The woman who answered his knock caused his gonads to crawl up and out of sight. It wasn’t the two diamond studs that impaled her left nostril. It wasn’t the trail of silver hoops that curled around her ear lobe. It wasn’t the clenched fists perched on her hips or the tattoos that spidered across the backs of those fists like lace gloves with the fingertips cut off. It wasn’t even the knowledge that those tats had been applied to her palms as well – something that had to have hurt beyond what Jay considered the normal threshold for pain.

It was knowing what those hands could learn from a single touch.

The woman gazed up at him with eyes the color of winter clouds. Before the storm, he feared. She was barely woman-sized, a full foot shorter than Jay, but she could bring him down in one round. Her fists uncurled, fingers spreading. They rose toward his face. It was futile to resist. Jay let her cradle his jaw in those knowing palms, and waited for the verdict.

Treece St. Lucas grinned. “You’re late, babysitter.”

Jay smiled despite his hangover. “I was expecting ‘You’re wasted’.”

“What? You needed validation?” The tiny woman twirled away like a ballerina in a child’s jewelry box. “Stagger on in,” she called over her shoulder.

Jay stepped through the entrance, close on her heels. The automatic door slid closed behind him with a hiss of departing air. She wasn’t going to order him out. Thank Failen.

“Is he awake?” he asked, scanning the room for a place to sit.

The suite was in its usual state of chaos. Unfolded laundry cascaded off the sofa. A pack-and-play stood open in the center of the room, so deep with toys there was no room for play. A river of odds and ends spilled from a duffle bag onto a dinette table tucked into a far corner. Meals would be consumed from plates balanced on the diners’ knees – assuming the diner could find a chair on which to perch.  

The woman shook her head. “Napping,” she replied. Jay watched her dark brown hair dance across her shoulders. There were white strands in it that hadn’t been there the day he’d first met her. And he didn’t have to see her face to know there were pale lines at the corners of her mouth now, too. A lot had happened in the intervening years that would age a person, but frown lines and silver hairs didn’t affect Treece the way they did other women. At age forty-one, she seemed a perennial teenager. Her home reflected her distaste for the routines of adulthood.

“He should be up soon,” she advised. “It’s nearly lunchtime.” Pulling a chair from beneath the dinette table, she swept a stack of binders to the floor and motioned for him to sit. With a similar cleansing, she pulled out a second chair, tipping its contents off the seat and collapsing into it. Her arms rose to cross her chest, her hands massaging her forearms. “My breasts are killing me.”

Jay spun the first chair around and straddled it backwards. If he’d been rude enough to read her thoughts, he would have learned his movements reminded her of his brother.

“You could wean him.”

She shrugged off his suggestion. “I like it. They aren’t babies for long. When this one is grown, there aren’t likely to be any more.”

Jay leaned over and rested his chin on the chair’s top rail. A yawn threatened to escape, but he clamped his lips together to hold it back. She saw his face contract with the effort.

“You do know you can't hold him, right? You can look, move him around if you need to, talk to him, but no prolonged touching.”

His eyes closed. What could he say? She had every right.

“Actually, I ought to kick your ass. You promised. No coke. No ganger nights.”

He sighed, but it emerged wet and noisy from between his closed lips, more ridicule than apology. “I won’t drop him, Red. You know how I feel about that kid.”

“Red is out to lunch. You’re dealing with she-bear. And, yes, I know.” Treece leaned forward and stroked the hair from his forehead. “It’s what he might pick up from you that worries me.” He heard her chair squeal closer, felt her other hand cup his cheek. “You worry me. You’re killing yourself, John.”

The sound of his given name didn’t seem so horrid when spoken in her voice. Still, he pulled away, straightening in his seat. “It was just one night. I got caught up in the excitement. Forgive me, Oh Perfect One. I don’t want to just see him. I want to hug him. Feel him. Smell his baby powder skin. I dragged my sorry butt over here for that one reason only.” Even before he said it, he knew it would be one sentence too far. “I’ve got rights.”

Her jaw hardened. She was going to tell him to get out, to come back when he was sober. A shudder zigzagged up his spine.

“I need to, Treece. I have to. Please.”

Her expression softened, and she leaned forward again, this time to press her forehead against his mouth. So he could plant a kiss?

“Put up a wall. And make it good.”

Ahh, now he understood.

Jay relaxed his shoulders, his back, his arms and legs. He let the tension drain out of his body. It wasn’t as easy as it ought to have been. There were too many drinks and drugs in his system. His vision blurred and he had to press down on the floor with the toes of his right foot to stop the world from spinning. When everything righted itself again – the table, the playpen, the bowed head – he clenched those toes tightly, and then released them.

The neuro-pathways opened in his pliant limbs and the tingle building in the hypothalamus of his brain rushed to fill them. With the floodgates open, a surge of electrical energy jangled through his nervous system, waiting to be channeled any way he desired. He could have lifted the debris off the table, and held it suspended in the air. He could have increased the temperature in the room by twenty degrees.

He could have blown the small woman sitting in front of him to eternity. And just possibly brought her back.

Instead, Jay built a wall around his thoughts. For the typical psy, the barrier would have been so strong, it would have been impenetrable to all but another more powerful Black. Assuming one existed.

The top of Treece’s head remained pressed against his lips for several moments. Jay could feel her own charge building, but he would do nothing to stop it. Do your damnedest, Searcher. When she finally leaned back, he didn’t have to read her thoughts. The decision was apparent in her smile.

“Okay.”

Jay slumped forward in his seat. He hadn’t known he’d been holding his breath until it blew out of him in a rush.

“But don’t let him grab a hold of your finger,” Treece warned.

She stood up, her face turning toward a closed door at the back of the suite. Jay hadn’t heard a cry, but then again, he didn’t have Treece’s skills. He could read minds, burn almost any kind of matter short of lead or copper, or break bones. He could destroy. That was his job. It had been, his entire life: before, when he’d been with Zach; now, when he was with The Guild. Treece was a Blue, the most powerful ever known. Blind, deaf and dumb, she could have read the world around her with the slightest touch on a table or wall. Jay might not be able to hear him yet, but Asher Valhailand was awake.

“At least you were bright enough to change your clothes before coming over,” Treece added. “He won’t be able to read last night’s debauchery on your shirt.”

“Give me some credit, mom. I do know what we’re dealing with here.”

She gave him a sidelong glance as she moved toward the now audible whimpers coming from the baby’s nursery. “Do you?” She didn’t finish the thought. Perhaps because the whimpers were rising into a wail. Or maybe because she was taking pity on the daddy poised so eagerly on her dining-room chair.

“And his name isn’t Valhailand,” she replied. “It’s St. Lucas.”

Jay cringed.

“Don’t slip up again, John. Or we’re all dead.”