Page 191 of Hunters and Prey

Her eyes clicked back into focus a second later.

She shook her head.

“No,” she said, her voice holding only the slightest thread of doubt. “I don’t think so. I think it’s likely it only looks that way because she’s disappearing into the portal opened by her light. She appears to fade as she stands at the entrance of it.”

“So she was standing in a portal this morning?” Jax said, sitting up from where he’d had his knees propped on the edge of the table. “That’s what we saw? Her falling into some kind of wormhole-thing she’d created with her light?”

Wonder filled his voice, and Black gave him a slightly hard look.

In no way was this an exciting new fucking adventure, as far as he was concerned.

His eyes returned to Yarli.

“As fascinating as this all is,” he growled. “What the fuck can we do about it? She’s not controlling it consciously at all. Can we do anything about that? Find some way to wake up those structures so she can start to activate them… and shut them off… at will?”

Yarli had gone back into the Barrier.

Black watched her try to answer his question, her dark eyes glassed as she receded deeper into those spaces, probably to look at the Barrier imprint of exactly what structures Miri had used out on the terrace.

After another few minutes, she frowned, shaking her head.

That time, her irises came back into focus more gradually.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Frankly, we don’t have a single damned person here who’s qualified to train Miri on this. You’re probably the best candidate,” she added, jerking her chin at Black. “But I don’t see anything like that on you, either. Your stuff is weird, don’t get me wrong,” she added. “But it’s weird on the other end of the spectrum.”

Black’s frown deepened. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? The other end of what spectrum?”

“Your unusual structures are below,” she said, nodding down towards his feet. “Hers are above. Reaaaally, reaaally high above,” she added, holding up her hand as high as she could to indicate height as she spoke.

Giving him a more serious look, she said,

“Those are Elaerian structures, Black. They have to be. Your wife’s an intermediary. That, or she’s some kind of mutant seer. Something we’ve never seen before.” Nodding towards him again, she added, “…Kind of like you, brother. No wonder you two ended up together.”

Black was thinking though, frowning more at the table than at her.

Elaerian.

Fuck. That figured.

He couldn’t help wondering if her Uncle Charles knew.

If so, it would explain why he’d always been so obsessed with her, despite the fact that she was half-human… technically, anyway.

Elaerian were a second race of seers from his home world.

Even there, they were considered largely mythological.

Well, they were considered a part of history, at least. According to the myths of the old clans, Elaerian were believed to be ancestors of the Sarhaciennes, or “Second Race,” which is the race belonging to the vast majority of seers. At some point, they’d left Earth, evolved off Earth, become beings of pure Barrier light––no one really knew.

They’d disappeared, essentially.

Officially, to most seers, they were considered extinct.

To humans of Old Earth, they were more like leprechauns or unicorns.

On this world, Black’s Earth, none but a handful of humans––most of them in this building––had any idea seers existed at all. Miri’s Uncle Charles had recently exposed the human world to the idea of vampires, but they still didn’t have a clue about seers.

Black hoped like hell it would stay that way.

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