Free Centaur Redemption (Touched Series) by Nancy Straight Page A

myself and took another deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to think of Carlsbad Beach in California:  the angry waves right before a storm, bonfires at night, body surfing for endless summer days.  None of these images would calm me.
    My mind wandered back to the Council Enforcers who had tried twice to attack my family in Cancun:  watching Quinton disappear in a blur after I’d set him free, the look of my family as we stood on the beach in Cancun, the fear shining back at me through their eyes.  My eyes snapped open.  This wasn’t working.
    Standing back up, I began pacing the room.  My thoughts remained a jumbled mess of other people’s voices that I couldn’t quiet.  I could see other people’s future, strangers I’d never met who were staying at the hotel.  I needed to focus on something to try to calm down.  I thought of my sister-in-law Hannah, willing her future to lie out before me.  Nothing, I couldn’t see her future at all, not even something as simple as what she would wear for breakfast in the morning.  I focused on my brother Bruce, but his future was empty, too.  “ Why can’t I see anything ?” I murmured to myself.
    No answer came.  I don’t know what I’d have done if a voice suddenly answered in my head.  I reasoned that if I couldn’t see Bruce or Hannah’s future, it was because theirs were completely intertwined with Drakes’s and mine.  Gretchen had warned me that no Centauride is able to see her own future.  I must not be able to see anyone who was with us because all of our futures were melded together. 
    If anything happened to Hannah, it would be my fault.  She was risking her life because I decided I was going to convince the Centaur Council to accept my family.  She and Bruce shouldn’t have come.  Maybe there was still time to persuade them to get out of the country before tomorrow.  If she and Bruce left, maybe my other brothers would follow.
    I needed the only thing that would let me drown out my chaotic thoughts.  The worry was too easily consuming me.  I stripped down and walked to the bathroom door.  Drake hadn’t locked it, so I eased the door open.  The steam from the too hot shower surrounded me.  Only a glass door separated me from Drake.  He was the one person who could make the voices go away.  I slid the shower door free and stepped into the scalding hot water with him. 
    Drake’s strong arms pulled me close as his mouth rested near my ear.  “I was hoping you’d join me.”
    He repositioned me under the stream of water.  The hot water stung my skin, but I didn’t care.   He knelt down to kiss my neck, trailing a line to my breasts.  My body ached for his.  I loved the way my body felt when Drake was near me.
    The images of Council Enforcers in Cancun swirling with the voices I had heard echoing in the hotel began to fade away to nothing as my concentration fell to Drake.  He must have sensed that I was coming unglued because he wrapped himself around me, just as he had in South Dakota when I couldn’t get the voices to quiet. 
    After a few minutes I could feel my heart beating a steady pace instead of racing out of control.  He loosened his grip around me and reached for a small shampoo bottle.  His strong hands lathered the coconut scented shampoo into my hair, massaging it from my scalp to the tips.  His soapy hands rubbed circles over every inch of me. 
    I closed my eyes, savoring his touch.  Drake gently turned me away from him so he was facing my back.  His hands still motioned in soapy circles, but it was his thumbs rubbing my neck from the base of my skull to the top of my shoulders that made all the voices in my head completely disappear.  His fingers inched down my neck slowly as the circles gradually grew larger and his pressure on my neck rubbed deeper into my aching muscles.  My head bobbed forward as his magic fingers continued rubbing slow steady circles.  With every gentle stroke, the world seemed