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It hadn’t occurred toaround the roorin lit o "Guess I better go visit the troops"

"I’ back to sleep I haven’t had a decent day’s sleep yet and I’ht and slid out of the door Elyssa sat at a shan S with Dad--hopefully blocking the tracker Ryland and Stacey were nowhere to be seen

I strode to Elyssa Meghan looked up at htened when she sawI kissed her cheeks, then pulled her against ainst the small of her back while my other hand smoothed her hair back frohan’s bright red face

"Get a roonored hi violet eyes "Man, that felt good"

"It was kinda fun when you were helpless," she said, a gli I wanted to you"

"Where are the others?"

"Stacey said she needed to attend to a few things, and Ryland said he’d escort her in case more hellhounds showed up"

"Oh, I’ll bet she loved that," I said with a laugh "Those two are like oil and water"

"I think he gets off annoying her Stacey wasmore from Vallaena?"

Elyssa shook her head "No But I really don’t like the way she gave you a tihed "See me deadlines these days" My conversation with Felicia popped to mind, so I pulled Elyssa across the room and toward the tiny kitchen "I had a discussion about vairl"

"Felicia?"

"Yeah She told s can infect vampires with their virus and actually turn thes"

"And you’re wondering why I haven’t tried to eat your brains?" Elyssa said with a grin

Soh rin "Yeah"

"Templars have iives us a few useful perks"

"The Divinity?"

"Yeah Nobody knows exactly who or what it is, but it’s the power source and central core that ive the as they can pass the Cho’kai"

"The shohat?"

"It’s a trial all recruits have to pass before beco a full Teifts and they have to wait a year before they can reapply as a recruit"

"A trial--like doing a hundred pushups and loling through electrified hed "Nobody knows The trial takes place in the chapel and nobody ever re about it That’s pretty much the way any interaction with the Divinity is"

"Even your father doesn’t know?"

She shook her head "Not even the Te council, knows, and some of them have been around since before the Roman Empire"

"That’s freaky" All sorts of possibilities drifted throughballs of light that killed people or gave Captain Kirk an inexhaustible libido "Is this thing sentient?"

She nodded "Yeah, but on a level that makes us look like monkeys"

"We’re barely s to ht about Nathan and bullies like him and shuddered The hus," Elyssa said with a sideways look and a wistful shan told me what you did for Stacey" Her smile faltered and she looked down "You scare me to death sometimes, Justin"

I squeezed her to me "I scareto help her"

"Just like when you leapt into the back seat of the truck to protect Katie?"

"She would have died"

"Do you have soet killed?"

"Yes, I do have a complex, and no, I don’t want to die At least not until I’ve had my ith you, and then I’ll die happy"