Maurick sighed, then plunged on. "I think I'd like an explanation," he said quietly. He held the baby in the crook of his arm, cuddling the child to him as he searched out elvish features in the tiny face.
Mychal looked up. "An explanation?" she asked. Her relationship with Victor was no secret. Hadn't been for some time. They were mutually dependent on each other for peace and sanity now. Their moments apart weren't long. It had impacted both of their lives.
Victor looked fearful for once in his life. Logan was almost amused by it. But he, too, was concerned and that tempered his enjoyment of his brother's disquietude.
"Someday you'll tell me how you were able to force a connection with my daughter, mortal. What gave you that power over her."
Mychal laughed. Victor swallowed hard, uncomfortable. "I just didn't want her to suffer alone. I wanted to help her-I just didn't know how."
"So you gave her your considerable strength. Which was very admirable. But I'm more concerned with the mechanics of it. She denied you and yet you were able to [force] the bond anyway. How?"
Mychal reached out to comb her fingers through Victor's hair. "It was the palm-to-palm connection," she told both men. "It was the desire to be together in a way deeper than flesh allows. The first time I linked to him was during our lovemaking. The simplest of handclasps," she murmured, rubbing her palm over her mate's. His eyes turned to hers. They seemed not so much to glow as to simmer. A sizzle made the hair on Logan's arm stand on end. Mychal's quiet voice continued. "The path is there. It's well-maintained and solid and true. I should have guessed that the power would recognize him and leap to connect."
"It is a physical connection, then? The placement of your hands on each other?"
She nodded and shrugged, still sore and tired from the birthing of her child. But excited and content with it. "Physical, yes, as we're all trained to focus on some physical thing in the beginning. But more so. When I linked with Victor the first time it was-"
"Unbelievable," the man before her interjected.
She smiled at him. "It was more than anything ever had been before. I believe it was because our hearts and bodies were in alignment with our minds. Our souls were open to the emotion between us, making the connection that much stronger. The years together have done nothing but strengthen that bond."
Victor smiled at her, trailing his fingertips down the length of her fingers. "It's not a promise spoken aloud. It's not a ritual laid down in some religion where right is right and wrong is wrong. It's not just great sex. It's something deeper. Older than time or dust or space. Deeper than black holes or ocean abysses. More basic than even the simplest cellular model."
Mychal looked at the man holding her sleeping child-her firstborn, the son she'd promised Victor. "The pathway was already there. The power in us both is used to the link and leapt to forge the connection when we both needed it."
Maurick nodded. "I've never seen it work that way before. Not so-violently."
Logan snickered. "Victor's involved. Violence is something that he exudes."
It was Mychal who bared her teeth and hissed at him. "Savage I'll accept," she scolded. "Not violent. Do not be angry with your brother for recognizing what is in him. Keeping it locked up and at bay obviously doesn't work. And why should it? Accept what is given to you and learn to use it. Hiding it, suppressing it, this will only see it erupt when the leash becomes worn thin."
Victor reached to her. "Mychal…"
She shook her head. "I can't, Victor. I love you…"