Tempting Evil (Riley Jenson Guardian 3)

"I shield. I can protect myself. What else is there to know?" And Jack had been coaching me, but I couldn't exactly admit that.

"Power of any kind should be treated similar to an onion. There may be many different layers, but you should only ever strip away as many as you need to get the job done." She smiled as she reached forward and took a small cloth from a compartment under the seat opposite, then handed it to me. "The only time problems generally arise for the trained is when the power is still new, or it increases in strength for some reason."

I wrapped the cloth around my bleeding arm. "How would either of those cause problems?"

She shrugged lightly. "You cannot control something when you do not know its boundaries."

That made sense. But was that what was actually happening? I'd been telepathic most of my life, and the last test done at the Directorate had not indicated any increase in psychic output.

Of course, those tests had been done several months ago. Who knew what the result would be now.

"But psychic strength doesn't alter." At least, it generally didn't with normal people. "You get what you're born with, don't you?"

"Sometimes. But puberty has been known to set off wild changes in psi-skills."

"Puberty? Do I sound like an adolescent to you?"

But even as I said the words, I had a feeling she'd hit the nail on the head. Thanks to the fertility drugs that had been forced into me by past mates, I'd recently begun menstruating for the first time in my life. Which in turn meant I was going through a form of puberty - if puberty was defined solely as going through the change and moving from a child's body to a woman's. Not that anyone would ever accuse me of having a child's body. I'd been D-cup since I was sixteen.

"No, you don't sound adolescent. But that doesn't alter the fact your power seems very uncontrolled. You are extremely lucky you caught those vamps unawares. Lucky, too, that none of them were particularly strong psychics."

"Why's that?" I rubbed a hand across my forehead. The needles were beginning to ease, but my brain still felt like it was on fire. If I didn't get some pain relief tablets soon, I was going to have one doozy of a headache.

"Because by dropping your shields as totally as you did, you left yourself wide open for a counterattack."

"Oh." I hadn't even thought of that. Not when I'd attacked Quinn, and certainly not when I'd attacked those vamps. Quinn might have been too much of a gentleman to attack, but those vamps certainly could have.

She tilted her head on the side again. The brown hair fell to one side, revealing slivers of silver running underneath. She wasn't wearing a wig, because the silver and brown ran into each other. It was almost as if someone had dyed her hair, but only done half a job. Odd, to say the least. "Did your parents not teach you to use your gift?"

I snorted softly. "My mother was a wolf groupie who considered the half-breed she gave birth to little more than an inconvenience to her sex life."

"And your father?"

"She never knew for sure who he was. I certainly don't."

"Sad."

"That's me," I said sarcastically. "A sad and sorry tale."

She smiled again. "Do you have a name?"

"Poppy Burns."

She raised an eyebrow. "Indeed? And what are you doing here in St. Kilda, Poppy Burns?"

Something in the way she said that had uneasiness stirring. I shrugged, and did my best to ignore those damned butterflies. "Looking for work, a place to stay. Usual shit."

"So where did you live before?"

"You're getting awfully nosy, aren't you?"

She shrugged. "Given what you said to me before those vamps showed up, I think I have the right to be nosy."

I sniffed, and didn't reply.

"And given your so bluntly put opinion of me," she continued, "why would you then go on and save me?"

"Who says I was saving you? Those stinkers had me in their sights just as much as you."