Awakening

  Two wreckers stood fifteen feet away, slack-jawed as they looked her up and down. She lifted her chin and drew her shoulders back to let them get a good look. She couldn’t believe she was going to do this, but Luken’s team needed more guns and she needed to protect herself and Duncan.

  Each wrecker slowly lowered his weapon. She didn’t mistake the look in their eyes as they jumped the two-foot distance from the darkening grid to Duncan’s bedroom floor.

  “What do you want?” she asked, a hand to her chest. It was the question all victims asked, as though it wasn’t obvious what the perpetrators were after. She trembled as much from the terrifying nature of facing warriors with guns in hand as from her fear they wouldn’t fall for her ruse.

  In this case, the left wrecker smiled at the other. “This should be fun, but I’m going first.”

  The other laughed. “Second works. She’ll fight harder.”

  Sometimes, men were idiots.

  Rachel wanted to distract the men a little more because she needed enough time to get the gun to her shoulder before they understood what she was doing. Without that extra second or two, they’d each have enough time to raise their weapons and return fire. “Do you like the lake?” she asked. She gestured toward the windows.

  Both men fell for it and shifted slightly to look out at the dark body of water, lights glimmering from the homes on the opposite bank.

  She lifted her gun at the same time and fired, taking the first wrecker down. The second man was raising his gun when she unloaded the second barrel. He flew backward several feet, but didn’t get his shot off.

  Despite the huge spray of blood and flesh, she scrambled to find their weapons. Gathering them up, she laid hers and theirs on top of Duncan in a row, then slid into her dress. She could hear footsteps running along the grid. Maybe it would be the Third Earth clean-up crew, or more wreckers, but she wasn’t going to wait around to find out.

  She stood next to Duncan and as before, she folded both of them back to the Apache Junction Two landing platforms.

  ~ ~ ~

  Endelle stood in her private suite of rooms, off the main palace rotunda, and narrowed her eyes at Rachel. “I see you’re not completely useless. I’ll give you that.”

  Rachel had taken out a couple of enemy wreckers and had brought back two new wrecking guns for Luken’s black-ops team.

  Well, la-de-fucking-dah.

  She had on the same pristine white gown she’d worn earlier, but she also had the look of a woman who’d recently gotten well-laid. With one leg crossed at the knee over the other, she sat in a chair at the foot of Endelle’s couch, sipping her coffee. And the whole time that she’d related her recent adventure, Endelle had wanted to bitch-slap the organic princess for still refusing to join Luken’s team.

  Endelle decided that Rachel simply didn’t know who she really was despite her incessant pining for her garden and her simple carrot-growing life on Mortal Earth. Rachel had a steel rod in the middle of her personality, along with a helluva lot of quick thinking, a sure sign she was a warrior at heart.

  She was a lot like her brother, Gideon, after all, even though she ran with clenched fists away from her obvious abilities.

  Endelle shifted her attention to Duncan who was laid out on her couch, once more caught in Yolanthe’s snare and sunk in a trance. She’d had him brought back to her palace to keep an eye on the situation, insisting that Rachel come with him. Duncan had work to do on Third and somehow Rachel needed to realize she had to go with him.

  His eyes were open, but from what he’d said at the villa, Yolanthe had him focused on her now through a Third Earth voyeur window. But it would be up to Duncan to once again break the bitch’s hold on him. In the meantime, she intended to keep the pair close to her and safe beneath the palace security system.

  She sat down adjacent to Rachel and across from the couch. “So, what would you have done if the wreckers hadn’t shown up? Would you still be at Duncan’s home?”

  What surprised Endelle the most was how sad Rachel suddenly looked. “As soon as I got myself toweled off and dressed, I had planned on returning to Mortal Earth, back to Seattle One. And in case you’re wondering, I would have taken a wrecker gun with me as well as some ammo.”

  Endelle shook her head because this didn’t make sense. “So, you would have left, but you didn’t. Why not?”

