He glanced sideways at her, his eyes hooded and dark. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, looking away from her across to Mirror Lake shimmering in the moonlight below them. It was hard to believe that on the very far side of that large body of water was where she'd first seen Jared's light. It had been little more than a week since she'd met him there and felt the pure magnificence of all that he truly was. She would die before she let Marco or any of his gathered conspirators hurt Jared.

She sat up taller on the rocks. "You're just going to ignore my questions, huh?"

"Kelsey." He sighed heavily, his eyes trained on the path below. "I can't answer these things. You know that."

Maybe if she could distract him then that would buy some time. "How about other, less complicated questions?"

"Like what?"

"Like, are you planning to use the mitres? Is that why we're really here?"

"No, apparently"-he rose to his feet, peering through the night vision gla.s.ses and around the large wall of rock- "I should leave that maneuver in your capable hands."

"I wasn't trying to use the weapon." When he made no further reply, she attempted another angle with the man. "Tell me more about what you were saying, about my being-what did you call it? The beloved of Refaria?"

Nothing but stony silence, his face an inscrutable mask of indifference.

If she could only find a way to distract him, or to somehow appeal to Marco's ingrained sense of loyalty. "So, you won't answer that either," she said.

Resting one forearm on an outcropping of rock, he bowed his head and remained quiet for a long moment. At last he turned his head sideways and met her gaze in the darkness. His black eyes, so empty and lifeless before, nearly blazed with energy. "In our future you were worshiped, Kelsey. By the Refarians, because they yearned for a queen, and by Jared because..." His voice trailed off, and he just shook his head, saying nothing for what felt an eternity, until he finished with, "We all worshiped you, Kelsey." His voice had become hoa.r.s.e. Choked. Full of emotion. But then he looked away, shuttering his features and setting his jaw.

How ironic to think she was learning these things now, at a time when her only thought was for Jared's very life.

Jared's life.

. Her heart thundered within her chest, and it was hard to suppress her mounting sense of panic. Her palms were sweating, and she could hear the sound of blood rushing in her ears. What am I supposed to do? They all needed her to do something-and now. She took deep breaths, trying to get her equilibrium back in check, and in response an excruciating pain hammered in her head. It had begun when she'd traveled through the slipstream, and been there vaguely ever since, intensifying when Marco had invaded her thoughts earlier in the mitres.

What a weird sensation that had been: painful, like something being sucked right out of her. In its wake, a dull throbbing had intensified to what was now a blinding headache. She rubbed her eyes, trying to still the pain.

Then she had the oddest memory. And she knew it was a memory, something that had actually happened, not a fleeting impression.

"What if he doesn't come back, Marco? What if this is it?"

His voice, strong and rea.s.suring. "He'll be here, Kelsey."

They were sitting on a rocky outcropping. Not here, somewhere else. Nighttime... and he was surveying the landscape with the same binoculars.

"I can't feel him. Not at all," she cried quietly.

He looked at her and pressed his hand over hers. "He'll be here. He will always come back for you, Kelsey."

"I can trust you," she announced quietly.Marco dropped the gla.s.ses, staring at her dumbfounded for a full five seconds."Please tell me I'm not wrong," she implored."I am your enemy," Marco insisted, straightening himself where he sat. "Make no mistake about that fact.""No." She shook her head with conviction. "I don't believe you."His voice rose. "You need to believe it, Kelsey.""You might, but I don't, not anymore. It goes against everything that you are.""You have no idea what kind of man I am." He laughed wryly. "What I'm capable of." She realized those words were familiar, though it took her a moment to place them. And then it hit her-Jared! He had used almost those identical words to describe himself earlier that evening.

"I know that there was a time you would have done anything for us," she said softly.

"Once." His voice seemed sad, lost.

"Whatever Jared did... to make you turn from him-" His angry glare cut off her plea, his eyes flashing with fire, and then he stood suddenly. He grabbed her arm, jerking her roughly to her feet. At that exact moment, Kelsey heard a rustling behind them. Marco glanced quickly in that direction, shoving her ahead of him.

"I want you back here. Now." He dragged her toward the concealed mitres entry, and this time he did

bind both her hands and her feet so there would be no hope of escaping.

Marco stood with Veckus at the highest point of the trail, obscured from the Refarian soldiers advancing below them. They'd ascended a hidden back path, hoping to go unnoticed, but he'd been observing them from the very beginning.

