CHAPTER 17
At dawn Kerrick stood over Alison. She was sound asleep in the guest room. He had trained her hard through the night until she simply couldn’t take one more step. He’d let her shower and head to bed. The truth was, she’d need her sleep, dammit, lots of it to be ready to undergo this latest farce, which would take place in about twelve hours.
At least she had a f*cking amount of power. Maybe that would get her through.
Who was he kidding? She would be fighting General Leto, former Warrior of the Blood, Greaves’s second-in-command. How the hell was she supposed to defeat him? He’d been ascended for three thousand years and had fought as a warrior the entire time.
He cursed under his breath. He wanted to wake her up and keep teaching her how to use her sword, how to battle, how to size up an opponent, how to use her strengths and exploit the weaknesses of her enemy. But now he couldn’t. She needed sleep for the horror of what was about to happen to her, but oh, how he wanted more time to train her.
COPASS, that bullshit Committee of bullshit Committees, had done the Commander’s bidding … again. As he looked down at her, resolve tightened his chest. He couldn’t let the arena battle happen without putting up a fight.
Thorne had been right when he used the word reamed.
He thumbed his phone. “Hey, Central,” he said softly, turning away from Alison.
“Hey, duhuro,” Jeannie drawled, ready to tease as always.
“So not in the mood.”
“Give.” Yeah, Jeannie knew how to read the warriors, and her adjustment was swift.
“I need a lift to Second.”
“You got it. Location?”
“The Cave.”
He thumbed his phone and the vibration began. A moment later he stood in the middle of the rec room. Thorne was sprawled on the sofa opposite, asleep or maybe he’d passed out, probably the latter. Jean-Pierre sagged on a stool at the bar, sipping a French martini. He lifted his chin in a brief acknowledgment to Kerrick, sighed, then took another sip. He had bruises up and down both arms and shoulders. Fighting this night had gotten up close and personal for the Frenchman.
Kerrick did a double take in the direction of the pool table where Luken and Santiago were actually playing a game. Some kind of half-ass repair had been executed, which involved a lot of chicken wire and several two-by-fours. The result looked like something taken from a really run-down Mortal Earth trailer park. If they’d set up empty beer cans in a row on the rim, the picture would have been complete. At least the table was functional.
“Hey, Kerrick,” Santiago called. He flipped the cue and sank three balls. He had a massive spidery bruise on the back of his left shoulder. Yeah, the boys had been out fighting.
Luken’s gaze tracked the shot. “Lucky bastard,” he muttered. His hair hung down his back, free of the cadroen, a thick mass of blond waves and stray, rebellious curls that gave him the appearance of an Olympian god.
Kerrick jerked his chin toward the sofa. “How long has he been out?”
“The last hour. He went to see Endelle.”
“Is she going to protest the arena battle?”
Luken shrugged. His cue stood upright and he tapped it on the floor. “He didn’t say but as soon as he returned, he started tossing back Ketel shots. You want a game?”
“No, thanks. I have to get back to Queen Creek after I make a couple of calls.” His gaze drifted to Thorne.
Perfect. He’d wanted Thorne to lead the charge on this one.
What a great big f*cking mess.
He left the Cave to stand just outside the doors.
He lifted his phone once more to his ear and contacted Central. “Jeannie—”
“Need a lift?”
“Not yet. I need to speak with Endelle.”
A too quiet silence followed after which Jeannie drew in a breath. “She’s not receiving.”
“What do you mean, she’s not receiving?” What the hell?
Jeannie sighed. “Specifically, if you called in asking for her, you were to be told, and I quote, You got Alison into this by calling an emergency lift so go f*ck yourself, end quote.”
Kerrick ground his teeth. His temper once more started pounding on the inside of his skull. He took deep breaths and tried to order his mind. If Endelle said no, then no it was.
Goddammit.
Thorne … Endelle … two strikes. Shit.
He held the phone at his back and let loose with a good long string of obscenities.
There had to be a way to fix this. He ground his teeth a little more. He hated to speak the next words, though at this point his choices were appallingly limited.
He brought the phone back to his ear. “Then I want to speak with Harding.”
