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hand. A faint lavender light emanated from her fingertips. “Boys, I don’t need one.”
    An opening between worlds grew between them.
    The males all stepped back. That was definitely something they hadn’t expected.
    The only creature that had ever been capable of traveling between the layers of the worlds so easily was the Laquazzeana Phaenna.
    Not even his mother could manage that feat.
    So why was a supposedly twenty-something half-human girl able?
    “Just what in the Three Hells are you?”
     

     

Chapter Ten
     
    Loren closed her eyes and let the power that she had known from that first moment of rebirth almost five thousand years ago fill her body.
    She had grown stronger, she knew she had. Every life, the power within her would have doubled from the previous.
    It was truly terrifying, and she had always refused to know the full extent of it.
    Before.
    This lifetime was different. And she’d known that from the moment she’d matured into an adult at sixteen. It was always at sixteen years, two hundred and six days when she came into her powers. In every lifetime.
    Because the Dark Sorcerer had killed her when she was sixteen years, two hundred and six days old. It had taken her a few lifetimes to figure that out.
    She had traveled to Levia without her mother when the first evacuation order had been given, and had stayed for three weeks. Three weeks too long. She was not meant to be in the world of the deities for too long. She’d known that easily. She was supposed to be at the forefront of the war, not hiding with the rest of the Druids, mixing healing potions and balms while protected by Lupoiux werewolves.
    And she’d worried about her mother.
    So she’d opened the barrier between the worlds and come home.
    They’d lived like refugees ever since.
    No more. She would not let her mother worry any more. She had come to Dardanos for a reason, and now she knew what that reason was. Why else would Barlaam be there, if not to take her to the world where Jade was?
    She had worried about her friend, and been consumed with thoughts of the other woman, though logically she knew Jade was most likely safe wherever she was. No, it was the Four Fates’ way of getting her to wherever she was supposed to go. She had to trust in that.
    Somehow.
    The opening between Gaia and the next widened. She looked at the men, all with shocked and wary faces. Her mother’s own eyes were wide. Loren felt a momentary rush of guilt for not telling her mother about this little ability of hers.
    The less her mother knew, the safer she was. That had long been Loren’s reasoning.
    “Well? Are you coming?”
    She held out a hand to her mother. Her mother walked toward her, fear on her face. Loren understood; her mother had never been to another world, though she knew it was possible. But even when scared Renee Nellano faced her fears and kept going.
    “Gentlemen? The worlds await.”
     

Chapter Eleven
     
     
    She was gone before he could stop her. But the opening remained. He looked at Barlaam and at Nalik. “Care to explain what—or who—that little creature was?”
    “Loren Nellano. That’s what Jade and Becca call her.” Barlaam looked at the Taniss brothers. “Marshall? You ever met her?”
    “I think so. She may have been wandering around at Becca’s graduation. She looked familiar. I may have seen her in Bec’s photos, or something. I’m afraid I don’t know much about her. I never met all of Becca’s friends. Jase might know more.”
    “But first, we must get to her again. Before she wreaks havoc in my living room. What would happen if she just appears there with no warning?”
    Jushua thought for a moment. “It probably wouldn’t be good. She already whacked me upside the head; she seems to be the kind to hit first, ask questions later.”
    Barlaam laughed. “Yet Jade is probably in that living room. I doubt there will be much hitting today.”
    “Still…” Nalik pointed to the dwindling portkey. “I’m