Dark Wolf (Spirit Wild) - By Kate Douglas Page 0,79
that since he’d been shifting by magical means, it might only take a few days for his Chanku nature to appear.
“How do you feel about it?”
Her eyes were dark pools, but her aura glowed like a multicolored halo around her, so many different splashes of color she reminded him of the aurora borealis. She was all light and magic, and her aura excited him, but everything about Lily Cheval was exciting. “If you’re there,” he said, “I imagine I’ll feel perfectly fine about anything.”
Her smile lit her entire face. “Good. And here’s something else for you to think about, what Dad wanted me to tell you.”
“About your magic?”
She nodded. “About where we find the energy to power our magic. It’s such a simple thing, really. It’s all about love. Love and the sexual energy we produce. Years ago, when my father and Stefan were in the very early days of building the pack, they discovered that sexual energy could give my dad almost unlimited magical power. One of our pack was kidnapped, and with the combined energy from the pack members gathered here in Montana, Dad was able to possess a raven on the east coast and use the bird to find the missing packmate.”
He tried to imagine that kind of power, but it was totally beyond him. “That’s really hard to believe.” He looked into her sparkling eyes and believed. “You’ve learned to share energy?”
She nodded. “We’re all telepathic, and it’s a simple thing to create the energy, either through fantasy or actual sex, and then share it. Dad takes it into himself and then works it.”
“It’s that simple?”
“Yeah, though not without risk. Years ago, when I was just a toddler, there was a plot against the president . . .”
“Of the United States?”
She laughed. “That’s the one, and the entire pack was supposed to share energy at precisely the same time so that Dad would have the power to create a blackout in San Francisco where the president was scheduled to speak. At the time, the packs were scattered all around the country, but they all worked really hard at building up as much as they could.” She laughed. “We’re really good at producing vast amounts of sexual energy.”
“And it worked?”
“Oh, yeah. Much too well. Dad blew out power over the entire Bay Area, but the energy surge left his brain fried for weeks. He couldn’t connect telepathically with anyone, couldn’t concentrate or carry on a conversation. It was really horrible. The president was saved, but we were sure we’d lost my father. Personally, I thought it was a crappy trade-off.”
“What happened next?” He ran his fingers through her hair. It was so beautiful, gleaming the color of dark copper beneath the low porch light, soft as silk falling in long waves and curls.
“I don’t remember the details, but I somehow knew that part of my dad’s consciousness had essentially gone into hiding to escape the blast of power. I found it and put it back.”
“You what?” He really couldn’t stop laughing. “How?”
She actually looked embarrassed. “I recognized part of Dad was in my uncle AJ. I was about nineteen months old, barely talking, and I guess I kept jabbering about ‘Dada’s smile.’ ”
“His smile?”
Shrugging, she picked up his hand again and played with his fingers. “That’s what I called it, the part of him I loved so much. It was hiding out in AJ’s brain. I somehow knew how to take it from AJ and return it to my father.”
“Wow. Precocious doesn’t even come close, does it?”
Shaking her head, she gazed across the dark meadow. “I’ve been blessed by our goddess in so many ways.” She sighed, and then as she so often did, changed the subject. “Did you know that Adam’s mate, Liana, the one who helped Alex tonight, was once our goddess? I mean, she’s thousands of years old, but she screwed up and got kicked off the astral, and Eve, who was Adam’s first bonded mate, took over Liana’s job. What’s cool is they’re both happy with the way things turned out. Personally, if I’d been Eve I would have been pissed, ending up dead before my time because of Liana’s screwup, but she’s much nicer than I am. Definitely goddess material.”
He knew he was looking at her like she had two heads, but that was just a little over the top. “I think that’s a bit too much for tonight. It makes my head hurt.” He laughed and hugged her close. “I do