At that moment, everything became clear: him bursting up, bolting fast, breaking out of the exam room and into the corridor. Running down toward the parking garage as he palmed his weapon.
Intending to blow his brains out as soon as he was free of the training center.
He’d had the conception that maybe, if there was actually a Fade, he and Selena could meet on the other side and come together, in a way they never could down on Earth.
“Trez, she’s still alive. Don’t you do this. You want to kill yourself? Wait until her heart stops beating, but not before that. Not one fucking moment before that.”
Trez pictured Selena back on that table, and thought, Shit …
iAm, as always, was right.
The shaking returned as he began to lower his arm, and he moved slowly for fear of some twitch setting the forty off. But he didn’t need to worry about that. As soon as that muzzle was out of the range of his gray matter, his brother took over, disarming him quick as a breath and putting the safety in place.
Trez stood there numbly as iAm patted him down and removed a couple more weapons, and then he allowed himself to be led back to that examination room and the group of people standing shocked and still around its door.
Not before she was gone, he told himself. Not while she was still here.
Unfortunately, he feared that was not likely to be very long at all.
TEN
Paradise, blooded daughter of Abalone, First Adviser to the King, frowned at the screen of her Apple lappy. She’d set herself up here in her father’s library ever since he’d started working each night for Wrath, son of Wrath, because in the old rambling Tudor mansion, Wi-Fi was strongest at this desk. Not that a good signal was helping her at the moment. Her Hotmail account was full of unread messages, because, with iMessage on her phone and her Twitter, Instagram, and FB accounts, there was no reason to sign into it very often.
“So hold up, what was it called?” she said into her cell.
“‘New Trainee Class,’” Peyton, blooded son of Peythone, replied. “I forwarded it to you, like, an hour ago.”
She sat forward in her father’s chair. “There’s just so much junk in here.”
“Lemme resend—”
“Wait, I got it.” She clicked and then clicked again on the attachment. “Wow. It’s on official letterhead.”
“Told you.”
Paradise scanned the date, the personalized greeting to Peyton, the two paragraphs about the program, and the closing. “Holy … it’s signed by a Brother.”
“Tohrment, son of Hharm.”
“Well, if it’s a fake, someone’s going to catch some serious—”
“But did you see in the second paragraph?”
She refocused on the words. “Females? Whoa, whoa … they’re accepting females?”
“I know, right?” There was a bubbling noise and an exhale as Peyton took another hit. “It’s unprecedented.”
Paradise reread the letter, this time more carefully. Operative words leaped out at her: Open tryouts for the training program. Females and civilians welcome to take physical performance test for entrance. Sessions taught by the Brotherhood themselves. Tuition? Nada.
“What are they thinking?” Peyton muttered. “I mean, this is supposed to be for the glymera sons only.”
“Not anymore, apparently.”
As Peyton went off on a commentary about the fairer sex and traditional roles at home and in the field, Paradise sat back in the leather armchair. Next to her, logs set by the household’s doggen crackled with orange flames in the marble-faced hearth, the warmth hitting one side of her face and half of her body. All around, her father’s library glowed with yellow light and polished mahogany and the gold accents on the spines of his collection of first-edition books.
The mansion they lived in was one of Caldwell’s grandest, with forty other rooms that were kitted out with equal luxury to this one, if not even greater: Beautiful silks hung from diamond-paned leaded windows. Fine Oriental rugs stretched out across polished floors. Oil paintings of ancestors were mounted up the stairwells and featured prominently over mantels and sideboards. Fine china was set at a formal table for every meal, food cooked and served by the extensive staff.
She had lived here with her father for years upon years, tutored by other ladies of the glymera in all the things that made an aristocratic female mateable: Clothing. Entertaining. Etiquette. Being the chatelaine of an estate.
And what was it all leading up to? Her presentation party, which had been delayed, as with the Brotherhood’s training program, because of the raids two years ago.
Plans for her were likewise going to be reinstated, however. What was left of the aristocracy had moved back to Caldwell proper from their safe houses, and as she was of age, being at least four years out of her transition, it was time for her to find a mate.