The trees obscured the house in spite of their winter bareness, just a hulking impression at first glimpsed only in parts like a gothic film flashing images of the vulnerable body parts of a woman. But there was nothing vulnerable about the Catskill Sanctuary. It was one of the smaller sanctuaries they owned throughout the world, and he had not been surprised to find one so close to where they were. These things tended to happen in this way. There were some places on Earth, resonance chambers of a sort, that drew arrivals from the Ether far more frequently than other areas. Something about the nature of a place made it so much easier to cross that stubborn veil between, more so than was found in other areas, bringing the attention of those in the Ether to this plane and the people available within it. Over time, it made sense to make certain that safe havens were awaiting them within reasonable distance of these areas when they arrived. The first weeks of a Blending were the most trying, the most vulnerable, and there were plenty of factions far worse than some two-bit human thugs out there that would go to great lengths to see to it their king and queen never made it out of the Ether. They were the same factions that had without a doubt returned them there once more, just a century ago, devastating them all.

They were the same who were just as aware as Ram’s people were that the waiting time was done and resurrection was at hand. They would do anything to see to it that these Blendings failed, that Ram failed in his duty to protect his king’s soul mate. Ram’s duty was to make certain she was here waiting for Menes when his time came to cross free of the Ether; theirs was to make certain she wasn’t. They knew that to rob the great king of his beloved wife was just as effective as hollowing him out, stuffing him with nothingness, and propping him up emptily for the people to see. Ram knew that for all he was the greatest pharaoh of all time, Menes was violently connected to his queen and had, in the past, preferred to return to the Ether in order to pass time with her there than be without her. But the people needed a ruler. Now more than ever. And they did not have the luxury of letting their king waste time in the Ether.

Ram refused to give the option life by thinking about it. He would not fail. His king had but one weakness, and Ram would see that nothing exploited it.

They drew up to the house, and her reaction was clear.

“Holy Christ. Who lives here, Bill Gates?”

Asikri was out of the car and yanking her door open before Ram had opportunity to respond. The warrior stood peevishly waiting for her to alight from the vehicle, looking for all he was worth as if he were about to tap his foot with schoolmarm impatience. Ram could swear she moved slowly to her feet out of a perverse enjoyment of making Asikri cool his heels rather than a reluctance to step into the cold.

Ram came quickly around to her side, offering her the warm shelter of his body and the inside of his own coat by unzipping it and drawing her into its fold like a mother bird tucking its nestling under a wing. Ram hurried her to the front door, Asikri’s heavy footsteps following tightly behind them. The door opened and Ram immediately recognized the portal keeper.

“Vincent,” the Sanctuary keeper greeted him with a smile. But when he took in the tower that was Asikri at his back and the battered dove he held protectively at his side, his whole demeanor changed, his face lighting up in such a way that the elder man dropped about twenty years in heartbeat. “Vincent! Wallace! Good fortune to you both and to me! You bring the greatest of treasures with you, I see. Please, come inside. The Sanctuary is yours to use as you wish, of course.”

They scuttled into the doorway, a huddling little flock for all of a second, and then Asikri broke away immediately, marching off from the so-called whining woman who had so irritated him. Then again, everything and everyone irritated him, so there was nothing of note to the moment. As he passed the portal keeper, he grumbled dangerously in his face, “Don’t call me Wallace.”

Of course, the keeper was aware of Asikri’s hatred for the name his mortal half had been born with. Everyone in their world was aware of it. That meant the sly portal keeper had done it on purpose. There was no doubt that Asikri knew it, too.

Ram reached to take hold of the small, cold hand of his king’s betrothed, drawing her quickly into the first salon with a lit fireplace. Heat emanated from it in heavy waves, and he let his own clenched body relax in the bask of it. He had lived so many lifetimes, in so many countries and in so many styles, but he had been born a man of the desert and a creature of the heat. He would never get used to these colder climes. He could tolerate and function, but he would never grow accustomed to it, nor would he willingly desire to dwell in it. He much preferred New Mexico, the seat of their government at present and his usual home. It was not the arid perfection of Egypt, but it would do for this lifetime.

He looked down on the top of Docia’s head as she leaned eagerly for the warmth of the fireplace. The injuries she had suffered pained him for some reason. Maybe because she was so small, or because her half-shorn head made her look like a frail waif, but no matter how much he told himself it was only a temporary state, it still grated on him. The fact that she was out of the hospital already attested to the fact that the Blending was in full swing and that she was healing far more rapidly than she would have without the influence of his queen within her.

“I thought your name was Ram,” she said after a long minute of clenching her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering.

“Ram is an old nickname. I was born Vincent.” It would do for an explanation at present. He would bombard her with truths a little bit later.

“What, were you on the football team or something?” she asked, trying to theorize how they managed to get Ram from Vincent. Ram seemed to visibly do an internal check of his memory, as if he had to work at it.

“No. No football. I was … I was twenty-eight years old when I hit a reef outside the Cape of Good Hope in 1972 and drowned.”

Docia gaped at him. It sounded exactly like what she’d just gone through.

“Wait a minute …” She narrowed her eyes on him, having no idea how exotic it made her look. Exotic and strong. Strong in a way others shouldn’t try to defy. But Docia, while having her share of no nonsense allowed behaviors, would have laughed to think anyone would ever take her that seriously. “That was forty years ago! You can’t be a day over thirty-five.”