  At that Rachel sipped her coffee, afterward releasing a heavy sigh. “I didn’t have time. I found Duncan in this condition,” she waved a hand at him, “Then I heard the rumbling. That’s the sound the grid makes when it gets close to its destination.”

  Understanding dawned and a slow smile curved Endelle’s lips. “You were buck naked when they blasted through the grid inside Duncan’s room, weren’t you?”

  Rachel lifted her chin. “I thought it would give me the advantage. And it did.”

  “Jesus H. Christ. Just when I’ve decided you have bacon for brains, you improve my opinion. That was some damn good thinking, something I would have done back in the day.”

  Rachel shrugged. “I knew from my experience before that if they weren’t otherwise distracted, they’d fire the split-second they saw me.”

  She settled her coffee on the table next to her and with her elbow on the arm of the chair, she leaned her forehead into her palm. “But for the life of me I can’t figure out how any of this is going to work. More than anything I want to get back to my life, but it looks like Yolanthe is serious about hunting me down and she’ll never stop.”

  “That’s my take on it as well.”

  Rachel shot her gaze to Endelle. “That’s not very helpful.”

  “I don’t believe in sugar-coating things.”

  “No, that you don’t.” She leaned back in her chair, her gaze shifting to Duncan’s face. “It’s awful to see him like that.”

  “I know.”

  Endelle once more pondered the Rachel-Duncan conundrum. “You said you were headed home just as the wreckers showed up, but I know you just had sex with this warrior.”

  Rachel’s jaw flexed as if in anger. “That’s right. So, what?”

  “Well, what the fuck happened because I can’t believe it was the sex that made you want to take off.”

  Another weighty sigh. “It was the old issues. Duncan always throws up a wall, faster than any man I’ve ever known. He’s never cruel, but we’d just had the most amazing experience together, even better than before. But he withdrew emotionally from me, pulling back so fast it was almost as though he disappeared. And I can’t take it anymore.”

  Endelle wasn’t the most perceptive person, she admitted that, but she did understand a few things about Duncan. And it was possible Rachel didn’t have the full picture. “Luken found him chained up.”

  Rachel shifted slightly in her direction. “I’m sorry?”

  “It was an ambush and Duncan called for Warrior of the Blood back-up against Carlyon’s orders. When Luken arrived, he found Duncan chained up.” Carlyon was a powerful Militia Warrior and Duncan’s father.

  Rachel shook her head several times. “What? I’ve never heard this before.”

  “I’m talking about something that happened a long time ago.” Endelle didn’t usually get involved in the personal lives of her people, but she felt compelled to tell Rachel what she knew. “Do you remember the night Carlyon and his squad died?”

  “God, yes. Who doesn’t? At least forty Militia Warriors died in the attack.”

  “Do you also recall that Duncan was the only survivor?”

  “Of course, but he never talked about it.”

  “And your ex-husband was one of the men who died.”

  “Grieg. That’s right.”

  “Well, there’s something about that night I want you to know. When Duncan called for What-Bee back-up, Carlyon was furious with him, so angry in fact that he chained him up. They’d been in a cellar of a large ranch house, the property surrounded by death vampires. Carlyon bound Duncan to the pipes and added
a preternatural charge so he couldn’t break free. The squad left Duncan there alone, then foolishly went on to engage in battle where they all died within the next few minutes.

  “At about the same time, Luken folded to Duncan’s position and faced off a dozen death vampires who kept attacking the cellar. Luken got them all and was able to free Duncan. But by then, the rest of the Militia Warriors were dead.”

  Rachel shook her head again. “I can’t believe Carlyon did that to his own son. But he was one of the meanest men I’ve ever known and the reason that my husband beat me. Grieg had no use for women except in bed and those teachings came straight from Carlyon.”

  “I know. I always wondered about you back then, how you survived.”

  “With difficulty.”

  Endelle glanced at Duncan again. “Yet Carlyon was a highly revered Thunder God Warrior.”

  Rachel’s eyes glittered with unshed tears. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive Carlyon for what he did to Duncan. I know enough of what he suffered as a child at Carlyon’s hands. And chaining him up like that? Very typical. The bastard was an abusive monster.”

