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“Can I see it?”
“You’ve seen it repeatedly.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Is that a double entendre?” She glanced at his crotch—then her brows rose. “So you can change the DNA, huh?”
He rolled his eyes. “My c**k is big enough as it is, as you well know.”
Yeah, she knew, and thoughts of that powerful aspect of his anatomy, despite the dark nature of their present conversation, sent shivers down her neck. “You’re right. You’re plenty big.”
He smiled and looked very male as he nodded.
“So, what’s this other form of yours?”
He didn’t say anything. He just changed.
Her mouth dropped open. “Shorty?”
Light blue eyes twinkled at her.
“Well, I’ll be damned. So you were serious that one time you told me you could be anything I wanted you to be.”
“Pretty much.”
A moment later, James began to disappear, and Braulio re-formed. James was Braulio, and Braulio was James.
“Holy shit. Well, this isn’t so bad. And, hey, Thorne can morph like this.”
“Unfortunately, there’s a big difference,” he said, sitting on the coffee table again. “I have to become James at least once a week to release that part of my altered DNA, or I start to go insane. This is always true, for me and for you. For Greaves as well.”
“So, if you don’t like the form you take, too bad, you’re stuck with it?”
“Exactly.”
“But why did you choose ‘James’ then, for an alternate shape?”
“A lot of reasons. James is a harmless persona and has served me well in approaching Alison, for instance, while she was in her rite of ascension. I’ve also served more recently as the gatekeeper to Third Earth in James’s form. Again, the less threatening shape has given me a strong advantage when challenged by powerful Third Earth entities.”
“You’ve battled on Third Earth?”
He shrugged. “Battled isn’t quite the right word since I’m not allowed to battle. I argue and threaten, and when provoked, I offer a display of power that is sufficient to turn away any Third aggressor.”
“You’ve been busier than I thought.”
“I do my part.”
“But now I have this virus. I suppose next you’ll tell me this has something to do with the little peach.”
Braulio dipped his chin. “And the ability within the next hour to become whatever you need to be in order to survive.”
“The next hour,” she repeated. She didn’t ask him to explain. She knew. She felt it in her bones. She’d be facing off with Greaves over White Lake, probably not long after Alison worked her magic with the Third portal.
She stood up and held his gaze for a long moment. “You going to tell me how this battle ends?”
“We’ve seen several outcomes. But I’m not allowed to interfere and I won’t. Just take everything I’ve said into consideration. I’m sure right now Greaves is plotting what to do with his morphing ability.”
“Fuck.”
His expression grew even more serious. “Exactly.”
Then he smiled, and before she knew what he intended, he blurred toward her, took her in his arms, and kissed her. She didn’t fight him this time because she was a woman going into battle and she wanted the feel of his arms around her.
His voice was suddenly in her head with resonance. Endelle, Endelle, Endelle. He kept whispering her name until her lips parted.
He groaned heavily as he pierced her mouth and began plunging his tongue into her just the way she liked it, the way she remembered him doing all those millennia ago.
Sweet Christ, the vampire had her number. His hands roved her flight suit. She was just about to fold the suit away, or tell him to rip it off her, when Braulio drew back.
“Sorry, sweetheart. Time to rumble.”
* * *
Greaves stood in his peach orchard and flexed his claw. He held several Seers reports in his right hand and alternately moved from reading them to snapping his claw, then trying to figure out his next step. And back again.
He might not have Stannett’s help anymore, but the reports out of Mumbai and Johannesburg were similar enough to give credence that a war-changing battle would take place over White Lake this morning.
He had already informed his generals and ordered his special death vampire regiment to be ready to fold at his command.
These elements were clear in the future streams: an army at the ready, and a death vamp force poised to engage in battle. According to the Seers reports, he would soon be flying over the lake, with his death vampires supporting him, and engaging his number one foe all these years: Endelle.
Yet in the past several days, he’d lost so much ground that he felt as though the pavers beneath his feet were made of quicksand. He’d started sinking when Grace returned, and the more he’d tried to pull himself out of the quagmire, the faster he’d gotten dragged under.
He still couldn’t believe that he had failed to destroy the colonies. Somehow he hadn’t imagined obsidian flame being able to stop the burning away of Diallo’s interconnected mist—yet the triad had done exactly that.
He shuddered. The dark wave of his future was still pounding him, despite the care he had taken to gain every advantage in his bid for world domination.
He still had two serious advantages in hand. The first was his secret force of Third Earth death vampires that he would be moving very soon through the breach in the portal. The other was his ability to shape-shift. The latter, however, had a serious drawback in that whatever choice he made would be permanent. Whatever he decided to become in the next few hours, he’d be forced to continue each week for the rest of his life. Yet these two elements had the possibility all by themselves of wresting Second Earth permanently away from Endelle and her allies.
The claw had been an experiment, but it had fit with his lifestyle, since he liked to do a lot of hurting when he made love.
However, a claw was one small, manageable appendage. If he chose, during this battle to risk everything by engaging Endelle at last mano a mano, then he might just have to choose a larger form that guaranteed a win against her but would be an unfortunate choice for a weekly transformation.
The only question that remained was simple: How badly did he want to win this war?
When he folded back to his Estrella Complex, he found his generals clustered around the largest screen at the end of the room.
Greaves got an uneasy feeling. “What’s going on?” he called out.
