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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**king 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**king 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.
