Tanner lunged at him and fisted his shirt. “You thought you could use Devon to have Asa freed,” he accused.
Sheridan spluttered. “I don’t even know an Asa! I don’t! Swear to God, I had nothing to do with any of this! N-noth …”
Devon frowned as his voice faltered and faded away. His face slackened, and a strange glaze fell over his eyes, making them look almost dead—he was staring right at her, but she knew he wasn’t seeing her at all. He wasn’t seeing anything. But he wasn’t dead. No, she could hear his heart beating steadily in his chest. Yet, there was nobody home right then.
Tanner eased back slightly but didn’t release Sheridan. “Did one of you brain-fuck him?”
Ciaran and Devon shook their heads.
“I had thought about it.” Jolene waved a hand in front of Sheridan’s face. Nothing. He gave no response whatsoever.
Tanner gripped the guy’s jaw and studied his eyes. “It’s almost like he’s—”
Sheridan abruptly sucked in a breath, blinking rapidly as he seemed to … burst to life—it was hard to describe. His eyes then homed in on Tanner. Sharpened with intelligence. Those eyes no longer glimmered with fear. No, there was sheer arrogance there. Superiority. “Ah, Thorne’s hellhound.”
Devon’s feline hissed, unnerved by what was playing out before it. That was Sheridan’s voice, though steadier and pitched lower. But she knew it wasn’t Sheridan who was speaking right then. No, someone was speaking through him.
“I’m impressed that you made the connections that led you to Sheridan,” it told Tanner. “But you really should back away from this matter. It doesn’t concern you.”
Tanner’s grip on the shirt tightened. “It concerns me, you son of a bitch.”
“I should probably warn you that hurting this body will not hurt me.”
“Who are you?” demanded Jolene.
Arrogant eyes swung her way. “That’s not important, Miss Wallis. What’s important … is standing right there beside you.” His gaze cut to Devon, and those eyes smiled at her in a way that chilled her blood. “You and I will meet soon enough, hellcat.” Then Sheridan’s eyes rolled back into his head and his body shook violently.
“He’s seizing.” Tanner lowered the male to the floor, who quickly began foaming at the mouth. “Shit, do we—” And then the shaking stopped, and Sheridan’s lifeless eyes stared off into the distance.
Ciaran felt for his pulse, but Devon already knew the guy was dead—she’d heard his heartbeat stutter to a halt.
Breathing hard, Ciaran jumped to his feet with a curse. “Well, what the fuck was that?”
*
For the second time in the space of a few days, Devon found herself sitting at Jolene’s kitchen island with Tanner and some of her lair members. All were in a deep debate about—to put it simply—what the fuck was happening.
Her feline was pissed. It hated that there was an ongoing threat to Devon, and it absolutely loathed that it couldn’t eradicate said threat until it discovered just who and where it was.
Adam sat one side of her, massaging her back. Tanner sat at her other side, his large hand splayed on her thigh. And neither seemed to like that the other was touching her. She’d shrugged them both off several times but, like herpes, they just kept coming back.
It wasn’t Beck who’d called Adam this time, it was Devon. Because she knew that Hunter’s sister had the ability to speak through others, so if anyone could help them understand how the ability worked, it was Hunter. Tanner had been firing questions at the guy for the past twenty minutes.
Looking somewhat frazzled, Hunter rubbed at his temple. “I know I’m not doing the best job of explaining the mechanics of the ability, but it really is hard to describe. To speak through someone, you basically need to insert yourself firmly into their mind.”
“But you said your sister doesn’t leave her physical body,” said Tanner.
“She said it’s a little like putting shoes on over socks.”
“I’m assuming that, in this metaphor, the shoes represent the other person’s mind.”
“Yes, and the socks represent her body. She slips into another mind while still wearing her body, but her consciousness is divided. Shit, that’s not making things much clearer, is it?”
“How difficult is it to use the ability?” asked Devon.
“According to Lydia, it’s a lot harder than it sounds, and it’s a huge drain on the psyche,” said Hunter. “In my opinion, utilizing it is just not worth the trouble when it will leave you feeling weak and tired. It’s not even a particularly useful ability anyway. More like a parlor trick.”
Devon tilted her head. “So it’s not like possessing someone?”
“No, because you can’t fully take control. Lydia can get people to move their limbs, but she can’t make them do anything complex like drive a car—that would require her to get a deep grip on their brain. But she can use them as a conduit. Like they’re a cell phone. And they’ll have no memory of her doing it.”