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carefully.
    It was more than he could bear.
    He groaned.
    She pulled back, startled. “Are you hurt?”
    “Quite the opposite. I’ve never felt better.”
    He stood swiftly, knocking over the chair. In one smooth movement, he swept her up neatly in his arms.
    She gasped. He thought she was about to flip out of his grasp, then he realized that she had probably never in her entire existence been swept up into someone’s arms, let alone a lover’s.
    “It’s okay,” he said. “I have you.”
    She relaxed, and draped her arms around his neck, then found his lips with her own. As he carried her over to the bed, perhaps just a dozen feet away, he tried to hide the fact that his arms were already shaking.
    She was a big girl!
     
    * * *
     
    Never had she been hoisted in a man’s arms. Her first instinct was to attack, to rip off the offending man’s ears and then dig her fingers into his skull, but this man was not offensive in any sense of the word. He was enticing. When she allowed herself to be swept away, she had felt a thrill rush through her that was equivalent to the thrill of battle.
    He was breathing hard. Perhaps with passion. They kissed as he headed toward the bed. He occasionally stole air from the side of his mouth.
    He set her gently on the bed. Although he did his best to disguise it, he knuckled his lower back before he slid in next to her.
    Evan Knight reached over and switched off the bedside lamp.

 
    Chapter Four
     
    Myora IL Eve, the Mother Daughter, gasped and bolted upright in her bed. The small, private chamber was pitch-black. She was alone.
    The dream had been so vivid, so real. In it, there had been that final, blinding explosion that had jolted her to lucidity. Sweat rolled from her brow and her hands were shaking. Her dreams lately were always the same. In them, she saw the imminent destruction of the Sisterhood, exploding bombs and the carnage of her dear Daughters. She was among the dead and she viewed the destruction from above, from a bird’s eye view.
    There was no one left behind to administer the healing oil.
    The bodies left unattended quickly decomposed into nothing more than grinning skeletons.
    This day was coming.
    She was sure of it.
    It was coming soon, based on the frequency and vividness of these dreams. She had learned long ago that she had been given the gift of prophecy, along with the herculean task to protect all life on Earth. When this day came, Eden would be exposed. The Tree of Life would be at the mercy of those who did not understand it. Or worse, it would be at the mercy of those who sought to use it for nefarious means.
    She had lost two Daughters. One was dead. She was sure of it. Her dream had been clear on that account. Her death was the catalyst of the coming destruction. The other. Well, the hope of Earth rested with her and the young man. That left fifteen to defend all of life on Earth.
    According to her dreams, they would fail.
    And they would all die trying.
    She hadn’t told her Daughters. She couldn’t. Not yet.
    Time. That’s what they needed. She needed to give Jessima and the man known as Evan Knight (as it had been revealed to her in her dreams), time to return. Time to do whatever it was that he was put on this Earth to do. She didn’t know what it was and she especially did not know what made Knight so special and yet, there he was in her dreams. Centuries earlier, he had been just a vague image. A face indiscernible in her dreams, but the name was then unknown. He had appeared rarely, but often enough for her to know that the dream was prophetic. Admittedly, she often had trouble discerning the prophetic dreams from those that were not. As the years wore on, he appeared with more regularity. She had named him the Chosen One and she had shared this knowledge with her Daughters.
    He was to be the savior of Eden.
    The Daughters had balked at this notion. Were they not the protectors of life on Earth? She didn’t blame them. After all, they