Read Through the Veil for Free Online Page B

babes. You haven’t had to comfort friends as they had to watch the women they love slowly go insane because they were raped by the Warlords’ men.
    “You live there, in your reflection of this world, safe and secure, blind to what happens here. Except for your dreams, where you can’t block us out. And then, you come and you go—but you come because you can’t resist it anymore. You never come for us, for me.”
    “Damn it, I’ve saved your fine ass a number of times,” she sneered, jabbing him in the chest with a fingernail. It was bright, bold red, the color of junyai rubies, precious gems once found in the mines of Jivan. “Your life. This army. All of you.”
    “Yes. Because something disturbed you in your sleep, while you rest safe and sound in your safe little world. Damn it, I know what’s going on. You know. A part of you has always known,” he whispered passionately. The wind started to kick up and his hair blew around them like a cloak, winding around her slim shoulders as he moved closer, nudging her toes with his.
    “Known what?” she demanded, rising onto her toes so that she was snarling into his face.
    Her mouth was just a breath away from his . . . just one breath . . . Kalen could almost taste her, taste her fury, her fear, the hunger she tried so hard to hide. He laughed softly, releasing her chin to stroke his fingers over her eyes. “Known what you are. You don’t belong in the mundane, powerless realm. You’re magick. You’re power . . . You’re a warrior and you belong here. You see things in your world that other people don’t see, but you block it out. You feel things, hear things, sense things . . . You are like a wraith in that world. A mere shadow of your true self. When are you going to come home? Come to us, fight with us?”
    “I fight with you all the time,” she whispered, her lips trembling, tears welling in her eyes as she stared at him, hands clenched into tight fists at her sides. “You act like I’m in some other world, but I am right here.”
    “You’re still blocking it out. Even after all this time.” Kalen shook his head. “Still. Lee . . . you are here. Part of you. Part of you lingers there. But you’re nothing but a shadow of yourself in either world. You have to open your eyes and start seeing your reality, instead of the one somebody created for you. Otherwise you’ll remain in the shadows.”
    Lee gritted her teeth, a tiny shriek of frustrated anger slipping from behind them as she spun away and punched her fist into the ruined wall of what had once been a mercantilery. “Damn it, what in the hell are you talking about? You always talk in riddles, you overgrown, self-righteous, hypocritical bastard!”
    He said her name softly and waited until she turned around to glare at him before he asked quietly, “Where do you go when you aren’t here? Do you know?”
    A blank look entered her eyes, one he had seen before. Often he tried to probe her mind—sometimes she deflected him, but sometimes, he knew she honestly didn’t know. Her face turned mutinous, a line forming between her eyes, that lush pink mouth puckering into a sullen, sexy little scowl. “What does that have to do with anything?” she demanded. She shoved a hand through her hair, pushing the blond curls out of her eyes.
    With a tired sigh, Kalen rubbed his forehead. “You don’t even know. Damn it, Lee, doesn’t that strike you as pretty fucking weird, that you don’t know where you go in between flitting in and out of my life?” he demanded, flinging a hand in her direction before letting it fall limply to his side as she just stared at him, her lids flickering, her eyes glittering like diamonds in the faint light.
    “What did you do yesterday?” he asked. Damn it, prove me wrong . . . prove me wrong! It would be so much easier if she was just some elusive witch from the mountains. From anywhere—so long as she lived on this world.
    But he already knew the truth.
    When she