CHAPTER 22
Alison cut the tags off a new silk blouse, a green blouse she had purchased earlier at a pricey Scottsdale Two shop. She had worn a similar blouse the night she had first met Kerrick, the night she had been introduced to the world of ascension, to the world of the vampire.
A sob caught in her chest. She willed away the spasms yet the tears remained. They fell, streamed, ran down her face. Her nose was a mess. She kept blowing her nose, shaking her head, cutting off tags.
She had erred and she didn’t know how to make things right, how to move forward.
Havily had let her stay in her town house, in the spare room, just as she had once promised. Alison had needed new clothes, so she had gone shopping. Such a normal thing to do, especially after she had almost killed her boyfriend.
Her throat hurt. More tears splashed all around the bedroom.
Three days had passed. She had spent three days at the hospital, chained to Kerrick’s bed, willing him to get better hour by hour, even after the chance of his dying had long since passed. She had willed his healing to improve, she had begged Horace to come to the hospital and use his healing powers, she had consulted with the surgeons, she had gone to the hospital chapel and begged the Creator to speed his healing, to make him well, to make things right, to erase the past, demolish the night of her ascension celebration, to forgive her, forgive her, forgive her.
Kerrick would live. After taking a hand-blast to the abdomen, he had come back from the dead. He’d survived surgery. He would live to fight another day.
Now she bent over a pair of DKNY jeans, her favorite. Tears plopped, darkening the denim in grief-stricken polka dots. She cut off more tags. She hiccuped as she straightened. She folded the jeans over a hanger. She shoved the hanger into the closet. Looked at all the new clothes. She whipped around and folded more tissues from the box in the bathroom. She sounded a horn with her nose and wiped. She wiped some more.
Kerrick had almost died.
The thought broke her. She dropped to the carpet between a double bed and mirrored closet doors. Great rolling sobs charged out of her body. Heavy waves of grief and regret punched the air.
What a fool she had been to have thought Second Earth would be different for her.
Havily appeared in the doorway. She rushed forward and called to her in a sweet repetitive flow of words, “No, no, no, no, no.” She dropped beside her and surrounded her with her arms. “Don’t cry, ascender. Don’t cry. He lives.”
“I almost killed him. I almost killed him.”
“He lives.”
“He died.”
“You brought him back.”
Alison rocked.
Havily rocked with her, whispering tender words in her ear, “He lives, he lives, he lives.”
Alison hiccuped again. She honked into the tissues. She rocked a little more. She shifted toward Havily and met her gaze. “I can’t be with him, can I?”
“Of course you can.”
“No, I can’t. I have too much power. I should have known. I should have known.”
* * *
Havily folded a fresh tissue from the bathroom and wiped Alison’s cheeks. She thought, I feel this way, too, like I could fall on my face and sob like a baby.
She shouldn’t feel so desolate, not after what happened, not after Marcus had morphed into a crazed beast, not after he’d tried to have his way with her against the wall of the third rotunda of Madame Endelle’s palace, right in front of the Creator and everyone.
She didn’t understand her attraction to the man at all. He was the antithesis of what she desired for her life. She wanted a man who felt as passionately about Second Earth as she did, about desiring to make a significant contribution to the improvement of society and certainly to the ending of the war.
Warrior Marcus—and surely he didn’t deserve the appellation warrior—knew little of selflessness. He had only aided the warriors by order of the Supreme High Administrator.
No. Warrior Marcus was not worth even one thought, let alone the thousand she had spent on him since she had first caught his fennel scent at the Cave.
Now he was gone. He’d returned to Mortal Earth for good.
Tears fell from her eyes, soft streams of incomprehension.
“I’ve made you cry,” Alison wailed, her sobs coming harder.
Maybe weeping was infectious. The trouble was, Havily didn’t understand the source of her anguish except she kept remembering Marcus, weighed down by Luken’s mountain of a warrior body, his arms shaking as he crawled toward her, trying to get to her. He kept calling out, Havily, I’m coming. I’ll protect you.
