4. Morelle

4

MORELLE

M orelle sat across from Amanda, trying her best to focus on the series of cards being shown to her.

"Just tell me what you think the next card will be," Amanda instructed patiently. "Don't overthink it."

Morelle stared at the back of the card deck. "Circle?" she ventured.

Amanda turned over the top card. It was a random shape. Another miss.

After an hour of various tests that included cards, dice, and random images, Morelle's results were consistently poor. Worse than poor, actually. She scored lower than the random chance would predict.

"Are you deliberately choosing wrong answers?" Amanda asked finally.

Her smile suggested that she was saying that jokingly, but Morelle was sure she meant it seriously.

She straightened in her chair. "I'm truly trying. My head hurts from the effort. Maybe I'm trying too hard?"

Amanda exchanged glances with Syssi. "Even someone with no precognitive ability should be able to guess correctly around fifty percent of the time with simple coin tosses, and knowing that, you should feel no pressure. It's a simple exercise." She pulled out a coin from her drawer and showed it to Morelle. "This side is called heads because it has a face on it. The other side is called tails, and it has this design. So far, is that clear?"

Morelle nodded.

"Now let me demonstrate how this is done."

She tossed the coin in the air and called out her predictions. After twenty tosses, she'd guessed correctly nine times.

"That's normal for someone without a precognition gift." Amanda handed the coin to Syssi. "Now watch what happens when a talented seer does it. Syssi can go on and on and guess correctly each time."

Syssi smiled. "That's not true. I get tired after a while. I call it mental fatigue, and then I do worse than average."

She started tossing the coin and calling her predictions, but she kept missing repeatedly.

Her forehead creased in concentration as she tried again and again, but her success rate remained remarkably low. "I don't get it. I'm not mentally fatigued, and this shouldn't be happening." She stared at the coin in her hand. "It's like my ability is muted somehow." Her eyes widened suddenly. "Or nullified."

"What do you mean?" Amanda asked.

A chill ran down Morelle's spine as the implications of what Syssi had said dawned on her. But then she remembered what Ell-rom had done while she was with him in the room, and her shoulders relaxed. She hadn't nullified his ability.

"Morelle might have a talent that is the opposite of Mia's," Syssi explained. "Mia enhances others' abilities." She turned to Morelle. "You might be suppressing them."

"That's impossible." She leaned over the desk and whispered, "I didn't nullify Ell-rom's ability." She glanced in the direction of where Brandon and Kian were sitting, but they were too far away to hear her when she lowered her voice.

Syssi, Amanda, and Kian knew about it, but Brandon didn't, and even with how much she cared for him, she wouldn't tell him before Kian said it was okay. They were going to test Ell-rom's ability as well, and only once they had all the information would they inform the council.

"Maybe you need to be aware of someone using their power to nullify it?" Syssi suggested. "You were sleeping in your bed at the time, and you weren't aware of what your brother was thinking or doing."

Morelle nodded. "That's true."

"Were you trying to block me just now?" Syssi asked. "Perhaps wishing I would fail?"

Morelle shook her head vigorously. "Of course not. I wasn't trying to block you or even thinking that you might fail. I was sure you would do as well as Amanda had predicted, and I was curious to see your ability in action. If anything, I wanted you to succeed."

Amanda tapped her chin thoughtfully. "We should test this further in the village. We have more people with various abilities there. I don't have any special talents myself, so you can't test your nullifying ability on me. Kian might have supernatural business acumen, but we're not about to risk the clan's finances by testing if you can nullify that."

A horrible thought suddenly struck Morelle. "What if it was me after all, and I've damaged Syssi's ability permanently?"

"There's an easy way to check," Syssi said, not looking alarmed in the slightest. "If you could wait outside for a few minutes, I can try again without you present. That will also test the effect of proximity on your nullifying ability."

"Okay." She rose to her feet and walked toward the door.

"I need to stay outside for a few minutes to see what's happening," she said to the men as she approached them.

"I know." Brandon stood up. "We heard. I'll wait outside with you."

She hoped he hadn't heard their hushed discussion about her brother's gift. A glance at Kian revealed that he didn't look happy, but it might have been because she'd damaged his mate's talent.

"I'll stay," he said. "I want to make sure that Syssi's ability returns to normal."

She swallowed hard. "I really hope Syssi's talent is not harmed."

When Brandon took her hand, she was grateful for his support, and as they stepped outside the lab and he closed the door behind him, the tall redhead regarded them with a raised eyebrow.

"What's happening?"

"Amanda and Syssi are testing a theory," Brandon said. "They need Morelle out of the room to conduct the experiment."

"I see." The redhead smoothed a hand over his short beard. "I might as well entertain you with some stories as we wait. This very spot where we are standing now is where we fought off a group of vicious Doomers. My brother and I bought time for Kian, Amanda, and Syssi to escape."

Morelle frowned. "If this location was compromised, why does Amanda still work here?"

A smile curled the redhead's lips. "You think like a warrior. I like it. And to answer your question, the location is no longer compromised because we eliminated those Doomers. And their leader?" He paused for effect. "He became Amanda's mate."

"What?" Morelle stared at him in disbelief. She opened her mouth to ask more questions when the laboratory door opened.

"All clear," Amanda announced cheerfully. "Syssi's abilities are working normally now."

"That's a relief." Morelle put a hand over her chest.

Syssi joined them in the hallway. "Since we can't conduct any more tests here, how about we go see the nursery now?"

"I would love to." Morelle cast a quick glance at Kian. "If you have time, that is. I know you are eager to return to your office."

He chuckled. "And miss the opportunity to see my princess? No way."

For a moment, she got confused but then realized that Kian had meant his daughter. For some reason, Earth males used princess as a term of endearment.

As they headed toward the ground floor, Morelle's mind raced with implications. If she truly was a nullifier, what did that mean for her place in the clan? Would they see it as an asset or a threat?

Brandon squeezed her hand as if he could read her thoughts. Perhaps he could. He seemed to have an uncanny ability to sense her moods. Then again, if she was a null, she would have nullified his ability, right?

This discovery was very confusing and kind of disappointing. She'd hoped for something much grander than the ability to nullify the talents of others.