Drake Sisters 06 - Turbulent Sea

the mark.'
    There was comfort in her sister's matter-of-fact, practical voice. That was Sarah, getting to the heart of the matter and gathering information.
    'That's the problem, Sarah. There is no visible mark. I can't describe something to you I can't see. There are times when my palm itches and other times I think I see a faint color, like a bluish-purple, but it's never strong enough to be certain and it fades quickly.' With a little sigh, she took her pencil sharpener out of the drawer beneath the table and began shaving a new point on the pencil. She had the feeling she'd be doing it a lot.
    'When you do see the color, is it linear? Vertical? Horizontal, or all over the place?'
    'It's in the exact center of my palm and it appears almost to be two circles intertwined, but that could be my imagination. Most of the time there's nothing there at all.' She examined her palm. It looked smooth and unblemished.
    ' Joley. ' Sarah bit her name out between her teeth. 'Why didn't you ever tell us about this?' She sighed when Joley didn't answer. 'I want you to describe to me how you got it again. Exactly . Every detail you can remember.'
    Joley resisted the urge to hang up. The mark was private. Very intimate. And she felt almost as if she was betraying Ilya by describing the events to her sister - although they'd all been there when it happened. 'We were at the Caspar Inn dancing. Prakenskii was there and he made me mad. Nikitin had forced me to sing and then he wanted to meet with me. I said no and Prakenskii turned his back to me and was walking away. I pushed energy at his back. It was just a little shove and maybe I shouldn't have done it, but he'd been lecturing me and disapproving of me all evening. I was sick of him. I was only trying to make him stumble, but the energy came back on me. I heard crackling and popping, like electricity, and I could see sparks all around my hand. My palm burned, for just a moment, really burned, deep inside. I remember I sort of yelped and held my hand.'
    Sarah sighed heavily again. 'The girls shielded you from him, but he didn't even turn around.'
    'That's right. My hand hurt so badly, and we decided to leave. I was angry enough for a confrontation and Abbey was worried, everyone was, because he seemed to be so powerful. As I walked past him to leave, he reached out and took my hand. His thumb slid over my palm just once, and he let go, but as his skin touched mine and continued a brushing movement, it was as if he wiped away all the pain.' Even as she described the gesture to her sister, Joley felt that amazing touch all over again, the single brush of skin to skin that sent flames racing through her body, marking her inside and out.
    'When did you first notice the discoloration?' Sarah's question drew Joley back from the memories.
    'In the beginning, my hand just kept itching like wounds do when they're healing. Eventually that stopped - now the itching only comes back when he's near, or when I am thinking about him, or when he's talking telepathically to me.
    And recently I discovered that there's some connection between the mark he put on me and the two of us. It connects us…' She searched for the right word. Just thinking about what Ilya did with that mark and his mouth left her damp and needy all over again. 'It connects us in a physical way. I suspect it enables him to speak telepathically to me over greater distances.'
    There was no way she was going to admit to Sarah that the connection was sexual, that Ilya had given her an orgasm simply by manipulating that spot on her hand.
    Sarah made a little noise that alarmed Joley.
    'What? Have you read about this?' She carefully drew two circles intertwined right above the words Pros and Cons .
    'I've read references, pretty vague ones. There are a few entries in some of the diaries about a male line with similar gifts. Once in a while one of our ancestors crossed one of theirs.'
    Joley rubbed her palm along her thigh, then realized that rather than trying to brush the mark off as she used to do, she was now brushing her palm slowly back and forth in a caressing motion. She snatched her hand back. 'That doesn't sound particularly bad.'
    'Well, at one of the points when the male line clashed with our line, it was because a woman had come to the Drake women and claimed someone had marked her with a magical symbol, two circles intertwined. She claimed it bound her to this man and she suspected he was a witch or a sorcerer. She seemed