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to cross the Channel. Once settled in their cramped quarters below decks, he looked forward to the crossing. Jessenia made every moment enticing, and he was still reveling in his newfound existence with her.
    So much was new to him now.
    The air was nearly black outside the small porthole, and he felt sharply aware and awake. Somehow, she seemed different to him tonight. She kept studying his face almost as if she were hungry. He never tired of looking at her. He loved the sight of her thick black hair.
    She looked to be about nineteen years old, with the pale, glowing skin of someone who seldom went outdoors. Her nose was small, and her mouth was heart-shaped. She wore a forest green skirt and white blouse with a thin vestment over the top, laced up tightly. She was slender and her hips were narrow, yet the tops of her breasts swelled above the laced vest. Gold rings dangled from her ears, and bracelets clinked on her wrists.
    She came to him, sitting beside him on his bunk. “I can feel your gift,” she said. “It’s getting stronger.”
    So much she said was still a mystery.
    “I love your gift,” she whispered, “as you love mine.”
    She reached up and kissed him. He pushed her back to lie on the bunk, and he pressed his mouth down hard over hers, running his hands down her slender waist as she moved her hands up to grip the nape of his neck.
    In spite of his desire, his body did not respond in its usual way, and he ran his hand over the tops of her breasts. His need for her, his urgency grew, but his body betrayed him.
    Then . . . he felt Jessenia inside his mind, her thoughts reaching for and entwining with his. Her sense of adventure and her joy in journeys suddenly became part of him, drawing upon him; as he thought of them together in strange places, a feeling of fierce protection began to build inside. No matter where they went, no matter what they saw or what they did, he would protect her, from people, from the sun, from poverty, from everything.
    Her passion for adventure began to combine with his desire to protect . . . inside him . . . inside her . . . until he could no longer tell the difference. The joining and meshing of half-mad drives went on and on in waves through his body until he felt it build to an almost-intolerable bubble. Then it burst, and his body shuddered in a shock of intense pleasure. Jessenia was still gripping the nape of his neck, and she gasped aloud—as if she still needed to breathe.
    “Robert,” she was saying over and over in his ear. “I knew, I knew.”
    He pressed his nose against hers. He was still shaking.
    He had never imagined emotions like this, drives and needs like this. She had been inside him, and he inside her.
    What had she done to him?
    Her body began to relax beneath his, and she turned her head to one side.
    “I knew as soon as I saw you,” she said.
     
    “No!”
    Philip jerked away, gasping, as if he, too, needed to breathe. He pulled away from Eleisha and jumped up off the bed, running both hands through his hair. He couldn’t go on with that memory, feeling that intimate connection of others.
    “No,” he said again, pacing toward the dressing table.
    “Philip.”
    The sad quality of her voice made him whirl back around. She was curled up with her arms around her knees. She looked small and forlorn.
    “What does it mean?” she whispered.
    And then he wasn’t angry or even anxious anymore. She wasn’t trying to force him to see or experience something he didn’t want to. She genuinely hadn’t known how to explain her questions. If there was one thing Philip understood, it was the inability to speak thoughts. She’d seen—and felt—something she couldn’t comprehend, and she’d wanted to share it, wanted his help.
    He took four strides back to the bed. Dropping down, he pulled her up against his chest and held her there. In his mind, he could still feel Robert pressing his mouth on Jessenia’s—as a mortal would—and how much Robert