Training Rain

  Training Rain

  A.S. Fenichel

  Having spent most of her life avoiding people and hiding her psychic gifts, Rain is shocked when the new Psi Alliance asks her to join. She didn’t count on the rigorous training or needing all of her Native American knowledge to complete the course. And if only she could ignore her attraction to her devilishly handsome instructor.

  Jess shows up to train a new psychic recruit and the crazy woman shoots him in the doorway. His new student is the raven-haired beauty who once saved his life. Trying to keep his focus on survival training is hard enough without the added stress of a rogue government agency trying to kill them.

  Escaping danger leads them directly into each other’s arms. The only question is—can they survive long enough to find comfort there?

  A Romantica® paranormal erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

  Training Rain

  A.S. Fenichel

  Prologue

  The Nevada sun warmed the dry earth, but winter had come to the desert and a chill clipped the air. Jess was late getting back to Las Vegas after his first official assignment working for the Psi Alliance. Exhaustion tugged at him and a nice bed in a nearby luxury hotel called his name. Instead of following his desire for comfort and rest, he’d done as he’d been told. He walked up to the simple house used as headquarters for the Psi Alliance. Joshua Lakeland and Tessa Clark had bought the inconspicuous home just outside the city. It was modest and off the beaten path. No one would suspect a psychic spy network was meeting at that residential locale.

  He kept his hand on the hilt of the handgun holstered inside his leather jacket as he knocked on the front door of the stucco house. Closed doors made him nervous. It was always possible that the threat on the other side was more powerful than he was. Jess was not a fan of the unknown. He kept his mind tightly guarded, though he sensed the build-up of psychic energy inside the structure.

  Energy crackled from behind the door. It was a sensation he recognized well. His grip relaxed on his weapon and he smiled before the door opened.

  “I didn’t think you were going to make it, Jess.” Tessa Clark grinned from the open doorway and stepped into his open arms for a hug.

  Only an inch shorter than him, she was strong, beautiful and a gifted psychic. They had been partners for years and in the beginning, he’d wanted there to be more between them. Tessa had always told him that sex would complicate their working relationship. He’d been rejected so many times it had become a joke between them. Of course she’d been right. Eventually she’d become like a sister to him and any romantic thoughts had faded completely.

  It had hurt when she’d gotten into trouble over the summer and not contacted him for help. He knew she’d been protecting him by not entangling him in what was potentially the end of her career as a government agent. Still, he wished she’d come to him.

  It turned out she was right about it ending her career with the government. Once Joshua Lakeland and she had proven her innocent of any wrongdoing in the deaths of her team members, the two had quit their jobs with the government and opened their own agency. They were still in the process of recruiting the best psychic agents in the country to work with the Psi Alliance.

  If Jess was honest, it wasn’t that much different than working for the government agency, though he did feel as if Tessa and Josh had his back. The government was known for cutting their losses and leaving an agent hanging out to dry as they had done with regard to Tessa. If Joshua hadn’t felt instantly connected to her when he’d been ordered to do a mind probe, the outcome would not have been nearly as congenial.

  He shuddered at the thought.

  Tessa broke the hug and cocked her head to one side. “You okay?”

  It was impossible to hide anything from a telepath. “I was just thinking about everything that happened over the summer. Seeing you—brought it all back.”

  She took his arm and led him inside the modest home. The large open living room was likely the biggest selling point for the couple. They could easily use it as a briefing room and fit a dozen or more agents on the soft leather sofas and chairs.

  The windows were treated with tan blackout curtains that kept prying eyes from having a look in when anything was happening. They could be pulled back at other times to reveal a normal home complete with stone fireplace and flat-screen TV. At the moment, all the curtains were closed and the room was filled with agents and artificial light.

  Jess knew everyone in the room to some degree. He’d worked with most of them when he’d been with the Psi Agency.

  Wanda Avery lounged on one of the couches. She raised her hand in greeting as he entered. The middle-aged redhead had never been very psychically talented, but no one could gather information better. She knew everything that was going on in the world and who was responsible. She could pick important bits out of a coded transmission and decipher that data faster and more accurately than anyone on the planet. Jess had not been surprised when Josh and Tessa had asked Wanda to join the Psi Alliance though it had surprised him that Wanda had come out of retirement and agreed to join.

  Jess took a good look around the room. “You’ve done some recruiting since I’ve been away.”

  Tessa nodded. “I think you know everyone. We were lucky to get Wanda. You met Kane, Joshua’s brother, but maybe you haven’t met his wife, Lena. I’ll introduce you later.”

  She pointed to a curvaceous Latina standing next to the dining table with her hand casually draped over Kane’s shoulder. Kane sat, and the couple spoke intently to Piper Martin, a young agent with impressive clairvoyance as well as some other useful skills.

  “Piper, Will and Don were with us when we lost Trip over the summer.”

  Jess’ stomach tightened. “You almost lost me that day too.”

