Guilt powered down on his head, tensing his neck and tightening his chest. This was what happened to the women in his life. Proximity meant danger. Danger meant injury and death.

Goddammittohell.

Blood still seeped from her shoulder. She needed help. Now. “I think you’d better call one of the healers. My powers don’t encompass torn arteries.”

“We don’t need to,” Thorne said. He grimaced, his brows drawn into a deep furrow as he stared at Alison. “Endelle is on her way.”

“Thank God. In the meantime, pressure on the wound would help.”

Thorne stepped close and with the heel of his palm stanched the flow. “She’s very beautiful,” he murmured.

“Yeah,” Kerrick muttered. Dammit, he shouldn’t have taken her at the neck earlier. What the hell had he been thinking and just how much blood did she have left? The level of Alison’s powers demanded she battle her way into Second and she needed every resource, including a decent amount of red cells. What the hell had he been thinking?

He hadn’t.

Ever since the breh-hedden had taken hold of him his brain had been functioning on fumes. If he hadn’t been working her out on the couch, this wouldn’t have happened. He needed to get a grip. Now.

“So why the emergency lift?” Thorne asked, shifting his gaze to Kerrick. “How many death vamps were there? I’ve seen you battle eight by yourself and barely break a sweat.”

“There were dozens. A regiment.”

“What the fuck?”

“Greaves sent his army.” Which was another part of the truth. He’d been prepared to take on two or three squads of death vamps but not a regiment.

Thorne hissed. “That goddamn motherfucker. So there weren’t only death vamps present.”

“That’s right. Good old working soldiers.” He told his story ending with, “Things would have been different if he hadn’t sent his army. That much I know. It just never occurred to me that he’d send a regiment, that he’d break such a big fucking rule. Shit.”

“Don’t beat yourself up. We knew from the medical complex that her signature showed up on the grid. Any way you look at it, you were screwed.”

Right. Whatever. “Someone else should have charge of her.”

“Doesn’t sound like it would make one lizard’s turd of a difference.”

Kerrick huffed a laugh. “No. I guess not.”

“No question we’re in for it, though. And you know what the Commander will do when he hears we used an emergency lift.”

“You got that right.” He ground his teeth. There weren’t enough obscenities to cover the scope of his thoughts. “But we’d both be dead otherwise and isn’t it kind of illegal to be dropping an army down on Mortal Earth?”

Thorne snorted his disgust. “The Committee will overlook that little indiscretion.”

COPASS. The Committee to Oversee the Process of Ascension to Second Society. “Bullshit committee.”

Kerrick had a sick-gut feeling all over again, the one laced with despair. He had been a warrior one century too long. He couldn’t seem to find his feet anymore, and by the looks of it Thorne wasn’t in much better shape.

Thorne glanced at Alison. “So, what do we have here? Endelle said she sent a hand-blast up the Trough.”

“Yep. Saw it myself at the receiving end. Straight up. A sand geyser about a quarter of a mile high.”

“Damn.”

“Where the hell is Endelle? Alison can’t lose much more blood.”

Thorne scowled, his gaze shifting back and forth as he scanned the room. “She’ll be here.”

“I need to get Alison back to Mortal Earth. I have no idea how long she can tolerate being on Second.” An un-ascended mortal couldn’t handle being in the second dimension for more than a couple of hours at a time. In a wounded state, the draining effects would rob the mortal of the much-needed energy to recover. An extended stay of longer than twenty-four hours, wounded or not, always ended in death. Only when Alison received from Endelle’s hand the ascended vampire nature at her ascension ceremony would she be able to tolerate living on Second Earth.

The air shimmered suddenly. Endelle. She caught Kerrick’s gaze and without a single nicety cried, “What the hell have you done? An emergency lift? Do you know what this means?” Kerrick’s ears rang. “Did you just lose half your IQ points, Warrior? Shit!” The decibels she employed in that one word, spoken as it was both aloud and with telepathy, pounded the hell out of his eardrums and shattered all the bottles on the bar. The sudden reek of alcohol drenched the air. “You might as well have handed Alison’s head on a platter to that motherfucker. Calling an emergency lift just gave Greaves one more piece of ammunition against us. He’ll take this to COPASS and demand retribution and they’ll give it to him. So, again, what the hell were you thinking?”

“Didn’t have a choice, ma’am,” Kerrick began. He told her what he’d told Thorne.