The tears flowed faster, harder.
Marcus had left late that night, after Horace had healed him, after he had begged the warriors to forgive him for his unconscionable behavior. He hadn’t even come to see her, not even to apologize … although, she hadn’t wanted, expected, or needed an apology because she had been an oh-so-willing participant in his I-must-have-you-now assault.
She folded more tissues from the bathroom. She handed over a little stack but kept a similar thick wad for herself. She blew her nose.
When Marcus had pinned her against the wall, she hadn’t been frightened, not in the least. Surprised, maybe. Hungry for him … oh, God, yes, so hungry.
Maybe she’d been celibate too long. After all, she hadn’t looked at another man, hadn’t been remotely interested, in fifteen years. Her mission had consumed her waking hours. The belief she could make a difference in the war through administrative restructuring had replaced romantic love, had become her raison d’être, her purpose, her lifeblood. She didn’t need love. She didn’t want love. Truly.
Then Marcus had come and in three days, he had shattered the simplicity of her life and all because she wanted him. She wanted him with a ferocity that now commanded even her dreams.
So she wept.
* * *
Kerrick reclined in his hospital bed. He detested being stuck in the sterile environment because it spoke of weakness and vulnerability, two things a warrior could never be. Worse, he’d had time to think.
His abdomen still caused him tremendous pain even though surgery as well as Horace’s help had speeded up what on Mortal Earth would have been months of recovery and a plethora of scarring. Ascended vampire healing would allow him to leave the hospital in three or four more days almost good as new.
He lifted his left hand carefully and shoved it through his long loose hair. He took a careful breath. Damn. Even breathing caused him trouble. He had never been wounded like this before.
Alison had been with him every day. Her presence had been necessary, even critical for his recovery. This morning, however, he’d awakened with new thoughts, horrifying thoughts, the revisiting of past tragedies, of deep painful regrets, deeds he still wished undone.
Former wives came to mind, former children. He hurt all over again as though life had just strapped a band around his chest and kept tightening it as the hours progressed.
As for Alison, his thoughts weren’t focused on the mistake she had made, on the hand-blast she had sent that had almost cost him his life. No, when he thought back to her celebration, all he could recall was the terrible sensation of battling in full-mount with his breh at his back and knowing how one wrong slip of his sword would take her life, that if he didn’t make every right move, if he took one wrong step to the right or to the left while battling the death vamps, she would be struck down and most likely killed.
He didn’t blame Alison for what happened after that. He knew who to blame, that bastard who had styled himself the Commander simply because he wished it so.
As attacks went, this one had been damn clever. Greaves had fed Alison a vision and she’d bought it. Clearly his intention hadn’t been to harm her but to use her, which once more forced the issue of proximity. Since she was ascended and had completed her rite, she was now safe from direct attack, but not from collateral damage should she remain connected to him or to any of the Warriors of the Blood.
The oh-so-logical conclusion barreled down on him
Ever since COPASS had been created and the rule of law was established over the ongoing conflict between Endelle and Greaves, no ascendiate, however powerful, had been attacked after an ascension ceremony. So this attack hadn’t been about Alison. She’d merely been the tool Greaves had chosen to use to once more take up arms against the Warriors of the Blood.
What had he been thinking? The truth was, his thoughts had been selfish, focused on his pleasure, his need for Alison, his desire for her. Bottom line? He’d been keeping himself in a powerful state of denial about his current position as a Warrior of the Blood.
And now they were having a daughter.
He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. The near-fatal accident, Alison’s hand-blast to his chest, had become a huge awakening to the folly he had almost committed with her.
He’d been living in a dream, pretending Second Earth was something other than what it was, as though his life as a warrior, his place of service, wasn’t the difficult dangerous task it was.
Yes, being in the hospital, bedridden so his internal organs could continue repairing at light speed, had given him time to think, to plan, and that plan didn’t include Alison being anywhere near him.
