Expletives rounded the group.

“No fucking way,” Zach cried. “And she took it? How? I can’t even do that.”

Endelle shook her head. “She’s powerful, more than even she knows, more than I suspect even I know.”

Several gasps followed the last part of this statement, which pleased her to no end because it reflected their view of her as one approaching omniscience. Nice.

“We’re done here. I’ll see all of you at the arena tonight and for Christ’s sake arrive early in dress uniform, including you, Warrior Marcus. Alison Wells means something as-yet-to-be-defined to Second Earth and also to this ape over here.” She jerked her thumb toward Kerrick.

“And as for you,” she cried, glaring at Kerrick. “Get the fuck back to Queen Creek and do your goddam guardian duty. I’ll send Horace to you to get you fixed up.” She didn’t wait for an argument. She waved her arm and Kerrick vanished.

She then pointed to Marcus. “You, asshole. One more word to Kerrick about Helena and I’m taking your left nut.” Just to let him know she could, she mentally gave a little tug, which made Marcus’s eyes pop, then she gave a sharp twist. He doubled over. “What do you say?”

“Yes, Madame Endelle,” he wheezed, his face turning a pretty strawberry-red.

She inclined her head to her second-in-command. “Thorne, get Horace. See to Kerrick first.”

“Of course,” he said.

“And for fuck’s sake, get some sleep.”

She didn’t wait to hear another word. She took a breath, turned her back on her warriors then just as she dematerialized, she smiled.

Goddamn but she loved her men, and a little roughhousing now and then was a good thing. A stiff drink helped. A good lay. Taking the vein. Without a whole variety of steam valves for testosterone, the whole world would have exploded by now, the earth’s magma along with it.

* * *

As Kerrick awaited Horace, he stood over Alison once more, his sword drawn, the one tangible means he had of protecting her, yet it was useless in this situation. She slept deeply now, her lips parted. She looked even younger with the comforter drawn partway up her cheek, her fingers curled around the edge.

His heart ached as he looked down at her. He wanted her in his world and he wanted her safe. In the short time they’d been together, she’d become a litany in his head, must protect, must protect. He’d never been so obsessed before but then again, Alison was like no other ascendiate he had ever known and yeah, she was the center of the breh-hedden for him. He was hooked in deep.

Making love to her had been flat-out erotic, intense, and drive-a-car-at-two-hundred-miles-an-hour satisfying. She matched him in power, this woman, this mortal, this ascendiate, and he was falling for her fast, an asteroid getting close to the earth’s gravitational pull and getting sucked straight in.

He’d been inside her head. He knew she had strength. He knew she’d go the distance even if the endgame was hopeless. Still, right now, asleep in her bed, she looked incredibly vulnerable. Dammit, his chest seized, drawing into a painful knot.

I can’t lose her.

Yet what chance did she have? She would be fighting the Commander’s most powerful general, a former Warrior of the Blood, an ascender with incredible ability.

His phone buzzed. He folded his sword into the far corner of his bedroom, palmed his phone, then thumbed. “Give,” he said, his tone flat.

Jeannie’s voice, weary at the tail end of a shift, came online. “Horace begs admittance.”

“Granted. Go home, Jeannie.”

“I’m off in about thirty minutes. So, tell me, duhuro, does she have a chance?”

The soft concern in her voice wrenched the knot in his chest all over again. “I don’t know.”

“Aw, shit.”

“You said it, but I have to go.”

“You get some rest, too.”

As the line went dead, Horace materialized a few feet away.

* * *

Once again Alison found herself inside a dream, flying at full-mount over White Lake. The water shimmered beneath her in the dawn’s light, reflecting pink streamers of clouds. The breathtaking view sent her heart soaring.

Guardian. How the word called to her. Guardian of Ascension. Guardian of the Lake.

As though she had been flying all her life, she drew her feet perpendicular to the water then spread her arms wide, which brought her body to a position of standing in midair, the gentle flapping of her wings supporting her. She slowed the rhythm, which allowed her to descend to the calm surface of the blue-green water.

Her bare toes slid into the water and her fangs emerged. Wings and a pair of fangs. So, she was ascended and had acquired the promised vampire traits. How at ease she felt with the lake, with flight, with her fangs. She even wore leather flight gear, like a warrior—a kilt and a weapons harness over her chest, covering her breasts and riding up to cross her shoulders then travel down her spine. The fit was perfect.

