CHAPTER 23
Kerrick hadn’t seen Alison in two long f*cking weeks and he swore he felt like he’d had his heart ripped out of his chest. Instead of getting easier, staying away from her had become an exercise in masochism. He knew where she was—the training camps. He received reports from her CO daily. He’d insisted on at least that much. She was carrying his child. He needed to be sure she was safe despite the fact they could not be together.
So why did he feel like a bastard, like he’d let her down?
He sat in his library, a tumbler of Maker’s in his hand. He stared at nothing in particular. He had a couple of hours before the night’s fighting took up his time—and thank God for the fighting. He would have gone insane otherwise.
Two weeks had passed since he had last seen her and he just couldn’t seem to find his feet. He recalled the last time he’d sat in this chair, reading that pretentious book about the history of ascension in hopes of finding some way to withstand the onslaught of the breh-hedden.
His phone buzzed. He reached out with his senses—Medichi. The brothers were at the Cave, and he’d already refused to join them there. He’d be at the Blood and Bite for the usual, but right now he needed to be alone.
Since returning from the hospital, he’d moved out of the basement, using it only to do his daily workout. For reasons he didn’t understand, he’d been sleeping in the master bedroom. He still wasn’t sure why he’d made that leap. After all, nothing had changed materially in his world.
Except Alison.
But she wasn’t in his world anymore, was she?
And his baby grew inside her.
But what did that matter? They’d both decided they couldn’t be together, a joint decision.
Fine.
His phone buzzed again. Once more—Medichi.
Once more, he didn’t respond.
But when the phone buzzed a third time, he felt Thorne’s summons. He stood up and answered. The few brief sentences that struck his ear sent blood rushing to his head, his heart thumping. “Fold me there now.”
He felt the vibration then landed hard, two bare feet on the Cave floor. He ignored all six warriors, spinning around until he found the only person right now who mattered.
“Alison! What the hell happened?”
She stared at him and her lips parted but she couldn’t seem to speak. Then a wave of lavender hit him full in the chest and he took a step back. Oh, shit. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed a hand down his face, holding back his body’s quick response as much as he could. He barked, “Tell me what happened.”
She spoke slowly at first as she recounted the attack at the barracks then gathered speed and finished with, “I thought it might be sensible to lead them here, believing of course they would follow, and sure enough—”
“Goddammit.” He turned to Thorne and met his wrecked gaze. “Has Endelle been informed?”
“She’s coming.”
“Good. Because this can’t happen again.” His voice had split into three resonances and all the warriors shifted around, staring at him.
“I won’t let it happen again.” He gave a frustrated shout and punched at the air. “This is such f*cking bullshit.”
A mumbled agreement rippled through the brothers.
He paced now and breathed hard. He couldn’t look at Alison but her smell was intoxicating; if he didn’t keep moving he’d throw a whole lot of wood and probably attack her. If her scent was any indication, she’d welcome it. Goddamn breh-hedden.
* * *
Alison could barely draw breath as she stared at her warrior. He walked around like a madman but looked so damn sexy in jeans, a snug dark blue tee, and, oh, God, his gorgeous bare feet again. It had to be the pregnancy hormones because the way she felt looking at him was like everything she’d ever felt for him, multiplied by ten. No. By a thousand.
Her body wept and she knew she had to be flooding him with her designed-just-for-him lavender pheromones, but she couldn’t help it.
Her lips felt swollen and her breasts, which were already bigger because of the pregnancy, were tight in her bra. At least the loose fatigues couldn’t reveal anything of that nature to the other warriors around her, thank God.
The air blurred near Kerrick and he stopped pacing. Endelle appeared, a hard look in her ancient, lined eyes. She wore a strange bodysuit in some kind of shiny gray material, not quite leather. “What the hell is going on?” She caught sight of Alison. “Ascender Wells, why the f*ck aren’t you at the training camps as ordered?”
Thorne, however, cut in and told her about the death vamps, then added, “You know what this means—she can’t go back. They’ve obviously made the decision to remove her. This won’t be the last attack. Her ascension was just the beginning, not the end.”
Kerrick moved to stand beside Thorne, his gaze fixed anywhere but on Alison.
