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?

* * *

“Fuck 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 fucking idiot and there’s no way in hell I’ll let you near her.

He looked away from Jean-Pierre. “Why the fuck 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 fucking 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, fuck 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 fuck haven’t you taken a wife, O wise French asshole?”

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 fucking 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, fuck. 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.