Free The Bonded: The Allseer Trilogy Book I by Kaitlyn Rouhier Page B

tell,” Kirheen asked.
    “You’ve been using your powers a lot more than you think,” Tomias said with a smile. “You know how many times you’ve successfully blocked me out over the past week?”
    “You’ve been trying to read my mind?” She felt slightly betrayed by the intrusion. She hadn’t expected Tomias to stoop to such a tactic.  
    “Not in the way you think,” he said quickly, his hands rising in front of him as if to block her anger. “I’ve been scoping out your powers. If I have to teach you then I at least have to know what I’m dealing with.”
    “You should have told me,” she said with a scowl. “I can't believe you!”
    “That would have defeated the purpose, my dear. Simmer down, I wasn't trying to dig through your mind! I was trying to see how you would naturally react! This brings us to your question. You, Kirheen, have the innate power of blocking. You’re able to feel someone entering your mind and react accordingly, even when you aren’t aware of it.”
    “That’s useful. Means I can keep my thoughts to myself without any unwanted intrusion,” she snapped, making it clear she hadn’t approved of his actions, no matter the explanation.
    “In time and with proper training, yes, but right now if Fenir wanted to break into your mind, you’d have a hard time stopping him. His strength lies in breaking those barriers. Don’t overestimate your own abilities. Against someone skilled, you’d crumble.”
    “Wouldn’t Herzin be considered skilled,” Garild asked.
    “Yes, and she is, but she underestimated you; a dangerous mistake. She wasn’t expecting you to reinforce the barriers of your mind and push her out and it cost her.”
    “If her strength is blocking, then what’s mine? Attacking?”
    Tomias frowned. “It seems the logical answer, but your power is far more subtle. You don’t have the brute strength of Fenir. You don’t just hammer down the walls and let yourself in. You, Garild, have the power of influence. You sneak into the mind and influence the emotions and thoughts of others without them even realizing you’re there. As you become more experienced, you can shape the landscape of what they see.”
    Garild looked concerned. “I’ve been doing this all along?”
    “At times. You feel emotions more than others. Your power latches on to those emotions and you tweak them, ever so slightly. Most people wouldn’t even realize it was happening unless they were looking for it. You did it when you walked in here. You saw our tension and latched onto that, tried to change it.”
    “How could you tell?”
    “Because it’s my strength as well.”
    Garild and Kirheen fell silent, both piecing together what they’d learned. It was Kirheen that spoke first. “So, if we’ve been using our power without knowing, how do we get it under our control?”
    Tomias leaned forward, propping up his chin with laced fingers. “Practice, my dear.”
     

    Kirheen looked down at the cards in her hand, trying to decipher the meaning of them. She held five cards, each one with a different symbol. Tomias sat to her right, holding a different set of cards, though instead of symbols they were numbered. She suspected Fenir and Garild held the same, but from her angle, she couldn’t tell.
    “The rules are quite simple. You are going to take turns figuring out which card your bond mate is holding. This isn’t a guessing game. I want you both to try very hard to concentrate and use your powers to your advantage. I want you to know what the other person is holding,” Tomias said, taking the cards from Kirheen. He shuffled them together, took the top card and flipped it for him and Kirheen to see. It was a symbol; two blue vertical lines with a circle between them.
    “Start out gently. I want you to concentrate on your opponent, study them. Once your concentration is locked, you should feel a slight change, a gentle pressure here,” he tapped between his eyes with a finger.