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he spoke telepathically to insure privacy. It had taken long months of practice to be able to direct telepathic communication to only one subject and keep the others from hearing, but it was a useful tool, and Nicolas had worked hard to learn the skill. Lily has them all bleeding in sympathy for this woman. Anyone capable of generating an antigravity field or the kind of heat it takes to start a fire or of changing the structure of a cable is dangerous. Every one of the men would hesitate to do whatever was necessary if she turned on them. I won’t.
    Ryland let his breath out slowly. Nicolas always sounded the same. Calm, unemotional—logical. He wondered what it would take to ever stir Nicolas up and destroy his tranquil nature. I trust you, Nico, but Lily is afraid for this woman. She feels her father robbed Dahlia of everything she deserved. Parents, a home, a family, essentially a life.
    He did. Lily takes on his blame, and she shouldn’t. She’s every bit as much a victim as this poor woman, but none of that changes the danger to anyone trying to persuade Dahlia to leave her only known sanctuary. Don’t you see what they’ve done, Rye? If they’re using her as an operative as Lily suspects, they keep her in line because she needs that home out in the swamp. She has no choice but to return to it. She can’t live outside of that environment, so she does what they tell her and returns to it. They wouldn’t even need to watch her; they’d know she’d have to come back.
    Nicolas stood up and stretched, suppressing the wince when his body protested. The bullets had come a little too close to his heart for comfort, and he was still recovering.
    He had looked forward to some downtime. His team immediately got to their feet. Ian MacGillicuddy, Tucker Addison, and Gator were all tired and needed rest. He knew they expected to accompany him. Nicolas scowled at them. “Do the lot of you think I can’t handle that little woman all by myself?”
    The men exchanged grins. “I don’t think you can handle any woman, Nico,” Tucker answered. “Least of all that little stick of dynamite. We have to go along and make certain she doesn’t kick your ass.”
    “I’ve gotta agree,” Gator said. “She looks like she could do some real damage to a pushover like you.”
    Ian snorted in derision. “She might run if she saw your sorry face looking at her through the swamp. She’d think you were some swamp monster sent to drag her into the black depths. She needs to see a good-looking man coming to take her home.”
    “And that wouldn’t be you, would it?” Gator nudged him. “I’m familiar with the bayou, Nico, and I know how you get so turned around.”
    Ryland watched the men laughing and joking with Nicolas. All of them knew Nicolas could be sent out alone into the deepest jungle or the broadest expanse of desert for months and always return with the job done. It didn’t matter—they could throw everything they could think of at him, and Nicolas would take it all good-naturedly, but in the end, he would leave his team behind.
    All of them had pulled duty in the Congo and had spent weeks infiltrating the enemy both in the villages and camps to gain vital information. Using psychic talent for extended periods of time, especially shielding themselves from large groups, was extraordinarily draining. All of them needed rest. Nicolas would see to his men first, and he would protect them from Dahlia Le Blanc in spite of any sympathy they might feel toward her.
    Do your best to reassure Lily. Ryland found it much easier to use telepathy these days. The exercises Lily insisted the men do daily had added not only to their control, but to reconstructing a semblance of the barriers her father had brought down in his experiment to enhance them all. Lily worked hard at conditioning them, hoping to give them the necessary tools to be able to live in the world with families and friends. In the meantime, she generously shared her