  “Yes, he was. But Duncan overcame a lot of it and I’d bet my left tit that he never lifted a hand to a woman. Am I right?” She glanced at Rachel once more.

  “No, never. He’s a good man. He’s just absent like he is right now. He doesn’t know how to be in a real relationship. But to be fair, I’m not sure I do either.”

  “And you’re drawn to warrior-types.”

  “Yes. The bane of my existence.”

  Maybe she was getting soft, but Endelle said quietly, “Just please don’t take off without letting anyone know. At the very least, I can give you a security detail and Luken can train them with the wrecking guns.”

  Rachel stared at her. “You were ready to string me up for not leaping at the chance to join the black ops team. And now you’re offering protection so that I can leave. What changed?”

  Endelle made a disgusted sound at the back of her throat. “Thorne’s been wearing off on me or maybe it’s Luken.”

  She then lifted a brow. “So, how was it, Rachel, the sex I mean? After all, I’ve used my voyeur window to take a peak in the men’s shower room at the Militia HQ training center. So, I know for a fact your man is hung.”

  Rachel sighed once more. “You’re hopeless.”

  Rachel didn’t know the half of it. Endelle knew she needed a man, but she was still committed to Braulio. But because of the way she was twitching, she definitely needed to take a jaunt to her secret hideaway in India Two and get at least some of her needs met. It wasn’t quite the same as having Braulio in her bed, but it helped ease her through her week.

  If only she didn’t feel so damn guilty.

  ~ ~ ~

  Duncan couldn’t believe he’d been caught off guard again and was once more in Yolanthe’s grasp. He tracked the woman through the Third Earth voyeur window, hating every minute of it, and trying to figure out how to escape. Again.

  And the damn woman had made him pay. She’d brought in a few of her slaves and had engaged in group sex in a large spa, Yolanthe as the star, of course.

  “It’s just payback,” she’d said, “for having sex with Rachel. You know how I feel about that woman. I found your behavior disloyal.” Her attitude had to be the definition of narcissism.

  After the almost endless rounds of watching Yolanthe either scream with pleasure or make her slaves cry out in pain, she now lay replete on a chaise-lounge in her living room. She wore a lavender dressing gown as a young slave wafted her with an enormous fan of peacock feathers.

  “Your woman played the two wreckers I sent after her. I was watching with my voyeur window. She posed nude for them with a weapon behind her back, then shot them both to bits. It took my Third Grid clean-up crew about an hour to get rid of the debris. And if you’re wondering why we bother, we don’t like to leave evidence of our activities behind any more than you do when you battle death vampires on Mortal Earth. We still don’t have Madame Endelle’s superior clean-up capacity, the kind that woman, Jeannie, calls down from Central. And that’s something I’d love to have access to.”

  Duncan knew she was referring to the method Endelle and her scientists developed that with just a call to Central Command, Jeannie or Carla could wipe out all signs of a battle, at least the organic bits like bodies, blood and feathers.

  She turned slightly to meet his gaze. “Duncan, how about you get the blueprint for the clean-up technology? Then I might not hold it against you that you fucked another woman.” Yolanthe rarely swore, yet another indication the woman was angry with him.

  “And how about you just eat shit, instead.” Okay, he was pissed as well, and not necessarily showing some smarts right now either. But the fact that other men had seen Rachel naked -- even if Rachel had allowed it in order to save his ass -- had his breh-hedden inner-monster writhing to punch something hard.

  Yolanthe clucked her tongue and rose to her feet. “I’ve been thinking the real problem is you don’t know what you’ll have once we become lovers, and just maybe I haven’t motivated you properly.”

  “Let me save you the trouble, Yolanthe, because you don’t have a damn thing I want.”

  She pulled a face then waved a hand to change into a pale pink, backless silk gown. She turned away from him and he watched the muscles of her back thicken as moisture formed on each expanding wing-lock. He heard her take a deep breath and a moment later, she cried out with intense pleasure as her wings, extraordinary in height, breadth and color, released.