This time Endelle paced. She let fly a long string of expletives, then started over. She repeated the exercise several times. “He’s never gone this far before. Why this rule? Why now? Why Alison? Shit. He must know I’ll take the complaint to COPASS. Shit.”
Alison, however, barely paid her the smallest bit of attention. Instead she couldn’t keep from staring at Kerrick. She was struck all over again by how handsome he was, how tall, how muscular. His warrior hair was unbound and she wanted to weave thick bunches through her fingers. And she knew those muscles, every last inch of them, stem-to-stern, upside down, downside up. Oh. God.
“Ascender Wells,” Endelle snapped. “Look at me.”
The strength of Endelle’s voice forced Alison to tear her gaze away from Kerrick and focus on the Supreme High Administrator.
Endelle narrowed her eyes. “We’ll put a guard on you at the training camps. The next time death vamps show up, don’t go running to my elite group. We have a chain of command in the military. Use it.”
A general disapproval and protest erupted from every warrior present.
Alison cried, “But how many Militia Warriors will die trying to protect me? The situation is untenable and I won’t have it.”
A collective intake of breath joined another shuffling of feet. “You won’t have it?” Madame Endelle shouted.
Alison was about to state her case, this time in definitely more respectful terms, but she found herself facedown on the Cave floor, never a good place to be, and a foot, encased in a stiletto, on her neck. “Learn your place, ascender Wells. Learn it quick. I have a very short fuse.”
Alison felt the vibration and found herself in the CO’s office at the training base. She was still facedown but the pressure on her neck was gone.
She looked up. She was alone. Oh. God. Still on her knees, she leaned back. She reached out to Queen Creek and once more drew her sword into her hand. She listened and waited. She knew exactly what was going to happen next and not because of her clairvoyance.
By the time the CO and Madame Endelle appeared, maybe thirty seconds later, so did three more pretty-boys. They didn’t stay long, however. One look at Madame Endelle and all three vanished.
“F*ck,” Endelle said. She looked at Alison. “Looks like Thorne was right. Well, isn’t this a new kind of shitfest. I guess the fun with you is just beginning.”
* * *
As soon as Alison dematerialized from the Cave, Kerrick had Thorne fold him back to his home. He headed straight for his bedroom and with a thought removed his clothes. Making a beeline to the shower, he hopped in and flipped the levers, all eight of them, and took an incredibly cold shower. He felt as though lavender had been imprinted on his sinuses and brain and he couldn’t get rid of the scent. And he was hard as a rock.
Shit.
What the hell was he going to do?
The cold water beat at him, but his skin was on fire. He wondered why steam didn’t rise out of the shower despite the water’s arctic temp. If only he hadn’t been in the same room with Alison. Desire just kept spreading through his body and all he could smell was lavender, lavender, and more lavender.
When at long last, some of his painful desire had diminished, he turned off the shower, then ran his towel over the two million goose bumps afflicting his skin. Goddamn that water was cold. He let loose one full-body shiver then folded on flight gear for the night’s work, adjusting the weapons harness.
He looked around the bedroom. He stared at the bed. He planted his hands on his hips. He narrowed his eyes.
He shook his head back and forth over and over.
He had made a mistake, goddammit. He had thought he could go back to the way things were before Alison had come into his life. He had thought he could simply renew his vows and ignore the desire he felt for her as well as the primitive protective urges that twisted his thoughts in her direction one minute out of two.
But something had changed in him beginning from the time he’d first seen her at the medical complex. Yes, the breh-hedden had hit him hard, taken him to his knees, but that wasn’t what snagged him now. Something incomprehensible had hold of him. He knew he had erred in turning away from Alison but he couldn’t figure out why.
He thought of Helena again. She had given her life to be with him. I’ve chosen to be with you, she had said. It is my privilege, my pleasure, even my honor to be with you and bring peace to your life as you do to mine. You are my choice, for better or worse, come life or death.
Come life or death.
Endelle had said, Give Helena a little credit.
When he had taken Alison’s hand-blast to his chest and abdomen and begun recovering in the hospital, his natural instinct had been to retreat. After all, that was how he had lived for the past two hundred years. But throughout those centuries, he’d been a shell of a man, flying on nerves and Maker’s, holding the line at the cost of dying a little each day.