  He thought he’d gotten over nearly having his soul ripped from his body. It had been months since he’d thought about the day in Las Vegas when they’d been forced to kill Troth Banta. Of course the psi mercenary had given them no choice. He’d been collecting power by ripping it from other psychics. They had to stop him before he became unstoppable.

  Seeing these people brought Jess right back to that moment when he lay on the marble floor of the Venetian Hotel with Banta tearing his psi abilities from him. Psychic power travels through a user via their aura on a vibration. Having your aura taken away usually kills the victim or worse, leaves him existing in a private Hell. That might have been Jess’ fate if the Native American healer, Rain Silver, hadn’t risked her life to save him.

  Trip hadn’t been as fortunate. Banta took his psi and his soul was ripped from his body. There was nothing anyone could do. It had happened too fast. They’d all mourned the loss of a good friend and a good agent.

  Tessa tightened her grip on his arm. “I know. I’m so glad Rain was there in time. Remind me, after the meeting, I want to talk to you about her.”

  “What about her?” Warning bells sounded in his head. The woman was safe on the Shoshone Reservation where they’d found her. It had given him some satisfaction knowing she was safe.

  The image of her smooth, cocoa skin and shining dark eyes had filtered into his dreams many nights since the summer. Something in her eyes soothed his restlessness and healed him.

  Joshua made his way across the room and cleared his throat.

  “I’ll tell you about it later,” Tessa said.

  Joshua Lakeland’s tall, imposing figure made people turn and listen. He stood at one end of the room and addressed the small gathering. “I’m glad you could all make it. I wanted to take a moment to make it clear that each of you have been invited into the Psi Alliance for not only your individual skills but also because I trust you with my life and the lives of the other people in this room.
At the moment there are only ten of us, but I envision there being a need to expand as time goes on.”

  Jess looked around the room. He only counted nine people. Strange.

  “At the moment, our biggest problem is that someone wants us all dead.” Joshua gave a short laugh, but there was no humor there.

  A few others in the room also chuckled.

  “I suspect this shift in our position at the old agency is why many of you have decided to accept our invitation. I’m glad you’re here and our first imperative will be to defeat those groups trying to eliminate our kind of agent in favor of mercenaries and other more morally malleable parties.”

  Wanda’s scratchy smoker’s voice cut in. “I came out of retirement for this, Josh. You and everyone in this room know I’d never have left Key West if this wasn’t in our country’s best interest.”

  “Wanda’s right. If we just disappear, which I know each and every one of you is capable of doing, then the type of people who will be populating our old jobs will bring this country to its knees. We can’t allow the Troth Bantas of the psychic world to be manipulated by politicians and their agendas.”

  “What about Breckenridge?” Piper asked in her low raspy voice. She had her long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and her eyes were fixed on the man at the front of the room.

  Jess had to bite his tongue to keep from spitting out a string of curses a mile long. Senator Bradly Breckenridge had started an anti-psi campaign in Washington D.C. that had taken hold. He’d brought several other politicians on board. Luckily the president was still fully in support of loyal Psi Agents. In fact Joshua had managed to get the stamp of approval from the Joint Chiefs of Staff before officially opening the Psi Alliance.

  Even Jess had been impressed by that piece of political maneuvering.

  Joshua didn’t miss a beat. “We are all going to have a part in finding out how far the senator has taken his scheme to rid the world of our kind. We need to prove that he was behind the incident with Banta. That would be a big step toward lessening his credibility. It wouldn’t look good for him after stating that the Psi Agency had no place in government to learn that he was using psychics to destroy or discredit agents. Not to mention that it would mean he had at least three agents killed in the Middle East.

  “Each one of you has a particular skill that I believe we will need to accomplish our goals, and going forward those skills will make us a valuable asset for the United States. This time though, it will be on our terms.”

  “Here, here,” Wanda said as she lifted her glass and sipped her wine.

  “That’s really it. Tessa has assignments for each one of you. Try to remember that we are all working toward the same goal. If you have information or you believe you’ve uncovered something, no matter how small, bring the information to me. I will analyze all the data each of you bring in and share that data with our team. If you need something, Tessa or I will do our best to make sure you have whatever it is.”

  The official meeting broke up a moment later and people drifted around the room. Tessa had promised them dinner and almost everyone stayed. Jess hoped that the informal setting would let information flow more freely.

  “Jess.” Josh strode toward him with his hand outstretched for shaking.

  The two men shook hands. “Hi, Josh. Things are looking good here. You said ten people. Is my math off?”

  Tessa had joined them and Josh immediately directed the trio to a doorway at the far end of the room leading to an austere office. “That’s what we need to talk to you about.”

  Jess’ muscles tightened slightly and his mind began to churn while he waited for information. He was ready to flee or fight. “What’s this about?”

  “Rain Silver.”

  Now he really was on alert. Rain had saved his life. She had saved his soul. What kind of trouble was she in and why? She was no agent. Jess had taken a lot of comfort in the idea that she was safely tucked away on a reservation in the Nevada desert. Safe.

  He waited. Both Joshua and Tessa had the ability to read his mind and he was not making an effort to block them.