There was only one reason he didn’t embrace the idea fully—the thought of living without her plunged a knife straight through his heart. How was he to live in a world in which he couldn’t be with her, touch her, possess the well of her body?
From this point forward, however, her safety, as well as the safety of their child, could be the only consideration. And they would never be safe near him.
A knock on the door, then Alison entered his room. She wore a light green silk blouse. She had worn something similar the evening he had first met her at the medical complex and, yeah, her hair was bound up again, wrapped into that tight twist. How long ago was that? Years ago …
She looked so beautiful yet so sad. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her nose looked a little swollen. The pressure on his chest increased incrementally with each step she took toward him.
“Hi,” she said, her voice little more than a breathy whisper. She drew close, leaned over him, and kissed him … on the forehead.
He shifted his head and met her gaze. Dammit, she had tears swimming over her blue, gold-rimmed eyes. “What’s wrong? The baby okay?”
She touched her abdomen. “Baby’s fine.”
He released a sigh. “Good. That’s good.”
She drew a chair forward, close to the bed, as was her habit. She sat down and took hold of his right hand. Tears now pelted her cheeks. She kept wiping them away with her free hand but more followed.
“Alison, what’s wrong?” He thought he knew. Well, they were like-minded. He knew her mind. She knew his. Yeah, he knew.
She lifted her gaze to his. “We can’t do this, can we?”
So she’d reached the same damn conclusion. He shook his head back and forth, back and forth. His throat tightened. “I don’t see how.”
She nodded and a sob escaped her as she put her forehead on the back of his hand.
“Don’t cry.” Stupid words, especially since his eyes burned and his jaw cramped.
He let her be and worked hard to unknot his throat. After a while, she rose and plucked several of the very thin hospital tissues from the box by his bed then blew her nose. Even with her eyes leaking and a cloud of tissue pressed to her face she looked so damn beautiful.
Once recovered, she said, “I’ve been thinking that perhaps I should go somewhere else, not stay here in Phoenix, maybe live in a different city.”
“Another city?”
She turned toward him and huffed a breath. “Just how easy do you think it would be to stay apart if we lived in the same place?”
He looked away from her. “It would be impossible. But where would you go?” Would he ever get to see his daughter? If so, how often? How the hell could this work? Yet he knew she was right. From this point forward, he was the real danger to their safety, just as he had been to Helena.
Still, the thought of Alison anywhere but next to him made his biceps crunch into boulders. His instincts where she was concerned were alive, painfully so.
“What the f*ck are you talking about?” a hard feminine voice bellowed into the room. “Another city, Alison? Don’t be a saphead.”
Kerrick turned toward the door. Endelle materialized wearing a very strange cape made of peacock feathers and a short spotted hide dress. Add a few strands of beads and she would have looked as though she’d just returned from Mardi Gras. Christ.
She waved a sheaf of papers in the air. “Alison, you are to report to the Militia Warrior Training Camps, Female Division. Your CO will expect you tomorrow at eight o’clock sharp. All the information is here.”
“What?” Alison cried.
“She’s not a warrior!” Kerrick shouted. He had moved, jerking forward, but oh dear God that was so the wrong thing to do given his recent surgery. He settled back against the pillows and groaned … loud. Sweat broke out all over his body. He struggled to breathe as pain shot through his stitched-up organs and muscles as though someone had fired up a flamethrower and turned it on high. Christ almighty. Obscenities a mile long flowed through his head.
“You were saying?” Endelle murmured. She even laughed.
The bitch was back and apparently full of plans.
Endelle cut her gaze to Alison. “Your exceptional powers must be put to the best possible use. When properly trained, I know you’ll be able to battle death vamps one-on-one, and with experience over the next several decades you might even be in charge of the facility; certainly you’ll be training warriors by then. You do know about our Militia Warriors.”
