Page 141 of Gates of Rapture
“Fuck.”
His expression grew even more serious.“Exactly.”
Then he smiled, and before she knew what he intended, he blurred toward her, took her in his arms, and kissed her.She didn’t fight him this time because she was a woman going into battle and she wanted the feel of his arms around her.
His voice was suddenly in her head with resonance.Endelle, Endelle, Endelle.He kept whispering her name until her lips parted.
He groaned heavily as he pierced her mouth and began plunging his tongue into her just the way she liked it, the way she remembered him doing all those millennia ago.
Sweet Christ, the vampire had her number.His hands roved her flight suit.She was just about to fold the suit away, or tell him to rip it off her, when Braulio drew back.
“Sorry, sweetheart.Time to rumble.”
***
Greaves stood in his peach orchard and flexed his claw.He held several Seers reports in his right hand and alternately moved from reading them to snapping his claw, then trying to figure out his next step.And back again.
He might not have Stannett’s help anymore, but the reports out of Mumbai and Johannesburg were similar enough to give credence that a war-changing battle would take place over White Lake this morning.
He had already informed his generals and ordered his special death vampire regiment to be ready to fold at his command.
These elements were clear in the future streams: an army at the ready, and a death vamp force poised to engage in battle.According to the Seers reports, he would soon be flying over the lake, with his death vampires supporting him, and engaging his number one foe all these years: Endelle.
Yet in the past several days, he’d lost so much ground that he felt as though the pavers beneath his feet were made of quicksand.He’d started sinking when Grace returned, and the more he’d tried to pull himself out of the quagmire, the faster he’d gotten dragged under.
He still couldn’t believe that he had failed to destroy the colonies.Somehow he hadn’t imagined obsidian flame being able to stop the burning away of Diallo’s interconnected mist—yet the triad had done exactly that.
He shuddered.The dark wave of his future was still pounding him, despite the care he had taken to gain every advantage in his bid for world domination.
He still had two serious advantages in hand.The first was his secret force of Third Earth death vampires that he would be moving very soon through the breach in the portal.The other was his ability to shape-shift.The latter, however, had a serious drawback in that whatever choice he made would be permanent.Whatever he decided to become in the next few hours, he’d be forced to continue each week for the rest of his life.Yet these two elements had the possibility all by themselves of wresting Second Earth permanently away from Endelle and her allies.
The claw had been an experiment, but it had fit with his lifestyle, since he liked to do a lot of hurting when he made love.
However, a claw was one small, manageable appendage.If he chose, during this battle to risk everything by engaging Endelle at last mano a mano, then he might just have to choose a larger form that guaranteed a win against her but would be an unfortunate choice for a weekly transformation.
The only question that remained was simple: How badly did he want to win this war?
When he folded back to his Estrella Complex, he found his generals clustered around the largest screen at the end of the room.
Greaves got an uneasy feeling.“What’s going on?”he called out.
His aide moved toward him quickly.“We’re not sure.Parts of White Lake have disappeared from view.”
Mist.Then he felt it.Endelle’s mist.Fuck.
He glanced at the papers in hand.Nothing had been prophesied about this.So what the hell was going on that he didn’t know about?What critical information had Marguerite’s teams blocked from him in the future streams.
He felt the quicksand around his ankles again.Maybe he’d been hasty in killing Stannett after all.
***
As Alison floated in the air just above the blue-green waters of White Lake, she realized that the dreams she’d had of the lake had shifted over time.But perhaps that was a reflection of the nature of life.Paths were chosen and discarded.The journey branched and new roads were taken.
One dream had showed her backed by nearly twenty women; opposite the women were almost twenty warriors at Warrior of the Blood status.
But in recent days the dream had changed to involve obsidian flame, one of the most powerful elements to have emerged in Endelle’s administration ever.
As she flapped her emerald wings and set her gaze above her, the blue vortex appeared.Kerrick floated opposite her, a protective presence, her original Guardian of Ascension.His white wings were magnificent in the midday light.Imagine vampires living fully beneath a strong desert sunshine.