“You mean Chairman Harding?” He heard the disbelief in Jeannie’s voice. He could hardly believe it himself.
“Get him on the com, Jeannie. Now.”
“You got it but it might take a couple of minutes. He’s not the most accessible ascender.”
“I’ll wait.”
Daniel Harding chaired COPASS and as said chairman, he would have had the final approval of the upcoming mockery of a spectacle. Maybe, just this once, Harding would listen to reason.
Whatever.
Harding had no choice but to speak with the Warriors of the Blood. Given the Commander’s access to him, Endelle had fought to retain equal rights. What the Committee allowed Greaves, by the law of the land had to be granted to the Supreme High Administrator.
At last, Harding came on the line. “I’m here to serve, duhuro Kerrick. How can I help?”
Complete bullshit.
“I want COPASS to reconsider its decision about ascender Wells and the arena battle. She’s not a warrior.”
A slight pause, then, “I’m sorry but the Committee reviewed all the data and voted unanimously. Ascendiate Wells must receive an appropriate consequence since her guardian violated a very important law, as did Madame Endelle.” He enumerated their sins and ended with, “Commander Greaves had every right to submit a protest and COPASS really didn’t have any other option. I shouldn’t have to tell you this.”
His condescending tone pushed Kerrick’s temper over the edge. “What about the law the Commander broke sending a regiment to Carefree One? What about that rule?” He was pissed and couldn’t stop himself.
“Now, now. Calm yourself, duhuro. Be reasonable. The Commander will certainly receive a severe censure from the Committee in due course. The sentence assigned to ascendiate Wells is a separate matter entirely. Endelle has thirty days to file a complaint and as you must know we take all complaints seriously.”
He felt the blood rush to his face as he once more ground his teeth. “We’re talking about a woman’s life, an innocent,” he cried. “You’ve basically handed her a death sentence.”
“I simply do not agree. We’ve seen the reports on ascendiate Wells, one of which suggests her powers exceed those of Second. I’m sure she will perform admirably during the arena challenge.”
“The arena challenge? Is that what you’re calling it? A mere challenge? It’s an old-fashioned fight-to-the-death and you f*cking know it.”
He paced back and forth now, his voice growing louder. He saw the doors to the Cave open and Luken, Santiago, and Jean-Pierre filed out to stand near him, a strong line of support.
Harding continued his reasonableness. “Given the gravity of the rules that you and Madame Endelle chose to break, I had no recourse. Greaves had every right to establish the contest as a fight-to-the-death event.”
That did it. Kerrick’s temper shot into the stratosphere.
“No recourse? Have you no conscience left, you f*cking tool? And what the hell were you thinking putting yourself in the Commander’s hands, anyway? What does he give you, Harding? A serum after you’ve drunk a human to death, you f*cking piece of shit.”
A brief silence followed, then Harding cleared his throat. “You are clearly agitated,” he said. “I will therefore forgive these accusations so unworthy of your rank. Good night, most respected duhuro warrior.”
Kerrick’s hands shook as he thumbed his phone.
And at that moment, who should show up but Marcus yukking it up with Medichi. Marcus had cuts all over his arms, shoulders, and face.
Well, goddamnsonofabitch, the deserter had made up with the warriors.
It was the proverbial last straw, especially when the f*cking vampire smirked and said, “Well, if it isn’t the bastard who got my sister killed.”
Kerrick’s nostrils flared, his fists clenched then pumped, and the air disappeared between him and the man he hated. The feel of flesh sliding beneath the power of his right hook felt like heaven. When Marcus’s fist landed square on his jaw, well, game f*cking on.
* * *
Endelle played a cat-and-mouse game with Darian Greaves that chapped her ass up one side and down the other. She was the cat, an okay designation, and the little peach was the mouse, which in her opinion was way too high a life-form for him to represent. Cat and rat worked a little better. Cat and scum-sucking amoeba made her even happier.
She had been playing this game for how many f*cking centuries? Jesus H. Christ.
She was in the small rotunda off her master bedroom, deep inside her palace, a well-protected and fortified sanctuary where she performed most of her work on Second.