He would always feel responsible for Helena’s death. That was the nature of being a man, the inherent sense of responsibility to keep everyone alive, to keep everyone happy, satisfied.
He released a heavy sigh, the kind weighted with guilt, lots of it.
The question seemed to be: Was he thinking of Alison right now or thinking of himself? Did he truly fear that his proximity to her would cause her death or did he merely fear the agony of losing her should she die as a result of the Commander’s aggression? Some of both, he supposed, but what was the right path in this situation? He longed to be with her, a longing that kept her in his dreams when he slept and in his thoughts when he was awake.
Now she faced a new situation. Against one of the prime laws of the land, Greaves had sent death vampires against her. Holy shit.
Thorne was right, the attacks on her would never stop. Her ascension was a beginning, not an ending, and Endelle was wrong to think three squads of Militia Warriors would do anything except cost lives, possibly even Alison’s.
What came to him was his present need to let go of his guilt over what had happened in the past to both Marta and Helena and to all three of his children. Life was hard and had been from the beginning of time. Choices were made and, yeah, like Endelle had said, Death happens. One day in the future, he would die as well as Alison, even their daughter.
But no longer would he deny the simple truth, good or bad—that he belonged with Alison and he belonged with his daughter.
Alison’s presence in his life had done this for him, forced him to take that extra step out of the confines of his present life and into … the future.
He laughed and shook his head. Goddammit, just seeing her had made him feel like more of a man, more powerful. How the hell was that possible? The breh-hedden, of course, calling to him in wild shouts from the edge of his tightly held life.
Only this time he didn’t stop the sensation. He let it fill him, the physical intention, the pure sexual need, the whirrings of his mind begging for Alison’s presence inside his head.
He stood at the foot of his bed and pictured her lying naked right there, her long blond hair spread out over his pillows and sheets. He wanted her in his bed, in this bed, the bed he now slept in. He wanted her with him now and always.
Then he knew, then he understood that his life had changed completely, not just a little but in every possible way. He saw the future, how this was going to go down from this point forward, and why he intended to complete the breh-hedden with Alison. No way was his lovely therapist, built to help others, going to be subjected to fighting. Some women were built for war. She was built to save lives. He felt stronger in his spirit than ever before, determined, full of purpose.
Come hell or high water, come good times or bad, come life or death, he would be with Alison, he would love her, he would protect her to the extent he could, she would be his breh and he would serve her as he had from the moment he first met her, as her Guardian of Ascension.
He smiled, he laughed, he punched the air a few times, he gave one powerful shout to the heavens. No longer would he look back, but he would set his face to the future and live, really live.
He felt a strange low-level vibration in his body, something he had never felt before. He drew in a deep breath. Holy shit. Was it possible?
Hell, yeah, it was possible.
Tonight he began a new life, and sure as hell this was the way to start it.
He calmed himself down and pictured the library. He thought the goddamn righteous f*cking thought. The journey between lasted a rough second, maybe two, a dark ride through nether-space, a blanking-out then sudden hard awareness, a blinding rush of adrenaline followed by a blast of endorphins.
He had folded himself to the library.
Praise be to the Creator, at long last he could fold.
He shook his head. He closed his eyes, thought another thought. He experienced another vibration of blood and bone. He opened his eyes. He was back in the master bedroom.
He laughed and shouted. He dematerialized about a dozen times. His fist pumped the air.
He could fold.
He. Could. Fold.
Goddammit, he could fold!
One last trip back to the master bedroom and his body stilled. The why of it became a big question in his mind, but somehow he already knew.
Alison was the why of it, the why of everything.
Now, how to tackle the problem that was Endelle?
* * *
Alison listened to her CO arguing with Madame Endelle about how many guards she would need to post, twenty-four/seven, to ward off a constant stream of tag-attacks like the one that had just taken place. Alison had risen from her kneeling position, her sword still in hand. She kept up a constant surveillance even though it was unlikely the death vamps would return, not with Her Supremeness around.
