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  Sahara’s hands traveled up his chest and neck to cup his jaw. “You’re not dead?”

  “We could both be dead,” he countered logically.

  Her eyes were confused a moment and then suddenly laughter lit her face. “Fine by me.” She pounced at him, somehow launching herself from a sitting position into his chest and knocking him back on the sand.

  Her mouth came down on his and her tongue thrust in. The kiss was all Sahara, eating at Tor as if she were starving. His arms gripped her naturally and rolled them over. That was better. Sahara belonged under him. The kiss changed as Tor growled into her mouth and took control.

  In the distance came a distinctly mechanical roaring scream. Tor knew the sound of a transport coming at them fast. He glanced up but didn’t take his mouth off her. There it was. The royal emblem on the nose swiftly evident as it raced toward them.

  Tor lifted his head and looked at the woman in his arms and back at the very non-afterlife vehicle approaching.

  “Don’t think we’re dead,” he commented. “Too bad. No one would bother us then.”

  Sahara’s head arched up in the sand to look at the transport now slowing as it approached. “What happened?”

  “You don’t remember?” he asked cautiously.

  “I remember right up to the knife part.” Sahara scowled. “What happened next?”

  Tor sat up with Sahara still on his chest. “Look.” He pointed at the ocean.

  Far out to sea they could just see the top of the obelisk between the waves rising in normal crests. They were sitting on the Starling Ocean beach.

  “Oh,” Sahara breathed, a shudder coursing through her.

  “Yeah,” Tor agreed with her unspoken dread.

  “What do you think it’s doing?”

  “It’s watching,” Tor stated as they ducked the flying sand kicked up by the royal transport landing way too close. Whoever was flying needed more training and a reprimand.

  The pilot door thrust open, Nearrid jumped down and ran toward them.

  Tor slowly stood. Sahara tightened her arms around his neck in physical refusal to get off him. Good thing because putting her down wasn’t going to happen ‘til he did it on a bed and had the time to fuck her brains out. Perhaps after a few days of that he’d be able to let go of her.

  “What the drednell happened?” Nearrid demanded even before he reached them.

  Carrying Sahara easily, Tor strolled toward his running brother. “What did it look like?” he asked cautiously.

  Several other warriors and scientists piled out of the transport.

  “We had the flyer onscreen for twenty minutes then everything disappeared.” Nearrid came to a halt in front of them. The usually calm warrior was visibly shaken as he studied them, looking for evidence of some event. “The storm stopped abruptly but darkness remained. We couldn’t penetrate it with the equipment and anything we tried to fly in here stopped working, dropping out of the sky like a rock. On land we hit an invisible barrier. Five minutes ago the darkness sucked into that thing out there and we had your life signs on the screens again.”

  Tor glanced out at the obelisk. “We’ll have a debriefing when we get home. I’d like to put some distance between us and it,” he answered.

  “That’s not an answer,” Nearrid snarled. “You almost killed me with fear and now you’re not going to explain?”

  Sahara coughed, half a laugh, half a sob.

  “I’m taking her home and then we’ll explain,” Tor stated firmly. “It’s complicated.” Tor glanced pointedly at the crowd nearing them.

  Nearrid’s lips clamped shut in a thin line and he nodded. Again in control, his normally grim expression locked into place as they turned to the transport.

  Landing at the palace was accompanied by crowds of cheering Leonor citizens. Tor did not put Sahara down as he acknowledged the crowd with a slight bow. He felt their happiness was misplaced. The threat was not over, perhaps delayed as the tower took the time to learn Leonor.

  The powers it commanded were like nothing he’d ever heard of.

  Striding toward his apartment, Tor questioned Nearrid. “Burke gone yet?”

  “He left before you did,” Nearrid confirmed.

  “Good. That thing needs a keeper. Something with a heartbeat in charge.”

  “Explain it to me,” Nearrid invited at they paused at Tor’s door.

  “Soon, but not now,” Tor snarled as he entered his lair, pausing in the door, he asked the other question that could be vitally important. “Is anyone watching that thing?”

  “Naturally. Why?” Nearrid wanted to know.

  “Because the same thing is about to happen that triggered it the first time. I’ll check with them shortly.” Tor shut the door on his brother. There was no time for explanations.

  Not pausing at the outer rooms, Tor headed straight for his bedroom.

  “We need to talk,” Sahara said as he let her slide down his body to her feet.

  “Agreed, but do it while we’re undressing,” Tor commanded, his hands already unbuckling his own suit.

  “Tor, this is serious.” Sahara hadn’t touched her clothing.

  “Everything about this is serious. Strip.” Tor sat to rip off his boots.

  “I killed you.” Sahara stared at him.

  Tor glanced up as he tossed the second boot. “No, I committed suicide. You had pretty much nothing to do with it.”

  “That’s worse. We can’t tell them that. But if we tell them I killed you, how can they ever trust me?” Sahara stepped back as he stood and slid out of his flight suit.