She spent a big part of each twenty-four hours doing voyeuristic surveillance in that mystical point of nether-space called the darkening. So far as she knew, she was the only ascender on Second Earth capable of being in the darkening, where her corporeal body reclined on her chaise longue but her spiritual self with the same external features and abilities as her body could travel through time and space. Capable of being in two places at once, she followed the bastard around the globe. Time and time again she disrupted his attempts to fold death vampire squads to his Estrella Mountain complex.
The problem was that for all her power, she didn’t know how to win this game. Worse, she’d been losing ground for the past fifteen years. Of the 167 Territories of Second Earth, 50 had aligned with the little peach. Of course High Administrators as a lot weren’t always the most ethical of ascenders. Half of them, in her opinion, were out for only one thing—power. Maybe two things—power and … well … more power.
Greaves didn’t help. He’d arrived on Second loaded with persuasive abilities. He had a forked tongue and could out-slime a slug and he looked so pretty doing it. Bastard.
She didn’t have his tact, his refined manners, his patience. She barked and expected everyone to fall in line, an administrative style she freely admitted had numerous flaws.
Okay, so she needed help—only where would it come from? She had a powerful ascendiate aligning with her tonight but what use could she possibly be? A thirty-plus-year-old therapist? She might as well be wearing diapers, for God’s sake. The best Endelle could do was make a Militia Warrior out of her. She had enough natural power that when properly trained she’d be able to take on a squad of death vamps by herself. Big f*cking whoopee.
Havily came to mind. She was still pissed about her Liaison Officer. What the hell had Havily been thinking throwing a boat on top of her desk and calling it the future? Havily didn’t understand the gravity of the situation on Second Earth. A new military-admin complex wouldn’t come close to resolving the broader issue, which was Greaves himself. The bastard should have ascended to Third, oh, about twenty-six hundred years ago. Instead he’d found some way to remain on Second.
She knew what she needed—help from the Upper Dimensions to stop Darian Greaves. Unfortunately, she might as well be asking for the moon.
She sighed as she continued plowing through the airwaves. In nine millennia she hadn’t received even a whisper of communication from Third or any of the Upper Earths. All she knew was she was stuck on Second, she’d not been allowed to ascend, and her duty was to keep Greaves in check. But she was failing and when she thought to pray, she begged for help, on her knees, her voice splitting resonance until she sounded like two cats fighting.
At last she found the Commander’s signature.
Hello. She didn’t wait but dove straight at him. What do you know? He was in Kabul Two, preparing right now to fold a squad of death vamps to his compound. Bastard.
Not tonight, a*shole. He stumbled as her greeting pierced his bald skull.
Ah, Endelle. Good evening, or should I say good morning.
F*ck you, little peach. She saw him standing in front of the squad, his claw twitching now. His face flamed at her appellation. She chuckled. You might as well take off. You won’t penetrate the shield I just launched around this bunch of f*cking night-feeders.
She could feel his rage as a living, writhing beast moving throughout his body, a deep blinding fury that drove his life, his actions, all those twisted unresolved feelings from his tortured youth. She might even have felt sorry for him except for the number of mortals he had personally dispatched.
As he dematerialized, she heard the faintest word drift through her mind, directed toward her: Bitch.
Endelle’s eyes popped open and she sat up on her couch. In three millennia Darian Greaves had never lost his temper with her. Not once.
But he had called her a bitch and he never said things like that to her.
Holy hell!
She sucked in a deep breath and a new emotion banged around inside her chest, something very close to hope.
Darian Greaves was seriously rattled, which could only mean he knew something she didn’t about, who else, Alison Wells.
Well, well, well, ascendiate Wells. So there was something else going on, something she didn’t know about and Greaves did.
She felt a faint vibration within her mind, Thorne’s signal. He was the only Second ascender who had a direct link to her mind, and his voice suddenly filled her skull. We’ve got a sitch at the Cave. Marcus finally found Kerrick.
Got it, she sent back.
Marcus and Kerrick.
She was only surprised the fight hadn’t gone down sooner.
She shifted her voyeuristic powers to her warriors’ off-hours rec room.
