"Aside from the fact that I'm terrified?" she whispered.

"Yeah."

"There is more. It scares me. I ..." She stopped, panic rising within her. She wanted to tell Damian everything, but she'd broken his rules by telling them what she did. If she told him more, he might influence the paths she saw in a way that would make their slim chance of survival even slimmer. Her chest felt too tight to breathe deeply.

"Let's just spend the day together," he said and cupped her face in his hands. He gave her a long, lingering kiss. "Anything you want to do."

"Milkshakes."

He laughed. "I meant me."

Sofi raised an eyebrow. Her cravings had taken on a new life the longer she was pregnant.

"Fine. Milkshakes." Damian held out his hands and helped her to her feet. "Who taught you to make those anyway?"

They stepped into the hall, and Damian signaled for the awaiting Guardian to leave. Pierre trotted away.

"Darian and I were experimenting in the kitchen. I miss food so much, Damian," she said with a sigh. "And my cravings are just brutal. We started tossing stuff in the blender with frozen blood. I can keep down a milkshake."

Damian grimaced. He'd never outright told her it grossed him out, but she suspected it did.

"The rest of the day, I'm yours." She wrapped her arm around his waist as they walked to the kitchen. His power flowed through her, making her shiver. He squeezed her against him, and her eyes went over his perfect body.

A sense of loss filled her. If her vision wasn't right, she wasn't sure what she'd do, for the lives of all three brothers would soon be suspended in time.

Sofi fought back tears. She squeezed Damian harder, praying Darian did what he was resurrected to do.

Chapter Five.

Darian took them to an area where he'd felt a consistent, high level of Other activity. The area was free of Others now, but so many had come and gone from here, he knew it was something special. He opened his eyes to find them off a dirt road in the high desert somewhere. The air was clear and dry, the sand dotted with small shrubs.

He saw nothing that might indicate a cave similar to where the Watchers entered the mortal world, not even boulders. Jenn pulled her hand free from him, and he glanced at her. She'd been acting standoffish since he sought her out at Damian's direction. The bruises on her body confirmed what she'd never say: she was barely making it through this assignment.

When Jonny demanded someone help him uncover the Others, Darian had volunteered. The White God hadn't said a word, until requesting a hostage of his own in exchange for sending his brother to live with the Black God.

Jenn took a few steps away, looking around. She'd lost weight in the two weeks she'd been assigned to Jonny, and his gaze swept over her lean body. He'd always thought her beautiful-and beyond his reach. He'd accepted that sparring was the only real, physical interaction he'd ever have with her. When they'd met, she'd been the on-and-off girlfriend of Dusty, before the assassin met his mate. Darian had been lost in the mental cave that was his mind.

Standing in the desert sun, he couldn't help thinking she wasn't beyond his reach anymore. She'd done what Claire never would-risked getting killed by Others to save him. His resolve to keep away from her began to make less and less sense.

"There's nothing here. Unless this portal looks like a shrub," she said. "Though I do like this weather better than the snow. I hate the cold. I can't keep warm up there."

"I have a cabin near Jonny's. We can stay there, so we can sleep away from the vamps and take a decent shower," he offered then added quickly, "Separately. We can shower separately. If you want."

She gave him that look again. Rather than frustrate him, he found it entertaining.

"I'm not Jonny," he said with a straight face. "I'm not trying to get you into my bed. I have too much respect for you not to be direct about the fact I'm interested in you."

Jenn frowned.

He cursed himself silently. "I mean, if I was interested, I'd respect you and be direct about how-"

"So, you only have respect for me if you're interested in me?"

"I'll stop now. For the record, I don't have your gifted tongue and wish I did. Metaphorically."

She shook her head and walked away.

Darian didn't know when he'd lost his ability to speak clear sentences, but the idea Jenn scrambled his mind made him want to laugh. And run away. He wasn't sure which instinct was stronger.

Half a moment before she stepped through the portal, she triggered a magic alert that reverberated through him.

"Jenn-" he shouted then dived forward. He snagged her wrist as she dropped into the invisible portal to the immortal world.

Jenn dangled into the other world. Darian glimpsed an orchard with flowering trees and emerald grass as he ducked his head through the portal. He knew that orchard, and an ache grew at his core. It was not the time for memories, not when Jenn was caught between the two worlds.

"You found it," he said, bracing himself to haul her up. He lifted her back through the portal and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her to solid ground again.

"Wow. It's not quite what I remember," she said, leaning away from him to peer at the ground. The portal was camouflaged by sand and shrubs.

"It's like heaven," he agreed quietly, regret in his voice.

"I don't remember it that way. I was young when the Schism occurred. I remember nothing but blood and death." Jenn pushed his arm away and stepped to the side to avoid the portal.

Darian blinked his memories away before squatting. The portal was invisible, unless someone fell through it.

"What're you thinking?" she asked.

"I know where they are, but I don't know how to close them."

"You need sensors of some sort. I think positioning Guardians here would get too many of them killed."

"I can't be in two places at once."

"We've got all kinds of clandestine technology. This will be easy to set up. If nothing else, we can bury motion sensors a few feet away, if you think the Others will sense anything close to the portal."

"The first time I meet them here, they're going to know it's not a secret," Darian said with a shrug. "I don't care what they know."

"Don't get too cocky, Darian. You killed one. What if they bring a dozen?"

"They won't kill me. Might knock me on my ass for a bit."

"And then they're loose in the world while you recover. You need monitoring equipment, preferably something they can't sense so you know what you're getting into before you show up with guns blazing."

