Greaves told Crace and Crace smiled. “Then we will use her power against her chosen clan. Many will die and she will be broken … forever.”
The Commander smiled, a warm easy curve of his lips. “Now you have shown me something.”
“The only difficulty I foresee is Madame Endelle.”
“I will manage the Supreme High Administrator at the time of the attack.” He cast his arm in the direction of the massive ebony desk. “When you are ready, make use of the antidote. Just don’t wait too long. Waiting allows dying blood to act on the features, to create excessive beauty as well as the paling and bluing of the skin. Do you understand?”
“Yes, master.” He nodded.
“I have matters to attend to. Once again, put your plans together. When I return, we’ll march through the details.”
“Very good, master.”
The Commander lifted an arm and vanished.
Crace remained in the same position for a long time, staring at nothing, savoring the bliss in his stomach, his veins, his head. He had never felt so alive, but he wanted to hold to this exhilarating sense of power as long as he could. The antidote could wait a little while longer, maybe long enough to get to his wife and make use of her exquisite body.
Arousal returned in a flame of sensation. He thought the thought and returned to the Bredstone, to his wife. He folded the antidote to him as well. Still, he didn’t want to mar this first experience. Yes, the antidote could wait.
Leaving a world behind,
Slays the heart.
—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth
CHAPTER 20
Alison awoke naked and on her side, a heavy, muscled arm draped over her. She had never experienced this in the course of her life. She had never dared to. Yet here she was waking up with a man wrapped around her. He was fully erect, his hard length pressed against her buttocks, not a surprise since he’d been asleep for some time.
The room, his bedroom, was full of morning light. The dark wood blinds were open, a blue sky visible beyond, as well as desert for miles. Mist covered and protected the Queen Creek home and, oh, Medichi strolled by, his sword balanced on his shoulder, weapons harness beneath. The warriors had guarded the property through the night and would continue to do so, taking turns the rest of the day. Nothing was being left to chance.
She sighed, savoring, working hard not to take anything for granted in this moment. She was with her man, her vampire, in bed, waking up with him, both naked. Her skin tingled all over and tears started to her eyes. She had never thought to experience this kind of connection with a man … ever.
She slowly slid her hand over his forearm and pressed gently. He was all muscle and warm skin, his cardamom scent wafting to her nostrils. She took deep breaths, one after the other. She didn’t want him to awaken. She just wanted to take in that heavenly spice, part him, part cardamom. Her breasts swelled at the erotic scent, she grew wickedly wet, yet still she didn’t want to disturb the moment.
She smiled. She had prevailed and she had won the pleasure of being with Kerrick. She had a child growing within. She had a completely naked man at her back. Life could not get better.
He stirred behind her, his thick cock gliding up her backside. Desire rose again, a whirling sensation inside her body, tightening her abdominals, which caused her hips to rock against him.
He groaned. “Lavender. I’m smelling lavender. Please tell me you’re awake?”
“I am.”
“Thank God,” he groaned. His arm snaked around her, over her breasts. He pulled her close, his hands roaming. “You feel like heaven.”
“I love that you’re in bed with me.”
He leaned over her, pushed her hair aside, and kissed her neck. “I want you.”
“I want you more.”
“Not fucking possible.”
She still had yet to get used to warrior-speak. At the same time the profanity grounded the experience for her, made it real when so much of this new life had thrust her into the center of a tornado.
He kissed a line up her cheek, arching over her body, sliding his lips up to her lips, then he kissed her. Even her mouth felt well used from the night’s pleasures.
She drew back and met his gaze. “Why is it I’ve only known you half a minute, but I feel as though it’s been several lifetimes?”
“It’s the call of the breh-hedden. I feel the same way.”
“Kerrick, I want in,” she said, knowing this was exactly what she needed.
He nodded and smiled. He growled. He rolled over onto his back then pulled her on top of him. She settled herself over his hips, his erection a length of thick rope against her. “To do this, you’ll want me inside you.”
She had to laugh. “Spoken like a man. You sure that’s necessary?”
“You think I’m joking but you’ll see. Now climb on board.”
Her body shuddered at the invitation. She rose up then positioned her core over the head of his cock. She was so ready for him as she eased him inside. Her body wept for him, even more when he groaned and arched, his hips thrusting as if he couldn’t help himself. He pushed and filled her.
Heaven, she murmured within his mind.
He sighed and arched again, stretching her then moving in a slow, sensual rhythm. He pulled her down onto his broad, muscled chest, tucking her beneath his chin. His heavy ripped arms engulfed her. She was in a perfect cage of his body, encased, protected, pleasured.