The two men went at it like apes.
Well, thank shit for preternatural voyeurism. She could see everything and how glorious her warriors were.
All of them were present, Thorne and Medichi, Luken placing bets with Santiago, Zacharius, Jean-Pierre wearing a green brocade cadroen, and of course the men of the hour, Kerrick now pummeling the hell out of Marcus’s stomach but look out. Jesus … Marcus pulled away and hit Kerrick’s jaw so hard his head snapped back and he actually stumbled backward.
Not for f*cking long. Kerrick gave his head a shake, lowered his jaw, and moved back in. This time an old-fashioned brawl ensued that landed both men on the ground rolling, hitting, punching, grunting. Marcus got hold of Kerrick’s long hair, already released from the cadroen, grabbed handfuls from both sides, tugged hard, and head-butted Kerrick. The crack resounded through the air.
Didn’t slow Kerrick down, not even a jot. He somehow got on top and started swinging. He landed several punches, left, right, left. Endelle leaped to her feet and punched the air along with him.
She loved a good fight. Forget spectacle. Give her a boxing ring and two Neanderthals any day of the week.
Marcus, however, threw his hips forward and caught Kerrick about the waist with his legs. The two beasts flipped over half a dozen times, the other warriors shifting to make room for them.
Thorne shouted at them to stop, but they were two mad dogs going at each other. Only a fire hose was likely to stop the carnage.
Endelle’s fist pumped more air. Her feet moved from side to side. Thorne dove in. He tried to grab Marcus’s arm, which put Kerrick off balance, sending his right hook straight at Thorne’s face. A subsequent crack told her that her second-in-command had just gotten his nose busted … again … well … aw, shit. She’d have to break this up now.
She sighed then folded to the Cave. She snapped her fingers, which froze both men in place, on the ground. Marcus had his head arched back, eyes closed, and teeth gritted as he struggled to get out of a headlock. Kerrick’s face was beet red and his eyes bulged as he squeezed.
She looked them over. “Kerrick almost has him. No … I think Marcus will break out of this one.”
“Tell me we get to find out,” Santiago cried. “I have a hundred bucks on Marcus.”
“Lo siento, querido.” She snapped her fingers again and both men rolled away from each other then gained their feet. “So what the f*ck was this about?”
Neither Marcus nor Kerrick spoke, just stood hunched over and tried to breathe.
“Just as I thought.” She trained her gaze on Kerrick. “Why the hell aren’t you in Queen Creek? You’re on f*cking guardian duty or did you not get the memo?”
His face was a mess. Blood leaked everywhere and his mouth and left eye were swelling up like he’d been stung by a few dozen wasps. Even so, he came to attention, feet a proper distance apart, his left hand slung behind his back. “The shields hold, all of them, and I had to do something to try to stop this madness.”
“What madness?” Santiago asked.
Luken, who stood next to him, informed him of the upcoming arena battle.
“Madre de dios,” he cried.
“No shit.”
“This isn’t right,” Medichi said. He stepped forward and met Endelle’s gaze straight-on. “Can’t something be done?”
“COPASS already approved the engagement. But all you faithless vampires need to grow a pair. I have confidence in Alison, unlike the rest of you.”
“With all due respect, we’re talking about Leto,” Zacharius cried, “not some squirrelly-ass death vamp.” His long curly hair hung free from the cadroen and in the scattered light of the parking lot, he looked sexy as Hades. Even Endelle felt the call of his primitive nature and all those curls. Mortal women loved Zach and gave up the vein without a blink of an eye. He added, “Ascendiate Wells doesn’t stand a chance.”
“Of course she does and the good news is, for a few hours, you’ll all get a break. Greaves will have his army present at the arena to make a strong statement to the world about his power and promises of a Coming Order, blah, blah, blah, so there won’t be any activity at the Borderlands, thank you, God.
“Besides, our girl has some serious chops.” Her gaze landed on Kerrick. “Tell them what you did last night and why it’s not so f*cking hopeless.”
He wiped his swollen bloody lips with the back of his hand. “I forged minds and let her experience some of my recent battles.” The words came out thick and slurred.