  “You’re worried about what we tell them?” Hands on hips, he regarded his clothed woman, more concerned with the best way to remove her suit than what any other damn lion might think.

  “Goddess! Of course I am. If I killed you I get the death penalty. If you committed suicide you’re disgraced and can’t be a warrior, much less high king.”

  Tor decided she was too upset to understand if he just hooked claws in the thing and shredded it. Starting at her neck, he gently unfastened her. “I’m not dead. I might never have been dead. Whatever that weapon is, it’s powerful in a way we don’t understand. It might have been an illusion to see what we would do.”

  “An illusion?” Obviously the thought hadn’t occurred to her yet. “That torture might not have been real?” She moved obediently as he shoved the suit off her shoulders.

  “It was real in the sense we experienced it,” Tor assured her as he reached behind her to unhook her bra. “But there is no evidence of a wound on me. I don’t know of anything that can heal completely, so we have to assume it might have been an elaborate simulation. Do you remember anything after the knife entering me?”

  “Shock, disbelief, pain. Then we were on the beach.”

  “Exactly,” Tor agreed as he gently grasped her shoulders and turned her to push her knees against the bed so she sat. Dropping to a knee, he started unfastening her boots. “The only thing we know for sure is the storm stopped…”

  “And that I somehow triggered it,” Sahara inserted. “Thousands of years everything was fine around here. A Mist Lion shows up and the world is almost destroyed. That will be the lasting impression. Not only is the world threatened, we don’t know how or why it stopped. Societies will pop up, secret sects to preserve the purity of Leonor. There are probably already scores of them.”

  Tor lifted her with an arm around her hips as she talked, pulling the flight suit down and off. Sahara was paying no attention to his actions.

  “They’ll call themselves freedom fighters or soldiers of the Goddess. It doesn’t matter which, the violence will eventually start. Bombings, snipers, whatever.” Sahara’s hands reached for his face.

  Now kneeling at her feet, Tor rose on his knees to look her in the eye as his agitated little flower made her point. “It’ll be my fault, violence and maybe even civil war.”

  “You’re a seer too?” he asked gently, trying to get her to lighten up.


  “Yes! Anyone who pays attention to history can see the future,” Sahara insisted.

  “I agree, history is one future.” Tor cupped the back of her hands and kissed each palm. “But it’s not the only future.”

  Her face did not relax as she looked into his eyes. “I have to go.”

  “That future has already been written,” Tor argued firmly as he rose and lifted Sahara, grasping her under the arms, onto the bed, laying her down and coming down on top of her slender body. His hips settled on the bed so her thighs held his waist, his heavy chest supported on elbows made sure they were still eye to eye. He wanted there to be no misunderstanding.

  “Mist Lions left this planet, and though we can’t know all their reasons, one of the outcomes was avoiding violence with us. That was a priceless freedom they choose to give us. We were allowed to evolve in our own time. Mist Lions could have enslaved us to control our violence. They choose not to.

  “Much like children, we didn’t know what they paid for our future. Freedom is always someone’s choice and it’s a life-and-death choice. The only way to secure it is with the blood of those who’ve agreed that freedom is worth dying for.

  “Parents can hand freedom to their children, but it is only kept through the next generation’s willingness to die for it as well. And it’s not static. Freedom today is not the same thing it was yesterday. If it is not allowed to grow and change, yesterday’s definition of freedom becomes a prison.

  “Today, freedom means welcoming Mist Lions back to this planet. It’s something I’m willing to die for and I believe the majority of Leonor Lions feel the same. You can’t leave. Doing so would be repeating history and this time that action would be a huge mistake.”

  “Very pretty speech,” a new voice growled from the left. “To bad only the demon female will ever hear it.”

  Tor remained very still, his head turning slowly to look at the intruder. “I assume you disagree,” he said softly as he looked at Tryon Demigoss, the director of science and development.

  “On every point except the one where you’re willing to die. The high king will die and it will look like the demon did it. She will disappear. Then the majority of Leonor Lions will agree with me and our world will be safe again,” Tryon stated calmly as he pointed the laser rifle at them.

  Tor knew the second before she did it. Everywhere his body rested on hers he felt a slight fizzing sensation as if he were bathing in a mineral spring, and then she was gone. Reappearing behind Tryon, a large Mist Lioness came down with one paw in the middle of his back, shoving him to the floor, the other front paw trapping his hand with the rifle in it out to the side. He could no longer grip the trigger, nor pull his hand off the incriminating gun.

  Tryon screamed but didn’t even get a shot off. Facedown, he thrashed under her as Sahara’s muzzle drew back, baring her full mouth of carnivore teeth to snarl in a warning rumble.

  Might want to pull on pants before calling the guards, Sahara suggested calmly without a pause in the low growl just over Tryon’s head. Behind her, long and graceful, her tail flicked back and forth, indicating she was not as calm as she sounded.