Again … guardian.

The lake waters were oddly warm and soothing. She sustained her position with her wings then looked up, straight up. A beacon of light, heavenly light, shone down on her and she knew she looked into Third Earth. She was overcome by a swell of love for what she saw, a deep intense and quite familiar longing. Tears touched her eyes. She felt the most profound need to rise into the air, to reach Third Earth. She started beating her wings as hard as she could but her body wouldn’t move, as though the lake anchored her, held her in place.

She looked down and the lake once more called to her, begging for her protection.

Guardian.

Alison struggled to consciousness, picking her way through her fatigue as through a dense fog. In the distance, maybe a thousand miles away, she heard Kerrick’s voice within her mind. Time to wake up, Alison. Endelle is about to remove her protection.

She opened her eyes and saw the vaulted twigged ceiling of Kerrick’s Queen Creek home. She was in the guest bed, cocooned in the warmth of the comforter. She even wore flannel. She released a sigh, for in this moment she felt very safe.

She stretched again and felt a few leftover twinges. Nothing to complain about. Kerrick’s healing had been wonderful. Her mind moved backward. The training had been intense before … and after.

Oh, God, how he had made love to her last night, right after she’d hurt her wrist!

The vampire had been … incredible. She sighed and just for a moment, before the day, or rather night, and whatever it would hold, crashed down on her, she savored the memory of being so connected to her warrior.

She closed her eyes and smiled. She sighed a few dozen times.

And what was the potion he’d put in her breast that had the ability to travel all the way to her …

Alison. It’s time.

She heard his voice again, right in the center of her brain, less patient this time. Time for what? Dinner, maybe?

Sleep still swirled throughout her body and for just a moment she recalled the dream of wings and of flying, of feeling a profound protective drive toward the lake.

Alison. How strident he sounded. Did she really have to get up? She wanted to call him to her, to beg him to come to her bed for a few minutes, okay, maybe a day or two, and just hold her. Okay, maybe not just hold her but they could do that, too.

The sweetest sensations of desire began teasing her breasts and the tender place between her thighs. Now would be very nice, Kerrick and his hands. Oh, those hands. Kerrick and his …

Alison. The voice this time had a dagger’s edge.

She sat up, sleep streaming away from her. Kerrick sounded urgent. That was right. He had trained her to fight, but he hadn’t told her the why of it.

Adrenaline started punching at her. She put a hand to her chest as her heart rate increased.

She slipped from bed and made her way to the formal living room. Kerrick waited for her there and he wasn’t smiling.

She looked him up and down. He had on a very strange short black leather tunic and a sleeker version of the sandals he wore when fighting in flight gear. He looked like a modern version of ancient Rome. His hair was pulled back from his face, probably contained in the cadroen.

The picture? So gorgeous.

She had a dozen reasons already to believe she had entered a new world, but the sight of his partially bare, muscled thighs and a purple cape flung over one shoulder put her just a little bit farther from Kansas.

She moved toward him and caught sight of a glimmer beneath the cape. When she was close enough, she pushed the cape aside. A brass breastplate, also sexy as hell and molded to his pecs, bore an insignia—a silver sword crowned with a mossy green laurel wreath, simple, beautiful, powerful.

“What is this?” she asked. A prickly sensation traveled suddenly down her spine.

“The emblem of the Warriors of the Blood.”

Another question, one she didn’t want to ask, slid past her lips. “Why are you dressed like this?”

His expression hardened. She felt his distance as though he had moved to another continent, Australia maybe.

Had he even made love to her last night?

She searched his eyes. “What’s going on, Kerrick? Is the house surrounded? Don’t I have even the smallest chance?”

He met her gaze but retained his posture, as though the soles of his leather sandals had rooted into the tiles. “Last night, what I couldn’t bring myself to tell you was that COPASS agreed to the Commander’s demand that you do battle in an arena this evening, one-on-one against his top general, the warrior called Leto.”

She tilted her head. “The one at the alley? The one who used to be a Warrior of the Blood?”

He nodded.

She really couldn’t have heard him right. “Let me get this straight. I’m to battle a man, a vampire, one powerful like you, in an arena, in front of thousands of people?”

He nodded.

She shook her head. “This can’t be happening. How am I supposed to do battle after a single day of training?” She thought of Darian, her former client, then murmured, “He must really want me dead.”