Expletives rounded the group.
“No f*cking way,” Zach cried. “And she took it? How? I can’t even do that.”
Endelle shook her head. “She’s powerful, more than even she knows, more than I suspect even I know.”
Several gasps followed the last part of this statement, which pleased her to no end because it reflected their view of her as one approaching omniscience. Nice.
“We’re done here. I’ll see all of you at the arena tonight and for Christ’s sake arrive early in dress uniform, including you, Warrior Marcus. Alison Wells means something as-yet-to-be-defined to Second Earth and also to this ape over here.” She jerked her thumb toward Kerrick.
“And as for you,” she cried, glaring at Kerrick. “Get the f*ck back to Queen Creek and do your goddam guardian duty. I’ll send Horace to you to get you fixed up.” She didn’t wait for an argument. She waved her arm and Kerrick vanished.
She then pointed to Marcus. “You, a*shole. One more word to Kerrick about Helena and I’m taking your left nut.” Just to let him know she could, she mentally gave a little tug, which made Marcus’s eyes pop, then she gave a sharp twist. He doubled over. “What do you say?”
“Yes, Madame Endelle,” he wheezed, his face turning a pretty strawberry-red.
She inclined her head to her second-in-command. “Thorne, get Horace. See to Kerrick first.”
“Of course,” he said.
“And for f*ck’s sake, get some sleep.”
She didn’t wait to hear another word. She took a breath, turned her back on her warriors then just as she dematerialized, she smiled.
Goddamn but she loved her men, and a little roughhousing now and then was a good thing. A stiff drink helped. A good lay. Taking the vein. Without a whole variety of steam valves for testosterone, the whole world would have exploded by now, the earth’s magma along with it.
* * *
As Kerrick awaited Horace, he stood over Alison once more, his sword drawn, the one tangible means he had of protecting her, yet it was useless in this situation. She slept deeply now, her lips parted. She looked even younger with the comforter drawn partway up her cheek, her fingers curled around the edge.
His heart ached as he looked down at her. He wanted her in his world and he wanted her safe. In the short time they’d been together, she’d become a litany in his head, must protect, must protect. He’d never been so obsessed before but then again, Alison was like no other ascendiate he had ever known and yeah, she was the center of the breh-hedden for him. He was hooked in deep.
Making love to her had been flat-out erotic, intense, and drive-a-car-at-two-hundred-miles-an-hour satisfying. She matched him in power, this woman, this mortal, this ascendiate, and he was falling for her fast, an asteroid getting close to the earth’s gravitational pull and getting sucked straight in.
He’d been inside her head. He knew she had strength. He knew she’d go the distance even if the endgame was hopeless. Still, right now, asleep in her bed, she looked incredibly vulnerable. Dammit, his chest seized, drawing into a painful knot.
I can’t lose her.
Yet what chance did she have? She would be fighting the Commander’s most powerful general, a former Warrior of the Blood, an ascender with incredible ability.
His phone buzzed. He folded his sword into the far corner of his bedroom, palmed his phone, then thumbed. “Give,” he said, his tone flat.
Jeannie’s voice, weary at the tail end of a shift, came online. “Horace begs admittance.”
“Granted. Go home, Jeannie.”
“I’m off in about thirty minutes. So, tell me, duhuro, does she have a chance?”
The soft concern in her voice wrenched the knot in his chest all over again. “I don’t know.”
“Aw, shit.”
“You said it, but I have to go.”
“You get some rest, too.”
As the line went dead, Horace materialized a few feet away.
* * *
Once again Alison found herself inside a dream, flying at full-mount over White Lake. The water shimmered beneath her in the dawn’s light, reflecting pink streamers of clouds. The breathtaking view sent her heart soaring.
Guardian. How the word called to her. Guardian of Ascension. Guardian of the Lake.
As though she had been flying all her life, she drew her feet perpendicular to the water then spread her arms wide, which brought her body to a position of standing in midair, the gentle flapping of her wings supporting her. She slowed the rhythm, which allowed her to descend to the calm surface of the blue-green water.