  “Eternal bells, is it possible to be a bigger idiot, Tryon?” Tor rolled off the bed and sauntered across the room to his wardrobe chest. “You attack an enemy you have no knowledge of? What planet are you really from? It can’t be Leonor,” Tor continued in disgust as he located leathers to pull on. “And then you take the time to speak before shooting.” Tor shook his head as he turned to regard the scientist still squirming under heavy white paws.

  “Get it off me, get it off me,” Tryon wheezed as he struggled.

  “You do realize she hasn’t even extended claws to deal with your stupid ass.” Tor sat on the bed to pull on boots, examining them first and flicking dirt off as if he had all the time in the world. “How could you make such stupid mistakes? I know you’re not a warrior, but you’re still a Leonor Lion.”

  No response from Tryon as he continued to jerk under her paw as if he’d eventually get away from her.

  Darling, are you going to take the time to groom before calling someone? Sahara wanted to know, glittering silver eyes flicking to him briefly. I realize you’re getting some weird kick out of this, but I’m not feeling patient or generous. He was trying to shoot you.

  Tor flashed Sahara a grin before looking down at the struggling Tryon. “Frankly, I’m ashamed to call the guards. If this is how Leonor Lions acted last time Mist Lions were on the planet, I can see why they figured we weren’t worth the effort to educate.”

  “Get your demon bitch off me,” Tryon screamed hysterically, effectively calling the guards himself. “Can’t you see what she is? You’re the stupid one, Tor.”

  The front door of the apartment burst open. Three guards rushed across the sitting room and came to an abrupt halt in the bedroom door. Behind them, Nearrid sprinted in, shouldering through the shocked warriors.

  Nearrid didn’t pause as he strode in. Skirting the bed, he went straight for Tryon’s weapon. “Do you mind, Sahara?” he asked briskly as he reached for it.

  Sahara reluctantly stepped off Tryon’s back. Nearrid bent for the weapon, collecting it in one hand, the other grasping the back of Tryon’s neck to yank the older Leonor to his feet.

  “Gentlemen, get over seeing a Mist Lioness,” Nearrid snarled at the guards. “She’s faster, stronger and bigger than you are. Right now she’s also five hundred pounds of female in a bad mood. Just wanting to fuck her will get you killed. Two of you take this to the palace holding cell.” He shook Tryon. “I don’t want him in the public system. You,” Nearrid nodded at the third guard. “Check the surroundings for other intruders.”

  “Look at the demon. We have to kill her,” Tryon was yelling as Nearrid spoke. “What do you think happens when there are hundreds of them?”

  The words ended abruptly when one of the guards smashed an elbow in Tryon’s jaw as he took him from Nearrid. “Hopefully we each get one,” the guard snarled at Tryon as he hefted the unconscious director over his shoulder. The second guard took the weapon from Nearrid and followed the other two out the door.

  “He was in the bathing room,” Tor said to Nearrid as his brother began searching the room. “I wasn’t paying attention to surroundings.”

  Nearrid grunted and continued his search.

  There aren’t any more, Sahara added telepathically.

  Nearrid paused to glance at her. She was sitting, but her tail still whipped back and forth behind her. Silky white fur, much longer than the pelt covering a Leonor Lion swept the floor with her agitation.

  “You’re sure?” Nearrid questioned sharply.

  Not in the apartment. Probably thousands just like him out there, she clarified caustically.

  “Then why haven’t you shifted?” Nearrid wanted to know. “I assume the feline form is battle mode.”

  I was naked when I shifted, Sahara explained. When I shift back I’ll need to find clothes.

  Tor sighed and ran a hand through is mane. “She thinks she should leave to stop an escalation to violence,” he explained. “We were just discussing the panic small-minded idiots will probably resort to in their fear of Mist Lions returning.” While he spoke, he pulled one of his silk shirts out of the clothing chest.

  Nearrid turned his back to them. “That’s not a viable option,” he commented as he stood gazing out the window.

  Sahara shifted, taking the shirt Tor held for her and slipping into it. Tor took over the task of buttoning the garment that swallowed her small human form.

  “I was explaining that when Tryon interrupted. Damn, he is stupid for a highly educated lion. Education is apparently no indication of intelligence.” Finished buttoning, Tor rolled up the sleeves on each arm so her hands could at least peek out.

  Nearrid turned and watched Tor tend to his little female as if she were exactly as delicate as she appeared in human form. Sahara was visibly trembling. Nearrid was fairly certain the shud
ders running through her was rage, not fear. He’d not have known that if he hadn’t seen her tail’s agitated movement.

  “Look at what nearly happened,” Sahara asserted. She looked up at Tor. “You can only die once a day, Tor. Seriously. I can’t take it.”

  Tor chuckled as he finished with his shirt and naturally picked her up to cradle her against his chest. Sahara’s arms went around his neck in a fierce hug.

  “Die? You’ve died once today?” Nearrid regarded Tor with a raised brow.

  Tor headed for the sitting room. Glancing at his discarded flight suit as he passed, he resisted the urge to check its pockets for the little remote control and was amazed he hadn’t done it before. With her shift, was her device still lodged in place? He couldn’t ask at the moment.