Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
At that moment, Seyn knew without doubt that Ksar was dangerous. It was supposed to be impossible to read one’s mind without eye contact.
Was Ksar Class 5? Class 6?
Class 7?
A cold shiver ran up Seyn’s spine. He moved closer to Harry, wrapping an arm around him.
At last, Ksar tore his gaze from his brother, his jaw set and his expression vaguely sick. “Your mind is a mess,” he said tersely. “Some parts of it don’t react to stimuli at all. Borg’gorn is right. Your mind is dying, Harht.”
Harry stared at his elder brother blankly.
His heart in his throat, Seyn pulled him closer, trying to project comfort and probably failing. How could he project comfort when he felt sick with worry himself?
“You are going to do something to help him, right?” he said hoarsely, looking at Ksar.
Ksar glanced at him and said nothing.
Harry shook his head, looking dejected. “Don’t worry about me,” he said, his voice small. “I won’t disgrace our family.”
Ksar closed his eyes for a moment. “Harht—”
“I know,” Harry said, biting his trembling bottom lip.
Seyn looked from Harry to Ksar, hating how useless and helpless he felt. “But can’t we just smuggle him to Earth?” he said. “Like I did?”
“And then what?” Ksar said. “It’s impossible to delete the teleporter’s history. Sooner or later, Harht would be found, and the consequences would be much worse. And even if he wouldn’t be found, he’d never be able to step foot on his home planet and see his family. Is that the sort of life you want for him? Do you think he would be happy to live like that, with all his familial links gone? Telepaths are not meant to live without telepathic communication for long stretches of time. He would be miserable.”
Seyn’s chin lifted. “At least he would be alive and sane. We must do something!”
Ksar went very still. “We won’t do anything,” he said testily. “You will go home and keep your mouth shut about everything you’ve heard.”
“How can you be so heartless?” Seyn said, jumping to his feet. “He’s your brother!”
“Yes,” Ksar said. “He’s my brother, and this is a family issue. You’re not family. Leave. You overstayed your welcome a long time ago.”
Seyn flushed with fury and humiliation and stormed out of the room.
Heavens, he couldn’t wait to be free of that asshole.
He’d never hated anyone more.
Chapter 12
“Why are you always so nasty to him?” Harry said as soon as Seyn was gone.
Ksar looked at his younger brother and pursed his lips, not knowing what to say.
He knew what it looked like, of course. He was perfectly aware he behaved like a right bastard where Seyn was concerned. Partly, it was intentional. Partly, it was out of genuine irritation with the brat. Partly, it was out of frustration with the situation.
In short, it was complicated.
It always had been, though he definitely hadn’t felt any animosity towards Seyn when he was a newborn infant who was supposed to become his bondmate. At the time, he’d been dizzy with pain and nausea, and he just wanted the pain to stop. The mind adepts had been confident that bonding him again would stabilize the remnants of his first bond.
They had been correct, at least in that regard. After Seyn had been bonded to him, the pain had stopped, but while the mind adepts hadn’t noticed that the connection was-one sided, it hadn’t taken Ksar long to figure out that something was wrong. While his eight-year-old self hadn’t exactly been thrilled to be bonded to an infant who couldn’t even communicate and cried all the time, Ksar had done his part and tried to comfort the child to the best of his ability when Seyn’s undeveloped telepathy reached out to him. Except it didn’t work: the baby had never shown any sign of noticing his efforts to soothe it.
When he realized that the infant couldn’t feel him at all and his own telepathy was off the charts, the child that was supposed to be Ksar’s bondmate had become nothing but an annoying burden—and a source of constant guilt.
Even back then, Ksar’s younger self had known that if he told someone that the bond was one-sided, the mind adepts could likely fix it—and the baby crying at the back of his mind would stop being so miserable and confused. But by that time, Ksar already knew what the childhood bond did to one’s mind and telepathy. He hadn’t been willing to be bound again.
So he hadn’t told anyone.
Instead, Ksar had focused on controlling his telepathy. He raised his mental shields, and did his best to ignore the needy little voice at the back of his mind. (Are you there? Where are you? Please talk to me.) Except ignoring it had never been easy, and he’d resorted to shielding himself from the connection completely. At the time, he’d still been a child himself and his control hadn’t been anywhere near as good as it was now, so he had been forced to shield himself from all his telepathic connections, the ones to his family included.