Secret Legacy Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Sarah’s still in danger. She’s not free of the ocean. Save your sister, sweetheart. Open your eyes in the dream. Wake up!”
    There was a feminine moan, followed by a flash of lavender light streaming through the dream link—Madeline’s consciousness reengaging. Her mind, weak but determined, wrapped around Richard’s. In the dream’s ocean, her image and the raven’s faltered, then held. She stirred and reached for her sister’s hand. In Sarah’s quarters, Madeline’s fingers tightened around her twin’s.
    “Sarah
. . .
”
her mind called.
“We’re almost there. Let the dream go. Please
. . .
You have to—”
    A streak of anger shot through their minds, a flash of furious gray from beyond the ocean’s pull. A second later, the doors to Sarah’s quarters slid open. Jeff Coleridge and a Watcher team filled the tiny room, prepared to neutralize whatever new threat the Temple Legacy posed to the Brotherhood.
    “Step aside,” Jeff demanded, his presence displacing the last of the healing energy Madeline had helped Richard create.
    Richard fought to stay grounded to the scene in Sarah’s quarters. His vision blurred as he sustained his presence in the nightmare, too. Jarred was blocking Jeff from advancing on Madeline.
    “Don’t touch her,” Jarred said. “They’re—”
    “They’re dreaming beyond Metting’s control, or youwouldn’t have called us.” Jeff grabbed Madeline’s arm. He tried to pull her away.
    Madeline shuddered, Jeff’s aggressive energy swamping her hold on the dream. Richard sensed her mind surfacing.
    “Don’t . . .” Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. Her identity straddled reality and the nightmare. Her body began to tremble. “Sarah?” she called out.
    “You’re hurting her.” Jarred grasped a fistful of Jeff’s black shirt. “Let her go. Give her and Metting a chance to—”
    “Step back.” Jeff’s voice was cool steel.
    The recovery team stood waiting with a portable defibrillator and a crash cart that held the pharmaceuticals Richard had designed to enhance the dreaming mind’s reintegration into its body. Each Watcher’s psychic talent would prove invaluable, too, as the dream’s damage to the twins’ minds was triaged and treated.
    “The less you resist,” Jeff warned, “the easier ending this will go for everyone.”
    “Ending it how?” Jarred demanded.
    “However it takes.”
    “Lieutenant . . .” Richard warned. He couldn’t finish the sentence. He could feel Madeline’s distress beginning to stir Sarah’s mind. He only needed a few more seconds. One more push to wake Sarah up.
    He and Jeff shared a tension-filled stare. Richard nodded his consent to his second’s unspoken plan. Jeff’s methods wouldn’t win him points with Jarred, but his instincts were as on the mark as ever.
    He pulled Madeline away from the psychiatrist. The twins’ hands and minds lost contact.
    “Sarah!” Madeline screamed. She collapsed to the floor.
    “Let her go.” Jarred fought his way to her side. “You’re—”
    “Hurting her,” said the woman in Richard’s arms. Sarah’s consciousness surged back to her quarters. But her eyes didn’t open. The nightmare still owned too much of her. “Let go of my sister,” she demanded.
    “That’s it,” Richard whispered into her ear, hating the pain and the mess and the hopelessness he couldn’t seem to banish from her life. “Wake up and kick the crap out of all of us for hurting Madeline.”
    In the dream, his raven’s wings folded her closer.
    “Battle your way back, Sarah,”
his mind demanded.
“Fight me. Hate me forever, but come back. Trust me just one more time
. . .
”
    He heard himself begging and accepted what it meant. Right or wrong, the emotional distance he’d forced between them was gone, and there was no going back. Not for him. Not after this.
    “She’s coding,” someone reported as his men worked over Madeline.
    “Damn it, Maddie,” Jarred demanded, “don’t do