Angel's Touch [PUP Squad Alpha 7] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) by Abby Blake

onto his lap. “I promised to protect you and love you for the rest of your life. I have every intention of keeping that promise.” He lifted her chin, gazing into her eyes a moment before kissing her passionately. By the time he pulled away, she was breathing hard, too. “But we need to figure out what just happened. The skill you demonstrated is dangerous. Whatever you did froze all external movement. I literally couldn’t breathe.”
    “I could have killed you,” she said as dread flowed over her, sinking deep into her bones.
    “I’m a little harder than that to kill,” he said confidently. “But if I’d been human or one of several other species, a prolonged amount of time frozen would have killed me.”
    Jed sat down beside them and took her hand into his own. “What were you thinking when you froze Devlin?”
    Words were hard to find. Her stomach churned as the what-ifs rolled through her mind. “I was…I was thinking that the look I gave him should be enough to freeze him on the spot.” She glanced at Devlin but lowered her eyes, terrified of doing something else as dangerously unpredictable as she’d just done. “But I didn’t mean it. I was thinking figuratively, not literally.”
    “Did you squint or blink?”
    “I did. I squinted. Could it be that simple?”
    “We won’t know until we try it,” Devlin said, moving her away from him slightly.
    She was shaking her head long before he finished the sentence. “Uh-uh, no way. I’m not experimenting on you. What happens if I squint and accidentally blow you up or something?”
    “Baby,” Devlin said, lifting her chin so that he could look her in the eyes. She closed them. “Look at me, Lil. My species can survive flying at very high altitudes. I don’t need much oxygen to keep my body functioning. I can literally hold a deep breath for thirty minutes or more. If you’re going to learn to control this skill, I’m your best chance.”
    She glanced at Jed and saw him nod his approval. “Lilly, I think this skill is based in telekinesis. That means you can move stuff just by thinking about it. The other Oracle’s receptacles have the same skill. They just use it differently.” He placed a cup of cold coffee just out of reach on the table beside her. “Without moving, reach for the cup.”
    She did as he asked and nothing happened. He frowned, lifted the cup, and peered at the stale coffee thoughtfully. “I have a theory,” he said as he headed into the kitchen. A minute later he came back in with a steaming cup of fresh coffee with cream and sugar just the way Lilly liked it.
    “Now reach for the cup.” Again she did as he asked, but this time pulled back in surprise when the cup slid toward her hand.
    Jed laughed and shook his head. “What the hell is it with you girls and coffee? Kali, Ava, and Hannah can move their coffee cups and occasionally their e-readers, but nothing else. It’s like it has to be something you really, really want, but even then it’s just little stuff. It’s only when Ava and Hannah were faced with pixie assassins that they were able to tap into the skill and do more damage.”
    “Didn’t Hannah put Eric on his ass once?” Devlin asked.
    “I forgot about that,” Jed said with a laugh. “I’m not sure who was more surprised. The five-hundred-pound bear-shifter or the woman who threw him clear across the yard with barely a look.”
    “So it’s not really a voluntary skill?”
    “We’re not really sure what it is, but when Ava and Hannah needed it, they had it.”
    “But I wasn’t exactly in danger when I froze Dev.”
    “I have a theory about that, too,” Jed said very seriously. He glanced at Devlin and then back at Lilly. “When you asked Devlin what he was, he tried to avoid the question. I’m betting it was the same way he avoided letting you get too close when you were dating.” Lilly didn’t look at Devlin when she bit her lip and nodded in agreement. “Devlin triggered your