A wave of dark, suffocating pain slammed through Felicity as she sat sipping on a glass of wine, chatting with friends at a bar. She carefully set her glass down as she took deep, full breaths fighting against the nausea that followed.
She looked around the festive, half drunk crowd at the neighborhood happy hour for any sign of who was hurting.
Being caught off guard by someone else's emotions was highly unusual. Her psychic walls had been impenetrable for many, many years. She hadn't experienced a "blind side" since she was an early teen, when first developing her "gift" as her Grandmama used to call it.
Puberty had hit and with that biological change, came a familial inheritance. Felicity was an Empath. She was able to acutely feel other's emotions and feelings. It skipped generations in her mother's family, so she was the lucky one.
She felt what others felt and she felt it with her entire being. Her grandmother was a cherished and well loved Empath in the little southern town where she lived helping people through their grief, their pain and their happiness. She was a good friend, a beloved neighbor and valued counselor.
After early incidents that had left Felicity paralyzed under the bombardment of the humanity that surrounded her, she learned to control and filter the feelings around her. So, by the time she turned 14 she could walk into a room full of people and not be squashed by their emotions.
She had full control of her gift, until now. She chose when and with whom she opened her mind and heart to. What was happening right now was unexplainable.
She lifted a hand to her temple as another stab of emotional pain, intense and hemorrhaging, blinded her. For a second, she couldn't see the people in front of her.
This person was in so much psychological agony Felicity didn't know how they could breath. Her natural instinct to help, sprung to life. All the sounds around her went silent as her heart reached out trying to find them.
As she concentrated, her senses touching and tasting the auras in the room, she finally saw him. Sitting by the window, at a table with three other people, sat a man who looked so out of place yet, like he was born to be there. He was stunning in a rugged, yet incredibly sensual way.
His aura intermittently pulsed between icy, cold blue and angry, turbulent purple. The man was extremely handsome, but aloof, almost brittle. He gave off a vibe of steely resolve, strength and sleekness, almost animalistic. Predatory and beautiful. Felicity crossed her legs as the image of a panther came to mind. Her body flushed in reaction.
He nodded to whatever the people at his table were saying. Those around him were laughing and smiling so that his stillness stood out even more. Like the world was moving on and he was sitting still.
Whatever he was going through in his life he was obviously keeping it private and trying to deal with it alone. Something or someone had hurt him. She sensed that his innate strength was forged from tragedy. Her appreciation for this stranger increased as she equated the level of his pain to the fact that he sat in this room, carrying on with his life and choosing to move forward.
The woman sitting to his left, with a strong family resemblance, placed her hand on his arm as she animatedly talked at him and with the others.
The strongest feeling of unease traveled up Felicity's arm. She felt a flash of discomfort at being touched mixed with warmth and love towards the woman. A tug-of-war between uncomfortableness and affection.
His lashes dipped as he blinked slowly, his eyes closing as another wave of emotional distress and sadness hit Felicity. She gasped from the impact just as he opened his eyes to look directly at her. They were both breathing hard as they each worked through his agony.
Felicity felt more than his pain now. With the stroke of his eyes on her, lust surged through her body as she got lost in the beauty of the man.
His brow crinkled as he looked at her, not understanding why she seemed to be in pain too and staring at him. He tipped his head as he tried to discern what she was going through. In a room full of noise and people, they...connected. Moments, beats in time, passed with a silent link of shared understanding.
The threads of their connection begun to shimmer and tingle with something other than his pain. It was replaced with his curiosity and his…interest.
He turned his head away, almost in shyness, from her knowing eyes to look down at his hand on the table. His fingers rubbing together like he was missing something between them. When next he looked up at her, his aura was the faintest mix of green and red. A fierce, forest green with a splash of brilliant, fiery red.