When the CO, a tall woman with broad shoulders, dipped her square chin, placed the tips of her fingers on the desk, and leaned toward Madame Endelle, Alison could have chewed the sudden tension streaking through the air. She half expected to find the CO on the floor, a stiletto at her neck, but for some reason Endelle allowed the aggression.
“But Madame Supreme High Administrator, what you suggest would mean suicide for those involved. With all due respect, ascender Wells is the only warrior I have on the entire base capable of battling even one death vampire, let alone three. You know the ratios required for regular Militia Warriors to defeat death vamps? Four-to-one in order to prevent a mortality rate at point of combat of less than twenty-five percent. Four of our soldiers to one death vamp … and some would still die. Ascender Wells would require a twelve-warrior detail around her at all times, and that’s assuming only three pretty-boys show up. She is unmanageable for us. At the very least, she requires the protection of the Warriors of the Blood.”
These facts, presented as they were by a woman of reason and authority, forced Alison to confront her situation in an entirely different light. Until this moment, she had assumed she could create a life for herself, by herself, on Second Earth. But that simply wasn’t true.
Whether she liked it or not, she needed a lot of protection, not just for herself but for her daughter. She had no doubt that creating a child from Kerrick’s DNA would also pose a threat to the Commander. From this point forward, she would need to live in a completely secure home and have access not just to Kerrick but to all the warriors just to stay alive.
She also pondered her earlier thoughts about a pressing need to live life full-out, to ride the hurricane instead of retreating into a pit of despair. She smiled as visions of a life with Kerrick suddenly shot through her mind.
She also thought of her repetitive dreams about White Lake, which had continued to present themselves every night since she had arrived at the barracks. They always ended the same, her toes in the water, her gaze fixed toward the Trough leading to Third Earth. This time a man’s voice had entered the dream, an unfamiliar voice. She had wanted to open the Trough to Third but he had restrained her, telling her the time had not yet arrived.
The word guardian once more whispered through her mind in that same masculine voice.
Guardian.
Kerrick was a Guardian of Ascension, as were all the Warriors of the Blood.
“What the hell is the matter with you?”
Alison shifted her gaze to Endelle. “I’m sorry?”
“I can see inside your head. Why is the word guardian playing over and over like a stuck record?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You know, you have a f*cking active mind and it’s bugging the shit out of me.”
“Sorry to disturb,” she said, but she smiled.
“And would you kindly take that dumb-ass look off your face?”
Alison shook her head. “This, training to be a warrior, is not the right path for me.”
“And you think you know what the right path is?”
Alison nodded. “Yes.” She spoke the word with such certainty that Endelle stared at her. Alison pressed, “I think we should return to the Cave, and if you would summon the Warriors of the Blood, I will explain myself. Please hear me out in the presence of the warriors, and if after you’ve listened to all that I have to say and you still want me back at the barracks, I’ll return willingly.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
Endelle folded her phone into her hand and whipped it to her ear. “Thorne. Are the warriors with you?” She rolled her eyes. “Well, get everyone back to the Cave. Now.”
The card phone disappeared.
Endelle slid her hand to the nape of Alison’s neck, squeezed, then folded them both to the warriors’ rec room. Alison stumbled when her feet touched down, the result of Endelle’s frustrated touch.
Medichi, Jean-Pierre, and Santiago were still there along with Thorne. Santiago sat on a stool this time and with his right hand held a huge sub to his mouth. He took a big bite, his eyes wide. In his left hand he flipped a dagger, a piece that glinted with red jewels on the hilt. Luken and Zacharius returned next, both in flight gear. The warriors would be on duty all night as it was.
Thorne put his phone to his ear, spoke in a low voice, nodded a couple of times, and a moment later Kerrick blurred into the room. His gaze skated in Alison’s direction, caught, and held. This time he let loose a wave of cardamom that hit her in a full-frontal assault and knocked her flat on her ass.
He smiled, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared down at her. He wore his black leather kilt, weapons harness, heavy battle sandals, really hot studded wrist guards, and a moment later mounted his enormous white wings, something she knew, she knew, he had done just for her. He looked sexy as hell, exactly the way he had looked when she had first met him. Even his hair was free of the cadroen.
She picked herself up and dusted off her fatigues. She met his gaze, unwavering this time, his expression intense as though he was trying to tell her something without saying it either aloud or in her mind.
