy forest, his tires making a single track in the fresh snow.

Her eyes widened. She’d never had such a clear vision when scrying. She squeezed her eyes shut, re-opened them. Adric was still there, driving through the snow.

Her breath hitched. Snow was predicted for later that night.

Suddenly the water shivered as if touched by a finger, and she saw Adric-the-cougar slinking through the snow-covered forest. He reached the edge of the trees, stared at the fog-shrouded grounds beyond. At first, she thought he was looking at a graveyard. But the tombstones were house-sized, with lush ivy vines snaking over fanciful gothic arches.

She’d never been to the New Moon Court, but she recognized it immediately.

And Adric was on his way to it.

Rosana’s heart stuttered. The water shivered again, and she became part of the scene, slinking with Adric through the forest. She felt the frozen earth beneath his paws, heard an owl’s mournful call, scented the musk of a deer herd huddled against the cold. The rising sun glimmered a pale gold, and then was hidden by a fast-moving cloud.

Once again, the water in the bowl lurched and swooped. When it cleared this time, a tall fae was strolling around a pond on a path of white pebbles, his black head bare to the falling snow, a duster swirling around his long legs.

Her bowels iced. It was Prince Langdon, exactly as he’d appeared in her vision in December.

His head swung to where the cougar crouched, and then his gaze flicked to her. He turned.

The scene shrank in on itself until his face filled the scrying bowl. It was a poet’s face—narrow, dark-eyed, incredibly beautiful. Tiny diamonds outlined his pointed ears, glittered in his winged black brows.

She gulped. His eyes narrowed, looked straight into hers.

He can’t see you, she told herself frantically.

Then he smiled.

Chapter 15

The Factory was in an abandoned grocery on the west side. The sign outside still read Allen’s Stop-and-Shop; it worked as camouflage, and suited Adric’s sense of humor besides. After they’d gutted the place, there’d been plenty of space for the shop that Jace Jones had set up to test and manufacture the clan’s quartz-based smartphones. When Adric entered Tuesday afternoon, the jaguar fada was already there, deep in conversation with his small team of quartz-crystal techs.

Jace turned to him. A tall, rawboned man, he had cropped black hair and the same serious hazel eyes as his niece Merry.

“Ric.” A smile lit his face. “We have something to show you.”

Jace and the three techs spent a few minutes bringing Adric up to date on their current projects, including the quartz mine on Rising Sun Fae land which was the clan’s hope for turning the smartphone technology into a money-maker.

“We could have them in production by summer.” Jace handed him a prototype made from the mine’s high-quality quartz.

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