Awakened, page 6
part #1 of The Lilith Chronicles Series
“Why not!” she growled right back at him.
He replied coldly, “Because you’re too important, and I damned well said so.”
She frowned, “I’m not thrilled with taking the risk of being their puppet either, but Allison and Caroline will be able to track me, even if by some miracle they get by you, Meri, Carl, and Jace.”
He shook his head, “I lead here, stop arguing. The witch could shield you from them.”
She threw up her arms, “So use tech. Put a bug on me.”
His eyes swiveled to the door, and he changed the subject.
“Your third training partner is here. Cinna. Remember when I said some soul eaters are good, being half human?”
Her eyes crinkled slightly in confusion, and she turned as the door opened.
Cinna walked in. She was exquisitely beautiful in a red tube dress and dripping with jewelry, with light blonde hair and blue eyes, and she had the face of an angel. Her body was curvaceous, and Lily could feel the sensual energy dripping off of her as she slightly cocked a hip and smiled widely. She exuded confidence, and a ripe sexuality that made Lily blush, despite the fact she didn’t swing that way.
Cinna absolutely dominated the room, and Lily couldn’t help but look at her ripe pouty lips, and she actually wondered what it would be like to kiss them. Her wide perfect smile was stunning.
She was shocked, at how aroused Cinna was making her.
Jacob snorted, “Cut it out.”
Cinna smiled wider, and then seemed to change. She was still exquisitely gorgeous, and clearly confident, but she wasn’t making Lily tingle anymore.
“A girl has to make an entrance.”
Lily frowned, even Cinna’s voice was sensually alluring, but she felt like she was a lot more in control now. She also felt slightly violated, but she wasn’t sure if she should be mad or not yet, it had been an interesting experience.
Jacob didn’t look impressed.
Cinna shrugged, “I wanted her to feel what we’re capable of, that we aren’t all darkness. There are subtleties to our power, and we aren’t all about fear and pain.”
Clearly, Cinna would be called a succubus, whereas the monster she met the other night was a psychic vampire from legend. All the same race, varied subtleties over a whole range of emotions.
“You’re part of the team?”
Cinna nodded with a genuinely warm smile, or at least it felt genuine, Lily wasn’t quite sure yet.
“I am. I take on the task of checking on the soul eater groups in the cities we visit. Make sure they’re not making trouble, it goes more smoothly than if one of the others did the job. I also help in sparring, believe it or not. It gets the shifters used to fighting while resisting emotional distractions. I don’t always wear sexy dresses, I just got in from visiting with the others, and felt you in here with Jacob. It’s my part of things, to help keep humans safe. I love humans.”
She was a little amused at Cinna’s final three words, which could be taken several different ways, all of which were probably true in the temptresses case.
“What do you get out of it, besides protecting humans I mean.”
Cinna smiled wider, “You’ve heard shifters have the strongest and vastest life force energies? Let’s just say it’s like the difference between eating chopped meat and a filet minion, and they’re also quite virile and animals in bed, with almost endless stamina.”
Lily blushed. She also felt a surge of jealousy when she pictured Jacob and Cinna together. She pushed down the surprising surge of emotion, but Cinna tilted her head with a smirk, and had obviously picked up on it. She knew she could do the same thing, but her soul eater empathy wasn’t nearly as refined, she had no idea how.
Cinna grinned, “Jace, if you’re wondering. He’s also much more than a meal to me, so hands off.”
She was a bit annoyed at the surge of relief she felt, especially because Jacob was so standoffish with her. She also decided she liked Cinna, the woman had said that purely for her benefit and in reaction to her own emotions. The warning had been facetious, Cinna already knew where she had her eyes.
“How come I didn’t feel hooks in my mind?”
Cinna replied, “That’s only needed for compulsion, or feeding. I was just projecting the emotion around the room. The effect isn’t as powerful, yet the only defense against it is willpower. Come with me and I’ll give you your first lesson. If I like your plan, we’ll both argue with Jacob afterwards. He loves that.”
Jacob snorted again.
She sighed in defeat. She supposed she wasn’t going to win, and she wasn’t stupid enough to run off and do it herself. Without the others guarding her she doubted she’d win against a very powerful witch, and an ancient soul eater. Not without her memories and the understanding of her powers. She was tempted to try anyway, but she resisted. She was also curious about Cinna, and their shared abilities.
There was also a nagging in her mind, that she knew Cinna already somehow, but the woman wasn’t giving anything away if that was true. Although, it was possible just like Jacob she’d just known someone like Cinna in her past.
“Alright,” she turned to Jacob, “But this conversation isn’t over.”
The alpha shifter ignored her comment, and she followed Cinna out of his office.
Cinna took her up the stairs, and down to one of the bedrooms.
Cinna’s room was done in bright colors, the most prevalent being red. Even the furniture was a red oak, the night tables, bed frame, dresser, and vanity desk. The walls were decorated with fine art, and there were several knickknacks put out that she’d guess were very old. There was a sophistication to the room and the way it was decorated, but it was somehow warm and welcoming at the same time.
Perhaps that latter impression was more about what she was picking up from her hostess.