He was lying to her and toying with her for reasons she couldn’t fathom. Was it some kind of a joke to him, to make up empathetic incidents in his life?

But really, if he was going to lie about something, he ought to have made a better effort at it. Did that make him stupid or just careless?

Ram/Vincent looked at her from under golden lashes, somehow managing the hooded expression in spite of being significantly taller than her. She wondered why she hadn’t come down with a case of the screaming meemies so far. She’d just been kidnapped! Now she’d been brought into the fortress of solitude. She was his prisoner in effect and by all definitions.

And he was smiling at her.

“I’m older than I look,” he said, no doubt hoping his charming smile would be enough to blow her off. Honestly, it almost was. It was a hell of a smile. Extremely pretty. She was caught up in just staring at those white teeth and full masculine lips for much longer than she ought to have been.

“Crunch the numbers all you like, pretty boy.” She forgot about being cold as her temper percolated. She leaned forward and poked a finger hard into his chest. “There’s no way you’re sixty years old.”

“Sixty-eight,” he said directly, looking her dead in the eyes as if what he was saying could be believable on any level.

Docia guffawed, her hand going to her temple as the bright, hard laughter made her head ache. “And I’m your dear aunt Fanny.”

He smiled again, leaning in toward her just enough to coat her in his body warmth in a manner far more effective than the emanation of the fireplace fire. He reached for her hand where it cradled her head and pulled it between his own.

“Perhaps,” he said softly, “you will accept my truth a little more easily once you accept that facts don’t change just because you are unwilling to accept them.” He closed her palm between both of his, gently rubbing the chilled appendage until it began to warm. “When you tell people you survived an unsurvivable death, will you appreciate it when they laugh in your face and call you a liar? No, you will not. So you will learn to fudge the facts, haze them over, even lie a little, so that people will allow their narrow minds the capacity to comprehend. And when you are sixty-eight years old and even more beautiful than you are today, you will know you have to come up with other stories, other tales, to divert them from the truth of the matter. You will have to leave behind everything associated with Docia Waverly and embrace a newer version … a newer generation of yourself.”

Docia gaped at him. She really didn’t know what else to do.

“So you’re telling me that when I’m sixty-eight years old I’m going to look like I’m fresh into my thirties, just like you?”

Again, that smile that was too pretty and beyond comforting blossomed over his lips. Perhaps to counterbalance the craziness that was about to spill out of his mouth, she thought. She’d gone along with things so far because she hadn’t much of a choice, but she was beginning to think this guy was starkers and she had willingly walked into an insane asylum.

“I doubt that,” he said, for an instant sounding relievingly sane. “Females tend to look far younger than their years as time passes.”

Then, before she could snort out a new laugh, he took her chin in his hand and made certain she was looking deeply into his golden-bright eyes.

“You have left normal humanity and mortality behind today, Docia. Today you have become a Body-walker. You came to the brink of death, weakening the protective walls of your Ka … your soul … enough to allow the Ka of another to Blend with yours. Think. You met her briefly, in that moment of death and life, where they balanced together. She asked you if you were willing to share your mortal body with her, and you agreed. You cannot feel her at present, except perhaps in bursts or hints. She is weakened by her journey out of the Ether and into this existence. But she will become stronger, as will you, and you will eventually Blend together. One of the benefits of that Blending will be that you will not age in the normal way of a mortal. Enjoy that benefit, because I promise you, there are just as many detriments that will make things very difficult for you.”

“But always remember that you were given a choice and this is what you chose, blah blah blah …”

The strident female voice entering the parlor was full of amusement and disrespect all at once, the loudness of it immediately drawing the couple’s attention. Docia was a little numb as she watched the tall, slim woman whose shimmering black hair snaked in a single long tail from a point originating high on the back of her head, a perfect sheet of healthy, rich ebony that ended in a perfectly straight cut near her hip bone on the right side. She was prettily pale-skinned and boasted brightly faceted cerulean eyes as rare as the finest of jewels. It was a beauty Docia couldn’t have hoped to achieve even with the most expensive hair dyes and realistic contact lenses. The mink lash color had to be all natural. The enhancements of a thin purple eyeliner and warm reddish-pink lip gloss were the only obvious man-made fabrications to her otherwise flawless beauty.

“Honestly, Ram, must you be so serious and pedantic? You’ll scare the second life out of the girl.”

“Cleo … ,” Ram said with a pained rolling of his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s ski season!” she said happily, as if that explained everything. The bounce in her shoulders and pitch in her tone belonged on the ditziest blonde in creation. Only, Docia had a hard time believing she was any more ditzy than she was blond. Cleo strode across the room toward Docia, her hand extended for a greeting shake. Docia immediately noticed everything about her. And that was really weird. Docia had always been observant about people, so it wasn’t weird in that respect. It was weird in the respect that she could tell Cleo balanced her weight almost perfectly between both feet. Normal people, normal human people, always favored one side over the other. It was a whole right-brain, left-brain dominance thing. They couldn’t help themselves. They always leaned toward one side or the other. It was just the way their brains were wired. Even so-called ambidextrous people had a dominant side. One side they used in preference to or with more strength than the other. But as Cleo walked toward her, Docia saw the strange evenness of her gait and weight. It lent a peculiar strength and grace to her carriage. Not a runway model walk to make her seem gangly pretty like some long-legged, tall women, but an athletic glide. As if she weren’t beautiful enough, this made her unique and strangely stunning.