"They're almost here," Marco stated calmly, studying Veckus's features. Unbelievable-here it was tenyears earlier, and Veckus looked exactly the same as he did in the future. He stood with two other men-Antousians, no doubt-whom Marco had never seen before. All three observed the path below.

"Well, well, Jared will be very surprised to see how the tables have turned." Veckus sneered. "The mitres and the fallen king, all in one day. Not bad work."

Marco bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment. "I am only following your future orders."

"You follow well," he said, his eyes narrowing in appreciation. Veckus would be considered quite handsome by many people on Earth, but when Marco gazed at the tall blond, he only saw ugliness and

hatred.

Veckus reached for Marco's field gla.s.ses, and over his comm system he ordered another unit of troops

to make the ascent. "They will be here very soon, yes," Veckus said, lowering the gla.s.ses. He turned toMarco. "And where is Jared's human now?""Inside the mitres," he lied."Bring her out."Marco hesitated. "She's not to be harmed." He met Veckus's gaze pointedly. "You do remember that?"Veckus shrugged indifferently. "Well, Raedus's directive has changed slightly. We're to get rid of them all."

Marco stared at the warlord in disbelief. To the Antousians, their sworn word meant nothing and was ever shifting to suit their current needs.

Veckus's hand twitched against the pulse gun holstered at his hip. "Yes, we'll just have a nice little group

execution and be on our way," he said with a smile.

They would not hurt Kelsey. Marco would not allow it.

"Kelsey was never to be harmed." He gave the Antousian a forceful shove in the chest. "That was our

arrangement from the beginning."

Veckus brushed off his jacket with a scowl of distaste. "Well, I'm a bit troubled by the idea of one dethroned and exiled queen left as a rallying point. I want this rebellion quashed once and for all."

Marco thought a quick moment, as priorities shifted and realigned in a nearly forgotten way. "You should

wait behind the rocks," Marco told the hybrid calmly. "We must protect you at all costs, my lord."

Veckus nodded in agreement. "Of course. Best to maintain the illusion that it's only you."

Marco chose not to correct the hybrid's false a.s.sumption that Jared thought he acted alone. Nor did he

see fit to inform him that the king and queen had formed not one, but two spatial bridges within the past hour.

Veckus and his flanking soldiers took a position behind the rocks where they'd hidden before.

And Marco knew exactly what he would have to do, because even after all his long history with Jared and Kelsey, he had come to understand something crucial about himself this night.

He realized that he had never fully turned away from his queen.

"Come with me, Kelsey. Now." Marco knelt beside where she huddled on the rocks, quickly loosening the ropes that he had tied her with.

"What's happening?"

As the bindings fell away he pulled her close to him- so close that she could feel his hot breath fan against her cheek. "Go to Jared," he whispered in an urgent voice. "There's an unused trail off to the eastern ledge, and if you take it, that portion is unprotected. All their attention is trained on Jared's advancing units on the south trail."

She stared at him in silent shock, and he squeezed her upper arm tightly. "Now, Kelsey," he said, his voice husky. "Before I change my mind."

She nodded, moving to the ledge, but he pulled her back by the hand. "I can't protect you here, Kelsey," he reminded her in a low voice. "You know that. But Jared can. Get him and get out of here."

Chapter Eighteen.

Kelsey scrambled down the dark hillside as quietly as she could, hoping to reach Jared before his enemies did. She became more and more frantic as she made her way down the trail, wondering how she'd ever locate him or even any of his soldiers in the midst of such darkness. As she slid down the path, her foot caught on a hidden piece of brush that sent her sprawling forward roughly onto her hands. A sharp pain immediately shot through her wrist, and she was pretty sure she heard the snap of a broken bone. But there was no time to think about that now.

Get to Jared. She trained her thoughts, forcing herself back to her feet. She glanced quickly over her shoulder, searching for any sign that she was being followed.

Focus, Kelsey. Keep yourself together. Finding Jared is the only thing that matters. As she stumbled down the path it seemed as if she were floundering in an ocean of darkness, groping for some unseen sh.o.r.e. If only she had a light of some kind, anything at all to guide her.

Then she remembered one singular advantage that she had over their unseen enemies.

