Orchid by Jayne Castle Page A

me. I swear I never meant to do what I did.”
    “Lighten up, Stonebraker.” She patted his knee. “You got a little carried away with the first prism who could focus your full range of power. No big deal. Next time you’ll know what to expect. You won’t go off the deep end a second time. You’ve got too much control for that.”
    His jaw was rigid. “I did not get carried away because of the focus link.”
    “No?”
    “I got carried away because I didn’t want to lose—” He broke off. “Forget it.”
    “I will,” she assured him. And knew that she was lying through her teeth. She would never forget that kiss as long as she lived. “It was just a kiss that got a little out of hand. Probably happens all the time, right?”
    He watched her closely. Dark curiosity lit his gaze first. It was followed by a flash of satisfaction.
    He knew that she was lying.
    Impossible. He couldn’t be reading her mind. Strat-talents were not human lie-detectors, she reminded herself.
    “You’re wrong, you know,” he said quietly. “That kind of thing does not happen very much to me. What about you?”
    “Uh, no.” She cleared her throat. “No, it doesn’t happen much to me, either.”
    She held her breath, afraid he would pursue the point with the sort of single-minded intensity he applied to his investigation work.
    But to her euphoric relief, he changed the topic.
    “I knew you could create a near-perfect focus,” Rafe said. “But I didn’t realize you could manipulate it in a negative as well as a positive way. Before tonight, I would have said that what you just did was impossible.”

Chapter
6
 
    Orchid was suddenly mildly embarrassed. “It’s not that weird, you know. I have a friend named Zinnia who can manipulate the prism she projects to some extent. She can twist it. When that happens any power flowing through it is also twisted in a way that’s painful for the talent.”
    “You did a hell of a lot more than twist the focus. You manipulated each individual facet of the prism.”
    “Yes.”
    “It’s incredible.”
    “I’m glad you’re impressed,” she muttered.
    Rafe shoved his fingers through his hair. His eyes were wary. “I didn’t mean to jump your prism the way I did.”
    “I know.”
    “I didn’t even realize I could jump a prism in that way,” he admitted. “Didn’t think it was possible.”
    “Happens all the time in psychic vampire romance novels.”
    He smiled ruefully. “Is that a fact? Maybe I’d better read one.” He drew a breath. “Five hells. No wonder the folks at ParaSyn wanted to run a few experiments on you.”
    Orchid fussed with her T-shirt while she collected herself. Then she drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “I’ll let you in on a little secret.”
    “What’s that?”
    “The ParaSyn researchers knew that I was an ice-prism, of course, but I never let them see how much I could do with my prism construct.”
    Rafe’s gaze sharpened. “What do you mean?”
    “I allowed myself to get talked into doing the study for the sake of science. But once I started I realized I didn’t want to demonstrate the full range of my abilities. Some instinct made me limit what I showed the researchers.”
    “You don’t have to explain. You’re talking to an off-the-chart strat-talent, remember? I don’t go around telling people how strong I am, either.”
    She smiled wryly. “No, I can understand that.”
    Rafe reached out to catch her chin on the edge of his hand. He turned her head so that her eyes met his. “The last thing I wanted to do was scare you so badly you had to resort to using your secrets.”
    Annoyed, she lifted her chin away from his hand. “Will you please stop apologizing? You didn’t frighten me. You made me angry. Big difference.”
    “Right. Big difference. I’m sorry that I made you angry.”
    She raised her eyes to the ceiling. “If you say you’re sorry one more time, I’ll get really mad. I think