Alison’s voice sounded faint, disbelieving. “They’re sort of like the National Guard and a police force combined. But—”
Endelle cut her off. “Yeah, that’s about right and you’ll be one of them so no more discussion about leaving Phoenix Two. And for God’s sake, no f*cking whining! Oh, and congratulations on the baby. Good luck, ascender Wells.” As she dematerialized, she tossed the papers in the air. They floated every which way, a couple of them landing on Kerrick’s bed.
Alison gestured in the direction of Endelle’s recent appearance. “What on earth was she wearing? The fur was bristled, kind of stiff. What was that?”
Kerrick shook his head. “I don’t know. Hyena?”
Alison laughed but shortly afterward her expression fell. She planted her hands on her hips and shook her head over and over. Meeting his gaze, she said, “I can’t believe she expects me to be a warrior. I’m about as fit to be a warrior as you are a … a … well, a hairdresser, for God’s sake.”
He let loose a bark of laughter, gasped as pain ignited once more, then clawed for air. “Don’t … make me … laugh,” he sputtered.
“Sorry. That wasn’t meant to be funny but it kind of is.” When she started to laugh again, he put a pillow over his abdomen and took more deep breaths.
Yeah, a woman—now a vampire—who could make him laugh. How the hell was he supposed to let her go?
The shared amusement didn’t last long, however, and for the next hour, she sat beside the bed just holding his hand, not speaking, and once more making a serious effort to empty the tissue box.
* * *
Alison flew over White Lake. Euphoria kept her mind in a state of bliss, her heart fluttering in her chest, her fingertips tingling. She stretched out on the wind, her wings propelling her forward in deep pulls.
Flight. Best creation ever.
As before, she dipped in the direction of the lake, dropped her legs, fluffed her wings into an almost parachute-like position, and slowly descended to the water. Her toes dipped in. The lake anchored her.
A tremendous yearning filled her chest, a longing so fierce she wanted to weep and shout and cry out. She looked up, straight up, and this time she saw a swirling blue vortex and beyond … oh, she could see beyond to a new world of white marble villas, some hanging among the clouds, a beautiful world.
Third Earth. Same geography. Different dimension.
The yearning increased. She tried to fly upward, but the lake had its hold on her, a powerful grip, which she could not break no matter how hard she tried.
The presence of others encouraged her, strengthened her. She took their hands. Together they formed a powerful chain until at last she began to rise. The hands dropped away. She flew straight up, into the swirling blue vortex, faster and faster.
“Not yet,” a man’s voice cried out, an unfamiliar voice. “You must wait a little while longer but you will be the instrument of breaking that which must be broken. In the fullness of time, all will be revealed.”
Alison awoke, her eyes flipping open to the sight of another ceiling. Oh, the ceiling in Havily’s spare room. She pressed a hand to her chest. The yearning remained, the longing for Third Earth. She had just arrived on Second. How could she already be feeling such things, all over again, for a different dimension?
Guardian drifted through her mind, in almost the same masculine voice as she had heard speaking in her dream.
She squeezed her eyes shut and took deep breaths. The dream had advanced. Others, though indistinguishable, had been in the dream, and this time she had flown toward the Trough, toward the blue spinning vortex that led to Third Earth. To break that which must be broken.
Here she was headed to the Female Militia Warrior Training Camp and still dreaming, even more forcefully, about Third Earth.
Just what the hell was she supposed to do with that?
* * *
“F*ck off.” Kerrick glared at Jean-Pierre. Six days in the hospital had worn on his nerves and now his brother lounged in one of the chairs, his words designed to torment.
Jean-Pierre shrugged. “But if you do not want her, Kerrick”—his name sounded like Karreek—“I wish to court her. She’s lovely and smells of the sea.”
She smells of lavender you f*cking idiot and there’s no way in hell I’ll let you near her.
He looked away from Jean-Pierre. “Why the f*ck are you here?”
