Dark Princess: Shadows (The Children Of The Gods Paranormal Romance #89)

57. Brandon

57

brANDON

B randon liked Kian's optimism. A few days ago, he wouldn't have shared it, but now that Morelle was in his life, everything seemed a little brighter, and as her hand found his under the table and clasped it, he was surprised and delighted.

He turned to her and smiled, so mesmerized by her incredible blue eyes and the black lashes framing them that he found he had missed the first half of what the Clan Mother had just said.

"…Jasmine's father?" Annani asked. "He must know something."

"Please don't," Ell-rom interjected. "She is really adamant about doing it herself when she gains the ability to thrall. Edgar, the pilot she was briefly with, offered to question her father, but Jasmine prohibited him and me from doing that."

"It is not guaranteed that Jasmine will ever be able to thrall." Annani lifted her glass, and Ogidu rushed to fill it with more sparkling water. "Most transitioned Dormants cannot. It seems that it needs to be learned at a young age when the mind is still developing."

"I'm learning to thrall," Ell-rom said. "I'm even getting good at it."

"That's because you knew how to do it before you entered stasis and just forgot how." Kian glanced at Morelle. "Am I right?"

She nodded. "We both can thrall and shroud, and we are good. Otherwise, we couldn't have fooled all the gods in the spaceport into thinking that we looked like Kra-ell. Then again, it was possible that our mother was doing that. She walked with us most of the way." Morelle closed her eyes. "I wish I could have hugged her. I should have done that, even if it was risky. I didn't know that I would be traveling for seven thousand years, but I knew that I would never see her again. Well, not in the flesh anyway. She came to me in a dream."

"Oh, do tell." Annani leaned forward. "What did she say?"

Morelle squeezed Brandon's hand under the table. "She told me that I needed to wake up and that I needed to listen."

"Listen to what?" Ell-rom asked.

"The storyteller." She cast Brandon a smile. "She also said that life is worth living and that I should not keep wasting it in sleep or something to that effect. I don't remember her exact words."

Brandon had a feeling that she wasn't telling the whole truth, but it was her prerogative. She didn't need to disclose everything her mother had told her.

Kian glanced at his watch and then reached for his glass and refilled it with wine. "I'm glad that you chose to wake up and join us, Morelle. But speaking of abilities, do you have any talents other than thralling and shrouding?"

Morelle's fingers closed almost painfully around Brandon's, and Ell-rom seemed to turn a shade paler.

"I don't, or rather, I don't know if I have any other talents. The head priestess tried to find out by testing me in various ways, but I had nothing special. She was very disappointed with me."

The color seemed to return to Ell-rom's face, and Brandon wondered what that was all about.

"My sister Amanda is a researcher of special abilities." Kian took a sip of his wine. "Would you agree for her to test you?"

Again, Morelle's fingers tightened around Brandon's, and she and Ell-rom exchanged glances. "Perhaps when I feel stronger. Right now, I'm still too weak, and my mind feels a little fuzzy."

Morelle's mind seemed perfectly sharp to Brandon. He suspected that she was trying to avoid being tested.

What was she hiding?

"It can wait," Annani said. "Morelle is still in no state for even the gentlest of tests." She smiled at her sister. "Do not think that I cannot see the effort you are putting into just sitting up straight. You should be in bed."

Morelle shook her head stubbornly. "I've spent enough time in bed."

"You have a backbone." Annani smiled knowingly. "Our father would have been proud of you."

Morelle's shoulders squared, and she held herself straight once more as if her sister's words infused her with strength.

"I would have liked to know him," she said. "But perhaps I'll get to see glimpses of him in you."

"You certainly will, and one of those traits is impatience. I cannot wait for Jasmine to learn how to thrall to follow the lead to her mother and see whether she is somehow connected to finding my Khiann."

Ell-rom looked pained. "Please. Can we at least wait until Jasmine is awake and ask her consent?"

"Of course." Kian cast his mother a warning look. "We will never contravene her wishes. Besides, thinking that the woman in Syssi's vision was Jasmine's mother is pure speculation. I still think that it was Jasmine and that she is supposed to help us locate Khiann. We just need to find out the starting point of the search for her to use her scrying. The problem is that the Arabian Desert is huge, and there are many other deserts, any of which could have been the one in the scene Syssi saw. It could have happened anywhere in the world."

"There is only one solution then." Annani leaned back. "Syssi needs to summon another vision and get more clues."

Kian shook his head. "It doesn't work like that, Mother. She might ask and again get a vision that doesn't tell us anything or tells us something that is unrelated to Khiann. I don't want you to get your hopes up, thinking that it's as easy as calling a helpline."

Annani laughed. "It actually is, but the person answering the line is a trickster. The Fates sometimes have a strange sense of humor."

Brandon brushed his thumb over Morelle's palm. "Sometimes, the Fates are generous, though, and merciful, and they surprise us in the most unexpected ways."

"I agree." Ell-rom nodded. "Who would have thought that at the end of a seven-thousand-year journey, my sister and I would find a family and a home on Earth."