Sea Haven 02 - Spirit Bound

down, seven of them, great wings beating hard, flying straight for the man’s face. He screamed and dropped to the ground, covering his head to escape the wicked talons.
    We might not be the ones to kill him. Call them off now, I’m on him, Stefan said.
    His father had been able to merge with animals, and he vaguely remembered a time when they were all together in a park and squirrels and birds had flocked around them. The squirrels had performed tricks that made him, along with his brothers, laugh. It was a scene far different from this one, where owls flew at a man’s face with every intention of taking out his eyes. That had been a different time, back then, when he was a child, one he hadn’t revisited until he met Judith. She’d given him back precious memories.
     
     
    SHE’D given him back precious memories.
    Judith sat on the floor shivering uncontrollably just to one side of the windows. Ice-cold, she wrung out her hair, uncaring that water dripped onto her carpet. She didn’t really know much about Levi’s past, only that he’d been working undercover on a yacht that had gone down and he wanted to stay dead. That brought up the disturbing thought that Thomas Vincent was not the gentle soul she’d thought him to be. It was very obvious Levi and Thomas knew each other—that much was certain—and the two of them were chasing someone who had come onto the property.
    She often lost track of time when she was weaving spirit through the other elements and she had no idea how long she’d been on the balcony before she heard the voices commanding her to crawl back inside the safety of her house. She recognized the two men instantly. Energy was so powerful, swirling around her gardens and out into the farm, that both men’s psychic talents had naturally been included in the woven circle, amplifying their ability to speak telepathically. Because her spirit was the thread weaving the entire tapestry together, she shared their natural link. She still did.
    A part of her wanted to pull back, not know the truth, but she’d been blindsided once and others had paid the price for her poor judgment. She refused to be a coward and hide under her covers. She’d let Thomas Vincent into her life, wanted him with every fiber of her being. If he was as corrupt as Jean-Claude had been, she needed to know. Worse, if Levi had deceived them all and was using Rikki in some way, that would be unforgivable and Judith would have to find a way to tell Rikki.
    She didn’t have telepathy, not in the true sense of the word. Brain waves generated pure energy and her element boosted energy, it was really that simple. She didn’t hear thoughts, but if someone like Thomas—or Levi—was a true telepathic, her spirit would easily amplify and retrieve the conversations so that she was part of them. It was intimate and sexy when she shared telepathy with Thomas, but truly frightening when she was hearing Levi and Thomas. They were obviously familiar with each other—yet not.
    She wiped her face with her hand and climbed unsteadily to her feet, making her way to the shower. She’d been more than halfway in love—or lust; it was difficult to tell—with Thomas. She’d felt so right with him and yet she didn’t really know him at all. How could she? She’d just rushed into something headlong and impulsively in much the same way she had five years earlier with Jean-Claude.
    She let the hot water pour over her, slowly driving the chill from her bones. They had spoken with Russian accents and the assassin sent to kill Levi a few weeks earlier had been Russian. The conclusions she’d drawn from the horrific images of Thomas’s past had obviously been erroneous. He had been in some kind of military training camp at a very early age. He’d been sympathetic and understanding—truly understanding of how she felt about her brother’s murder because he’d witnessed the murder of his parents.
    There was a connection between Thomas and Levi—she’d almost caught it in the sudden emotion rising in Thomas. But the answer was as elusive as what or who Thomas really was. She drew in a deep breath and stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around her, determined not to panic. If not for her own sake, then for Rikki’s, she had to fight through the need to pull a blanket over her head and retreat from whatever mess she’d gotten into.
    She’d given him back precious memories.
    In spite of her determination to remain distant from