Page 1 of Dark Princess Ascending

1

KIAN

After Brandon had whisked the panicked and shaken Morelle away, an uneasy silence fell over the living room, with everyone who had witnessed the brush with disaster processing it in their own way.

Kian's gaze drifted to the heavy stone fragment lying on the floor and then to the fine web of cracks spreading across the remaining mantel. The physical evidence of what had transpired made him seethe with rage at the negligence of the stone supplier, the contractor who'd installed it, and himself for not noticing anything was wrong.

If not for Morelle's extraordinary display of power, the child would have died, a blow so devastating that none of them would have ever recovered from it, especially Darius's parents.

In fact, he was surprised at how calm Amanda was in the aftermath.

She'd lost her little boy a long time ago, and it had not only destroyed her but had affected the rest of the family as well. His little nephew's death was a big part of why Kian had been so disillusioned and almost nihilistic until Syssi entered his life and brought the sunshine back with her.

Perhaps Amanda hadn't internalized what had happened yet, the scientist in her dedicating the full bandwidth of her mind to dissecting and deciphering Morelle's incredible ability.

"I want all the mantels removed as soon as possible," Syssi said, bouncing Allegra on her knee the way she used to do when their daughter was younger. "Including the one in our bedroom. I don't want this stone anywhere in the house."

Kian nodded. "I'll have the community service crew start on it first thing tomorrow morning. For now, let's just keep the children away from all fireplaces." He pulled out his phone to send a global message to the community about the potential hazard.

When he was done, he glanced at Jacki to check on how she was holding up. Her tears had dried, but she still looked shell-shocked as she clutched Darius to her chest. The boy, however, seemed unaware of his close call, with his smart, dark eyes fixed on the stone fragment with curiosity rather than fear.

"We should take Darius home," Kalugal saidsoftly to his mate. "After all this excitement, a warm bath and a bedtime story will do him good."

The one who needed to get home and take a warm bath was Jacki, but Kalugal was the quintessential diplomat, and he knew how to frame his suggestion to avoid implying that she was not handling their son's brush with death as well as he was.

"Yeah." She nodded. "We should go."

"Thank you for dinner." Kalugal wrapped an arm around Jacki's shoulders. "We'll talk more about this tomorrow."

As they headed for the door, Darius lifted his head from his mother's shoulder and waved. "Bye-bye."

The sweet gesture hit Kian hard, and he had to fight the urge to snatch Allegra from Syssi's arms and encircle her in the protection of his embrace.

Instead, he tightened his hold on his wife's waist.

Once the door closed behind them, Amanda let out a long breath. "That was the most incredible display of paranormal power I have ever witnessed. Not to mention the level of control Morelle demonstrated. It's hard to believe that it was her first time."

"She acted on instinct," Annani said. "And what is even more incredible is that she displayed several talents at once. None of us noticed anything was amiss with the stone, and we are allparanormally talented individuals, at least to some extent."

"Not me," Alena said. "My only talent is producing babies."

Orion leaned over and kissed her cheek. "That's the most important talent of them all."

Their little boy had slept in his stroller throughout all the commotion, and although Alena looked a little paler than usual, she seemed to have recovered from the shock.

"You are right." Amanda tapped a long-nailed finger on her lower lip. "I mean about the multiple talents. To sense that the stone was about to get loose, Morelle has to have at least some precognition ability, but all the tests I did on her revealed the absolute lack of it." She turned to Syssi. "Do you think she was faking it in the lab?"

Syssi shook her head. "She seemed frustrated when she didn't do well on any of the precognition tests. Perhaps it has something to do with her telekinetic ability. Maybe she can sense faults in materials because she can manipulate them with her mind."

Throughout the exchange, Kian observed Ell-rom from the corner of his eye to see if he knew or suspected something about his sister that he was not sharing, but he seemed just as stunned as the rest of them.

Amanda considered Syssi's suggestion but shook her head. "The way she redirected that stonereminded me of Ell-rom's ability, though obviously with a different application. Both seem to involve manipulation of physical matter through sheer force of will."

Ell-rom frowned. "I don't think my ability manipulates matter. I think it manipulates energy flow."

Amanda waved a dismissive hand. "It's all the same. Matter, energy, it's all interconnected, and I think that the same principles are involved."

"Ell-rom's power is purely destructive," Annani said. "What Morelle did was protective—saving a life rather than taking one." She paused. "Not that Ell-rom's ability couldn't be used to protect, but its primary function appears to be offensive."