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Endelle, still holding her coffee cup in her hand, turned around and retrieved the coffee pot, then topped off Rachel’s mug. After returning the pot to its place, she reached out and touched Rachel’s shoulder.
For a brief second, Rachel had thought Her Supremeness was offering comfort. Instead, and fully without warning, she folded Rachel back to her private quarters.
“Hey,” Rachel said, now standing beside the chair she’d sat in earlier. “You could’ve told me what you meant to do.”
“What the hell is the fun in that?”
Rachel rolled her eyes, then once more sat down in the chair adjacent to the couch. She had a clear view of Duncan’s face. His eyes were still open and he’d blink now and then, but otherwise remained immobile.
“There’s one more thing,” Rachel said. “Carlyon never allowed Duncan to see his mother from the time they divorced. Duncan was six and had wonderful memories of her. Then just like that, he never saw her again.”
“So, Duncan shared this with you?”
“Over the years, yes. In one of our on-again moments.”
“Well, shit.” Endelle sat down and sipped her coffee. “You want my opinion?”
Like Endelle would hold back if Rachel said ‘no’. “Sure. Why, not?”
“Duncan’s the real deal, you know, despite his father’s heinous influence. He’s one of those men you know will always be there. I trust him the way I’ve always trusted Thorne.”
“I know what you mean. He’d lay down his life for me. I know he would.” Her throat ached badly and she couldn’t quite see for the unexpected tears.
But she held them back then remembered something. “Hey, just so you know, Thorne’s here. I saw him in the Command Center.”
Something like hope entered Endelle’s eye. She stood up too quickly and sloshed her coffee on the carpet. But she set the mug down and without a word to Rachel, left the room.
~ ~ ~
Duncan watched Yolanthe snoring on her daybed, her leopard stretched out beside her. The woman almost looked harmless, sort of like a hibernating rattlesnake.
He had to think.
He had to find a way to break her mind-link.
He looked back over the period of time when he was pulled out of New River, then tortured in a cell on Third Earth.
Sharav’s excruciating regimen of carefully inflicted pain had served a purpose, something Duncan understood very well now. Sharav had been working the whole time to bring Duncan’s powers online, just as he had through Samuel’s torture.
The torture had worked and Duncan was now a Warrior of the Blood, something he felt in every bone of his body. He was leaving behind his service as a Thunder God Warrior and embracing an even more difficult path.
He also knew he was more than just a warrior now. But what that meant, what his path should be, he didn’t know, at least not yet.
Because of what Yolanthe had told him, he knew his power would evolve to a point that he would be able to find a mythical place called Rapture's Edge. And with
this awareness, Duncan finally began the process of taking a different view of his current captive state.
Rather than hunt for a way out, something he’d done accidentally the last time, he sank deep into his ascended vampire nature, into all that he was as a long-lived man.
He’d never explored within. His physical life as a warrior always had an external purpose: wielding a sword, battling death vampires, supporting his brothers-in-arms, making war every night of his life.
He sank deeper and deeper until he came to the core of his being, the same place Yolanthe had taken him, only without pain this time.
And there, once more, he found Yolanthe’s link, a throbbing amber pulse.
He also knew in his gut that he could destroy the link and free himself. But just as he readied, he paused. If he could break the link when he chose, maybe he could make use of it as well.
Yolanthe was the key to Endelle’s vision. What if the link could be used to his advantage?