“To open your eyes, you motherless piece of shit.” Again … sheet. But the women loved his accent. Would Alison?
He shuddered. He threw back the light covers then flipped his legs over the side of the hospital bed. He ached over his abdomen but he was well enough to get the hell out of bed and out of this sterile environment. He folded off the gown and with enough speed to keep Jean-Pierre from going blind, folded on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
He stood up, but staggered.
Jean-Pierre caught his arm. Kerrick shook it off. “So you came here to bust my balls over … ascender Wells.”
“I came,” he said, easing his voice over the English words, “to talk sense into that fat head of yours, mon ami.”
“Her decision as much as mine.”
“She belongs to you, you must see that. She is your breh and she carries your child. Don’t be so f*cking stupid.” Stoopeed. “Très stupide. Idiot. You love her, non?”
“Yes.” Like rain to earth.
“But she will find someone else, non?”
“She should.”
“Somone to raise your daughter, yes?”
“Again, f*ck off, Jean-Pierre. You think I haven’t had these thoughts?”
“I think you have not accepted your death, or hers. We all die, even in these ascended worlds. You have a chance to be happy. You should take it.”
Kerrick turned toward him. “So why the f*ck haven’t you taken a wife, O wise French a*shole?”
He shrugged. “I love all women. I could never love just one. I am not like you.” He tossed a negligent arm as though that finished the discussion.
“You’re so full of shit. You just wait, J.P. She’ll come along and then you’ll discover for yourself exactly what kind of hell this is and why you won’t be able to be with her.”
He braced his feet apart and started to walk. He pushed the door to his room open and ventured into the hall. The more steps he took, the stronger he felt. A squadron of nurses came running at him, squawking the whole time, but he moved past them. He had to get out of the hospital.
Jean-Pierre caught up with the gaggle of women in scrubs and before he knew it, the Gallic warrior had enthralled them all and led them away. He might in this moment hate J.P., but his brother still had his back.
He left by the front sliders and located his phone, then brought it without a thought into his hand. He called Central. “Hey, Jeannie.”
“There’s my man,” she cried. “How the hell are you, duhuro?”
He smiled and his chest eased a little. “Couldn’t be f*cking better. Give me a lift to my house in Scottsdale Two.”
“You got it. How’s your spaghetti stomach?”
He looked down at his abdomen and patted the achy flesh, crisscrossed with fading scars. “More like lasagna now.”
She laughed, which made him laugh, which made him grimace.
“Here ya go, Warrior Kerrick. Feel better.”
He felt the vibration, that brief winking out then flashing back in, and he stood in the entry of his home gasping in pain.
Oh, f*ck. He shouldn’t have dematerialized so soon. Holy mother of God. He struggled to breathe as his cells settled back down, but again it was like someone was holding a blowtorch to the inside of his body. Shit. Only after several minutes did he dare move, and he still hadn’t taken a deep breath.
He remained in place and looked around, at the expansive living room off to the right, full of oversized furniture, the kind meant to fit warrior bodies. He glanced to his left, to the massive library he’d built book by book for centuries. In front of him the formal, curved, wood-paneled staircase, which led to his bedroom, the one he hadn’t used in two centuries.
He glanced at the door leading to his basement. He repressed a sigh.
Without thinking too much, he moved forward and one step at a time, climbed the stairs, his abdomen screaming by the time he reached the landing at the top. He turned to the right, moved down the hall to the double doors, left wide. Beyond was the master suite where he had lived with Helena all those years ago.
Once in the bedroom, everything was as he remembered: the enormous, four-poster bed, also built for his supersized body and meant for maneuverability. He’d maneuvered over Helena’s body and she’d loved it. His heart ached now, as much for her as for the absence of Alison at his side.
He passed by the bed, moving to the tall arched window at least fifteen feet in height. The rolling mansion grounds stretched a good quarter mile beyond. He looked down. Lawn traveled forever, trees brought in from all over the world, and flowers everywhere. Toward the back, mounds of honeysuckle covered a ten-foot wall, both sides. He could hear the chattering of the shrub birds from where he stood.
