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He nodded but Reuban didn’t find it as adamant as before.

Reuban headed out of the hut, needing to be away from what was growing inside their Queen at a terrifying rate. He didn’t need to see that Krave and Kildare followed hot on his heels. He marched a good distance away from the hut and turned, creating an impenetrable shield of privacy around them.

“ Please tell me you know something that will help us,” Krave muttered quietly.

“I would imagine you’re wrong about that,” Kildare assured, sounding bitter. “You can only prepare for the worst with free will. He’d know the stakes and he’d be counting on those he selected for the job.”

Reuban nodded, seeing the Bellatore headed for them. “Here she comes.”

“Whatever you’re to do, do it as quickly as you can” Krave muttered, heading back to the hut.

“Anything else you know Kollaborator?” Kildare asked.

“Nothing useful,” he said, his eyes on the Bellatore now.

“We must go now,” she said as Kildare headed back to their Queen while stalking right past Reuban.

Reuban hurried after her. “And where are we going?” he asked, wondering if they’d need to drive.

“To the city. I will permit you to cover.”

The moment she spoke the words, his powers shot out to her so hard she stumbled forward. “Holy shit,” he muttered as she snapped pissed blue-green eyes at him. “I didn’t… mean that, you said the words and my powers just...”

“Nearly knocked me over, yes, I was there for it,” she said, continuing up the hill again. “Hurry, Kollaborator.”

He caught up to her, wondering over his extra chaotic powers that scrambled like a nervous teenager all around her… wait, was that a wall? Still?

“Are you back to blocking my gifts?” he wondered.

“Yes and no,” she said.

“What does that mean?” He really needed details if he was going to do anything close to right.

“It means I’ve opened a window for the parts of your power that will cover us and nothing more. I like my privacy.”

Wow. She was able to direct his power. “They’re still very new to me,” he said, easily keeping pace with her short stature. “I’m still learning how to control them. And they are still growing.”

“They are more powerful than seems fitting,” she muttered, sounding angry.

Fitting for what? Him? “What exactly are we going to do and… where is it that we’re doing it?”

“There’s been a change of plans, obviously.”

He glanced down at the small, shorn head on his right. “My powers are a little dense still. What’s obvious?”

“The Queen is the mother is what’s obvious.”

“The mother of…”

“The mother I must protect.”

Relief sent his breath out in a whoosh. “Thank God,” he whispered.

“But I’ve got only seven days to gather as much power as I can to face whatever is coming out of her. You are here to help me do that.”

“Of course, anything you need. Wait, did you see this in some kind of vision?”

“See what in a vision?”

“That I’m here to help you with that? Is that why you called me? It seemed you were calling me.”

She picked up her pace. “I don’t know about all of that, Kollaborator. I just know that I’m to protect her and you’re here with your gifts which I am in need of. I don’t need a vision or a road map to know I’ve been handed the tools necessary to secure this commission.”

Yeah. Logical enough.

“And since I do not have time to make another Nephilim, I’ll have to use other methods. If we work quickly, I can obtain an equivalent. I’ll need human clothes suitable. Do you have money?” she asked as they reached the top of the hill. “Is that your transportation?”

He looked in the direction of her single nod. “It is,” he huffed. “And yes, I do have cash.”

“Perfect.”

He mentally organized the data she’d scattered about as he followed her brisk pace down the hill. Having her on their side had to be Raviel’s intention. It was too perfect not to be. Too miraculous.

At the SUV, his die-hard-chivalry reared up and he hurried ahead of her and opened her door.

She smacked him with her fierce bright eyes as she climbed in and sat, yanking her gaze off him before pulling the door shut on her own.

He made his way to the driver’s side, her curious scold still burning his face where those eyes had raked. She was brutally independent. Understandable given her role. He’d have to tread carefully around her toes while everything hung in the balance. She was the last person he wanted to piss off.

He again attempted to penetrate that wall around her, finding it maybe denser than before. What sort of powers did the Warrior of Mothers have? “Just point the way,” he said after starting the SUV and getting it turned around.

“The city is north, fifteen miles. We’ll need a room, and I’ll need clothes. Do you have the means for these things?”

