Free Nightshades by Melissa F. Olson Page B

Agent McKenna—”
    He gave her the quarterback grin again. “You can call me Alex.”
    Goddamn it, she didn’t mean to smile back at him. “Alex. There’s something you need to know about Hector and me, and I need you to not freak out.”
    That scared him a little, she could see, and he tried to cover it with bluster. “You’re not gonna tell me there’s a
Game of Thrones
–style incest thing happening there, are you?”
    Lindy snorted. She was tempted to mess with him on that, but no, this was too important. “No. Our relationship is intense, for siblings, but not sexual. But I said that the telepathy was one way only. That’s not always true. There are cases of shades with a common elder who can communicate mentally with each other, and also respond to their elder. It’s only possible with relatives, with a very close blood connection. Twins, for example.”
    Alex’s eyes widened, and she heard his pulse speed up. “You and Hector? You can talk to each other?” He probably wasn’t even aware that his hand was going to his gun.
    Gently, she put a hand on his forearm. “I can hear your pulse racing. I need you to calm down.”
    “If you’re sending him thoughts right now, and reading his—” The stark professionalism was back in his voice, and he looked ready to arrest her right there on the plane.
    “It doesn’t work like that. I . . . underwent a procedure.”
    “What procedure?”
    “Every few years, I have to have a complete transfusion.” She wrinkled her nose. “When I say
complete,
I mean that every drop of blood is drained from my body and replaced with someone else’s—blood that has no connection to my brother’s.”
    “Someone must help you with that.”
    She nodded. “But I won’t tell you who. What you need to know is that Hector can’t send me thoughts, and I can’t send him mine. But he can still sense when I’m close.”
    His hand eased off his gun as he began to relax. “How close? Will he be able to find you?”
    She shook her head. “Not exactly, no. But he’ll feel me enter his territory. He’ll know I’m around, without being able to pinpoint it exactly.”
    Alex asked a number of follow-up questions about how the location finding worked and why. She couldn’t answer him. Modern science was able to explain a lot about shades already, but there were some things that were beyond it yet—especially considering the smartest scientific minds in the world had only known about shades for a less than two years. No time at all, really. Finally, Alex got around to the obvious question. “Why did you cut yourself off from your brother?”
    She considered the question. She hadn’t lied to Alex McKenna yet, but how could she sum up more than a millennia of history between two people? It was impossible, and although she knew she would have to give Alex McKenna a better understanding of shades, she wasn’t entirely comfortable letting him in on their history. Or her place in it.
    “We had a difference of opinion,” she said at last, “about thirty years ago. Since then, he’s tried to find me, and I’ve tried to stay away from him.”
    “Will you tell me what you two fought over?”
    His voice was gentle, compassionate even, but Lindy wasn’t a fool. “Not unless it could save lives,” she stated.
    Alex scribbled a few more notes, and they sat in companionable silence for a while. Behind them, Chase Eddy let out a loud snore, and Lindy and Alex exchanged a smile.
    “He has sinus problems,” Alex said apologetically. “I keep telling him to have the surgery, but he thinks everyone will make fun of him.”
    “You guys are close, I take it.” It had been written all over their body language and even their scents—not sex, but the kind of bond that came with sharing clothes, sharing spaces, eating the same foods and drinking the same drinks.
    Alex nodded, looking a little guilty. “He’s been my best friend since college. He’s coming to Chicago to watch my