Her bare toes slid into the water and her fangs emerged. Wings and a pair of fangs. So, she was ascended and had acquired the promised vampire traits. How at ease she felt with the lake, with flight, with her fangs. She even wore leather flight gear, like a warrior—a kilt and a weapons harness over her chest, covering her breasts and riding up to cross her shoulders then travel down her spine. The fit was perfect.
Again … guardian.
The lake waters were oddly warm and soothing. She sustained her position with her wings then looked up, straight up. A beacon of light, heavenly light, shone down on her and she knew she looked into Third Earth. She was overcome by a swell of love for what she saw, a deep intense and quite familiar longing. Tears touched her eyes. She felt the most profound need to rise into the air, to reach Third Earth. She started beating her wings as hard as she could but her body wouldn’t move, as though the lake anchored her, held her in place.
She looked down and the lake once more called to her, begging for her protection.
Guardian.
Alison struggled to consciousness, picking her way through her fatigue as through a dense fog. In the distance, maybe a thousand miles away, she heard Kerrick’s voice within her mind. Time to wake up, Alison. Endelle is about to remove her protection.
She opened her eyes and saw the vaulted twigged ceiling of Kerrick’s Queen Creek home. She was in the guest bed, cocooned in the warmth of the comforter. She even wore flannel. She released a sigh, for in this moment she felt very safe.
She stretched again and felt a few leftover twinges. Nothing to complain about. Kerrick’s healing had been wonderful. Her mind moved backward. The training had been intense before … and after.
Oh, God, how he had made love to her last night, right after she’d hurt her wrist!
The vampire had been … incredible. She sighed and just for a moment, before the day, or rather night, and whatever it would hold, crashed down on her, she savored the memory of being so connected to her warrior.
She closed her eyes and smiled. She sighed a few dozen times.
And what was the potion he’d put in her breast that had the ability to travel all the way to her …
Alison. It’s time.
She heard his voice again, right in the center of her brain, less patient this time. Time for what? Dinner, maybe?
Sleep still swirled throughout her body and for just a moment she recalled the dream of wings and of flying, of feeling a profound protective drive toward the lake.
Alison. How strident he sounded. Did she really have to get up? She wanted to call him to her, to beg him to come to her bed for a few minutes, okay, maybe a day or two, and just hold her. Okay, maybe not just hold her but they could do that, too.
The sweetest sensations of desire began teasing her breasts and the tender place between her thighs. Now would be very nice, Kerrick and his hands. Oh, those hands. Kerrick and his …
Alison. The voice this time had a dagger’s edge.
She sat up, sleep streaming away from her. Kerrick sounded urgent. That was right. He had trained her to fight, but he hadn’t told her the why of it.
Adrenaline started punching at her. She put a hand to her chest as her heart rate increased.
She slipped from bed and made her way to the formal living room. Kerrick waited for her there and he wasn’t smiling.
She looked him up and down. He had on a very strange short black leather tunic and a sleeker version of the sandals he wore when fighting in flight gear. He looked like a modern version of ancient Rome. His hair was pulled back from his face, probably contained in the cadroen.
The picture? So gorgeous.
She had a dozen reasons already to believe she had entered a new world, but the sight of his partially bare, muscled thighs and a purple cape flung over one shoulder put her just a little bit farther from Kansas.
She moved toward him and caught sight of a glimmer beneath the cape. When she was close enough, she pushed the cape aside. A brass breastplate, also sexy as hell and molded to his pecs, bore an insignia—a silver sword crowned with a mossy green laurel wreath, simple, beautiful, powerful.
“What is this?” she asked. A prickly sensation traveled suddenly down her spine.
“The emblem of the Warriors of the Blood.”
Another question, one she didn’t want to ask, slid past her lips. “Why are you dressed like this?”
His expression hardened. She felt his distance as though he had moved to another continent, Australia maybe.
Had he even made love to her last night?
She searched his eyes. “What’s going on, Kerrick? Is the house surrounded? Don’t I have even the smallest chance?”
He met her gaze but retained his posture, as though the soles of his leather sandals had rooted into the tiles. “Last night, what I couldn’t bring myself to tell you was that COPASS agreed to the Commander’s demand that you do battle in an arena this evening, one-on-one against his top general, the warrior called Leto.”