Cinna said, “Take a seat, I’ll be just a second,” and was already unzipping her dress as she walked into the walk-in closet and closed the door over.
Cinna came back out a moment later in dark blue yoga pants, and a red camisole tank top.
“Much better, I love how a dress and high heels make me look, but I prefer comfort when at home. You’re curious, but holding back, you can’t embarrass me, so just ask.”
She tilted her head, “You feed in bed, lust and pleasure?”
Cinna smiled, “That bothers you? Most of us who don’t want to hurt humans take that tack, but to answer your question, only for those we care about. Lust yes, but also love. I love Jace, and I loved my last partner as well, until the day he died. That surprises you?”
She didn’t bother denying it, Cinna could clearly feel her emotions.
Cinna shrugged, “But that is for those I love. In truth, between lovers I often use simple joy and appreciation, and don’t feed in bed. I don’t sleep with men I don’t care for in that way. Let me ask you a question, how do you think you did it in the past, before you lost your memories? Can you think of a better way to feed than love and pleasure with a man you cared for?”
She froze, and realized Cinna was right. She must have, she couldn’t even imagine using the negative emotions, or causing pain. Yet, isn’t that exactly what she’d done against that monster last night? She could claim self-defense, it was an enemy trying to suck out her life force, and most likely wanted to rape and kill her in the bargain. Yet… she’d enjoyed it. She’d enjoyed his fear, and she’d enjoyed the power of life and death she held over him.
To be fair, she’d been caught up in those feelings, and the rush of life force. Once she’d snapped out of it, she’d been horrified and disgusted by what she was doing, had even stopped. That meant the power was addicting, and could lead to evil, not that she was.
Point was, she could very much imagine feeding while sharing love. That she thought of Jacob while imagining it bothered her, she’d just met the man. There was just something about him that stirred deep feelings, but she knew she couldn’t pursue it until she remembered her life, or until she figured out why that was at the very least. Not that Jacob was anything but closed off to her anyway.
“Joy, appreciation, between lovers. I can see that, and the other,” she admitted.
Cinna winked, “There’s nothing like it, and I imagine nothing like it for our partners either. There are worse things, than being drowned in love and pleasure, while engaged in physical pleasure.”
She asked, “The lesson?”
Cinna smiled, “Emotions. There are multiple levels of subtleties to what we can do. I sense your almost completely closed off right now, perhaps a defense mechanism to preserve life force while you recovered. Anyway, we can be closed off, or just open up completely to take in all the emotions around us in range, to the full power of how they feel to us. Generally, I stick to the immediate area, and only let it leak in so to speak a little. Opening yourself up too far can lead to being battered by the emotions around you.
“Second is our ability to project emotions. They are related in that it’s all about emotions, but they are completely separate powers. You can have your receiver tuned way down, while at the same time transmit emotions as strongly as your capable. It’s two different things altogether. I don’t normally transmit emotions like I did when we met either, though there are times it is appropriate. I just wanted to give you an idea of what we’re capable of, and dripping sensuality is kind of fun to be honest.
“Lastly is compulsion. Where we intimately connect with another, and transmit emotions and feelings meant to ensnare another. It is also the intimacy of those connected emotions that allow us to feed on another’s life force. Sometimes it’s necessary, but it’s like a sledgehammer, when often merely projecting emotions will do the job.
“With projection you can steal the attention of a room, calm an unruly crowd, or cause a riot. You can be unnoticeable, spread joy, or hate. Point is, there’s no morality to the power itself, just in how you use it. Despite our power being demonic in origin it’s merely the power of a demonic entity, not the power of hell itself like in a warlock. In the end, it’s just power. Personally, I don’t use compulsion at all, since I never feed on the unwilling or ignorant.”
She frowned, “That all sounds fine, but how do I do any of that.”
Cinna nodded, “Our power is a lot like shifter abilities, in that its simple. Only the witches and warlocks have complicated powers. Still, all our powers work the same way in the end, it’s only the visualizations as a witch and warlock that are more complicated, and of course dealing with that life-web. It’s all about desire, focused concentration, and will or the decision to make it happen. The trick is knowing what’s possible of course, understanding, if you desire something your magic can’t do, it will fail.”
She thought about that for a minute, was it that simple? She’d shifted easily, by visualizing what she wanted, and willing it to happen. Of course, understanding of what she wanted was required as well, but somehow, she still had that gut knowledge from her past as far as shifting went. Understanding emotions was if anything, even simpler. Even feeding on life force or spells made up of life force was simple to conceptualize.
At least, so she believed, until she tried to imagine herself opening up to the emotions around her a little more. It was a simple concept, but she wasn’t sure how to visualize it. She had to pick some image with subtleties of degrees, otherwise there’d just be on and off, either she’d feel no emotions from others, or she’d be blasted by them. She needed something like a dimmer switch, so she could as Cinna did, open up to the emotions around her by degrees, or transmit by degrees for that matter, but one thing at a time.
She was also pretty sure at this point, her magic was an amalgam of all four. She didn’t have four life forces inside her after all, each one capable of something different. She was one person. Should she try to combine the disciplines in her visualizations, or keep them separate?