Something had changed.
Her breath caught. She blinked or tried to.
What is it? she sent.
But he offered only a shake of his head and a faint smile, a familiar crooked curve of his lips. Her heartbeat sped up.
What had changed?
Oh, God, everything. Everything. She felt it in the air between them.
She stepped away from Endelle and moved to a position in which she could address both the Supreme High Administrator and the Warriors of the Blood.
The warriors stood in a broad arc in front of her, some of the most powerful ascenders on Second Earth.
Thorne, with his bleary red eyes, stood near the chicken coop of a pool table.
Luken ranged next to him almost protectively like a guard dog, his thick muscles on display since he already sported flight gear.
Medichi carried his regal height at the apex of this warrior mountain, the tallest among the men, but the one who never mounted his wings.
Zacharius stood next to him, all that thick curly hair trapped in the cadroen, but fanning out down his back, his blue eyes narrowed, waiting.
Santiago sat on a stool beside Zacharius, his long wavy black Latin hair hanging loose, shiny, gorgeous. He lifted his hand and the sub disappeared, sent somewhere. He shifted his knees in order to face her.
Jean-Pierre drew up next to Santiago. He held a cue stick in his hand, his long elegant fingers wrapped around the narrow wood. He was an aristocrat in even the grace of his hands.
Endelle stood a foot from him, her wooded eyes dark, her arched brows sitting low, a restlessness to the air surrounding her, impatient as always. We haven’t got all day screamed from every pore of her body.
Kerrick stood to the left of the pool table, his enormous wings fluttering slightly at the tips, his gaze never leaving her face.
Alison had the strangest feeling, a familiar odd déjà vu sense that she had been here before and would be here again and again, that her destiny, which had been birthed at the medical complex, was being thrown into the stratosphere right here, right now. She had thought that to ascend was everything, the be-all and end-all. She had been wrong. She had only understood her place a few minutes ago in her CO’s office, which also meant she was beginning to understand that her arrival on Second Earth had ramped up the war.
She squared her shoulders. “I know now why the Commander wants me dead.”
Endelle snorted. “We all know why. You have too much f*cking power.”
“Yes, but what purpose does that power serve?”
She saw it all so clearly. The revelation came from her dreams, from the deepest parts of her subconscious, from the mysteries well beyond the human rational mind.
She recalled the beauty of staring up into the Third Dimension, of seeing that world open to her, of being painfully drawn to Third Earth but unable to get there. She recalled the pull of the lake, the need to protect the lake.
She stared at Madame Endelle, drew in a long deep breath, moved to the edge of the pool table, and dove straight in: “One day, a few years from now, I open the Trough to Third Earth.”
First, a long combined intake of breath, and then silence—heavy, weighted, fearsome silence. A tomb, sealed for a thousand years, could not have been quieter than the Cave.
Endelle’s jaw went slack.
Kerrick’s green eyes shone with admiration.
The rest of the warriors stared, first at her then at one another; then almost as a unit they turned to look at Endelle. Waiting.
Alison shifted her gaze to Kerrick to see how her announcement had affected him, wondering if he would think she’d suddenly gone insane. How shocked she was to see the certainty in his eye as he nodded once to her. He showed a level of trust and confidence that she had not seen in him before.
She felt buoyed to continue, to explain her meaning, and faced Madame Endelle once more. “I’ve dreamed repeatedly of White Lake, as well as the Trough and Third Earth, every night since my rite of ascension began. When I dream, I’m always dressed in warrior flight gear and I’m flying over the lake at full-mount. Though I can’t explain how I know my purpose, I just do.” She pressed a fist to her chest. “Here. And this is why Darian, the Commander, wants me dead.”
Endelle blinked only once as she stared at Alison. She finally looked away and started to pace. Her brow had dipped low, and sparks flew from her body as though she could not contain the energy of her thoughts. Back and forth she paced in front of the mountain of her Warriors of the Blood.
“Passage to Third Earth. Shit. Holy shit. Holy, holy shit.” She stopped in front of Alison. “Don’t f*ck with me, ascender. You’d better be damn certain about this. No doubts, questions, not even a glimmer of What the hell am I saying?”