Helena had insisted on a garden. If we must live in the desert, we will transform the desert. She had been a trouper, a real warrior’s wife. But then her brother was a warrior, so she understood their world well, she knew the dangers, she had accepted them, she had laughed at Kerrick’s concerns.
Then she had died.
He drew in a deep breath, one hand planted on his abdomen to keep things from moving while he breathed. Helena had never made promises, had she? She’d never spoken in terms of years. She had adhered to what became AA’s watchphrase, One day at a time. She had asked for nothing more.
But he had never believed her. Yet now, as he thought of her, he knew she truly hadn’t asked more than one day of him, ever, that she’d understood from the beginning the risk, accepted the risk, and lived full-throttle despite the terrible reality of his job.
And she’d paid for it. So had his children.
Now he had another child on the way, a daughter this time. What would Alison name her? he wondered. Would he ever get to see her? Would she have Alison’s blue eyes? Her soft blond hair? Her deep empathy? Her ability to throw a hand-blast that could cross dimensions, or shred a warrior’s abdomen?
He wanted to know. He needed to know.
His chest felt crushed now as he stared out at the quiet property.
A singular question surfaced. He hadn’t been in this bedroom for almost two centuries. Now he was here.
Why?
* * *
Two weeks into her training program, Alison entered the showers at her barracks. She rinsed off the two inches of dust she’d accumulated in the course of the day’s field training. Her lungs felt clogged. She blew her nose a dozen times trying to get rid of all the powdery dirt lodged in her sinuses.
She wished more than anything she could call her sister and talk everything over with her. Joy had been her friend, her confidante, yes, even her counselor, for well over a decade despite the fact that six years separated them. However, phone calls to Mortal Earth weren’t allowed without special permission and right now her CO wouldn’t see her. For some reason the woman was tense, even anxious about her presence at the camps, but she didn’t know why. In time Alison was certain she could work everything out, but right now that meant she couldn’t talk to Joy and get the comfort and relief she really needed. Besides, if much more time passed, her sister would start to get worried that maybe she’d gotten kidnapped during her made-up trip to Mexico.
Whatever.
At least the shower eased her. Though she had entered the program physically fit, the rigors of the military training left her muscles on fire at the end of each day.
She had stayed on the field an hour past the time the last trainee headed to the showers. She needed some alone time, away from the jockeying-for-toughest-bitch-position that went on constantly. She hated the strife, and her nerves had reached a snapping point. She feared she’d end up on overload, release too much of her power, and send one of these macho females to perdition.
The water beat on her head and neck, all across her shoulders in a blissful pounding. As some of her tension disappeared, she became aware of a dragging sensation in her chest, as though gravity had doubled its hold on her heart.
She missed Kerrick so much, more than she had thought possible. Only fourteen days had passed, but her loneliness had become a series of tsunamis that kept swamping her. She wept silent tears into her pillow at night. She smelled cardamom in her dreams.
How was she going to endure this separation?
She turned into the water and let it stream down on her head. Tears joined the flow. She pressed a hand to her lower abdomen, aware, as she always was now, of the life inside her. She wanted her baby to have a father, to grow up as she had grown up beneath the love, care, and affection of two parents. The tears flowed harder, faster for a long time, until at last she could draw breath and not want to fall to the wet tiles and sob her heart out.
Shutting off the water, she toweled dry then dressed in clean green fatigues and socks. She stretched out on her cot and put her hands behind her head. It felt so good to lie down, and she had a lot to think about, to process.
She knew one thing. She couldn’t continue as she was, so painfully heartbroken every night. Something had to change.
As she considered her situation, a seed of resistance began to grow, built of anger and grief, forged perhaps in memories of having fought Leto in the Tolleson arena. What was the point of having endured such a tremendous contest only to end up alone, at the training camps, and weeping?
