Page 181 of Hunters and Prey

Whatever Black was thinking precisely, he didn’t give me a chance to ask him.

Resting his hands on the brushed steel table, he stared around at all of them, his gold, flecked eyes glowing brighter.

“Thoughts?” he said, his voice a growl as he continued to take in their blank, stunned faces. “Or am I talking to my fucking self here?”

BY THE TIME THE FOOD showed up, Black had all of them talking.

The seers, especially, had a lot to say, once the silence finally broke.

“That’s not just an ‘unusual skillset,’ Yarli said, swallowing a mouthful of pasta salad and washing it down with iced tea. “…it’s pretty much unheard of. On Old Earth, we had like eight or nine intermediaries roaming around by the end, and not one of them could do anything like that. Including the Bridge and Sword.”

I frowned, glanced at Black, who she’d been speaking to.

I hadn’t volunteered anything in this discussion yet.

I hadn’t eaten much either, although I found myself pushing blueberries, lettuce and avocado around in the bowl of salad in front of me.

Black nudged me with his arm, giving me a hard look.

Eat, doc. And not just rabbit food. Have a hamburger or something. You need to ground yourself. You’re still in shock.Grunting, he let a faint smile touch his lips. Unless you’re looking to give everyone here a demonstration of the teleportation thing.

I could tell he was trying to make a joke.

I could also tell he felt bad about leaving me in the room with everyone after he’d told them what I’d done. I could also feel he still thought it was necessary.

I agreed with him. I wasn’t angry.

At that point, I was mostly just trying to listen and keep my head in the game, to learn what the other seers knew about what was wrong with me.

So I gave him a taut smile back, sending him a plume of light in acknowledgment. After glancing over the table, I grabbed a few pieces of chicken satay and put them on my plate.

Black frowned again, clearly letting me know he didn’t think that was going to cut it, but he’d already turned back to look at Yarli.

“I’ve been scanning texts, looking for references,” Black said. “But we don’t have much here, texts-wise. Jem was our resident expert, but unfortunately, now we don’t have Jem, either.” Frowning around at all of them, he added, “Really? No one’s heard about a seer being able to do this? Not even in some obscure, ancient-text myth or whatever? Most of you are like three hundred years older than I am…”

“Not all of us,” Jax muttered, from his other side.

I glanced at the younger seer, and caught him looking at me, a faint frown on his face.

The look didn’t feel hostile, more bewildered, like he hadn’t made up his mind whether he believed I could actually do what Black was claiming I could do.

“So she did this last night?” Mika said, another seer, sitting next to Angel on the other side of the table. “While she was with Brick?”

Black glanced at me, and I nodded, looking at her.

“Yes.”

“And stress brings it on?” Mika said, her voice still carrying an edge.

I nodded again.

Then, thinking, I made a more noncommittal gesture. “It’s possible it’s more than stress,” I admitted. “I suspect the events of the previous few months have put me into a kind of pre-PTSD state. The technical term is Acute Stress Disorder. It’s common among––”

But Mika wasn’t really interested in those kinds of details.

“So what stressed you out?” Mika said. She smirked a little, but her eyes remained a touch hard. “Did it just occur to you, sister, that you were in a room full of vampires? With a bonded mate back at home you might inadvertently murder if they decided to kill you?”

I blinked at her.

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