She tilted her head. “The one at the alley? The one who used to be a Warrior of the Blood?”
He nodded.
She really couldn’t have heard him right. “Let me get this straight. I’m to battle a man, a vampire, one powerful like you, in an arena, in front of thousands of people?”
He nodded.
She shook her head. “This can’t be happening. How am I supposed to do battle after a single day of training?” She thought of Darian, her former client, then murmured, “He must really want me dead.”
She shook her head in disbelief. She recalled the moment in the downtown alley when she had chosen, chosen, to demonstrate her power because she knew something momentous would happen, an action that had led to the opening of Second Earth to her. But how, how, had her journey brought her here, to a place where she would have to attempt something so impossible? “And I can’t refuse the challenge, can I?”
This time his head did a back-and-forth wag, only very slowly. “You entered your rite of ascension when you sent the hand-blast up into the Trough. I’m sorry, Alison. No going back, not at this point. And until your ascension ceremony takes place tomorrow night, you’re fair game. Again … I’m sorry.”
She wanted to kick something. “Is this why you’re so angry? Why you’re as cold as ice this evening?”
His chest rose then fell. “Yes.” He thawed a little, his shoulders falling. He rubbed his fist over his forehead. “I tried last night to change things but Endelle wouldn’t talk to me. I even called Harding who heads the f*cking Committee, but he was about as useful as rat shit.”
“I can set up a field, though, right?”
He nodded. “You know my reservations. Leto has advanced powers like you, like me. Don’t cast a field unless you know you can contain him.”
She nodded. Okay … no fields unless she was certain. So how the hell was she supposed to be certain?
She turned away from him. Her eyes burned. Dammit, she did not want to cry, only how was this right or fair? What had she ever done to deserve being condemned in this way?
She thought about the despair she had sensed in Kerrick at various points during her all-too-brief acquaintance with him.
She began to understand.
“I let you sleep as long as I could, but the contest takes place in just under an hour. Endelle sent battle gear, and you’ll need to eat. A meal has been prepared.” He sighed. “You must ready yourself to depart.”
She moved away from him intending to return to the guest room, yet her instincts wouldn’t let her. She turned back to him and drew close once more. She met his gaze and reached out with her empathy. She found his familiar despair edged with, yeah, his deeply embedded guilt.
She thought of all he had done for her, all he had given her in making love to her, in being able to handle her absurd power. She put a hand on his cheek and he caught it with his, pressing hard.
“Kerrick, you’re not responsible for this.”
His face contorted as though she had struck him.
She cried, “Dammit, listen to me and listen good. I chose to ascend even though I’d already watched you slay a death vamp, a creature who stated very clearly that he’d come to kill me, to take my blood. I knew when I threw that hand-blast into the Trough that I wasn’t going on a trip to Disneyland. Darian chooses to commit vile, despicable acts. Others cave to his seduction and trickery. You are not to blame for any of it.”
His jaw worked as she had so often seen it move, as though trying to crunch marbles. His chest once more moved up and down, this time in even deeper breaths. The therapist in Alison heard a shrill clanging of bells, a warning that something needed to be addressed right here, right now. How many times had she seen this before in her clients, that stolid look that was really only a wall of glass, which a few pertinent words and some strong coaxing would shatter?
However, that sort of effort always took nimble moment-by-moment processing and she certainly didn’t have the time right now to help him through. But she would wager her life that the despair living in Kerrick had been with him from the time he ascended to Second Earth. She knew this in the same way she knew that the sun rose in the east and set in the west.
Her feet began moving again, cool slaps against cold tile. When she reached the guest room, she saw black leather battle gear, as supple as velvet, hanging on the end of the rack. Only then did the tears come. Somehow a female battle costume suit, with leather boots, brought the reality of the situation home to her. She would be going against a former Warrior of the Blood. How the hell was she supposed to survive that?
Spectacle,
The lifeblood of a society,
A meager reflection,
A ribbon around the hardship of life,
The challenge of the universe.
—Collected Poems, Beatrice of Fourth