Free Leaf, Erin M. - Tango Trio [Dream Marked 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) by Erin M. Leaf Page B

Parker and slung his arm around the larger man’s waist. “I agree. I don’t see what difference it will make.”
    Tessa nodded slowly, hoping they were right.

    * * * *

    By five o’clock the next morning, Tessa knew the two men were wrong. This wasn’t a normal bonding. She had a splitting headache, her tattoos itched horribly, and her mind kept trying to tell her that something was terribly wrong. She felt like part of her body was missing. Or part of her brain. Something essential was just not there. I’m an emotional amputee , she thought, then winced as the two men caught the image from her mind. This isn’t working, guys , she thought at them more deliberately.
    I agree, but I’ve got to go to work in a half hour , Parker sent, his mind voice as irritable and pained as Tessa felt. We’re already behind schedule.
    What can we do? I have a day full of classes to teach , Jared thought. His mind voice was more controlled, but Tessa sensed the desperation beneath his calm.
    We can manage until we come to class tonight , Tessa thought. If you start canceling classes , she sent to Jared, or skipping work , she sent to Parker, everyone’s going to find out about our bonding. And after the uproar that happened with Duncan Green and his bond-mates, you know the press will be all over us, too. There haven’t been any other reports about trio-bonding, so if we’re the next ones… She let her mind voice trail off as she felt Parker wince.
    Yeah, okay , Parker thought tersely.
    I’m going to spend the morning doing some research on the web. I thought once our bond was fully established, we wouldn’t feel this way, but maybe trio-bonding is different, Tessa thought.
    Tessa felt Jared and Parker’s agreement, and then her awareness of them faded into the back of her mind. If she concentrated, she could “see” them in her head, but otherwise the connection felt more like a low buzz of awareness. She rubbed her eyes, hoping that a cup of coffee would help her headache.

    * * * *

    Three hours later Tessa knew her headache wasn’t going to get better, but it subsided just enough for her to function. She’d eaten breakfast, and that helped, then spent the last several hours on the Internet, doing searches about bonding. She’d discovered pretty quickly that a few months after the phenomenon began early last year, the news reports about it on the web had been wiped. Erased. Who would do that? Tessa tried to wrap her brain around the massive information purge. When Duncan Green, Jake Mackenzie, and Emma Bell came forward with their trio-bond, the news reports began again, but none of them contained any useful information. Everyone agreed that bonding created a connection between two people, but there was no discussion about telepathy. Or a heightened sense of smell.
    Tessa sat back in her chair, thinking about what she knew. Every bonding involved marks like tattoos on the bond-mates’ forearms. She fingered the marks on her arms. It made sense that she had two bonding tattoos since she was part of a trio—so did Jared and Parker. Next, every bonding created a connection between the people involved, usually empathy, the ability to sense each other’s emotional state. She had that as well, except the bond with Jared and Parker went further—they could actually talk to each other mentally. Tessa wondered if trio-bonding had some extra abilities. It seemed a logical conclusion, but she couldn’t find anything about it on the web. The only other trio-bond involved a famous rock star, and he probably had teams of people working to keep his life private. So, no information from that source. For a stray moment she considered her mother then squashed the thought without compunction. She hadn’t spoken to the woman in ten years. Her mother hated her, and Tessa was ashamed to say she didn’t exactly have warm fuzzies toward the woman who’d birthed her.
    Tessa stretched and made her way to the kitchen for some more