All well and good.

But the contents.

Holy hell.

He had spent the last hour reviewing the stack of reports, a foot deep, which Commander Greaves had provided for him concerning the mortal ascendiate Alison Wells. Suffice it to say his chest now felt strapped with steel bands and his briefs were, yeah, damp.

So much for an easy kill.

What he had believed would be a simple task—offing a female mortal—had taken on the quality of a nightmare, the one where you tried to run but your legs wouldn’t move.

He read, The mortal is the most powerful ascendiate since Endelle’s arrival nine thousand years ago. She has all of Second’s abilities.

Jesus.

The Commander had sent his spies after the ascendiate every day for the past year, assessing her, reading her powers, watching her activities. There was even an absurd notation about the level she had achieved at sudoku.

Of course his mind tripped over this information and fell flat with the next bit. The ascendiate will no doubt have a Warrior of the Blood in full guardian mode protecting her during her rite of ascension.

Sweet Jesus.

So, yeah. He was in the middle of a nightmare. As he continued to flip pages, a new thought emerged, one that kept tightening his groin with possibilities. If he were to drink the woman to death himself and seize her powers, would he then be as strong as Commander Greaves? Stronger?

He flexed his buttocks and shifted in his seat to make room for a sudden erection.

The Commander materialized in front of his desk. “Lay that thought aside, Crace. Make no mistake. Once you got near enough to ascendiate Wells with such a proposition in mind, she would incinerate your gray matter.”

Crace looked up from the reports then shot to his feet.

Shit.

The Commander had read his thoughts before he’d appeared in the room. Crace had to be smarter than this.

“Commander,” he murmured. He bowed low, remaining in the same position in hopes his obvious excitement would diminish quickly.

“The Committee has been informed of the ascendiate’s refusal to join my ranks. You hereby have permission to proceed in preparation for an imminent rite of ascension. Lay in your plans. Keep me informed. I’ll be in Geneva for the next few hours. After that I have several High Administrators to tend to. I’m not sure when I’ll be back in Phoenix Two. In the meantime, please move from your hotel into the suite next to my chambers here in the compound. Are we clear?”

“Yes, Commander. Thank you, Commander.”

Permission to proceed.

Move to the suite next to the right hand of God.

He rose from his bow, his vocal cords humming, his parted lips ready to engage the Commander. Unfortunately, his deity had vanished.

Crace released a sigh. He sat back down, aware again of his clinging pants. He really needed to change them again, but he didn’t want to leave his desk. He could not believe all this good fortune was happening to him. A chance at the Round Table and now the suite next to the Commander. His star was rising, ascending.

He laughed at his joke.

Okay.

This was good.

Holy shit … the suite next to the Commander.

His arousal throbbed. He needed his wife. He had already summoned her from Chicago. She would take up his rooms at the Bredstone Hotel, and later he would get the relief he needed: her body, her blood, her mind.

As he glanced at the reports once more, a plan began to form. He believed in keeping things simple. The ascendiate would be answering her call to ascension soon, at one of the Borderlands, near a dimensional Trough, and when she did, he would have three squads of death vampires in place to finish her off. Simple, to the point, the task accomplished.

Since her warrior guardian would probably be at the Trough as well, he would need to send along at least one of the Commander’s generals, a powerful warrior, to make certain the guardian died along with her. Fortunately, Commander Greaves had turned a Warrior of the Blood over a century ago. Yes, the warrior General Leto would do, a most appropriate assignment for him.

What could be simpler?

Oh, God, a seat at the Round Table.

* * *

Havily tapped her foot and glanced at her phone.

For the twentieth time she stepped in front of the sliding doors.

Nothing.

She called Central. Again. She heard Jeannie’s voice then suddenly the doors flashed apart, a soft whoosh of air over her face.

Finally. She glanced at the time. Just after ten o’clock.

She had been kept waiting an hour.

She slid her phone back into her pants pocket, picked up her carry-case and her briefcase, then marched through. A path of lights lit the way to the office.

Her steps slowed when her peripheral vision caught sight of the chaos of the administrative pool. She stopped and turned in horror. There were rows and rows of desks going on forever, each one piled high with papers. She shook her head back and forth, back and forth.

This is ridiculous.

Had no one heard of a paperless office?

She dipped her chin and resumed her course, picking up her pace. She turned down the wide corridor to the left. At the far end, a wedge of light angled into the hallway. Madame Endelle’s office.