Somehow the two concepts did not mix.
What was the point of so much power, of having ascended with the same level of ability Endelle had possessed upon her ascension, but to be trapped in a training program for which she knew she was fundamentally unsuited?
Was this truly all her ascended life would be? How was this any better than her cloistered existence on Mortal Earth? The result was exactly the same—she was essentially alone, as she had been all her life. She was still holding back her powers and trying not to hurt anyone, just as she had on Mortal Earth, and she was still living a constrained, frustrating, not-built-for-her existence, dammit.
What was she doing training to be a warrior anyway? She had no heart for this form of service. She never would. In this profession she would be a shade-loving fern expected to thrive beneath a desert sun.
Worse than that, however, she was sick at heart. She hadn’t seen Kerrick for two weeks now but instead of the separation getting easier, it had gotten harder.
When she had split from Kerrick at the hospital, she hadn’t expected to feel so much, to feel as though her heart had been torn in the process and just continued to bleed, refusing to be healed. She loved him, yes. She’d slept with him, well, a lot. He’d gotten her very pregnant. But she’d only known him three days. Surely she wasn’t that attached.
Hah.
Her love for him possessed her, and the deep sharing of minds possible only on Second had changed everything because she knew Kerrick.
She knew him.
She. Knew. Him.
Mind-diving had given her so much understanding of his essential noble warrior character as well as knowledge of his life. For that reason half the pain she felt when she thought of him was also a projected pain based on how she knew he would be feeling right now, separated as he was from her.
Kerrick had known what it was to love well and to love deeply. He fit the model of a man or woman who had been happily married once and was much more likely to want to marry again. He’d known two fine marriages. She’d lived those marriages with him when she’d been within his mind. Even now when she thought of his first wife, Marta, and his second wife, Helena, she had great affection and appreciation for these women because they had each given Kerrick great pleasure, deep satisfaction, and tremendous relief from the struggles and pressures of life.
Knowing especially of Helena’s sacrifices, she kept asking herself the tough question: Was she doing the right thing in separating herself from Kerrick?
Part of her, the old part, the part that had grown up on Mortal Earth essentially separated from society, felt certain this was the right path, because it was how she had always lived. But there was another part, a new part, a new inner eye, that kept nagging at her, kept asking the question—Do you still intend to live through your fears alone?
But the consequence of making a mistake—like the one she had made at Endelle’s palace—was, simply, death. So how could she justify being close to Kerrick, ever, when she had so much power, which had already once almost taken his life?
The answer was—she couldn’t!
Her thoughts turned to Kerrick’s second wife, Helena. She had seen this woman through Kerrick’s eyes, the love he had for her, his devotion to her, and his admiration of her.
She smiled when she thought of Helena. She could see the arguments she’d had with Kerrick. She played them through her mind, how he had refused for years to be wedded to her, but how Helena in the end had prevailed. A stalwart woman, a woman unafraid of life. Though she understood the risks of marriage to a Warrior of the Blood, she had insisted on marrying him anyway.
In all those arguments, Helena had never once said something like, Our love will prevail. Her arguments instead had addressed the reality of his situation: I refuse to live in fear, not now, not ever. You are what I want and I accept all the risks inherent in your warrior life.
What would it be like to live with such courage, such fearlessness?
The arena battle once more came to mind. If she could survive something so horrendous as battling Leto mano a mano, why couldn’t she survive whatever else Darian threw at her?
But maybe that was the wrong question to ask.
And in that moment, the heavens parted and Alison finally understood the real question she needed to ask herself. No one knew the number of their days, but wouldn’t it be better to live full-out, to ride the hurricane, however frightening, than to continue to retreat into a pit of despair?
Her heart rate sped up. She rose to a sitting position. She drew a deep breath and the fatigue of the day’s workout fled her.
Wouldn’t it be better to ride the hurricane?
