Ascension (Guardians of Ascension #1)(20)
Author: Caris Roane

“Huh.” She narrowed her eyes. “You smell anything fragrant on her?”

Lavender, he sent. Fields of it. He just couldn’t say it out loud.

“Well, this has to be shit for you because it sounds like the breh-hedden.”

He stared at her, held her gaze. “I didn’t think it existed. We all thought it was a myth.”

Endelle shook her head. “It’s rare but the damn thing exists. I’ve seen it in action a few times over the course of my f**ked-up life. And it can be a real bitch so good luck with that.” She laughed.

He didn’t see anything funny in the potent exchange he’d had with Alison. A thought occurred to him and he narrowed his eyes. “Did you know this was going to happen when you sent me over there?”

“I had a hunch.”

“Fuck.”

“You know if this is the breh-hedden, you’re not going to have much control over it.”

He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to even acknowledge the possibility that something so powerful and apparently irresistible was dogging his heels.

He shook his head. “Won’t matter if this is the breh-hedden or not.”

She leaned back in her chair. “Oh, yeah, you took vows. Idiot. Death happens. Get used to it, for Christ’s sake. And what was it, two hundred years ago? Hannah knew the risks. Give her some goddamn credit.”

His jaw turned to stone. “Helena,” he muttered. “My wife’s name was Helena.”

She stood up, planted her hands on her desk, then leaned forward. Her wings turned black, unfurled to the fifteen-foot ceiling, and popped into an aggressive drawn-back position. “Don’t you dare take that f**king tone with me, Warrior, or I’ll have your wings—literally—feather by feather.”

She could do it, too. But for just this moment, he wanted to tell her to take them all, right here, right now, and shove them up her ass because he was sick of all this f**king bullshit, the death, the addicted bloodsucking vampires, the mortal children drained and left in goddamn alleys, and of battling a psychopath like the Commander. He leaned toward her. Yeah, just do it, he sent.

She stared at him for a long tense moment, her wings extended as high as they could go, each apex rounded, the feathers fluttering at the tips. Suddenly she barked her laughter, brought her wings to half-mount, then sat down in her chair once more. She again settled into the nest of her wings. “Hell, no. Why should you be set free? Suck it up like the rest of us. Besides, I don’t get why you’re still upset after all this time.”

He lowered his chin. “It’s simple, Endelle. You’ve never had children. When you do and you lose them because of who you are then you’ll have the right to tell me to just get over it.”

Endelle grimaced. “Whatever.”

Kerrick wanted to leave. If he had been capable of folding he would have lifted an arm and vanished with a sweet f**k you on his lips. “So are we through here, or what?”

“Yeah.”

He turned to go, but she called out, “Wait. One more thing.”

Something in her tone sent a warning chill straight down his wing-locks. He glanced back at her but she didn’t speak. Instead she chewed on her lower lip, and Endelle never chewed on her lower lip. He got a very sick feeling in the bottom of his gut. All his instincts fired up like the steam engines on the Titanic. “Spill,” he commanded.

“I’ve recalled Marcus.” She actually looked a little guilty.

Kerrick’s nostrils flared. He sucked in air. His shoulders bunched into hard muscles. His biceps twitched and his hands curled into two deadly fists. “You did what?”

“We need him.”

He shook his head. “Like hell we do,” he bellowed.

She rose again, once more meeting his aggression head-on. “We need him because the Commander is importing death vamps from every territory of Second Earth at the rate of fifty a day—even with all my efforts to the contrary—and even if you and your warrior brothers only take down thirty or forty, do the goddamn math!”

He shook his head.

“What? You don’t believe me? Then tell me, what language did the squadron from last night speak, the one out at the White Tanks?”

He glared at her, but his face felt burned like he’d been standing in a powerful wind for days.

“They came from the Republic of Chad and spoke Sangho.”

Of course she was right, he just hadn’t stopped to think about the various nationalities he’d been fighting over the past several months. He’d just figured the Commander was ramping up his effort to keep the brothers working overtime, wearing them out. And f**k, it was working.

“So don’t you dare stand there and tell me we don’t need Marcus. We do. He’ll show up sometime later tonight and in case you’re wondering, he’s not happy, either. But the two of you had better find some way to get along. I’m putting you on guardian duty and he’s taking your place at the Borderlands. We need this ascendiate. The only thing my f**king Seers were able to tell me was that Alison Wells tips the balance of power and if she ends up dead, our world will suffer for it.”

Kerrick stiffened. There were so many things wrong with this situation he didn’t know where to start. But the most significant thought rose swiftly into his head and before he could screen the words, he cried out, “If that sonofabitch puts one hand on her, I’ll kill him.”

“Oh, for f**k’s sake. Go home and take a goddamn cold shower.”

He was ready to argue but she lifted a hand and the next moment he was on his knees sliding across his basement floor. His hands shook and didn’t stop even after he clenched his fingers into tight fights.

Marcus?

Here?

Hell, no.

Hell the f**k no.

Evil forges a tornado.

But goodness battles in a straight line.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 5

Why couldn’t she remember?

What couldn’t she remember?

Alison had the worst feeling she had forgotten something so important that her life depended on it, which was silly of course, yet the nagging sensation remained.

She stood in front of the Venetian mirror in her master bath. She bent over slightly, swung her long blond hair off to the right, and tied the strings of the silk halter at the back of her neck. Was she really going to do this?

She stood upright and flipped her crimped hair back.

She’d actually crimped her hair.