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it about a scar on a man?
    Merl didn’t have any scars, at least none she knew of, though she had glimpsed a tattoo etched down the center of his back. He was a powerful Third ascender and sat in a corner apart, a hard expression on his face. Gone were his flirtations from a month ago and he no longer stuck close to Endelle. In many ways, he seemed like a different man altogether.
    He held a cigarette in one hand and with his other rubbed the stem of a martini glass. He’d switched up his more recent Grey Goose martinis for a sweeter French version, with pineapple juice and blackberry liqueur.
    Merl with his light blue eyes was fiercely independent, a man unto himself. He didn’t give a damn what any of the other warriors thought of him. He looked rugged to Rachel in a way that made her certain he’d lived for centuries and not just decades.
    She’d tried talking to him a few days ago, but he’d clammed up, shifting his gaze purposefully to Duncan. She’d gotten the message. Merl might not be one of her favorite people, but he worked hard now to respect Duncan’s claim on her, such as it was.
    Damn breh-hedden. Duncan had become as distant as the faintest star and about as warm.
    “Rachel,” Joshua called to her. “I gotta ask. Do you remember a time when you weren’t a warrior?”
    Joshua, brown eyes glittering, had settled into the couch, stretching out his long legs. He shifted to sit low so his head would hit the back. He was as badass as they came, with thick, dark brown hair and bulked up shoulders. He had the look of a hunter, his gaze constantly searching whatever space he happened to be in. He’d removed his leather wrist-guards, putting his tattoos on display. Black flames, morphing into birds in flight, began at the wrist and rose almost to his elbows.
    His shin-guards were gone as well and because all the men battled in black leather kilts, she had a view of muscular and very shapely legs. She’d never thought of men’s legs as ‘shapely’, not until this moment. But boy could she imagine her hands gliding along the tight muscular curve that ran all the way to the ankle.
    As this completely inappropriate and very heated thought blasted through her head, she looked away. Ignoring her errant thoughts, she answered his question. “All I can say is tonight I feel like I’ve been making war for centuries.” The men chuckled.
    She sipped her water again, hoping it would cool her down.
    “Well,” Josh added, “You’re doing great.”
    “Thanks.”
    She’d changed so much in the past month. For decades, from the time she’d escaped her abusive, now-deceased ex-husband, she’d pursued a peaceful organic life. But in the course of the last few weeks, she’d arrived at a rare level of power for a woman in the ascended world: she’d become a Warrior of the Blood.
    They all had, joining Luken and Duncan, though Merl eclipsed them all as a Third Earth What-Bee.
    She’d laughed the first time she’d heard the slang term for Warrior of the Blood. The Militia Warriors, being mostly men, never offered a compliment when they could deliver a jab. So, ‘What-Bees’ it was.
    But four of the warriors rising in the ranks so swiftly had the entire Militia Warrior community hyped up with all sorts of expectations.
    Sweet Jesus, how her life had changed.
    Alex strolled in, his steely gray eyes narrowed. He rubbed the wrinkled skin of his scarred shoulder, the one burned before he entered his rite of ascension. Though lean, he had muscle on muscle and moved with a swagger as though pushing the air aside to make way for his awesomeness.
    And he was awesome. Alex tended to lift a room rather than bring it down. Though he was as tough as the rest of the warriors, his glass was always half full.
    Luken followed a minute later, a deep pit between his brows, his clear blue eyes tightened with concern. He’d removed his cadroen and his long blond hair hung around his weighty shoulders. The leader of the squad did