6

Chapter Five

God help him. Ryder sent out the silent prayer after finding the weak spot in Carmella’s defenses and slipping into the shadows of her daydream. She would be the death of him—and her, if he wasn’t careful. Because when he got hold of her he was going to fuck her until he killed them both.

She was imagining him. It was the most amazing sight, seeing himself holding her against the wall, his hands rough, his hips pressed against that pretty ass as he held her in place. And she was fighting him tooth and nail. Fighting as her image of Torren wavered around them.

“Say no,” the shadowy Ryder ordered. “When you say no, I’ll let you go.”

Ryder wondered if he actually got his hands on her, if he could let her go should she actually say no.

“Go to hell.” Her curse echoed in the confines of the dream she had built within her mind.

“Wrong answer,” the dream Ryder taunted.

His hand moved from between her thighs to deliver a stinging slap to the well-rounded curve of her buttock. Ryder watched her flinch, heard her cry out. Son of a bitch, it was her daydream and it couldn’t have hit his own fantasies much closer.

He watched as she struggled, kicking back, her head tossing as she tried to slam it into her dream lover’s face. The male vision only chuckled, then smacked her again a second before his fingers delved into the cleft of her ass and slid to the area of her pussy.

It was wet. Ryder knew she was dripping wet without seeing it. The dream Ryder hummed his appreciation of what he found as the woman bucked in his arms.

He forced her legs apart then, his powerful thighs flexing. She screamed in outrage, cursing him as his body bent, his cock lining up between her thighs. Ryder had a second to glimpse the penetration of her cunt.

He stood back, watching as the pair fucked furiously. The dream Ryder was hard-pressed to keep his cock inside her as she fought him, but somehow he managed. She tossed and writhed, then whimpered as she came. The orgasm was light, her body pulsing for more. Behind her, her lover stiffened, driving his erection inside her one last time as he obviously spent himself as well.

She was nowhere near satisfied, despite her orgasm. She needed more, yet seemed too tired, too frustrated to bring herself to peak once more. He hid in the shadows of her mind as he felt the exhaustion sweeping over her. Sleep would come soon.

He had slipped into her mind while she was occupied with her own needs, but her subconscious would be used to him now.

Her mind darkened—images, memories, flickering about the mists that began to fill her subconscious. He stood back, waiting, knowing that when sleep took over another part of her would awaken. It was this part of her he longed to see.

The little fantasy he had glimpsed had intrigued him, giving him more than one clue into Carmella’s sexuality. But he needed more. He didn’t expect what came to him.

He saw the pages of a book, then the images jumping to life on the tapestry of her subconscious. He watched in surprise and lust at the twisting figures that began to fill her mind. In each, the female was in a position of submission, two males, out of control and consumed with lust, filling her. He was going to explode with his own arousal, Ryder thought heatedly. The female images were Carmella, the males’ misty forms were his and Torren’s. And they were willing to force her compliance. She was starving for raw, carnal sex. To submit, to be taken. Not raped, but forced to relinquish her own control to a man—or men—strong enough to take it. Someone stronger, more powerful than she.

She fought in each sequence of events. Struggled against the males’ greater strength only to eventually accept the spears of hard, eager cocks ready to take her. But even in the midst of the lust, he saw something more. In each one Carmella’s dream lovers, though out of control, never truly hurt her. The voices were rough, though tender; commanding, but not unkind. And after possessing whichever part of her body one of the shadowed shapes managed to penetrate, they praised her.

The tight fit of her small pussy, the heat of her ass, the grip of her mouth or the stroke of her tongue—each image, each fantasy, was different. And here was the key to the woman.

He eased back from her then, aware he was close to the edge of his own control and moving closer toward the vilest act a psychic could participate in. Taking her in this vulnerable time of her greatest need. And he could. He could weave his astral force into one of the shadowed male shapes and give her what she fantasized about. Without her consent. Without her own conscious realization that it was, indeed, what she wanted.

He forced himself through the small break in her barrier that he had found. He repaired it quickly, reinforced it to keep her safe then returned to his own body.

Ryder sighed deeply as he looked away. He stared up at the ceiling, contemplating his options. He liked to consider himself practical—kind in many respects. He worked for the new government because he knew the laws being put in place were for the protection of everyone—psychics and non-psychics alike. Laws that would be set up as unbreakable for the protection of everyone. Laws that, if in place now, would assure his instant punishment.

She won’t be easy, he told Torren, amazed at the sense of gentleness he was suddenly feeling toward her.

She knew I was there when she took that little fantasy trip. She’s strong. She’s losing her defenses. Torren’s tone was concerned. She’s too tired.

Can you shield her until she awakens? That could be a complication. If she were that tired, then her powers would be easily detected by the PSI searching for emanations of psychic strength that weren’t contained by the government-issued restrainers created for civilian psychics, or the unique signal of a tested PSI member.

As always. Torren’s softer emotions for the girl filled his thoughts. He was worried, aroused, eager. But her protection was uppermost. As it always had been, even before she had come into Torren’s life.

Ryder shook his head as he remembered his first contact with Torren right before receiving the file on Carmella from the PSI director. The future he had predicted had made little sense until he received the file and saw the woman who had occupied his fantasies for years. The same woman PSI was now contemplating extreme measures against because of her link to the past.

Fyrebrands were elemental psychics. The creation of that particular psychic talent had been artificial. Tyre had been extremely adept in the elemental powers, as had his wife, the Tyrea. They had been the most powerful and had easily taken positions of leadership. Since then, every advanced elemental discovered had been found to trace back to Tyre. The man had impregnated more women than those recording it at the time could keep track of. But his mate had been Leila, the Tyrea. The birth of her daughter had been discovered, as had the efforts taken to hide her as the war had started to turn the tide in favor of those fighting to destroy the merciless psychics who had taken power.

Where the child had gone wasn’t learned until after her death. But it was reported that she, too, had given birth. That direct bloodline of the two most powerful psychics was suspected to run in Carmella’s veins. If it did, then her life hung in the balance if it was ever discovered.