Entranced (A PowerUp! Story) by Marie Harte Page A

during sex? Could she give over to him like that, let him lead her wherever he wanted to take them?
    He forcibly stopped himself from pursuing that line of thought. “So you still have no idea what you’re supposed to do when we reach the Source?”
    “Not yet. I glanced at the book this morning, but I see nothing more than directions about how to find the Source. Once I’m there, I need to read Chronicles again. Chapter nine has my answers.”
    “You sure you’re not just getting off on your family’s weird penchant for kinky sex? I’ve seen the book, you know.”
    He knew without looking that she’d blush. The woman constantly grew embarrassed about all sorts of things. And this from the woman who’d gone down on him just hours ago. Damn. I have to stop thinking about Heather and sex. Focus on the danger getting closer. Concentrate, dumb-ass.
    “Forget I said that.”
    “Forgotten,” she muttered.
    He grinned. “So you still feel the urge to heal me?”
    “Yes. I’m sorry. But the Source is affecting me the closer we get.”
    He stopped and turned around, no longer amused. “Explain this. You said you had to heal me before. But now it’s worse? Do you hurt? Are you able to think beyond your power?”
    “I am.” She bit her lower lip, and he smoothed her flesh with his thumb.
    “Don’t do that. You’ll hurt yourself.”
    “I can heal it, remember?” she said softly, her gaze on his mouth.
    “You okay, Heather? You don’t seem right to me.” God, he wanted to get naked and fuck again. He shook his head, determined to remain clearheaded, but he could feel her presence in his mind.
    “I’m sorry, Jack. It’s the power. We’re close, closer than I thought we’d be.” She looked over his shoulder. “We have to keep going. I feel it inside me. Come on. Then you’ll see. We’ll finish this.”
    “Wait. Heather, there’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask. This healing. You manipulate energy, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “Can you twist it, use it to hurt as well as heal?”
    She stared at him. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried.”
    “You might have to before this is over,” he said grimly. “An offensive skill, or a defensive one if you want to think about it that way, is a skill worth having. If something happens to me, you do whatever you can to survive, you hear me?”
    “I don’t know if I can. I wasn’t built to do harm, Jack. That’s not my nature.”
    He would have worried more if she’d given him a chance. Instead she increased her pace, and they raced through the woods as if on fire. He still couldn’t feel the energy the way she could, but he believed her. She was acting weird, her eyes glazed yet brighter than they should have been. And she had a glow to her, an aura of purpose he could only follow.
    Two hours later, they arrived at a clearing. What should have taken them another six or seven hours had been accomplished in two. Like turning north and hitting the town of Grainau, this distance in such a short time defied the laws of physics. That or they had a shitty map.
    A lush, grassy field surrounded an ancient tree. Odd that neither Ida nor Jan had mentioned the tree. It didn’t fit the vegetation around them, nor did it seem real. The thing looked like something from a prop shop. It had a thick black trunk and reached high into the cloudless sky, framed by a blue canvas. Though it had only just reached the beginning of spring, the tree had light green leaves and pink flowers, like a cherry tree but much grander. It smelled like roses. A lot like Heather, come to think of it.
    He turned to see what she made of it and saw her on her knees, frantically digging through her things until she withdrew Chronicles from her bag.
    “Heather?”
    She ignored him and walked under the awning of the tree, now shaded from the sun by the blanket of leaves and flowers of the impossibly blooming tree. The temperature seemed warmer in this clearing, yet it was by no means