Blood Double (God Wars #1)(40)
The line wasn't long at the transport terminal; even so I wanted to fidget. I'd planned for this day, hoping it would never come. Kalia Sollo's ticket was for Tulgalan, a world inside the Reth Alliance. Kay Zahn, my alter ego, was bound for Avendor.
There wasn't much to recommend Avendor, except volcanic soil on the Southern continent, where the conditions were right to grow gishi fruit. No other planet could produce gishi fruit in the Campiaan Alliance, and only Kifirin in the Reth Alliance had been able to grow fruit just as good. Gishi fruit was rare, delicious and every fruit was sought after and purchased. For less than twenty years, gishi fruit ice cream had been sold on the market, and it was so expensive I couldn't afford it.
My plan was to seek a job within the groves on Avendor—I'd heard that the work was hard but rewarding. I wanted to hide among those dark-leaved trees and hope for an opportunity to eat the fruit at a discounted price now and then. Cull had his addictions; I had mine. Mine was healthy, at least. Many scientific studies had been performed regarding the health benefits of gishi fruit, and to someone like me, that was a siren's call. Better than any sort of berry available, wealthy women ate it and packed creams made from the fruit and peel onto their faces.
"Having a long day?" I asked the security agent as sympathetically as I could. I always knew how people were feeling—it was a talent the older part of me possessed. Inwardly, I was petrified that the agent would call the terminal authorities after I scanned my bracelet; I'd be sent to the holding cells for using counterfeit identification before the CSD came to arrest me.
The agent barely glanced at the photograph on his screen and waved me through instead. Rezil was no doubt watching the entrances to the terminal for Kalia Sollo, waiting for her to arrive for an appointment with assassination.
*
"Grandfather?" Ashe Evans lifted his gaze to Rabis, who stepped inside the spacious office he kept at SouthStar. Ashe called his home a villa, but it was a palace, with blue domes over cream walls on many levels, and all of it trimmed in gold.
Although he'd attempted to convince Rabis to live with him at the villa, Rabis preferred a more modest home beneath the open skies of SouthStar's gishi fruit groves. A city, built by Ashe and Renegar the Larentii, lay farther south, where many shapeshifters and werewolves lived. Most of them worked in the groves and earned more than enough to be comfortable.
Of all those close to Ashe, only three had permanent quarters in the villa—Trajan, Trace and Bill Jennings. Trace spent most of his time at NorthStar, with his mates Franklin, Shane and Tomas. His other two mates, Celestan and Galaxsan, visited whenever they could get away from Campiaa. Trace even worked at NorthStar upon occasion, to help out. Ashe didn't mind, he had enough employees and realized that Trace merely wanted to be closer to his loves.
"Grandchild, she is close. I feel it. I just can't find her," Rabis muttered in frustration. "The signs come and then disappear before I can grasp them."
"But," Ashe blinked in surprise at Rabis. "Grandfather, you've never said she was close, before."
"I know. The visions are strong, child, I just can't locate her."
"We'll find her." Ashe tapped his comp-vid—he'd been entering harvest expenses. He didn't have to do it manually, but the mundane activity often helped clear his mind for other things.
"You must take care; she will be damaged and need love and assistance." Rabis' eyes turned dark as the vision gripped him. "She mistrusts women. All women," Rabis' voice had deepened and he trembled. Ashe stood in alarm, dropping the comp-vid on his desk.
*
Breanne's Journal
"This is the best ice cream I've ever tasted." It really was the best ice cream anyone had ever tasted. Made from gishi fruit, it was cold heaven in a disposable dish, and Corent had used his credit chip to purchase two scoops for each of us at Niff's. He'd even smiled as we were charged one-hundred Alliance credits for our purchase.
"Gishi fruit only grows on two planets," Corent explained as I savored every bite of my treat at a small, corner table inside the shop. Lissa co-owned it with her two assistants, and it was a lucrative business. "Both Avendor and Kifirin have the right mix of rich, volcanic soil to grow it to this sweetness."
"This is the most wonderful thing ever," I sighed, scraping up the last of my ice cream. I wasn't going to waste a single drop of this—it was too good.
"I enjoy it," Corent's hair turned a lovely blue-green as he smiled at me. That's when the side door into the shop opened nearby and two people walked in. I don't know why I bothered to read them—I'd learned to block the visions. I read them anyway.
The first—a dark-haired man of average height with a square face, didn't spare a glance in my direction as he stalked past, and I'd quickly read him before covering a gasp. Here was another with an obsession, just like the others I'd seen.
The woman who followed him into Niff's was the one who captured my full attention, however. I stared for barely a blink before dropping my gaze and scraping the bottom of my ice-cream dish again. It wouldn't do to let her know she'd caught my attention. I knew her name, knew she'd changed her appearance and knew that she was responsible for placing obsession on who knew how many.
Corent, we need to go soon, I sent mindspeech. As discreetly as possible.