The imagery shot adrenaline full-blast through her system—but at almost the same moment, a strange sensation gripped her as the hairs at the nape of her neck stood up. She recalled the same prickling awareness at Endelle’s palace right before the attack.
Like the warriors, she didn’t wait for further enlightenment. She leaped to a standing position and drew her identified sword into her hand, all the way from the guest room in Kerrick’s Queen Creek house, right where she had left it.
She felt a quickening down both sides of her back and instinctively knew she felt what would one day be her wing-locks, although Kerrick had assured her she probably wouldn’t be able to mount wings for at least a year.
A moment more and three death vamps, all in full-mount glossy black wings, blurred into the long-empty barracks.
Alison folded to a distant corner of the ceiling. She couldn’t fly yet, but she could levitate.
At first the pretty-boys were confused, but when they saw her location, they launched as one. She was unsure of her ability to fight them all, so without dwelling on the why of it too much she folded directly to the Cave, straight into the middle of the room. Fortunately, three of the warriors were present—Luken, Medichi, and Santiago.
She called out, “Death vamps,” in a loud voice. She took up her position, assuming the warrior’s stance, legs apart, hands together on the leather-wrapped grip, sword upright.
Surprise registered first, then a quick gathering of wits and weapons.
A few seconds later, as the death vamps followed her trace, she simply moved out of the way and let the men get down to business.
The battle lasted only a matter of seconds. Three seasoned powerful warriors against three pretty-boys gave the death vampires odds of about a million-to-one they’d live.
They didn’t.
Medichi called Central for cleanup.
Alison stood nearby, shaking. She was officially AWOL, and though she should return and even prepared to fold, Medichi caught her arm and shook his head. “Stay, ascender Wells. Tell us what happened. My guess is you’ll be in danger if you return.”
She nodded because she suspected he was right. Who knew what waited for her back at the barracks? She had been assured that once she ascended the attacks would end. Both Kerrick and Endelle had been wrong.
She related that she’d stayed behind to be alone for a while. She touched her stomach absently. “Then I got that feeling, that creepy sensation that a spider was on my neck.”
All three warriors grumbled their understanding.
“The next thing I knew, there they were.”
“In the barracks?” Medichi cried. “Armed?”
“And in full-mount. I knew I couldn’t fight them myself and I didn’t know what else to do so I folded here. I was afraid if I led them anywhere else on the base I’d be putting a lot of women in jeopardy. I’m so sorry.”
“Goddammit, don’t apologize,” Medichi cried. “You did the right thing, but shit this is so f*cked up. Death vamps hunting down an ascender at a training facility…”
Alison frowned. “So I’m right in that they shouldn’t have been attacking me at the barracks—that this isn’t normal.”
“Not even a little. You’re an ascender now, and this attack is highly illegal. Endelle can take this to COPASS and the Committee will be forced to act against Greaves. The bastard doesn’t own all of them yet.” He started pacing then muttered, “Although it doesn’t mean you won’t be attacked again. Shit, we’ve gotta get Kerrick in on this, and Thorne. Hell, all the brothers should be here. Let’s give Jean-Pierre and Zach a shout as well.”
Kerrick. Oh, no. “Are you sure this is necessary? Do you really need to bring Kerrick here?” Oh, God, how much she wanted to see him.
If her heart was pounding before, now it slammed around in her chest.
Medichi drew close, his eyes full of compassion. “I’m sorry, Alison, but he’d have our balls if we didn’t. So take pity on the three of us.”
She glanced from Medichi to Luken to Santiago. She nodded. She released her sword back to Kerrick’s guest room. The memories from her time in his house flowed over her in sudden painful waves. Her throat tightened.
She waited, her heart hammering away. She smoothed back her still-damp hair. She had no idea what she looked like. What would she do if she saw him again? More importantly, if she had more courage, like Helena, could she have a life with him? Would her daughter then be able to really know her father?
Change comes,
But only when the heart has been shaped by suffering.
—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth