“You saw me?” Fiona asked. “Oh, yes, now I remember. You were there. I felt you.”

Parisa nodded. “How did you find the strength to come back?”

She sighed. “I truly had made up my mind to die, but at the point of death I think I met an angel, albeit a rather strange one. His name was James. He encouraged me to keep going.”

“James? His name was James?”

“Yes.”

Parisa felt a shiver cross her shoulders. “Alison knows someone called James. He encouraged her in a very similar way.” Was it possible it was the same man, the same ascender?

“Who’s Alison?”

“Alison is only recently ascended. She’s bonded with, um—” Parisa glanced around. Behind her, sitting on one of the terraces with Luken, was Kerrick. “There. Do you see the black-haired warrior? Alison is his … breh. That’s another word for a special mate. More than a wife. A man can be a breh as well. Alison is … very powerful in this world. She’s also … oh, there she is.” She materialized next to Kerrick and soon after put her hand on her stomach and winced.

“She’s very pregnant.”

At that, the young woman beside Fiona lifted her tear-stained face. Alison was beside Kerrick, a hand on his shoulder. He stood up and put his arms around her. He appeared to be whispering to her, and Alison patted his arm and smiled at him.

“He’s so tender with her.”

“Yes, he is,” Parisa said. “She’s not doing very well right now with her pregnancy. The doctor assures her she’s fine, but you can see she’s suffering. She always has her hand to her stomach. She’s a healer … of the mind.”

“Of the mind?”

“Yes, she was a therapist on Mortal Earth.”

Alison closed her eyes and appeared to be trying to relax. After a moment, she patted Kerrick and crossed the thirty feet or so in Parisa’s direction. Parisa rose, weaving a little; she had been too long on her knees. The marble was hard.

Parisa introduced Alison to Fiona. Fiona introduced Kaitlyn, of Lake City, Florida, Mortal Earth. With Alison so close, Parisa drew back and gave her space to work. She asked questions of both Fiona and Kaitlyn, how they were feeling in general. There was something so kind in her tone that both women relaxed.

A minute later she called the healer Horace over, which was Parisa’s cue to return to Antony. There would be plenty of time later to get to know Fiona and perhaps all the women.

Jean-Pierre drew close. “How is she doing?” His arms were still crossed over his chest, the lean corded muscles straining. His hands made fists, released, then made fists again. He still scowled.

“She seems very calm. She was really surprised to learn that the Warriors of the Blood had come for them, and it’s obvious to me that she’s been a huge support to the other women. Also, she just told me that from the time she was taken from Mortal Earth she’d only known the Burma house.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Antony muttered.

“Ditto,” Parisa said.

Jean-Pierre responded with a low growl from deep within his throat.

The truth changes everything

But freedom comes through application.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 19

Endelle never allowed anyone within her private sanctuary, her meditation room, that place where she hunted Greaves in the darkening.

Not even Thorne, her second-in-command, the man she trusted the most.

But here she was sitting on the edge of her chaise-longue staring at two men; one fucking unfamiliar to her, short, with gray hair, gray hair! And the other man she intended to slaughter with a quick snap of her wrist and a powerful roll of a hand-blast—Leto, the traitorous motherfuckingsonofabitch.

She didn’t hesitate. Leto deserved to die so she flicked her most powerful hand-blast, not caring in this moment that according to Alison, he was a spy. A spy for whom?

“Die, asshole,” she cried.

He flinched but for some reason, the stream of power that should have fried his ass hit the space around him and split into a number of elegant fireworks: blue, green, violet sparkles, really beautiful.

That Leto’s eyebrows climbed his handsome forehead and his mouth opened in a big round O meant he’d expected to take the hit, maybe even to die.

Which meant …

She shifted her gaze to the short man to Leto’s left and scowled. She rose to her full six-foot-five height, plus her five-inch stilettos, and stared down at the fucking bastard who had just robbed her of a very satisfying kill. “Who the fuck are you and why did you just protect this traitor and how the hell did you get into my inner sanctuary and why, if you have so much power, do you have gray hair?”

The man looked very strange—or at least his expression became quite odd, for a short man. His eyelids grew heavy as he stared at her chest then slowly lifted his gaze, up and up, to meet hers. Damn he was short—five foot seven if he was an inch. “Oh, I haven’t been into your inner sanctuary … yet.”

