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Rachel stared at her. “You were ready to string me up for not leaping at the chance to join the black ops team. And now you’re offering protection so that I can leave. What changed?”
Endelle made a disgusted sound at the back of her throat. “Thorne’s been wearing off on me or maybe it’s Luken.”
She then lifted a brow. “So, how was it, Rachel, the sex I mean? After all, I’ve used my voyeur window to take a peak in the men’s shower room at the Militia HQ training center. So, I know for a fact your man is hung.”
Rachel sighed once more. “You’re hopeless.”
Rachel didn’t know the half of it. Endelle knew she needed a man, but she was still committed to Braulio. But because of the way she was twitching, she definitely needed to take a jaunt to her secret hideaway in India Two and get at least some of her needs met. It wasn’t quite the same as having Braulio in her bed, but it helped ease her through her week.
If only she didn’t feel so damn guilty.
~ ~ ~
Duncan couldn’t believe he’d been caught off guard again and was once more in Yolanthe’s grasp. He tracked the woman through the Third Earth voyeur window, hating every minute of it, and trying to figure out how to escape. Again.
And the damn woman had made him pay. She’d brought in a few of her slaves and had engaged in group sex in a large spa, Yolanthe as the star, of course.
“It’s just payback,” she’d said, “for having sex with Rachel. You know how I feel about that woman. I found your behavior disloyal.” Her attitude had to be the definition of narcissism.
After the almost endless rounds of watching Yolanthe either scream with pleasure or make her slaves cry out in pain, she now lay replete on a chaise-lounge in her living room. She wore a lavender dressing gown as a young slave wafted her with an enormous fan of peacock feathers.
“Your woman played the two wreckers I sent after her. I was watching with my voyeur window. She posed nude for them with a weapon behind her back, then shot them both to bits. It took my Third Grid clean-up crew about an hour to get rid of the debris. And if you’re wondering why we bother, we don’t like to leave evidence of our activities behind any more than you do when you battle death vampires on Mortal Earth. We still don’t have Madame Endelle’s superior clean-up capacity, the kind that woman, Jeannie, calls down from Central. And that’s something I’d love to have access to.”
Duncan knew she was referring to the method Endelle and her scientists developed that with just a call to Central Command, Jeannie or Carla could wipe out all signs of a battle, at least the organic bits like bodies, blood and feathers.
She turned slightly to meet his gaze. “Duncan, how about you get the blueprint for the clean-up technology? Then I might not hold it against you that you fucked another woman.” Yolanthe rarely swore, yet another indication the woman was angry with him.
“And how about you just eat shit, instead.” Okay, he was pissed as well, and not necessarily showing some smarts right now either. But the fact that other men had seen Rachel naked -- even if Rachel had allowed it in order to save his ass -- had his breh-hedden inner-monster writhing to punch something hard.
Yolanthe clucked her tongue and rose to her feet. “I’ve been thinking the real problem is you don’t know what you’ll have once we become lovers, and just maybe I haven’t motivated you properly.”
“Let me save you the trouble, Yolanthe, because you don’t have a damn thing I want.”
She pulled a face then waved a hand to change into a pale pink, backless silk gown. She turned away from him and he watched the muscles of her back thicken as moisture formed on each expanding wing-lock. He heard her take a deep breath and a moment later, she cried out with intense pleasure as her wings, extraordinary in height, breadth and color, released.
He had to admit he’d never seen such beautiful wings before and now understood her choice of pastels for clothing, because her wings looked like a beautiful painted Easter Egg. The outer bands and soft inner swirls were all in shades of light blue and green, pale yellow, lavender, and a soft pink that matched her gown.
“Exquisite.” Even though he meant it, he wished the word unsaid because he didn’t want to encourage the woman on any level.
She turned toward him, her thin, reddish brows high on her forehead. “I know.”
She then walked to the open veranda that overlooked acres of lawn, scattered pools, and trees. She moved to the edge of the patio and as she took off, she carried the voyeur window along so that Duncan had to travel with her. Essentially, he would see everything she settled her gaze on, even while she flew.
Looking down, he saw that her home was on an island in a lake, surrounded by several canals. There were small homes and an equal number of straw huts all around the perimeter. “Where is this?”
“Mexico City Three. I just never drained the lake like they did on Mortal Earth.”
He spoke the truth. “You’ve created a jewel.”
Again, she responded in her sing-song, entitled manner, “I know and this is the true value of slave-labor that so much beauty can be created. It is the real problem with Mortal Earth. If there was a proper alignment of masters and slave, then Earth One would become a lovely place to inhabit.”
“Is that part of your father’s ambitions? To take over three worlds?”
She smiled. “Yes, of course. But I believe in his designs with all my heart. A strong ruling class is the only way to govern any land. Only then can beauty prevail.”
With these words, he truly began to understand Yolanthe. At first, he’d written her off as a hedonist and an entitled princess, and yes, she was those things. But now he saw the level of her ambitions. She wanted her world, as well as both Second Earth and Mortal Earth, subjugated to her father’s will, in the same way that she controlled the lives of all who lived in Mexico City Three.
The woman had power and intent. She also had the advantage of appearing falsely weak and vulnerable because she was lean to the point of emaciation and dressed up in silk. He believed she used both of these as ploys to keep her enemies from understanding all that she was.
