Ascension (Guardians of Ascension #1)(7)
Author: Caris Roane

“Thank God,” she whispered. “We’re in deep shit. Endelle has been yelling at Carla for the last ten minutes because Thorne couldn’t reach you. We have a sitch in Paradise Valley and she wants you on it. Now. You with me?”

Kerrick drew in a deep breath. “Is Thorne with Endelle?” This couldn’t be happening.

“Yep. He said to say you didn’t have a choice on this one.”

Kerrick pulled his phone away from his ear and released a violent string of obscenities. When he could speak in a normal voice again, he said, “Give me the deets.”

“Thorne wants to patch in.”

“Fine.”

Thorne’s deep, rough voice hit his ears. “We don’t really know what’s going on. You may or may not have to guard the woman. Right now there’s just a pretty-boy off the grid.”

“So why does Endelle have her panties in a wad?”

“She said we’ll know more once you take care of our off-campus head case.”

Kerrick breathed hard through his nose. Okay. He could take care of the death vamp. After which, if there happened to be a mortal woman in need of protection, Thorne could work that out. “I’m on it.”

He could sense his brother’s relief. Endelle must have had him by the nuts on this one, but why?

“I’m going to hand you back to Jeannie. She’ll give you the whats and wheres.”

“Hey, Kerrick,” Jeannie began, “you’ll be going to a medical complex in Paradise Valley. The pretty-boy’s at full-mount. Call when you’re ready.”

“Thanks, Jeannie.” He thumbed his phone.

He dropped the towel, folded on clean battle gear, then tucked his phone into the pocket at the waist of the kilt. With a dismissive wave of his hand, he sent the old gear directly to the laundry room.

And the war against the death vamps just kept on rolling.

Whatever.

As he adjusted his harness, he brought his dagger into his hand then secured it once more into the front slot. He hated the fact that his personal weakness, his inability to dematerialize, would force him to call Jeannie so that Central could do a fold to Paradise Valley One.

Goddammit.

Aw, hell. He’d been a caged beast for at least the past two centuries, a lion roaring for some kind of release.

And tonight … well, tonight, for whatever reason, every nerve in his body was on fire. After he took care of the off-campus head case, he’d head back to the Blood and Bite. He needed to suck back a few Maker’s, maybe get laid. Yeah, a few fingers of whiskey and he definitely could use a little horizontal R&R with some jugular action thrown in.

Maybe then … Christ, maybe then he’d feel normal.

* * *

Alison opened her eyes as yet another siren sounded down the street, drew closer, then ceased, which made at least three in the past ten minutes or so. Apparently, someone’s patient required serious emergency medical care.

She still sat in her wing chair, drawing in one breath after another, trying to calm down, trying to let her rational brain make sense of recent events. A walk might help, even just around her office.

She was about to get up and stretch her legs when she heard the door open. She shifted in the chair to look over her shoulder. Her last client had arrived, Darian Greaves.

“Alison,” he said. “Our last appointment. I must say I feel quite sad.”

He always looked like he’d walked straight out of Goodfellas. Despite the fact that he lived in warm, casual Phoenix, he never wore anything but a very fine wool suit to her office, all in black today, including the tailored shirt. For contrast, a yellow silk tie slashed a perfect line down his muscular chest. He looked like an oversized stinging insect covered in Hugo Boss.

He was quite beautiful, his bald head perfectly shaped, smooth and tan, his black eyebrows thick and manicured, his dark eyes large, round in appearance, almost child-like. On his right pinkie he wore a black onyx ring. He had only one flaw—his left hand was misshapen, and because of the way the fingers curved, she thought there might have been some nerve damage along the way.

Over the past year of his therapy, his first and only year as far as she knew, he’d remained a locked-down mystery, especially since he was the only client whose mind she’d been unable to penetrate no matter how hard she tried. An anomaly. She didn’t often reach into a client’s mind. With Darian, however, she could not even skim the surface of his thoughts, let alone penetrate the depth of his psyche. Why had been the question she had been unable to answer.

He was the victim of monstrous childhood abuse, physical and sexual, all at the hands of a foster father. Even though he had been candid about his troubled past, there had been no significant progress, almost as though he recited his woes from behind a twelve-foot-thick cement wall. If he were at all serious about recovery, he would require a decade or two of therapy, nothing less. One thing she knew for certain: She could not be that therapist. In her opinion, he needed a hard-core psychiatrist and a lot of medication.

She glanced at the clock again. As always, he had arrived precisely on time, not a minute past six thirty. He couldn’t leave his corporation—his army as he liked to call the rank and file of Greaves Enterprises—one second sooner. He was very fond of punctuality.

“I don’t suppose I can talk you out of graduate school,” he said, rounding her chair and heading to the soft green chenille couch. She held her breath. He smelled so strangely of lemons tinged with … what? Turpentine? Now, that was also an anomaly. With his sophisticated appearance, he should have smelled, at the very least, of Obsession.

“How sad to see all the empty shelves,” he observed, as he paused in front of the wall unit. He shook his head slightly. After a moment, he turned then headed the rest of the distance to the couch. He sat down, smoothing his coat as he went. He crossed his legs at the knee, so formal, so gentleman-like.

He settled his gaze on her, but she found she had nothing to say to him. After the conversation with Joy and after holding a piece of time in her hand, somehow her mind had become a complete blank.

“Are you unwell?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

Alison once again took deep breaths. Thoughts of Joy drifted through her mind as well as the shattered window and reversal of time. Everything seemed to be changing. Even her dreams in the last two weeks had become charged with strange and unusual images, some frightening, some intriguing.

Joy, a reversal of time, strange dreams.

Darian with finely tailored wool suits, a psychotic mind, and no Obsession.