"You've no business here at all, Jared," Scott insisted with an uncomfortable glance up the dark trail. "Or have you already forgotten the details of your capture a few years ago?"

"You know I'll never forget." Jared kept his voice emotionless with an effort.

"I'm the one to lead the team in, Jared, not you."

"Is that your opinion or your sense?" Jared never liked being taken out of the action-and now, with Kelsey's life in the balance, he liked it even less than usual.

"Both," Scott said.

Jared studied the steep cliffs, the rocks above them on the trail silvered by moonlight. They had no idea what waited for them at the top of the winding path. "She needs me," Jared whispered.

Scott clasped his shoulder with an intensity of affection that Jared rarely saw in his friend and lieutenant. "She needs you alive, J," he said, giving Jared's bulletproof vest an adjusting tug. "You know you've got no business on this mission. Period. I should have made you stay behind at the compound to begin with." Scott never minced words when it came to leadership, one reason Jared knew he could trust him with his own life and, more important, with Kelsey's.

Jared's hand hovered against his comm b.u.t.ton as he contemplated his next set of commands. Every soldier waited, at the ready. He trusted Scott's instincts, especially at a moment when his own skills felt so impaired by emotion, but his fear and worry for his lifemate were immense, and his need to fight for her was nearly overpowering. That made it impossible to stay away when he understood the intentions of the enemies she faced up on that trail.

Still, as leader he also knew his own safety had to take priority. "Anika and I will return to our position by the lake," he finally agreed. "If anything happens, you signal for us immediately. Do you understand, Lieutenant?"

Scott nodded his agreement. "Be careful, Commander."

Jared glimpsed the flicker of worry in his friend's dark eyes. "You're the one who needs to be careful," he reminded the Antousian softly. "I'm entrusting my queen into your hands."

Marco studied Kelsey's descent through his binoculars and wished for at least the tenth time that he'd simply gone with her. What purpose could he possibly serve by remaining? Although he knew the answer to that question: He had to end what he'd started by leading Veckus to the mitres in the first place.

He rocked back on his heels and continued watching Kelsey's halting progress through the green haze of the night-vision gla.s.ses. Humans registered with a midlevel en-ergy reflection, whereas the Antousians' thermal register was always brighter, and the Refarians' the brightest of all. Then of course there were Jared and Kelsey, another story altogether. Kelsey's register had always been completely singular, falling somewhere between the human and alien ones as a result of her change, her energy much stronger than a human's, yet not as brilliant as that of the others. And Jared's reading was the strongest and brightest of any he'd ever seen, even Thea's. It had always been a great source of annoyance to Veckus that even with all his power, he had never once registered anywhere near as strongly as Jared on an average day.

But that wasn't the most fascinating thing. What Marco was watching unfold now was an image he'd witnessed through these binoculars hundreds-perhaps thousands-of times before, and it never failed to awe him. He was observing the way Jared's and Kelsey's thermal energies altered when they came into contact with each other. Whenever they were within proximity, their body chemistries and heat indexes literally changed in composition, a.s.suming entirely different levels than each held on their own.

Over the years, he'd trained his eye to instantly recognize their own peculiar heat impressions so that he could track them, but he'd also quickly learned to follow their secondary register-the unique one they created together. Quite simply, when Jared and Kelsey were near each other they blended, their energy becoming one. He wondered if Kelsey could feel how close she was getting to Jared, because he could certainly see it in the way her thermal energy was beginning to escalate, as was Jared's where he was crouching just behind a nearby rock. Marco couldn't see him completely, could only catch a glimmer of his thermal register, which was intensifying by the moment as Kelsey approached him.

Marco's reflections were cut short when he saw another familiar radiation, that of an Antousian hybrid who was now flanked by two Refarians. That team was moving up the eastern trail, the same one he'd sent Kelsey down. He'd been so busy tracking her that he'd nearly missed their approach. It had to be Scott Dillon accompanied by two other soldiers. What the h.e.l.l did Scott think he was doing?

He'd always liked Scott a great deal and had no old scores to settle with the man. Marco looked around quickly, trying to choose a course of action.

But when he gazed back through the binoculars again, he saw something much more disturbing on the path below: three Antousian hybrids off to the side, also tracking Kelsey's movements. His pulse raced as old instincts came sharply into focus. They were in terrible danger-all of them-and he had to do something.