She could not mistake his meaning.

Her mouth fell open, flat open, almost to the floor. “You have got to be kidding me, Shorty. The day you see my inner sanctum is the day I mop the floor with your face—with one hand tied behind my back.”

“I’d like to see both your hands tied behind your back. Then I’d have a good long look at your inner sanctum.”

Holy shit. This asshole was either really confident or really stupid. He smiled, and something in that smile made her uneasy. Well, she didn’t think he was stupid, which meant …

She looked at him again. She pushed against his mind, wanting, needing to understand who the hell he was and why he had enough power to invade her space, bringing Leto of all assholes with him, and how he’d been able to deflect a hand-blast like that. “Who are you?” she asked.

“James.”

Well, fuck! James at last! “Alison’s James? Fuck. The one she dreamed about all those months ago? The one she still talks to mind-to-mind occasionally?”

“That would be a yes and another yes.”

“You’re from fucking Sixth Earth.”

“I am.”

“Then why the hell do you have gray hair? No one has gray hair, not even on Second.” She knew there were much more important matters to be discussed but really, gray hair?

He sighed. “The only way the Council would permit me to intervene as I have—and yes, I only have a few moments left in this interview—was if I appeared as harmless as possible. And no, I did not design the appearance I currently display. It was designed for me.” Shorty seemed a little bitter.

She nodded as though his explanation made perfect sense. Oh, hell, since he was from Sixth, he could probably appear in the guise of a troll or an asteroid if he wanted to. But right now she had one fucking question he’d better answer. “Who the hell has held up my ascension? I should be in Fourth by now, at the very least. Maybe even Fifth. Why have I been stuck in this God-forsaken, shit-eating dimension for all these millennia?”

That smile appeared again, the one that looked both bemused and pleased as hell. “I have a message for you from Braulio.”

She couldn’t have heard right. Braulio was the most powerful Warrior of the Blood ever to battle on Second Earth. He was a legend in his time and she had seen him die, struck down, sliced up by a death vampire. That had been five thousand years ago and Endelle had killed the vampire afterward, but Braulio was still dead.

“You need to get your facts straight, Shorty. Braulio died. I watched him die.”

James shook his head but didn’t say anything.

“You’re telling me he’s alive?”

“Yes.”

At that, her knees gave way and she fell straight down, not onto the chaise-longue, but straight on her ass on the cold marble floor. “He’s dead. That bastard is dead. I saw him die.” Shit, her eyes grew stinging hot.

“He’s not dead.” James ground his teeth.

“I watched him die.” If there’d ever been a man for her, he’d been the one. But when he’d died, she’d given up the hope that Second Earth could ever hold any joy for her, any real pleasure. She’d wised up, then she’d toughened up. But Braulio alive? Shit. Her head wagged back and forth.

“Luchianne pulled him into Third and healed him. It was against the rules but she did it anyway. She’s only done it one other time … for me. So I know what I’m talking about.”

She remained sitting on the floor, the marble cold through her linen gown. “Sweet Jesus, Braulio alive.” She didn’t want to think about him, not about him. He was the finest warrior who had ever lived and she’d grieved his death thousands of years ago. If she could admit the truth to herself, there was a small slice of her heart that still hurt. So, yeah, shit!

She stared at James for a long hard moment. “Let’s say I believe you. What the hell is this message he has for me?”

“Here it is, word for word. Hang in there … I’m coming.”

“What the hell does that mean, I’m coming? You mean like the second coming of Christ?” She laughed at her joke, but James’s blue eyes looked serious as hell.

“He’s coming back for you.”

“When? When the fuck when?”

“Near the time that Alison assembles her team and opens the pathway to the third dimension, he’s coming back for you.”

She’d been right, the second coming of Christ. She laughed, and yeah, her voice sounded bitter.

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him, but she didn’t fucking believe him. You didn’t get to be nine thousand years old without understanding a lot about life and all this dimensional shit. Politics had always been, would always be, the order of the day—who could gain as much power as possible first so he, or sometimes she, could piss on everyone else. When Owen Stannett had stood in her office a few days ago and made his little speech about “taking it deep,” she knew exactly what he meant. She might hate the bastard, but she sure as hell understood something of what he’d endured over the centuries.