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A al chair and floated, without wings or any other visibleBastard
Never once, however, did he shift his gaze away from Alison She was his object, his oal in now crossing the battling e brown eyes fixed to her, unblinking, searching He floated down to settle his Italian footwear on theshield after shield against the Corowl or the thruht blink indicated that Greaves may have sensed the threat that Kerrick was ready to s in defense of Alison
Endelle broke the tension "Well," she said, her tone lustrous with sarcased in"
Kerrick wanted to hustle Alison behind hih he didn’t sense an attack coainst Alison in this setting As much as COPASS tended to defer to hinore a direct assault Neither Greaves nor Endelle was permitted to attack anyone directly and there were some rules even Greaves had to obey, at least when he was in the open Like now
Alison had not been so close to Darian since she stood beside hi down at her first very pale, very beautiful death vampire But here he was, in the flesh, one of the s on Second Earth, her former client He had sent Leto to the don Borderland in pursuit of her He had sent a regied the arena battle just for her, all with one intention
Yet she had counseled him She had heard his story She knew him, at least to the extent anyone could know a man without a conscience, a sociopath She knew the pain he had suffered as a child, the cause of his mental disorder
Still He had intended for her to die
He held her gaze, his large child-like eyes beckoning "You surprised ine, a reversal of time and sword re-identification and the final shield So s on Second who can do these three things, and we’re both right here Was that how you repaired thein your office? Of course it was"
She heard Kerrick hiss softly, and another split-resonant growl ruuardian was in full protective aze drifted to Kerrick "Easy, boy I’ compliments Your woman did quite well"
"No shit" The words shot past Alison’s ear Kerrick’s body was on fire, a shield of raging heat against her side She felt his warrior fury rising but for soainst his shoulder They were together They were a teahed Yes, like her sister and her brother-in-law
The Coaze back to her "I learned so veryyou battle General Leto Overall, I consider the evening a very instructive experience"
So that was it That was the gay, so of course he had more than one purpose in the spectacle battle If she didn’t die, then he would learn ths and her weaknesses She was his ene of celebration so I will bid you good night I wish you every happiness, my dear And do take care"
He didn’t wait for her to respond but turned in the direction of his arreat ency simply vanished
Alison stared dumbstruck at all the empty seats, the vacant dais, the solitary ornate chair from which he had observed the battle
"Holy shit," Kerrick ht"
"How did he do that?" Alison whispered She couldn’t iine the level of power required to perforlanced up at her and laughed outright "Poser?"
Endelle rolled her eyes "A fucking parlor trick Don’t let hiht, then nodded in the direction of the stands, dis her arency si to the various exits
She turned back to Alison "You, on the other hand, ascendiate Wells, are goddamn useless All you had to do was finish Leto off You had hio What the fuck were you thinking and by the as that little private party you had with hi of the sort, because I know you did Did you do a littlewith Leto?"
Alison felt Kerrick’s body stiffen against her "Alison," Kerrick’s deep voice ru about?"
She pulled away froaze His eyes flashed arning "I can’t tell you"
"What?" he cried, his brow sinking low Another growl erupted from his throat, this time directed at her "Don’t telldidn’t!"
"Back off, Fido," Endelle said "So she was in his head Big-fucking-deal It’s not like she had her legs wrapped around his waist" She shifted her attention back to Alison "I just want to knohat the hell you talked about The fact you set up a shield even I couldn’t penetrate tells lanced fro ascender to the other Each was bent toward her in outright aggression For a split second she wondered if battling Leto would be the easy part of the night
She drew in a deep breath and decided to deal with the larger of the two problems first She stared into Endelle’s striated brown eyes She chose carefully the words she sent Though I can’t relay everything I saw, I can tell you Leto wants out
A little late for that
Alison shook her head very slowly