Chapter 6
Mari had retreated to her room, skin yet again burnt and angry. She had forfeited and decided to at least take a shower before she went back down for dinner and the explanation that was supposed to follow. She stood, forehead pressed against the cool tile, as the water rained down over her. She couldn’t believe that she had been so foolish. She kept telling herself that she should have known better, or that she could have prevented her sister’s accidental overload if she had just told someone about what was going on before.
Mari glanced down at her arms, where the two red marks were throbbing from the contact with the water. The marks on her legs and up into her most intimate parts were still visible, but not nearly as angry as they had started out, just slightly tender. Her fingers traced around the faint hand print left there. In all her training, she had never heard of anything like this and she wasn’t even sure where to start researching. There certainly weren’t any books titled, “My Subconscious is a Pervert: How to Deal with the Aftermath”.
Mari cut the water off with a frustrated sigh. She went through the motions of drying off and getting dressed and simply let her wet hair hang down, leaving wet splotches all over her shirt. She applied yet more of the healing mixture to her angry skin. Mari was grateful that she at least had access to the salve, if she didn’t, she wasn’t sure what she would have done with the back to back burns.
After finishing up getting dressed, Mari glanced at her phone, where she had left it on her dresser. Four missed calls and five text messages from Ben. Her heart sunk a little as she read through the text messages. He was apologetic, concerned, and confused. She was only marginally less embarrassed having put some distance between herself and Ben, but she couldn’t ignore her friend. With guilt nagging at her she tapped the screen reluctantly.
I’ll call you later so we can talk, ok?
Mari was sure she needed to figure out some sort of explanation for Ben, but she needed to figure out how to get herself under control more than anything else. She hoped buying herself a little more time to think would help her come up with something at least reasonable. She hit send and set the phone back down with a soft sigh escaping her.
Mari felt like her life was spiraling into chaos. Her dreams were groping her. Her friend probably thought she was a crazy tramp and things had progressed way beyond “friendship” between them in that moment they had shared. Her sister was knocked unconscious by her failure as a trainer, and Mari was fairly sure her uncle was aware she was having weird psychic sex dreams. Awesome. She thought surely there must be some sort of full moon or something that was causing it all.
The shower had helped her feel remotely more like her normal self. Mari headed down to the dining room, where she assumed everyone would be gathering to hear what their uncle thought had happened, and to see if he got any solid leads on how they could fix whatever happened to Rena.
Mari entered the large room and found it empty. She pulled up her usual chair and settled in, pulling her knees up to her chest and propping her chin up on them. Mari tapped her fingers idly against the polished wood of the table. She wondered, idly, if it had all just been a bad dream and perhaps she would wake up the next day with some sort of realization that it was all just an intricate trick she was playing on herself.
Mari’s head popped up off her knees, as she heard the door creak open. Her uncle entered with quiet footsteps, crossing the room to sit next to her. Mari met his eyes with trepidation. She wasn’t sure what Rena had seen, and wasn’t sure if her uncle had now seen all the same images, but based on how he had looked at her, she thought he knew enough. Mari blushed fiercely from head to toe. She couldn’t possibly face him ever again if he had seen anything that she had done in her dreams over the past several weeks.
Illwyn folded his hands in his lap carefully, glancing sideways at Mari as he considered how exactly he was going to approach the conversation with his niece. He felt completely out of his element, and couldn’t imagine what she had been going through.
“You know we need to talk about what’s happening, right?” He asked with what he hoped was an encouraging smile, though he felt like it was strained. He felt like he was drowning, out of his depth in how to help both of his nieces with what was going on around them.
Mari managed a small nod. She hadn’t gathered the courage to say anything yet, and wasn’t entirely sure how she was going to put it all into words. She was rescued by the creak of the door again, as Magni and Val entered, followed by her father and someone she’d never seen before. The stranger was tall even by her brother’s standards, but was built like a mountain. Her mouth fell open, and she could feel the look of surprise stretching across her face. She thought he almost could have been the man in her dream, if he’d had darker hair, and was built just a little broader.
The new arrivals all spread around the table settling into chairs as the cook, Shay, began bringing out dishes of food for their meal. Small talk was bubbling around the room as everyone prepared their plates. It was a rather quiet and somber conversation all around, but no one had paused yet to say anything formal, or to even introduce the newcomer.
