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From what Ezra had told her, though, she understood it would come back, and the trick was to use the things she’d learned earlier so she could direct the energy and control it as it returned, rather than it running her off the rails and causing a trainwreck of her aura.

Originally, she’d had the idea that Elijah was the fuck-up and Ezra was the ‘good’ twin, but she was coming to understand that, in some ways, they were two halves of a whole, and Elijah was more about their emotions while Ezra was more about their logic. It was almost as if one was the left brain and the other was the right brain of a single human, except they were two people.

And so, it was Elijah who sat behind her once she was sitting with her legs in a butterfly position, his hands on her shoulders, talking her through bringing energy from mother earth up her root chakra, and father sky into her crown chakra, mixing the two energies in her heart chakra, and then distributing it from her heart into the rest of her body.

She found out, later, that he sat with her for nearly four hours and talked her through the meditation.

Also, Brooke told her she’d intended to handle the guided meditation, and would’ve done something different, but once Elijah placed his hands on her shoulders and began, she’d left him to it.

But Genie didn’t know any of that while it was happening, and when she came back to herself, when it was finished, Genie turned and pulled Elijah to her. His hands and his voice had guided her, and she felt whole in a way she could never remember feeling before.Body, mind, and spirit. She’d heard people say it, and thought it was just a phrase, but she felt it now. All three of her parts working in concert together.

“My Lady, Signora Genie,” Elijah said, his voice full of both wonder and regret, “you need to maintain this on your own. Sex right now would make you dependent upon my help. I need to go, so you have the room to yourself. Brooke is available to telepath for another couple of hours. She’ll pull one of us back if you need us, but stay here and meditate. Focus on maintaining your balance. It’s okay if you go to sleep. When you wake, someone will bring you breakfast, and we’ll talk to you via video chat. We’ll be on the property, but not terribly close.”

He’d kissed her on the forehead and left, and now it was…

She looked around the dimly lit room and didn’t see a clock. She could’ve slept for thirty minutes or ten hours. She had no idea. She tried to telepath Brooke, but there was no answer. She walked to the unit on the wall beside the door and pressed the button Dev had told her about.

Dev’s voice came through the speaker. “How are you feeling? You look well.”

She’d been told there was video surveillance, but she’d also been promised they’d only check on her a few seconds every thirty minutes, because she’d been adamant she didn’t want to be watched.

“What time is it?”

“Brooke reported that you fell asleep around ten last night, and it’s nearly ten in the morning.”

“That’s going to royally screw my sleep schedule.”

“I don’t think it will. You can take a short nap this evening, stay awake through the night, and you should be back on schedule to go to sleep at your usual time in the morning. A good part of our security team is made up of cougars and leopards. A cougar you don’t know is about to open your door and escort you upstairs to my suite. He’s been authorized to show you how to get to the elevator on that level from anywhere. It’s important you don’t share this with the twins, the bikers, or anyone else. If that will be a problem, let me know now and he won’t share it with you.”

“Unless I happen to be here alone with the bikers, I can’t imagine I’ll have a reason to share that kind of thing with them.”

“That isn’t good enough, Genie. I need to know your loyalty is to me over them.”

She sighed. “I’ve given them oaths, Dev. If their safety or security is at risk, and I can help, I have to. It’s probably best you don’t share those kinds of secrets with me until we get that worked out.”

“Okay. I value and appreciate your honesty. We’re good, little owlet. Everything in its time.”

There was a knock on the door, and then it opened. Genie smelled cat, but it wasn’t as strong as when she was around the twins. The twins were somehowmorecat.

Chapter Nineteen

Elijah could feel her getting closer.

While she’d meditated on her own, Dev had taken Elijah and Ezra up to the garage level, as far as they could get from her without going outside, and they’d built a tall scratching post and perch thing in a woodworking shop. There had been two-by-fours and other sizes of lumber, along with hammers, nails, saws, and several rolls of carpet. Apparently, when an accident happened and blood was spilled in a carpeted area, they just pulled the carpet and put new down, rather than try to clean it. The floors under the carpet had some kind of sealant that kept the blood from soaking into the wood beneath the carpet.

The vampires at the Concilio hadn’t used carpeting much. Some throw rugs here and there. Come to think of it though, the hardwood floors had been waxed until blood didn’t soak into the wood there, either.

Genie was on their floor now. So close.

“My soul is calling to her,” he told his brother. “Do you feel it?”

“A little, but I don’t think I feel it as strongly.”

“Do you think it’s because she saved my life?”

“No,” Dev told him. “I think it’s because you’re in touch with the part of yourself that can sense the same part of her.”

Elijah hadn’t wanted to like Dev. As a slave, you learn to connect with the people responsible for you. It’s important they want to be sure you’re fed and healthy, but emotions couldn’t play into it. They were like a groom paid to keep someone else’s horses — it was just a job.