Challenged - Skinwalker Book 2

Chapter 8

When her eyes fluttered open, Sierra found herself staring into still somewhat dark and unfamiliar surrounds. It took her a moment to remember where she was. Feeling strangely refreshed, she turned over to remove the alarm from her phone. Then she hopped out of bed and drew back the heavy drapes over her window, letting the soft morning light stream in.

Whoa, those are really effective drapes!

The view from her window was beautiful and the soft colours of the morning sky gave everything a romantic tint. It made her feel surprisingly optimistic and she determined that the arrival of the new day would also be a changing point for her. She ran a brush through her hair and decided to head to the bathrooms to clean up a bit before changing for breakfast.

Sierra was about halfway down the landing when she noticed that the door to the Sauveterre's part of the castle was ajar. At first she was going to respect their wish for privacy and ignore it, but as she turned towards the bathrooms voices floated up to her causing her to hesitate and then stop.

"...if what you suspect is true and she is battling some sort of overpowering desire to touch her team mates, maybe we should just let her get it over with," Geoffrey was saying.

A little tingle of excitement transformed Sierra's entire body to goose flesh and her heart skipped a thrilled beat.

I knew I liked the look of that guy!

"Maybe - it would certainly help her to focus. But what happens when she meets another creature in the field and the craving comes back?" Kalko replied.

Sierra scowled at him, even though he couldn't see her.

"I see your point," Geoffrey replied. "We were hoping to ask her if she'd mind touching one of the others in her focus session tomorrow so we could observe the process properly. It needs to happen at some point. The blow-up with Adam was too unexpected to really gain understanding from it."

That sounds like an excellent idea to me! In fact, we could move that up to today, if you like?

"I don't think it's a good idea," Kalko replied.

Don't listen to him!

"Kal, she's going to have to touch her team mates at some point. She can't work with them if she can't touch them. You know better than most that bonds need to be formed for a team to be effective. They can't trust her if they're nervous to be around her. They can't help each other or comfort each other."

That's pretty sound logic. Beat that, Kalko!

"I know that Geoff. I'm not saying never. I'm just saying that maybe we should hold back a while - try draw her out a little and test her before she ends up putting everyone at risk in a field assignment or something. If we force her to get control now, then we'll ultimately be helping her to stay in control in the long run. We don't know anything about her kind, but some of the legends aren't pretty. If this is something that can't be controlled, we need to find out now."

Crap. That's pretty sound logic too...

Geoffrey sighed with resignation.

No buddy, don't listen to him. Stay on my side...

"I'll talk to Jocelyn about it. You have a valid point, but I worry about the coherence of the team," Geoffrey replied.

"I'm worried about the team, full stop. You know how seriously I take my job, Geoff. I wouldn't have brought this up if I didn't think it was something we needed to look into."