After passing a dozen glass-walled executive offices, also piled with papers, she reached the doorway. She drew in a deep purposeful breath and at the same time crossed the threshold.

Endelle glanced up at her. Barely a glance, a brief batting of thick black lashes, nothing more as she resumed reading a report on her desk. “I need you on liaison duty, Havily.” Liaison duty? Endelle never spoke to her directly about liaison assignments. “This is important.” She tossed a clear lavender folder in Havily’s direction across the desk. The folder slid just to the edge. “Everything you need to know is in there. Things will get messy, but I have Kerrick on guardian duty so you probably won’t need a flak jacket. Nice to see you again, blah-blah-blah. Thorne will contact you when you’re needed. Good night.”

Havily stared at the bent head. Madame Endelle shuffled papers and started reading another report. She felt a quick flush to her cheeks, a familiar tingling, which meant she ought to retreat right now and gather the reins of her vampire temper. “I beg your pardon?” The words came out clipped, even brittle, certainly a challenge.

Endelle froze, lifted an icy gaze, then eased back in her chair, back against a mountain of light blue feathers. How did she do that? How did she sit in a nest of her wings? Havily’s back ached just looking at the bent and contorted feathers.

Endelle’s chin rose and her gaze came at Havily full-throttle, two hostile brown eyes, lined like ancient oak bark. She wore some kind of animal print, cheetah perhaps, which added to the sense of menace in her eyes. “And apparently I beg yours. What the fuck do you mean by talking to me like that? You have your assignment. Thorne will call you when he needs you. Now get the hell out of my office.”

Again Havily felt her cheeks tingle, another warning to start moving backward, to put her feet on the bicycle pedals and start wheeling out of the office, at light speed, preferably. Instead she actually stepped forward. She had waited for years to speak to Madame Endelle face-to-face. She dropped the briefcase from her left hand and heard the soft thunk on the carpet. Her right arm came up, then the rest of what she accomplished, to her horror, occurred in preternatural time.

Before Endelle could blink again, the proposed military-admin complex lay before her, on top of the report she was reading, the portfolio as the base, the entire thing an architectural pop-up. It was a work of great beauty, and took up a good portion of Endelle’s oversized desk.

Far more important than the physical structure was the complete reorganization of duties and responsibilities, which would create an efficiency currently lacking in Endelle’s operations. Havily moved to the side of the desk so that she could see the Supreme High Administrator as she began her prepared speech. She started to explain the freedom that would accrue to Madame Endelle by adopting her plan. She didn’t get more than four sentences in when Endelle’s wings shifted color from the present light blue to a dark midnight black. She rose to her feet. Her nostrils flared.

Despite the displeased nature of these signs, Havily pressed on, giving statistics about hours and efficiency, when suddenly the architectural mock-up burst into flames, a monstrous sudden conflagration. As the flames reached to the ceiling, Havily backed up several feet, almost to the fireplace.

The next moment the flames disappeared abruptly, as well as even the smallest dust mote of her project. Vanished. Gone. Kaput.

Havily had the mildly hysterical thought that her work of three years had just gone up in smoke.

Her lips parted. Of all the things she had expected to happen during the interview, she had not expected this, a complete unwillingness on Madame Endelle’s part to hear even a word she had hoped to say, the speech she had practiced before her mirror dozens of times.

The Supreme High Administrator held Havily’s gaze for a long, tense moment, then said, “I’m trying to keep a mortal alive, not to mention attempting to prevent all of Second Earth from falling into the hands of a monster, and you brought me a goddamn dollhouse? Just do your fucking job, Morgan, and get the hell out of my office.”

Havily glanced at the lavender folder, which had fallen to the floor in the chaos. She held out her hand and brought it in a long glide through the air into her palm. She turned on her professional black heels and left her briefcase sitting there. What was the point? She hoped Endelle tripped over it.

She moved swiftly down the wide corridor with all the glass walls and ignored the tears tracking down her cheeks.

When she was within ten feet of the sliding doors, something large whizzed past her head—oh, her briefcase, in the form of a rocket—which then struck and demolished one of the glass panes leading into the hall. She paused for a moment, staring at the shattered glass.

Perfect.

She lifted her arm and dematerialized back to her office. She walked the length of the room back and forth, forcing her heart and mind to settle. Her disappointment was severe, painfully so. The tears wouldn’t stop. What was wrong with the Supreme High Administrator that she would not even listen to an idea?