by Caris Roane
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 fucked 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
CHAPTER 23
Kerrick hadn’t seen Alison in two long fucking weeks and he swore he felt like he’d had his heart ripped out of his chest. Instead of getting easier, staying away from her had become an exercise in masochism. He knew where she was—the training camps. He received reports from her CO daily. He’d insisted on at least that much. She was carrying his child. He needed to be sure she was safe despite the fact they could not be together.
So why did he feel like a bastard, like he’d let her down?
He sat in his library, a tumbler of Maker’s in his hand. He stared at nothing in particular. He had a couple of hours before the night’s fighting took up his time—and thank God for the fighting. He would have gone insane otherwise.
Two weeks had passed since he had last seen her and he just couldn’t seem to find his feet. He recalled the last time he’d sat in this chair, reading that pretentious book about the history of ascension in hopes of finding some way to withstand the onslaught of the breh-hedden.
His phone buzzed. He reached out with his senses—Medichi. The brothers were at the Cave, and he’d al
ready refused to join them there. He’d be at the Blood and Bite for the usual, but right now he needed to be alone.
Since returning from the hospital, he’d moved out of the basement, using it only to do his daily workout. For reasons he didn’t understand, he’d been sleeping in the master bedroom. He still wasn’t sure why he’d made that leap. After all, nothing had changed materially in his world.
Except Alison.
But she wasn’t in his world anymore, was she?
And his baby grew inside her.
But what did that matter? They’d both decided they couldn’t be together, a joint decision.
Fine.
His phone buzzed again. Once more—Medichi.
Once more, he didn’t respond.
But when the phone buzzed a third time, he felt Thorne’s summons. He stood up and answered. The few brief sentences that struck his ear sent blood rushing to his head, his heart thumping. “Fold me there now.”
He felt the vibration then landed hard, two bare feet on the Cave floor. He ignored all six warriors, spinning around until he found the only person right now who mattered.
“Alison! What the hell happened?”
She stared at him and her lips parted but she couldn’t seem to speak. Then a wave of lavender hit him full in the chest and he took a step back. Oh, shit. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed a hand down his face, holding back his body’s quick response as much as he could. He barked, “Tell me what happened.”
She spoke slowly at first as she recounted the attack at the barracks then gathered speed and finished with, “I thought it might be sensible to lead them here, believing of course they would follow, and sure enough—”
“Goddammit.” He turned to Thorne and met his wrecked gaze. “Has Endelle been informed?”
“She’s coming.”
“Good. Because this can’t happen again.” His voice had split into three resonances and all the warriors shifted around, staring at him.
