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He held the stemmed glass by the base and slowly swirled his wine. “I’m afraid not.” He shook his head, frowning. “I spent six hours hunting through the future streams this morning. Once in a while, I could feel myself drawing close to Duncan, especially when I focused on some of the warriors with whom he has served in recent decades, all Militia Warriors: Owen, Joshua and Alex. But just as I was making progress and could sense Duncan wasn’t far away, I lost all of them. And not one of my substantial powers could summon them back.”
Yolanthe leaned forward, frowning. “This is very odd.”
Zander nodded. “I can only draw one conclusion: I’m being blocked by another powerful Seer.”
“But how would that be possible? Our father has the most powerful Seers on Third Earth bound in his Seers Fortress in Chicago Three.”
“I had the same thought. But I’m reporting what I’ve experienced and I’m telling you a Third Earth Seer is blocking access to your man.”
Her man. Duncan and those green eyes. His hair was thick and to his shoulders. How many times had she imagined sliding her fing
ers through his hair, drifting down to his neck and sinking her nails. With just a few thoughts of him, she felt a profound need to head to her baths, which she would do once she visited her prisoner.
She sipped her chocolate wine and repressed a heavy sigh. She could only conclude her brother had it right for no other reason than Duncan existed. She couldn’t be the only one seeking Rapture’s Edge, so others would know of Duncan as well. But who would this entity possibly be? She wondered if The Prince, who ruled a third of the planet, was also after Rapture’s Edge, but she doubted it. He was far too busy holding off an infinite number of rebellions to be hunting for either Duncan or Rapture’s Edge.
Sipping her wine, she added, “Keep trying, my love.”
“I will. You may trust me in that.”
“I do. All we need is one small opening and I will set my Mexican Three army after him.”
“Even the death vampires?”
“Of course. I will not rest until I have Duncan back under my control.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Change can kiss my ass.
Favorite Sayings – Madame Endelle, Supreme High Administrator of Second Earth Luken smiled as Rachel took tentative steps across the thick glass floor of Jean-Pierre’s ‘sycamore’ room. The glass allowed a view of Oak Creek below, though the room was open to the night sky above.
The forty-foot space was a perfect circle with no windows on the paneled redwood walls. The central tree had an odd horizontal and very low branch jutting from the main trunk, something Jean-Pierre must have trained early on in the tree’s life. A certain amount of gossip had made the rounds about the branch. By the height of it, Luken knew the gossip was probably true.
Poor Fiona. She would blush scarlet for a year if she knew how much their community of warriors and their breh had actually discussed the tree in this room.
Yet something about the space, and the potential use for the branch between a man and his woman, made Luken’s heart tighten. His lips parted and he drew a breath that felt centuries old. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a serious relationship. Maybe never. Havily had been the closest thing in recent centuries. But even then, she’d never truly belonged to him. Long before her breh, Marcus, had come along, he’d asked Havily out repeatedly. But she’d always refused for the simple reason she knew she could never reciprocate his feelings.
He hadn’t seen her in a month, not since his last visit to her office at Endelle’s administrative HQ opposite Camelback Mountain Two. What surprised him was how little his thoughts had returned to her during the ensuing weeks. Even his desperate longings for her had dimmed in the face of his new mission.
He concluded that what had been a century of unrequited love had at long last come to an end, though he couldn’t say why. But his eyes faced forward now, settled strongly on Third Earth. He felt as though he’d sailed away on a ship intended for a very long voyage.
And in his heart, he wished Havily and Marcus well.
The door to the room opened, drawing his eye away from the branch. But what a shock when Endelle walked in. For one thing, he hadn’t been expecting her. For another, she looked like she was made for … nope, he didn’t know what she was made for.
All eyes turned her direction.
Endelle had traded in her scorpion motif and now wore a breastplate of small, blade-like shapes made of brass, each dotted with a cluster of red, green and blue crystals. There had to be thirty of them forming a plate that flowed to a point that hit her bare navel. She wore a sheer, cloud-like red skirt hanging from her hips to mid-calf, made out of some kind of mesh fabric. A skimpy red slip beneath covered the tops of her hips and ran to another point, hiding her womanly bits. Otherwise the bare sides of her hips were visible through the sheer fabric of the skirt.
And of course she wore stiletto boots that hit her above the knee.
Endelle had always looked like an Arabian princess, no less so now with her thick, black hair teased into a massive volume and studded with three peacock feathers.
She had to dip below the doorway just to enter the room. She was tall for a woman anyway at six-five, but her stilettos and feathers put her over the top. She looked absurd yet regal at the same time, vintage Endelle.
“Jeannie called and told me you were meeting at Jean-Pierre’s home. Thought I should be here.” She frowned as her gaze slid around the group. “So what’s going on?”
It struck Luken the woman rarely frowned. She yelled, shouted, and spoke with a resonance that hurt his ears, but generally her face maintained a less involved and quite beautiful expression.