Alison shook her head. “Not even a little” came as a whisper from her throat.
But the moment the words left her lips, a deep sinking sensation invaded her heart, forged not from doubt but rather from certainty, profound, raw, overwhelming certainty. She was the instrument by which the pathway to Third would be opened and her life had just gotten harder, a lot harder. She dropped to her knees then buried her face in her hands. She was overcome, and tears flooded through her fingers.
How long she remained there, she didn’t know, but to her surprise she felt cool hands take hold of hers. She lifted her gaze and met Endelle’s ancient wooded eyes. The Supreme High Administrator of Second Earth folded a dry cloth into her hand and wiped Alison’s cheeks, nose, and chin.
Alison looked into Endelle’s face, so full of miraculous understanding and compassion, those qualities that ordinarily escaped Her Supremeness.
Endelle nodded. “The responsibility just ground you into the dust, didn’t it?”
Alison’s lip quivered. “Yes,” she whispered.
“I remember this day in my own life some nine thousand years ago. I thought about slitting my wrists.”
“Oh, God.”
“If you had been flippant, I would have put my foot on your neck again. But this, seeing the devastation in your eyes? Yeah, you’ve convinced me of the truth of the situation. But holy shit, Alison, opening the Trough to f*cking Third. That’s major shit.”
Endelle, the toughest, meanest bitch ever born, gathered her into her arms and held her. Welcome to my world, she sent.
* * *
Thorne couldn’t keep his feet from moving backward. He didn’t stop until his ass hit the pool table. He stared at a f*cking nightmare, Endelle on her knees and the newly created ascender proclaiming that she was the vessel by which Third Earth would be opened to Second.
He wanted his Ketel ice-cold and burning down his throat.
Did no one understand, like he did, what this meant? That a new log, the size of an eighteen-wheeler, had just been dumped on top of this burning heap of a bonfire called war?
He scrubbed his hand down his face. He had hoped that Alison’s powers would have brought an alignment meant to ease the stress on the warriors, on Endelle, on him, but didn’t anyone else get that Darian Greaves would escalate, not fall back?
Thorne needed to get to the Convent, to get to his refuge, but new pain beat at him, for he knew, he knew, that the woman he protected would soon be dragged into the war.
Goddammit.
* * *
Kerrick took deep breaths, expanding his lungs to their fullest. Pride flowed through him, admiration, full-on lust. God, he loved this woman, and love held him in a state of euphoria, of a decision made, of hope wrestled to the ground, of possibilities, of a future with Alison.
The tide carried the past out to sea. He turned his face to the shore for the first time in two hundred years. Alison was a new land, a new life, a promise of the future.
So she would, in time, be the one to bust through the Trough to Third.
Holy hell. His wings shimmied, a fluttering at the tips, a shiver down his spine.
He watched her with Endelle. He couldn’t remember seeing Her Supremeness show such tenderness before. Ever. What did this suggest for the future? One glance at his brothers told him they had the same thought. Wonder lit each face like they were looking at a flying pig.
Understanding whirled around him, a cyclone moving faster and faster. Alison had spoken the word guardian the first time she had told him of her dreams about White Lake. Had she been a man, he would have concluded she was meant to serve as a Warrior of the Blood. Certainly she had the power. She just didn’t have the heart. Besides, only males were guardians.
He frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. His biceps twitched.
Guardian.
What if the concept needed to be expanded? But that would be such a break with tradition.
And yet, from the time Alison had answered her call to ascension, she had been an anomaly, the unexpected. She was his breh, something he had never expected to come to him, not when the breh-hedden was so rare. Yet here she was.
He drew in another deep breath because what he was about to propose went completely against all Second Earth traditions.
Dreams of White Lake? Now he would deliver the interpretation.
“Madame Endelle,” he said, the strength of his voice hitting the walls then bouncing back.
Endelle rose to her feet, Alison with her, both turning to look at him. Endelle planted her hands on her hips and scowled at him.
He moved to stand beside Alison. He took a couple of deep breaths. Endelle had the power to kick him from one end of the earth to the other without moving an inch. Needless to say, he was reluctant to open the door.
“Well, Warrior, what the f*ck do you want?”