She scowled as she glanced at Alison. “You know, you’re really letting me down here, Warrior.”

Kerrick drew in a long deep breath through his nose. “Yes, ma’am. But there wasn’t much else I could do. The Commander didn’t just send a war party to Carefree, he sent a regiment.”

“Whatever.”

Her wings, a ruddy scarlet this time, extended to their fullest height and breadth, a reflection of her temper. She had changed her clothes from earlier in the evening and wore tight black leather pants and some kind of dark hide halter with long bristled fur. He thought buffalo, maybe.

“You’d better take her back to Mortal Earth,” she barked.

“But where?” Thorne asked. “And how do we sustain secrecy?”

She huffed a sigh. “All right, let’s take care of our little troublemaker.” She drew her feathers abruptly into her wing-locks, a movement that jostled the halter but didn’t dislodge it.

She laid a hand on Alison’s forehead. The air pulsed slowly, then rapidly all around them.

When the pulsing stopped, Endelle straightened up. “You can take her now. I’ve given her a shield, which will last about thirty-six hours. No one will be able to locate her.”

“It may not be that simple,” Kerrick said. “Both Alison and I have signatures that show up on Central’s grid. If Greaves or his generals located us because of our signatures, that means they’ve improved their technology. Your shield might block Alison’s signature but not mine.”

“Shit,” Endelle muttered. “All right. Let me think. Okay. I can put my mist around the Queen Creek house and as far as I know even Greaves won’t be able to find you.”

Kerrick nodded. “Yeah, I’d like to see him bust through your mist.”

“Damn straight about that. Okay. So, we’re done here, right?” She didn’t wait for an answer but turned to leave.

“She’when’endel’livelle!” Thorne called after her. At least three very pronounced clicks broke up the proper name.

Yep, crickets in his mouth.

Kerrick lifted a brow. How could Thorne even remember her birth name, not to mention pronounce it?

Endelle turned around and scowled at her second-in-command. “What?” she snapped.

“Could you take care of the wound, please? Neither Kerrick nor I have the ability to heal a mortal whose shoulder has been shredded.”

She clenched her jaw. “I hate details.” She blurred back and touched the wound. The flesh re-formed flawlessly, and a vibrant pink color returned to Alison’s face. So much power. She replaced the bloodied sweater, T-shirt, and jeans with a soft white, but very short, tunic.

“Thank you,” Thorne said, averting his gaze from Alison’s now bare legs. Endelle rolled her eyes, tossed an arm, then folded. She left behind a blast of wind full of stinging grit to remind her warriors just how much she disliked being taken from her usual routine.

Kerrick whirled away in order to shield Alison. When the wind stopped, he turned back to Thorne, who in turn just shook his head. Endelle was one fine piece of work. “What the hell was she wearing?”

Thorne shrugged. “I don’t know. Bear hide?”

Kerrick snorted.

Just as he was going to ask Thorne to give him a fold to Queen Creek, a double shimmer appeared near the bar some twenty feet away.

Medichi … and Marcus.

Kerrick’s jaw hardened and a hideous growl erupted out of his throat.

Thorne automatically threw an arm in front of Kerrick. “How’d it go?” he called to Medichi. “And what the hell happened to Marcus? Hey, asshole, your pansy-ass life catch up with you?”

Marcus had a huge bump over his left eye and a deep cut on his right arm that dripped blood onto the floor. He met Kerrick’s gaze and his shoulders hunched.

“Motherfucker,” he called out, his teeth gritted. At the same moment, in a move lightning-quick, Medichi grabbed Marcus, slammed him to the floor, then put a foot on his neck. Medichi held him in place as Marcus started cursing the dust Kerrick walked on and everything else he could think of.

“Goddammit,” Thorne muttered. “Just what we need.”

“Take the ascendiate,” Kerrick cried, trying to shove Alison at Thorne. “Let me at the bastard! I’ll break his fucking neck!”

Thorne turned back to Kerrick and over Alison’s body he caught Kerrick’s face with both hands, getting up close. “You just get her to Queen Creek and keep her safe,” he cried, splitting his resonance.

Despite the fact that Alison was caught between them, Kerrick shifted his knees as well as his shoulders in a primal effort to bust out of Thorne’s hold on him. He breathed hard through his nose. He wanted at Marcus like nobody’s business.

“Calm the fuck down!” Thorne shouted. “You have guardian duty right now. You can beat the shit out of Marcus later. Right now, take care of your woman.”