Darian watched her. Jenn found a stick and carefully returned to the portal, tapping the ground to find where it was solid. She drew a line in the sand around the portal. It was a rough circle about four feet in diameter. Her assessing gaze took in the surrounding area.

"This'll work. Can I borrow your cell?" she asked.

"Where's yours?"

"Xander crushed it."

"You couldn't call for help even if you needed it," he said, frowning. He handed her his phone.

"I believe that was his intent," she said, unfazed.

Darian didn't say what he wanted to, that she was as big of a fool as he was. Jenn stepped away to make a phone call, and he circled the portal. He wanted to see what was on the other side, even if it brought up memories he wanted to forget. Maybe, just maybe, he'd get some closure, if he could return to where everything went wrong.

"They'll send a team down," Jenn said, returning to his side. "You said there's another for Watchers?"

"Yeah. In a cave."

"We can send someone to assess what we can do there, too."

"This is good. We set up sensors and shit, and I can then go hunt down and kill those who are here. I'm not telling anyone where the portals are, though. No telling what Jonny would try to do if he knew."

"Smart. He's lost right now, like ..." She stopped herself.

"Like I was," Darian said firmly.

Jenn turned the assessing gaze on him again then flashed a smile. "Sure, hon," she said, clearly disbelieving.

"You, too," Darian complained. "What will it take for me to convince you?"

"No need. I know you've changed. I've watched you turn into you. I've watched Jonny turn into the Black God."

He sensed there was more. "And ... what?"

"I don't know. Gods know I've done stupid shit in my life and seen people from all walks of life. Call me nave, but I spent most of my life around bad people who deserved what came to them. I don't like seeing good people become unsalvageable," she said with a shrug.

"You think I'm unsalvageable?"

"Jonny is. I don't know about you yet."

Darian took this in. He didn't consider what others might think of him, outside of his family. He didn't think of himself as unsalvageable in the least. He would never be what he once was, but he wasn't Jonny, headed down a dark path. He was headed down his own path, that of the Grey God, a creature that never existed before him.

"We all make our choices," he said, puzzled. "Or maybe this isn't about me at all."

"There's a station near here. I called in an order for some equipment. Should be there this evening." Her gaze went north.

Just like that, she was cool and professional again.

"Wait," he said and took her wrist.

"Don't touch me, Darian," she warned and yanked away.

"You're just going to open a can of worms and walk away?"

"We have work to do."

She pushed the location of the station into his mind then disappeared, Traveling without him. Darian lingered, unable to figure out exactly what was wrong. The cool, sexy Jenn he'd sparred with was incapable of being ruffled. Now, she was edgy and terse with him.

He circled the portal once again, stalling, before finally Traveling to the nearby station. The two Guardians assigned to the small adobe house in the middle of a Mexican village stood out front with Jenn. The small town had only dirt roads, and his glanced lingered towards a farmers market under the awnings in the center, a couple of blocks away. The scent of barbacoa made his stomach rumble.

The two large Hispanic Guardians glanced towards him when he entered the yard marked by a stone fence.

"Darian, this is Chapo and Larry," Jenn said as he approached. "Ikir Damian's brother, Darian."

"A pleasure," the man named Chapo said and shook Darian's hand.

"They've seen some guardsmen come through here," Jenn told Darian.

"We've adhered to Ikir's mandate of no engagement, though we followed them around," Chapo told Darian. "Looks like they were scouting the town. Came through twice a few days ago and haven't seen them since."

"Might be a good thing Guardians are largely powerless," Darian said. "You might've had some nasty visitors otherwise." He couldn't imagine waking up to find an Other sitting in the corner. He'd thought the Guardians' loss of magic a curse until he started thinking about how the Others couldn't sense a Guardian that had no magic.

The Watchers blamed him for stripping the Guardians' magic when he froze time, but he began to wonder if they hadn't done it themselves. Whoever did it, it was working in the Guardians' favor right now.

"The team should be here soon," Jenn said with a look at her watch.

The tattooed Larry motioned for them to enter the one-story house. The village and exterior of the house looked run down and barely out of poverty, but the house's interior was immaculate. Low-key, contemporary furnishings in light wood colors and pale neutrals were mixed with splashes of color: the navy blue rug, lime couch pillows, cinnamon drapes, and yellow floorboards. The open floor plan ran from the living area through a kitchen to a formal dining room area that had been converted into an office on the other side.

"I love this place," he said, intrigued by the colors. "All we need is some barbacoa."

The two Guardians gave him a curious look. Suspecting he'd missed something important, Darian joined them in the office area. Larry sat before a Mac, pictures of the portal on the computer screen before him.

"We'll set up cameras here and here," Jenn said, indicating two spots on one photo.

"Under the bushes," Larry added. "We'll have to check them every few days. The dust storms here can knock over trees."

"When did you take photos?" Darian asked.

"At the site. I sent them to Larry," Jenn replied.

"Wow, you're good."

Jenn eyed him, as if suspecting he was being sarcastic. He wasn't. His normal way of doing business was to plan the best he could then leap in. He wasn't lucky enough to get killed. Jenn took planning to another level, one he didn't know was possible after so many years without technology. Sofi had taught him to use his cell phone and Dusty had taught him the computer. He'd been fascinated by the amount of technology Dusty and Jenn used to track vamps in Miami.

"Motion sensors there," Chapo added. "And the solar battery farther back. It's big and ugly. They'll see it otherwise."

"I called for the infrared cameras. We should have good night vision, too," Jenn added. "You guys need someone else to help monitor?"

"We got nothing going on with the mandate," Larry answered. "We're good."