He prepared to get his ass kicked as he said, “I believe ascender Wells may be a Guardian of Ascension.”
She rolled her eyes and spoke in a voice that had idiot written all over it. “What the hell are you talking about? Or have you forgotten that guardians are both male and warriors, neither of which ascender Wells professes to be.”
Kerrick nodded. “She has dreamed of herself as a guardian, which is a primary indication that she should be granted a special dispensation.” He dipped his chin. “Consider. If you granted her guardian status, then COPASS would be honor-bound to bestow on her the rights of guardianship.”
Endelle’s brow puckered. “The rights of guardianship, which means Alison would have full protection from personal attack. Goddammit, Kerrick, you might actually have something here.” She shoved her hands into her long black hair at the temples. She blew the air from her cheeks and shook her head.
“What does this mean?” Alison asked.
“When COPASS was created at the turn of the twentieth century, one of the rules we put into place and to which Greaves agreed was that all private property held by either party could not be attacked. All the Guardians of Ascension as well as Greaves’s generals have this same right. We don’t attack their estates and they leave ours alone. In addition, the rule extends to personal attack. We stay away from them and except for conflicts at a Borderland or on Mortal Earth they stay the hell away from us. Any attack on a guardian, apart from conflict at a Borderland or on Mortal Earth, must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Even Greaves doesn’t cross this line.”
“So wherever I am, on Second,” she said, “I would be safe?”
“As safe as is possible in this world and a thousand times safer than without the designation.”
Alison drew in a quick breath. She turned to Kerrick and sent, Then I have a chance, our daughter has a chance.
Kerrick nodded. He even smiled. Exactly, he sent.
“Well,” Endelle cried. “I have to say, Warrior Kerrick, that this is a goddamn brilliant strategy. F*cking brilliant. I congratulate you and I will see to this. COPASS owes me because of the attack on the palace and the Commander can just stick his dick in a meat grinder! Hah!”
Kerrick recoiled at the imagery, and more than one warrior hissed. On the other hand, for all the trouble Greaves had caused … well …
* * *
As hope soared, Alison trembled. She saw in Kerrick’s eyes a determination that had not been there before. She wanted to leave the rec room with him right now, and tell him of her change of heart, but there was still one more matter to be settled.
She turned to Her Supremeness. “Madame Endelle. Will you rescind my orders to train as a Militia Warrior?”
“And what would you suggest, ascender? With guardian status you could still serve as a Militia Warrior, since you’d be safe from attacks at the barracks.”
Alison met Endelle’s gaze. She saw the striated brown eyes and she had experienced the woman’s compassion. For nine thousand years, Endelle had carried her burden of authority and command alone. The woman needed a lot of help. She also needed to work on her anger management skills. Mostly, however, she thought it likely Endelle could use a friend.
Though she felt certain that the suggestion she was about to let fly was akin to inviting a scorpion to ride around on her shoulder, she said, “If it would please you, I would serve as your assistant.” Oh, God, had the words really left her mouth? She had a powerful prescience she would regret this most profoundly in the coming days, weeks, months, years, hell, decades … oh, God.
A slow smile spread over Endelle’s face as though she had also read Alison’s thoughts. Of course she had. Endelle said, “I think the punishment in this case fits the crime. I’ll let your CO know she can get back to business as usual while you, my lovely ascender, can show up to my f*cking office tomorrow at eight AM sharp.” She glanced past her to Kerrick and looked him up and down, a lascivious light in her eyes. “If you can even walk by then.”
Alison kept the blush from her cheeks, but just barely. She had very much entered a new world, of warriors and vampires, of the ascended and flight-ready, of violence, profanity, and all sorts of sideways references to sex. Time to embrace it all, so she shrugged then said, “When was walking a significant problem on Second anyway?”
At that, the warriors burst out laughing.
Endelle nodded. “Well, well. There might be hope for you yet.” She lifted an arm then vanished.
The Cave remained silent for a long moment after she left.
Finally, Zacharius offered the most pertinent comment. “Was she wearing snakeskin?”
The myth of the breh-hedden
Alive in the hearts of lovers
Behold what is most precious
—Collected Poems, Beatrice of Fourth