And someone was ready to follow her every keystroke, Lexi concluded. But the desire to open her computer was overwhelming. She sat down, pulled the laptop closer. When she lifted the lid, the familiar welcome screen—the one with the kittens—greeted her. She tapped in her password, waited with her fingers resting on the keys. Sucked in a deep breath before navigating to the email system.
It took her a few minutes to clear several days’ worth of emails. After working through the various business-related messages, Lexi sent replies to a few, and realized how many people wanted to sell her products she didn’t need. There were no personal messages. Ever.
She navigated to the second email account, the one she kept open after her grandmother died. She clicked on the connection, waited. After five minutes, she closed the screen. Marge curled her hands around Lexi’s shoulders, bent to press a kiss to the top of her head.
“Why do I keep hoping?” Lexi asked, her throat tight.
“Hope is hard to kill.”
It had been difficult, working through the financial details of her grandmother’s life. Lexi found the records she’d never known existed. Realized her grandmother sent checks every month to an active bank account. All those years, and never had her mother once responded. There was a new life in Nevada, a husband and two children—so children were not the issue, only the timing, and the fact that Lexi had resulted from a one-night stand filled with meaningless, unprotected sex.
But she’d hoped. Believed her mother would respond to the obituary. To the brief note Lexi included, regarding the checks that would no longer be deposited, since there was no money to fund them. Her grandmother’s retirement benefits had ended with her death.
There had been nothing. The slate wiped clean. And as Marge said, her life could no longer be a pity party because her deadbeat mother left her alone.
Lexi navigated away from the email accounts with efficiency. Searched various data banks. After thirty minutes, Marge leaned in. “You’re good, Lexi, but you won’t find anything.”
“Everyone leaves some kind of electronic footprint.”
“Not Arsen. And not the immortals. They’ve been operating beneath our notice for centuries.”
“There has to be something, some way they support themselves.”
“There are corporations he controls, and even if I gave you the names, all you’d find is the public information.”
“Arsen is that good?”
“His tech team is that good. If you want to know about what he does, you’ll need to ask him. He’ll probably tell you a little of it, but not all.”
“I thought he was a surfer boy.” Lexi leaned back in the chair, rubbed eyes gritty from a sleepless night and an email account that never received mail. “You said there were enemies.”
“An old war heating up between Three and Six.”
Marge walked back to the kitchen, turned on the water in the sink. Suds bubbled up, smelling like lemons. It was the homey, comforting normal Lexi rarely experienced.
“Do you know what it’s about?” Lexi asked.
“Power and murder, what else?”
Lexi leaned in and pulled up her favorite fringe sites. “There might be clues, odd things people notice and post to the paranormal blogs. Events I can string together with common elements. What should I know about Kace?”
“He’s been an enemy for a long time.” Marge was drying the dishes now, putting them in an upper cupboard. Lexi wondered why she kept her back turned. “He never found a human mate or developed human empathy, so he’s very much the immortal. Don’t trust him, Lexi.”
Lexi ignored the warning about trust and asked, “What makes someone an enforcer?”
“Enforcers earn the rank because of the powers they possess; that’s why they’re so terrifying. Kace belongs to Six the way Christan belongs to Three. And yes, immortals believe they own them, own all the warriors, because they created them.”
“Barbaric.”
“It’s what they are, Lexi. The immortal world runs parallel to ours, overlaps and interweaves, but it’s still separate. They have their own laws and customs. The hardest part for me was accepting that reality. I suspect it will be hard for you too.”
“Can I get rid of the thing Christan put in my head?”
“No. Once it’s done, it can’t be changed.”
“I’m starting to really hate him for doing it.” Something of an understatement, considering what the one word did, but Lexi didn’t want to fight with Marge about it.
“He’s immortal, Lexi, he thought the solution would satisfy you.”
A sharp pain pressed behind Lexi’s eyes. She felt unaccountably sad, then angry, and asked, “Did Robbie ever do that to you?”
Marge chucked. “Heavens no, I wouldn’t let him. I’d block any kind of mental influence if he ever tried.”
“I might have liked that,” Lexi said as she navigated through a series of blogs filled with vampire sightings on the Olympic Peninsula. “It might have been helpful, knowing how to stop the crazy immortal before he went ballistic.”
“What about those psychic energies you pull from the ground?” Marge asked, chuckling. “You told me you can shield yourself from the worst of it—can’t you use the same techniques?”
“They work with residual energy,” Lexi agreed, recalling how she learned to defend herself, or lose part of her sanity each time she dealt with the lingering violence and fear. “But they’re not strong enough to protect me from what Christan did.”
Marge turned and leaned against the granite counter, her hands resting on the edge. “Then ask Arsen,” she said after a moment. “A warrior won’t tell you how to defend against his own mind manipulation, but he’ll help you block someone else. Robbie would do it, but Arsen is stronger. It would serve Christan right. He can’t always have his way.”
“Does he do that a lot? Expect to get his way?”
“You should know.” Marge laughed. “And I mean that in a gentle way.”
Lexi gave up on the paranormal sites; there was another area of research she’d been avoiding. “Have you remembered your first life?”
“I think that’s the easiest life to remember.”
“Did you ever look for proof that it was real?”
“Of course.”
“And?”
“Do your research, Lexi. You won’t rest until you do.”
CHAPTER 11
Christan crouched near the top of the hill. The sun had crested the ridge and he could see the two figures emerging from the juniper trees crowding the canyon below. The men moved with stealth, but neither one was Kace; the man hadn’t waited around for a confrontation.
“Do you see them?” a voice asked telepathically.
Christan turned his head, pinpointing Arsen crouched on the hill to his left. “They’re heading your way.”
“Any sign of Kace?”
“Left mercenaries in his place. The labor pool must be drying up—these look out of their depth.”
Arsen laughed. Christan returned his gaze to the valley. The men below had moved into the sunlight where they stood, glancing cautiously around.
Christan was in his element. There were other enforcers in the service of the Calata, but none could quell insurrections as easily as he did. His appearance anywhere generated respect or fear—there was no ambiguity. Men had seen him fight and legends had followed, but Christan cared little for legends. He valued other traits. Honor. Justice. Those who were loyal to him came to that loyalty by choice and would follow him anywhere. They were brothers. Loved and respected, a privilege earned through centuries of fighting back-to-back on bloody fields beneath an unforgiving sun. He’d taken blades for them as they had for him, and those they lost they would see again on the other side.
Theirs was a culture blending two species into one. Few outside their ranks understood what bound them—the human tendencies against the immortal influences, always at war. Human ideas like justice and compassion contributed to strength and power, but Christan’s immortal half saw the world from an analytical view. Cold, unfeeling. Empathy was a weakness that could lead to failure. That was the side that gained dominance in the Void. He’d expected the human traits to return, but now he wondered if the Void had irrevocably changed him.