The shifter part would almost have to be separate, but her power as a soul eater and witch were a little similar in some ways. She’d have to come up with a visualization like the sphere covering her node on the life-web and then maintain it. Wouldn’t it be easier to maintain all of that if she could stick with just a single visualization?
Cinna asked, “Did I lose you?”
She shook her head, “No, just trying to think of a visualization.”
Cinna nodded, “I use rivers, one flowing into me, and one flowing out of me, the width and speed of the river indicates how powerfully I’m taking in emotions and putting them out, but I’m kind of old and learned all this before technology was even a thing. I know a few of the newer soul eaters use a microphone and speaker visualization, with a simple dial on both for pickup strength and sound volume. A simile of sorts of course, with it transmitting and hearing emotions instead of sound.
“A pair of extendable antennas works that way too, or I even met someone who uses semi-permeable membranes as a visualization, he was a human scientist before he was made one of us. There are many possibilities for controlling sending or receiving emotions. Most everyone though uses a connecting line of some sort, like a harpoon with a cable on it, for the direct connection of compulsion and feeding. Of course, when I feed I’m thinking of cupid’s arrow.”
Cinna blushed at the admission, and it made her like the soul eater even more. She was obviously a sweet and vivacious woman, and a bit of a tease and show off too. She was a lot like Meri that way, except Meri’s sense of humor was even more pointed and earthy. Still Meri was the kind of woman Lily would want to party with and have a blast, Cinna felt like that a little as well, but also the kind of friend she’d want to confide in. Allison was nothing like them, she was the shy one that would have to be bullied into joining them on a night out, and Caroline… well Caroline was a bitch. The men she didn’t really have a handle on at all yet, but she’d only spoken to them at meals for the most part, and only two meals at that.
Speaking of meals, it was almost dinnertime, and she wanted to make some progress. She pushed all those extraneous thoughts of Jacob’s team out of her head.
She finally nodded, that last part made sense, and she saw no reason to do it differently. The other two she would do differently, and rather uniquely, mostly.
She closed her eyes and visualized her hollow sphere. Cinna’s whole thing was about subtlety, which meant the more complicated she made this the more she could fine tune it. Of course, that would make it harder in a way, but her mind was sharp. She visualized something similar to a satellite dish growing from the top of her sphere, away from any of the life-web lines which were mostly linear like a spiral galaxy of stars with lines connecting all the stars. The top and bottom of the sphere was pretty much clear of connections as a result.
Understanding of her visualization was important, the height of the pole off her sphere the dish was mounted on indicated the volume of the emotions she took in. The size of the dish itself, indicated how far away she’d receive emotions from. In order for the size and height to make any sense in relation to it, meant she needed to visualize the ten sizes of the dish and the ten heights of the mounting pole so her ability knew what the setting meant. The lowest height which was flush against the sphere, was off, then it went up in ten percent increments until she’d be feeling emotions of everyone around her at her full ability. The smallest dish size was a room, and that would expand as her dish grew until she hit her the limit of her range.
It was complicated, and it took quite a while to get it all straight in her head, then she set the height at the first notch and the dish at the smallest size. Then willed to feel the emotions around her at that setting. She wondered how she did it in the past, and if it would be confusing if she ever got her memories back.
She thought she felt curiosity and patience from Cinna, but half thought it might be her imagination, so she raised the dish to the twenty percent position, and willed it. She could feel Cinna’s curiosity and patience a lot clearer, but it was far from overwhelming. She decided to keep it at that setting.
“I can feel your curiosity and patience at a pretty low setting, why would I ever make it more sensitive? Wouldn’t that just be a distraction?”
Cinna replied, “Because it’s not just about you. You’re comfortably feeling my most prevalent emotions in this moment, but I’m also feeling other subtler emotions you’re not picking up. Desire for Jace, or for dinner which is soon, and other emotions. They’re in the background, and you don’t need to feel them I guess, but it’s a point. It’s like there’s two volume dials, one on you for what loudness your listening for, but also on the people around you in how strongly they’re feeling an emotion in that moment. Twenty percent is perfect though, not too distracting, and prevalent emotions are situationally the most important. There may be situations where you want the subtler emotions as well, to turn up the gain so to speak.”
That made sense, but she didn’t bother messing with it in that moment. She didn’t need to know the subtleties of everything Cinna was feeling in that moment, or probably ever, but the idea was there if she ever did.
To keep the same idea going, she made a satellite transmission antenna which was attached to the center of her dish. This one was the same for power and distance. The longer its pole rose from the dish, the stronger it would transmit, and the wider the dish was the farther it would transmit. That made the second part, the width for distance, common between both abilities. She would feel and send emotions at the same width. It made sense to her, because why would she transmit wider than she could feel? Transmitting would need some kind of feedback, to make sure it was having the desired result, so it just made sense, and it simplified the complicated visualization by one step.
She got stuck there for a moment, transmitting emotion had an extra piece, the emotion itself. She wouldn’t want to send all her emotions, just a specific one, and maybe not even the strongest one she was feeling. Her imagination failed her.
“Okay so you have your river, width is how far you transmit an emotion, and the speed of the river is how loud?”
