By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Dale Mayer

In advance of another major attack, Terk races to Levi’s compound in Texas, where Terk finally gets to meet Celia, the woman carrying his child. Thankfully he arrives in time to protect his friends and new family from another attack, but he’s determined to get to the end of this nightmare that tried to earlier destroy his team.

Finally meeting this stranger-whose child Celia may be carrying-how could she not be suspicious? But after meeting Terk, she believes he had nothing to do with her pregnancy. Only after some deep conversations, as they peel layer from layer, do possible answers surface.

When the pieces finally come together into the most probably theory, Terk realizes how simple this whole mess really is. But solving it? … That’s a whole different story.

When we left Terkel and the team, he was headed back to the US and Levi’s compound. It’s time to solve the mystery of Celia, the woman who is carrying his child.

Trouble is following Terk and Merk to Texas, they arrive to an almost empty compound since Levi decided to keep folks to a minimum. Celia is less than receptive to Terk, after all, she woke up in a strange place, pregnant and no recollection of how it all happened.

There’s also more to Celia than meets the eye as we find out as she asks about Terk’s abilities.

This is a favorite scene.

Celia bit her lip, not willing to share when nobody else was.

Ice nudged her gently. “The only way we’ll get to the bottom of this is if everybody opens up.”

“You mean, like why somebody won’t tell me what Terk’s ability is?” she muttered out loud, staring directly at Terk.

Hearing her voice, Terk was roused from his musings. “Sorry, what was that?”

“I want to know what is so special about you? Why you?”

His gaze suddenly narrowed, and he gave a clipped nod. “I guess that’s fair.” He sat down beside her.

With Ice on one side and him on the other, Celia suddenly felt squished between two very large personalities. Yet oddly enough, she didn’t feel threatened. It was a strange feeling, almost as if she were protected. She frowned and tried hard to refocus her attention on what Terk was saying.

“I know things,” Terk claimed, with a shrug. “I don’t always know what I need to know, and I certainly don’t always know things that would be helpful,” he explained, “but I get premonitions, and … I work with energy. I assembled a team with varying abilities of their own, and we’ve been quite effective as a unit.”

“Doing what?” Celia asked.

“We were a black ops division of the US government stationed out of Paris,” he explained. “Just after they shut us down out of the blue”— he stopped to collect his thoughts—“ my entire team was attacked.”

She sucked in a breath and stared at him, wide-eyed.

“I haven’t ruled out our own government’s involvement. Subsequent attacks have continued.”

She winced at that. “Why would anyone do that?”

“Because we know too much,” he stated boldly.

Such honesty was in his voice that she didn’t doubt him. “Know too much or can do too much?”

His lips twitched at that. “If it was the government, I can only assume it’s because they decided we were dangerous.”

She sucked in her breath, and he looked over at her, with a gaze so intense, it sent shivers down her spine. “Dangerous in what way?”

“We can do things,” he said, pinning her with a sharp look that she felt to her soul. “We know things that nobody else should be allowed to know.” He shrugged. “But, if you’re thinking that I know what you did yesterday or something like that, you’re wrong. I can’t read your mind either.” He shook his head. “I get hit out of the blue with all kinds of stuff, sometimes helpful, sometimes not.”

At that, Merk walked into the room, sat down, and looked at them sitting side by side. “And Terk can do a lot more than that, which is why he was recruited by the government in the first place. And, since he’s been there, they have successfully completed an amazing number of missions. But sometimes the creation becomes something beyond the original intent, and not all have the ability to contain it or to control it.”

Celia sat back and felt everything inside her stilling, given this information. “I might have an idea,” she murmured, “about why I was chosen.”

Immediately everybody turned to look at her, and she looked over at Ice and nodded. “I was right.”

Ice reached across to pick up her chilled fingers, then gently squeezed her hand. “Go on.”

Celia took a deep breath, but just then Levi walked in. Realizing that something important was going on, he sat down. She took a deep breath. “I ran a test group, doing research on psychic phenomena,” she admitted. “I’m a scientist, and I was researching superhuman abilities and the possibility of the impossible. I had grants for studying all kinds of abilities,” she murmured.

Terk looked at her. “Like the electrodes to the head testing?” She smirked. “Well, I suppose that’s one way to test, but that’s not the way I was testing. We were doing a lot of work, especially with aquakinesis, what some might think of as spoon-bending stuff.”

