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centered her. Strengthened her. From the start, Jarred’s devotion had helped Madeline believe, whenever it was too painful, too impossible, for her to keep going on her own.
    Sarah’s agitation eased with her sister’s. Her tremors stopped, but her system was still in distress, her pulse racing, her blood pressure no doubt off the charts.
    “I’ve about had enough of this,” Jarred bit out.
    He knew firsthand the price the Temples had paid for Richard’s tactical victory over the center: Madeline and Sarah’s non ex is tent freedom, their fragile sanity, their mother’s death, now this.
    Richard ignored the other man’s frustration and reined in his own fear. He was Sarah’s Watcher. He had to stay focused on tactics. On his mission. Letting emotion distract him would damage this family even more than he already had. He covered Jarred’s and Madeline’s hands with his, pressing them against Sarah’s body.
    “Find her.” He closed his eyes and sent his minddeeper, praying his presence could guide Madeline’s without driving Sarah’s even further away. “Don’t let your sister search any deeper for the child. Tell her we need her back here, so we can convince the elders to engage the Brotherhood. Tell her that if she doesn’t come back, there’s no hope of saving Trinity or your legacy.”

C HAPTER F IVE
     
    Fury burned through Maddie as her mind and Metting’s merged. Sarah was in danger. Again. And Maddie needed her sister’s raven to help them. Again.
    She didn’t trust the man or anyone in his brotherhood. But she couldn’t stop Sarah’s destructive obsession with Trinity alone, and Metting was light-years ahead in understanding how her and Sarah’s minds had been manipulated using dream science and psychic programming.
    Metting’s head was lowered over where his hand covered hers and Jarred’s and Sarah’s. The psychic energy surrounding him was as cool and nonthreatening as ever. Then he looked up, and the desperation shimmering in the dark black of his irises had deepened with the predatory intent of a bird of prey protecting his lair.
    A knot of foreboding grew in Madeline’s chest.
    This wasn’t just about Metting covering his ass with the elders. Or the Brotherhood’s lead Watcher tracing a child’s haunting cries back to whoever or whatever was damaging Sarah’s control. Metting may have used Sarah to score a Brotherhood win over Dream Weaver, but there was more firing behind his warrior-scientist posethan honor and code and duty to his cause. Too much more. And wading through another round of emotional muck with this man was the last thing Sarah could handle.
    “You don’t have to do this,”
Jarred’s mind said. The degree of his hostility toward Metting came in second only to Maddie’s.
“You don’t have to keep trusting him while he lets shit like this happen.”
    “There’s no one else in the godforsaken place even pretending to be on our side,”
Maddie projected back, shielding their conversation from Metting.
    Sarah hadn’t been able to tolerate Richard’s thoughts in her mind while she deprogrammed the behavioral and psychic triggers left from Ruebens’s work. Maddie had taken Richard’s place, trying to break down her twin’s ocean dream. But Richard was the expert with the equipment and medication, and it was his experience that kept pulling them back from the brink every time Sarah’s mind began to fray.
    “We’re losing her to something we don’t understand, and I’m not strong enough to help her without him.”
    Jarred’s fingers made soothing sweeps over Maddie’s hand. In the place in their linked minds where they’d forged an intimacy she hadn’t believed possible for her, his presence was as solid as ever.
    “whatever you have to do,”
he said.
“I’ll be right beside you.”
    And he would be. If Maddie fought. If she ran. If she fell apart again under the responsibility of protecting her twin and the dark legacy their psychic abilities