“I do,” he said, glad he’d brought plenty of cash. “When you say room, you mean a hotel?”

“Yes,” she said, sounding weary of his questions already. Or maybe just weary, considering what she’d just been through.

He allowed for a respectable amount of time before asking one of the questions burning in his Kollaborating brain. “So…. how is it giving birth to a Nephilim?”

“As horrific as you’d imagine,” she mumbled. “But the suffering it incurs is worth every drop of power it gives.”

He glanced at her serene expression in her window’s reflection, wondering over that equation. “How do you… measure such a thing? The power?”

“I don’t. But if I were to convert it into man-made energy, it represents two thousand megatons of antimatter discharge. Enough to erase a city and rewrite its map.”

Wow. “What do you do with this power exactly?”

“Purchase that which is rare in this hour. Mercy. And time.”

He studied the landscape, sending his own powers out to ensure they were well cloaked. “I didn’t know you could purchase such things. How much do you need to protect the Queen do you think? And… what about the other mother you were going to protect?”

“To your first question, I do not know. And to your second… I pray you will know that answer, for I do not.”

His gifts absorbed the power in those last words, producing something he’d never felt before.

With every second, it grew dense and hungry.

When it got to be too much, he managed to release it around them and he discerned it racing in every direction, gobbling up time and space before turning into a wall.

Holy shit, he’d just built a massive barrier. No, a shield. Around her.

He considered her last statement and wondered over his role. This figure-it-out-as-you-go business with their mission was wearing on his every exposed nerve. And they were all exposed.

She placed a bare foot on the dash and released a quiet sigh.

The small sound and the sight of her dirty toes sent a shower of sparks along his powers.

He adjusted his grip on the steering wheel in wonder over it.

Was she causing all these things? Did she know she was?

He’d been testing her powers from the moment they’d met, partly on purpose, partly accidental.

She was an impenetrable fortress. Even more so than Kaos had been to him.

But could she read him ?

He wanted to ask but what was he supposed to say and not say to her? So much ignorance and zero bliss.

A full minute of silence began to feel like a sidewalk in a crowded city, making him twitchy. “How many of those things have you given birth to?”

“Over two hundred,” she murmured, keeping her gaze on the window.

His eyes caught on those dirty, tiny toes again. Flashes of her ripping the head from that beast reminded him she only looked helpless. Two hundred of those monsters she’d suffered through to gain mercy and time. For the precious few people worth helping in the world.

He again pushed against that fortress around her and found it as dense as ever. “I imagine your work must get…”

“I don’t need that kind of help, Kollaborator,” she said to the window. “I’m not one of your human jobs and it would serve both of us if you quit using your powers for the wrong things since we’ll be needing every drop we have for what’s coming.”

His power was suddenly an octopus with a million rebellious arms, whipping and flopping about inside him from her reprimand. “They’re new to me,” he said, fighting to pull it in.

“As you've said,” she reminded.

He sucked in a slow breath with his own reminders.

She had to be the most stressed-out mother in the universe and deserved a little vent space without worrying about grown men getting bent out of shape over it.

His powers made him hyper-sensitive to all things but that didn’t mean he had to act on any of it. “I’ll do better.”

He eyed his mirrors, getting her silence followed by a light “hmm.”

Still being locked out of her mind, he wasn't sure what it meant. Possibly doubtful. Or curious.

“I can’t afford to let you in Kollaborator. It’s not personal.”

Embarrassment licked along his neck at her soft confession.

She was reading him like a book. And that was the closest she could get to an apology over it.

“Given your position, I understand completely. I’m actually having a hard time not using all my new gifts.

Sometimes it feels like it has a mind of its own. ”

“More like more than one mind,” she informed the window again.

More? “What do you mean?”

“You share powers with three Kings. Which is why I cannot afford to let you in.”

He tasted those words, rolling them about his tongue for a few seconds. They were true but not entirely.

“I could read your thoughts but that would be a waste of power,” she said.

“Bad enough I have to use it to keep you out. As long as you’re tied to that darkness, I cannot allow it.

If you were not tied to that darkness, perhaps I would.

Bad enough I will have to use my power to get a one-way syphon from you when I need it. ”