  He had to admit he’d never seen such beautiful wings before and now understood her choice of pastels for clothing, because her wings looked like a beautiful painted Easter Egg. The outer bands and soft inner swirls were all in shades of light blue and green, pale yellow, lavender, and a soft pink that matched her gown.

  “Exquisite.” Even though he meant it, he wished the word unsaid because he didn’t want to encourage the woman on any level.

  She turned toward him, her thin, reddish brows high on her forehead. “I know.”

  She then walked to the open veranda that overlooked acres of lawn, scattered pools, and trees. She moved to the edge of the patio and as she took off, she carried the voyeur window along so that Duncan had to travel with her. Essentially, he would see everything she settled her gaze on, even while she flew.

  Looking down, he saw that her home was on an island in a lake, surrounded by several canals. There were small homes and an equal number of straw huts all around the perimeter. “Where is this?”

  “Mexico City Three. I just never drained the lake like they did on Mortal Earth.”

  He spoke the truth. “You’ve created a jewel.”

  Again, she responded in her sing-song, entitled manner, “I know and this is the true value of slave-labor that so much beauty can be created. It is the real problem with Mortal Earth. If there was a proper alignment of masters and slave, then Earth One would become a lovely place to inhabit.”

  “Is that part of your father’s ambitions? To take over three worlds?”

  She smiled. “Yes, of course. But I believe in his designs with all my heart. A strong ruling class is the only way to govern any land. Only then can beauty prevail.”

  With these words, he truly began to understand Yolanthe. At first, he’d written her off as a hedonist and an entitled princess, and yes, she was those things. But now he saw the level of her ambitions. She wanted her world, as well as both Second Earth and Mortal Earth, subjugated to her father’s will, in the same way that she controlled the lives of all who lived in Mexico City Three.

  The woman had power and intent. She also had the advantage of appearing falsely weak and vulnerable because she was lean to the point of emaciation and dressed up in silk. He believed she used both of these as ploys to keep her enemies from understanding all that she was.

  “Now let me show you first my father’s kingdom and how clever he’s been in holding hi
s reins tight.”

  As she flew south, she reached a long stretch of land that burned hot with enormously tall flames, but didn’t produce smoke.

  “I don’t understand what this is,” Duncan said. “What am I looking at?”

  She rose higher and higher into the air so that eventually he saw that the fire ranged the entire width of the land, from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean.

  “It’s a barrier,” she responded. “Isn’t it clever?”

  “You mean Chustaffus keeps the land divided with fire.”

  “Exactly. The local inhabitants can’t break through and most of them don’t have enough essential power to fly over the flames. It’s an excellent means of control.”

  As she continued to fly south, the ridges of fire appeared at regular intervals, perhaps every hundred miles or so.

  “I get it,” he said. “The people could never join together to form an uprising.”

  “You never lacked for intelligence, Duncan. You’re just absurdly stubborn in your refusal to align with me.”

  Yolanthe continued in her flight and the land suddenly opened up, though there were massive walls this time, like the Great Wall of China.

  “This doesn’t make sense. Why not use fire consistently?”

  “Because my father didn’t create this wall. The Prince did.”

  “The Prince? You’ve mentioned him before.”

  “A thousand years ago he fought my father for supremacy over our world and he won a third of the land, though scattered among all the continents. Afterward, he took careful pains to cordon off his kingdom with stone.”

  Duncan looked at the land and saw that there were roads and towns, even large cities. In other words, a land of structure and commerce. He was pretty sure that The Prince’s world was a free world, a thriving kingdom. The slave world Chustaffus had built was seriously underdeveloped.

  “There is no slavery in The Prince’s lands, then?”

  “No. But the man’s an idiot. He’s constantly beset by ambitious men, who frequently approach Chustaffus about joining forces. Up to this point, The Prince has fended off every rebellion, but one day he’ll fail. Then my father will rule Third Earth again, and that day is coming soon. You’ll see.”