Terk nodded slowly. “And what makes you think that would have put you onto somebody’s radar?”

She looked over at Terk and saw the understanding in his gaze. “My research would do that. Particularly if Stone’s theory is right.”

“The one about creating more of you?” Merk asked, an eyebrow up.

“Yes.” Terk looked over at Celia. “You were doing the testing because you have abilities, don’t you?”

She nodded slowly. “I do, but it’s not something that has ever really been ratified. And honestly, they’ve been very dulled since I woke up here. From the drugs I suppose, so I am not sure I have any now.”

“Ratification is for governments,” Terk noted. “For those of us in the field, it’s not something we need.”

“Might not be something you need,” she murmured, “but competing for grant money to study it means you have to have some proof. Now”— she shrugged—“ I might need a career change.”

“How well-known are you in your field?”

She shrugged again. “Not at all really, but there was definitely some outcry when I got the grant money. A few detractors thought I had abilities to somehow influence the grant award decision.”

He snorted at that. “Not sure what abilities you have.” He studied her with that same liquid gaze that rattled her spine and seemed to see right through her.

Celia stated, “I can sense energy.” She wasn’t sure if that would be enough for them. She didn’t want to go into too much detail at this point.

“Nice.”

He was trying to put her at ease and obviously saw what she wasn’t saying.

“Give them time to resurface. Drugs can blunt them for quite a while.”

“So someone decided that a cross between the two of us would make children who would do what we do?” Celia asked Terk.

“I have no idea,” Terk murmured. “Of all the crazy things I’ve dreamed up over time, that is not one that occurred to me.”

She snorted. “Well, I’m not the kind of person who walks around expecting terrorist groups to be looking for a secret weapon either.”

“No? That’s my department,” he said, with half a smile. “But somehow taking my sperm and utilizing it in this way never occurred to me.”

“Is that even possible?” Levi asked, his tone somber.

Ice immediately nodded. “Yes, sperm can be aspirated many ways, but I keep going back to the fact that you’d have to be unconscious.”

Terk’s gaze lifted, and he studied her for a moment. “I was in the hospital, remember?”

“I do, and, from what you told me, you were comatose for a few days.”

“A little longer than they thought was normal,” he murmured.

At that, she winced. “What are the chances you were deliberately put under? Deliberately attacked for just this reason?”

“Probably way too high for my liking,” he replied. He crossed his arms, then leaned back against the chair, but it was obvious from the ticking of a muscle at his jawline that the news bothered him.

At that, Ice turned and looked at Celia. “What about you?”

“I was supposed to have an ovary removed because I’d been having some problems.”

“Was it about the same time?”

She winced. “Yeah, you could say that. Also at the time I was having trouble with a stalker. And honestly, I didn’t have any remembrance of it, but I assumed that I’d been attacked and raped by him.”

At that, Terk sucked his breath back. “Well, you can bet it wasn’t me.”

She looked at him. “And you can bet I had nothing to do with what happened to you. And yet, the bottom line is, this child exists.”

He looked at her and repeated, “Child?”

At that, her lips twitched. “I know. I was trying not to say it out loud.”

“Say what?” Levi asked, confused.

“What’s going on?” Ice asked, having picked up on interchange between them.

“I’m carrying …” Celia began.

At the same time, Celia and Terk voiced the ultimate truth together in unison.

“Twins.”
Dale Mayer. Terkel’s Twist (Kindle Locations 573-640). Valley Publishing Ltd..

With that bit of information, things start to make more sense. Although it’s still bazaar and quite frankly more premeditated than initially thought.

As they ready for an attack they manage to get a big heads up from surveillance cameras. Then the fun begins.

From start to finish this book is filled with intrigue, suspense and action. I can’t wait for the final book in this series.

5 Contented Purrs for Dale!

Dale Mayer

Dale Mayer is a USA Today bestselling author best known for her Psychic Visions and Family Blood Ties series. Her contemporary romances are raw and full of passion and emotion (Second Chances, SKIN), her thrillers will keep you guessing (By Death series), and her romantic comedies will keep you giggling (It’s a Dog’s Life and Charmin Marvin Romantic Comedy series).

She honors the stories that come to her – and some of them are crazy and break all the rules and cross multiple genres!

To go with her fiction, she also writes nonfiction in many different fields with books available on resume writing, companion gardening and the US mortgage system. She has recently published her Career Essentials Series. All her books are available in print and ebook format.