Mari watched quietly from across the table as her father bent over in quiet conversation with the man. She was curious, and thought it was worth just dropping her guard a little bit to try and figure out what he was, at least. As she felt herself relaxing into her power, a flash of hands sliding up her thighs crept into her mind. She gasped passionately as she felt the heat of fingers gripping at her skin, closing her eyes as the feeling overwhelmed her.
Every pair of eyes in the room turned to her. Her brothers in confusion and shock. Her father and uncle in concern. The strange man eyed her with something mixed with amusement and curiosity. One blond eyebrow arched and a smile lit his face watching in amusement as she writhed in her seat across the table. All conversation had ceased and was replaced with nothing but the muted sounds coming from Mari as she struggled to control herself.
Mari’s mind was still half-aware that she was in a room with family and one stranger, but also racing with the ideas of where those large hands were moving as they slid around the outside of her thighs and gripped passionately at the curve of her ass. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she could feel her body tightening in response to the touch.
Mari bit back a moan as she worked to suppress the image and regain control of her power. She kept telling herself she had to stop, but it was as if the more she tried to resist the image in her mind, the stronger the reality of those hands and fingers became. She could see one hand sliding slowly up the side of her stomach, reaching up to cup one of her breasts. Mari was struggling to suppress it all, and the electric feeling that was coursing through her body, followed with the intense burning that was trailing along behind the hands was crippling her self-control.
Someone cleared their throat uncomfortably, and the sound was enough for Mari to hold onto to ground herself back in reality. She inhaled deeply, with control trying to focus her thoughts and exhaled slowly closing off her mind to everything around her. The feeling and image of hands and hot skin on hers faded. Her breathing was still slightly shallow, and her heart was still pounding in her chest, but at least she had control of her own thoughts again.
Mari let out a shaky breath and felt pure embarrassment washing over her. She was sure no one would be able to see any of the red marks on her body, since she was most definitely blushing hard from head to toe. She was in a state of shock. What the hell had just happened? In the middle of dinner? Seriously…she was losing her mind. That was the only explanation she could come up with.
Mari covered her face with her hand. How in the world was she going to face these people? She wished desperately that she could just run out of the room, but had a feeling that was even worse. She opened her fingers a fraction of an inch and peered out, unfortunately catching the stranger’s eyes as he broke into a wide suggestive grin, wiggling his eye brows up and down.
“Man, Illwyn, I know you said your family was different, but that was a heck of a welcome,” the young man laughed deeply. His grey eyes were dancing, despite the revolted glares he was getting from Mari’s brothers, and the exasperated looks he was receiving from the older men at the table. The only person who seemed to appreciate his joke was Shay, the cook, who he saw smiling into a tray of potatoes. He made a mental note to try and find the cook later as she seemed like she was at least up for a laugh…or maybe a good time.
Mari dropped her hand and gaped up at the man in shock. She had never experienced anyone with so little sense of tact. She turned, irritated, towards her father with the expectation that he would have some explanation of who the man was, or at least why he was there to comment on the most embarrassing moment of her life. She had thought things were bad with Ben, this was infinitely worse.
“This is Riley Eisold,” Illwyn explained with a tired sigh, “He’s an ice dragon I’ve brought along with me to aid us in our search. You’ll have to pardon his comments, dear. I’d like to say he behaves better normally, but that would be a shameful lie.” Illwyn tried to give her an encouraging smile, but faltered as she buried her head in her hands. He watched as her skin darkened a deeper shade of red.
“If it makes anyone feel any better, what’s happening to Mari is quite out of her control…and has quite a bit to do with what’s going on, and is rather remarkable really,” Illwyn said factually, as he slowly looked around the table at the other men around him. He didn’t need any sort of telepathic power to sense the level of awkwardness that had filled the room.
“I can’t do this!” Mari blurted out pushing herself up quickly from her chair and turning away from the table, heading for the door. There was just no way she could sit around the dinner table talking about her random near orgasms that were catching her by surprise and the burns all over her body, with her father and brothers. Nope. She was not going to do that, especially with Riley Eisold, who seemed to be an arrogant pain in the ass. Just no. She fled the room as quickly as she could manage and made her way to the sanctuary of her bedroom, asking herself over and over what the heck had just happened.