“I feel so relaxed,” Syssi said, leaning against Kian’s shoulder.

The private jet had just finished its climb, the island of Hawaii shrinking in the distance.

“I’m glad to hear it.” Kian didn’t even lift his eyes from the laptop.

Syssi sighed. She’d managed to drag him out to the beach a couple of times, and the memory of smearing sunscreen all over his muscular body brought a smile to her face.

Her guy had walked onto the sand fully dressed, with a long-sleeved shirt, long pants, a wide-brimmed straw hat, and his special sunglasses, looking like an old man, but one who was in excellent shape. He’d argued when she’d suggested he take at least his shirt off, but in the end, she’d peeled him out of his clothes and protected his sensitive skin with the highest SPF sunblock available. It had worked for the most part, but his ears had gotten sunburned despite her best efforts. It was good he healed so fast. Otherwise, she would not have heard the end of it.

Turner hadn’t fared much better, looking like a boiled shrimp after less than an hour in the sun. Unfortunately, his human body couldn’t fix the sunburn as fast as Kian’s had. The guy had started out so white he could’ve competed with Annani for luminescence.

“There is something special in the Hawaiian air. The breeze, the smells, the sounds of the ocean, it’s all so soothing,” Callie said.

“We should do it again,” Bridget said.

Syssi glanced at Anandur, who was peering out the window even though the island was no longer visible. He seemed unusually forlorn.

“How about you, Anandur? Did you have a good time?” she asked.

Still looking out the window, he shrugged. “I guess so.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Watching all of you lovebirds was so much fun.” His tone was sarcastic.

So that was his problem. As the only one without a partner, Anandur must’ve felt left out. Except, he hadn’t seemed to mind before. What had changed?

“No luck at the clubs?” she asked. He’d gone out one night on his own but returned after less than an hour.

He shook his head. “Full of pimply teenagers.”

“They had to be older to get in,” Turner said. “Unless there was no alcohol served.”

“Not my kind of crowd.” Anandur shook his head again. “I’m getting too old for that.”

He could say that again. The guy was over a thousand years old, although looking at him and hearing him talk no one would suspect he was older than thirty.

Syssi still remembered how jaded Kian had been when they’d met. He’d been sick and tired of the same old revolving door as well.

“I’m sure there is someone out there for you,” she said.

He turned back to the window. “I hope so.”

Poor Anandur. He was such a nice guy. Funny, charming, romantic. He would make some girl very happy.

Should she attempt to induce a vision for him?

Syssi hadn’t tried that for months. Her visions had been so disturbing that she’d decided not to do anything to encourage them, and thankfully she’d been vision-free since she’d made up her mind to avoid them.

Except, not all of her visions were terrible. She’d foreseen Andrew having a daughter, and she had known Eva and Bhathian were having their boy. In the vision, she hadn’t seen who the boy belonged to and had hoped he was Kian’s and hers. The disappointment upon discovering Eva’s pregnancy had been devastating and one of the reasons she made a conscious effort to block any future foretelling.

She was a coward. Hiding from her visions to spare herself grief while she could be providing valuable information to the clan.

Perhaps it was time to lift the barrier she’d erected in her mind and let the visions come.

“Are you okay?” Kian asked.

Damn. It was impossible to hide her thoughts when her husband could smell them on her. It was good the other immortals weren’t as good at discerning scents. Except for Brundar, but he was too busy snuggling with Callie to pay attention.

“I was thinking about my visions.”

Kian frowned. “You haven’t had any in a long while. Are you scared of them coming back?”

“I learned how to block them. But I feel it’s selfish to do so. I should open up my mind and learn how to deal with the visions instead of hiding from them.”

Kian closed his laptop and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I don’t want you to do anything that upsets you.”

Sweet Kian, always protective and thinking of her wellbeing first.

“I was given this gift for a reason. It’s wrong for me to avoid my visions just because they disturb me. I need to toughen up and let them come.”

He shook his head. “If the visions provided useful information, I might have agreed, but they don’t. They are too vague. All they do is make you anxious.”

She cast a quick glance at Anandur’s clenched jaw. “I could help him.”

“Or not. You can’t control what comes into your mind. Most of it is not good.”

Syssi sighed and put her head on his shoulder. “I know.”

But what if there was a way to summon positive visions? What if instead of opening her mind to whatever information was floating in the ether she could focus on what she wanted to learn?

Closing her eyes, Syssi imagined Anandur smiling and happy. Show me his truelove, she thought.

It was a long shot.

Thinking of the barrier in her mind, she lowered it just a smidgen and flooded the opening with sunlight, the scent of the Hawaiian breeze, and the happy memories she’d accumulated through their vacation.

Feeling herself drifting off to sleep, she sighed. Well, at least there was that. Instead of a sunny vision she was getting a peaceful nap.

The dream started almost as soon as Syssi closed her eyes. A young girl was crying in Anandur’s arms. He looked troubled and unsure as he ran his hand in small circles over her back, trying to provide comfort and whispering something in her ear.

The girl shook her head and cried even harder, the stricken expression on Anandur’s face getting worse.

In the dream, Syssi frowned, trying to decipher what she was watching. The girl looked too young to be Anandur’s love interest, especially since he preferred ladies in their mid-thirties and the girl looked barely eighteen.

Could she be his daughter?

It was possible. Perhaps one of his dalliances with a human had produced a child. But if she were, knowing her would only cause Anandur more pain. His daughter with a human would not carry the immortal gene.

What was the dream trying to show her?

Syssi looked closer, checking for any familial resemblance between the girl and Anandur, but there was nothing to either prove or disprove that.

The girl was tall, probably close to six feet or so. The top of her head reached just under Anandur’s chin, and the guy was about six feet seven inches tall. They had the impressive height in common. But where Anandur was a fair-skinned redhead, the girl’s long hair was so dark it was almost black, and her skin tone was deep olive. She looked like a Mediterranean amazon warrior woman who spent her days training in the sun.

“Everything is going to be okay, sweetheart, I promise,” Syssi heard him say.

The girl shook her head.

Anandur hugged her closer, kissing the top of her head. “Please don’t cry. You’re breaking my heart.”

Clutching his shirt, the girl nodded. “I’m trying,” she said in a shaky voice that was slightly accented.