  Tessa said, “I know you don’t like it, but she has a lot of talent that was being wasted. Plus, she was not happy.”

  Jess had a hard time keeping his temper from erupting. “So the two of you decided to recruit a completely untrained woman who is just going to get herself killed?”

  Joshua leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. “You underestimate her, Jess. She has skills and she’s one of the bravest people I’ve ever known. That southern macho attitude has no place within a psi organization. You wouldn’t say that about Tessa.”

  “Tessa was a cop before she was recruited by the government. She has paramilitary training, can shoot and fight. Rain lives on a reservation. She’s been sheltered. There’s nothing wrong with a nice quiet life where you help your community and don’t get yourself killed.”

  He had no idea why he was so vehemently against Rain joining the Psi Alliance, but he also knew it wasn’t his call.

  Tessa walked over to the desk and opened a file. “You have a good point. She needs training. She has a lot of natural instincts and she is very capable, but there’s a lot she needs to learn.”

  “That’s where you come in,” Joshua said.

  Jess’s heart dropped. “Me?”

  “We want you to be her instructor. Teach her how to be an agent and most importantly, how to stay alive.” The head of the Psi Alliance never moved away from the wall.

  “Why me?” Jess ran his fingers through his hair. The exhaustion he’d been fighting started to settle around him. Every instinct told him to stay as far away from Rain Silver as he could.

  It was Tessa who answered. “Rain isn’t sure that the Psi Alliance is for her. She’s struggling with what to do. I thought you would be the right person to guide her through that decision.”

  Jess crossed his arms. “Then we can end this process right now. I would tell her to run as fast and as far away from the two of you as possible. In fact I’d include me in the group of people. That woman should not be anywhere near any of us. It will only get her killed.”

  Joshua grinned from across the room. “You say that, but she saved your life. In fact, if she hadn’t blocked Banta from gathering auras, we all might have been killed.”

  “I recognize that, but it doesn’t mean I think she should risk her life the way we do. What’s wrong with being a healer in Nevada?”

  Tessa said, “Nothing, but Adianca informed us that Rain was unhappy and had a different destiny.”

  Adianca was the shaman from the reservation. She had helped to save Tessa when her soul was lost between worlds. The old lady was wise, he wouldn’t argue with that. Still.

  “Just because following in the shaman’s footsteps is not Rain’s destiny does not mean that dying in a psychic war is.”

  “Is that what you think will happen?” Tessa asked.

  “I think it’s very likely we could all die before this is over and I’m sure you do too.”

  The silence that followed his pronouncement gave him more satisfaction than it should.

  “She’s afraid.”

  “She should be.”

  Joshua pushed away from the wall and crossed until he was directly in front of Jess. “Not of getting killed. Rain is afraid of failing. She doesn’t think she has anything to offer and I’m not just talking about with regard to being an agent.”

  “What are you talking about? She was magnificent at the Venetian. She never hesitated.”

  Jess realized too late that he’d begun defending the idea of Rain joining the Psi Alliance.

  Tessa didn’t miss the switch. “No she didn’t. She’s got natural instincts and some really interesting defensive psi skills.”

  Jess had seen Rain block psychic waves and he also knew she could heal. He had to agree that those were useful and rare skills. Part of him was intrigued by the idea of training someone who had so much to
offer the Alliance. Another part of him had to acknowledge his own desire to see her silky dark hair and warm bronze skin again.

  “Where is she now?”

  Tessa picked up the folder on the table and handed it to Jess.

  Chapter One

  The biggest mistake she’d ever made, and she’d made some big ones, had been agreeing to this stupid psychic agent training. She hated the cold and of course the first place Joshua Lakeland, the head of the Psi Alliance, had sent her was Yellowstone National Park in the dead of winter. The park was closed, she was alone in a cabin and nothing was going the way she thought.

  Rain Silver had a perfectly normal life on the reservation in Nevada. She wouldn’t have said she was happy, but at least she hadn’t been terrified. The wind whipped through the trees, the roof creaked with the weight of the continually falling snow and now a new noise had her pointing a shotgun toward the front door.

  Was it her imagination or was someone outside? The proximity alarm had sounded, but stopped almost immediately. She didn’t think it was an animal, her senses would have detected a wolf or mountain lion. She’d sensed a dog not too far away for a few days but those types of animals were smart enough to have taken cover before the blizzard set in. The only creature stupid enough to be out in this kind of weather was a human.

  She gripped the weapon a bit tighter, aiming for the center of the door.

  The noise outside became louder, boots trudging through the snow. A dog barked not far away, not close enough to get a good reading or know if the animal was in trouble. The lights flickered. Was that the storm or was the intruder messing with the electricity?

  “Who’s there?”

  Someone beat on the door.

  “Identify yourself.” The panic in her voice didn’t exactly scream confident law enforcement agent.

  More banging and then the doorknob turned. Rain’s heart thundered so hard her ears rang. The room seemed to be closing in. The roof continued to creak under the weight of the snow. Whoever pushed on the door had it halfway open. She could see the sleeve of a white parka.