Succubus Ascendant: An Urban Fantasy (The Telepathic Clans Saga Book 4) Read Online Free Page B

smiled and grabbed him by the ear, drawing his face close to hers and kissing him. “Sweet man, I’m going to let you plan the whole thing. I’m not going to barge into Moscow tomorrow searching for my father. Take your time, and set it up so you’re comfortable with it. But go I will. It’s up to you to make sure I’m safe and the operation is successful.”
    Rebecca spoke up, “It could take a year or two to gather the proper intelligence and set up an op to take out a major Clan member someplace like Russia.”
    Collin barked a laugh. “Not just a major Clan member. Sergei is Clan Chief. Taking him out means taking on the whole Clan.”
    “That’s fine,” Irina said, waving her hand as though the difficulty was trifling. “Like I said, I want to be successful when I do this. But I’m not going to spend my whole life looking over my shoulder, afraid he’s going to come after me. I’m not going to live in fear the way my parents have.” She fixed Collin with her eyes. “But don’t think I’m going to forget about it. Plan your operation, and keep me informed.”
    ~~~
    Chapter 3
     
    The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living. - Marcus Tullius Cicero
     
    Four years before, at the age of 23, Brenna had been named heir of the three Irish Clans. Her grandfathers and great uncle had long dreamed of uniting the clans, and as they neared the end of their lives, they looked to Brenna to make that dream come true.
    The dream wasn’t shared by everyone. The oldest sons in Clans O’Byrne and O’Neill and their respective sons thought it was a terrible idea. Other people had a problem with Brenna’s age or the idea of a woman Clan Chief. Some had a problem with the fact that she was a succubus, or Druid as they were called in Ireland.
    The O’Donnell Clan, which was now centered in the United States rather than in its ancestral base in Donegal, embraced Brenna. Her grandfather Seamus was only one hundred and sixty-one years old, and planned to hold his position for at least a few more decades. Clan O’Neill, where Corwin was two hundred, and Clan O’Byrne, where Fergus was one hundred and ninety, knew her ascension was nearing, and so did Brenna. A dread of that day lay in the back of her mind.
    On her way home from London, Brenna stopped off to see her grandparents at the O’Byrne estate in County Wicklow. From there, she traveled to see her great-uncle at the O’Neill estate in County Tyrone. After arriving home in the States, she went to visit her Aunt Callie at the family estate in West Virginia.
    Callista O’Donnell Wilkins was Chief Executive Officer of the O’Donnell Group, the Clan’s business interests. With their long lives, telepaths need to ‘die’ and switch their identities to avoid suspicion. In a previous ‘life’, she had been a professor of genetics at two prestigious universities. Her major research, for obvious reasons never published, concerned mapping the telepathic genome. She had collected genetic samples from hundreds of thousands of telepaths. Even those Clans unfriendly to O’Donnell had participated, wanting the results of her research.
    “Callie, I’ve been looking at the genetic profiles in your database,” Brenna said. “Something isn’t jiving with Hugh O’Neill.”
    “We aren’t perfect,” Callie said, sitting down at her computer. “Look at what happened with your baby sample.” The genetic swab taken when Brenna was a baby was never entered in the database. When it was analyzed, the results were so fantastic it had been discarded as a contaminated sample.
    “You know this manifestation, Talent, Gift, whatever you want to call it, that I have? The one where I see auras and can tell what Gifts a person has?” Brenna asked.
    Callie nodded.
    “When I look at Hugh, I see twelve Gifts, including the O’Neill Gift and the O’Byrne Gift. Neither of those shows on the analysis you have on file.”
    Callie called up Hugh’s record. “Yes, the