When she had said she wanted in, she hadn’t meant for sex to happen, but as soon as he opened his mind and she fell inside, sex for the first minute was all that could happen. She was aroused like nothing she’d ever experienced before and she understood, in a sudden flash, what it was to be a man when he entered a woman, the strange power, the erotic nature of penetration, the full-on stimulation—because right now, she had penetrated him. His mind was laid out for her, a banquet on which to gorge, and she was so aroused.
The sensation of control grabbed her and before she could think the thought, she arched away from him and orgasmed hard, her power punching at him as it always did. He caught her with his muscular arms, holding her in place. I love it when you do that. So damn sexy. Now take the real ride.
He worked her body, slow erotic undulations, as her mind began to descend within his. It was like sinking into a warm pool and floating, the water just easing out of the way. When she was merged completely, his life, flashes of remembered events, all twelve hundred years of it, began to stream through her, shared and experienced, savored and hated, all his hopes and fears, all the love, sex, and battle, the loss of his two wives, the leaving of an infant son behind on his ascension—the baby, Evan—then the deaths of his two children all those centuries later.
The most surprising element, however, was that she saw and experienced the depth of his devotion to the Warriors of the Blood, a true Brotherhood of men, powerful men, vampires dedicated to a better world, a safer world.
Within the body of the stream, she got to know them all through his eyes and through thousands of interactions, the peculiar bond he shared with Thorne, their leader, with Medichi and his love of wine, with Jean-Pierre and his love of women, Santiago and his ability with weapons, Zacharius and his vanity, Luken and his gentle soul, even Marcus before the terrible breach tore them apart at Helena’s death.
My turn whipped through her mind. She felt a great wave rise up as he moved her out of his head and started to penetrate hers. He turned her bodily at the same time, so that when he crashed fully inside her mind, he was pounding her hard. She let him but couldn’t lift even a finger to touch him. She was overwhelmed with his presence in a way that set every nerve in her body on fire. She shared her life with him, her history as he had, holding back only the new life within and her strange telepathic conversation with Leto.
Otherwise, he filled every hidden cache of her memories. Rapture once more approached, spearing her deep between her legs where he had taken possession of her body, where his
cock thrust. The sensation of intense pleasure spread upward through her torso, engaged her heart, swept into her head and cast fireworks around until she screamed the orgasm over and over and over. The resulting roll of power took him into the air, her hips with him since he refused to lose the connection. Landing back on the bed, he spun her out, thrust, retreated, thrust harder, rolled his hips, and sucked on her neck.
Come for me, she sent as her own orgasm barreled down on her once more. Now. I need all of you.
She cried out as pleasure took hold of her, a great fire in the well of her body. As the sensation increased, she cried out over and over, another wave of power punching at him.
He shouted, groaned, cursed, then with a final cry spent himself hard into her, thrusting until completely sated.
At last, he lowered himself back onto her.
Now her arms could move … well, a little. She wrapped them around his broad shoulders and drew in a ragged breath.
“Awesome,” she murmured. “Let’s do it all over again in about fifteen minutes.”
He laughed, bouncing on her chest. “I love you, Alison. I’m so in love with you. There, I’ve said it. I love you.”
Alison’s heart swelled. To hear him speak of love—! And yet there was something in his tone, an edge of desperation that caused her a ripple of concern. She had been inside his head. She had seen his grief after Helena and the children died, she had felt the impact of two hundred years of keeping his vows so he wouldn’t be a threat to another woman ever again.
She breathed in and out, struggling to find the right words, but nothing came to her, no gentle ease-into phrasing, just four words and she said them aloud now: “Tell me what happened.”
* * *
Kerrick lifted up and looked at her. He knew exactly what she meant, what she wanted to know.
Christ. He drew out of her, breaking the erotic connection. He slid his hips to the edge of the mattress, his legs following. When she turned on her side away from him, he stroked the back of her neck. Right now he wanted to bolt, to leap out of bed, to run hard, away from the house, away from her, away from the subject. He didn’t want to talk about Helena or his children, not with Alison, especially not Alison, because this was his failure, his greatest failure.
He had let her inside his mind, let her romp around, and he’d loved it but it also meant she had seen his past, especially the nature of his grief. She was also a therapist so of course she would want him to talk. This far down the road, he saw no point in trying to evade the subject.
He summoned a breath then another. He let the words flow. “I was fighting. It wasn’t very late, maybe eight o’clock. I was at the north end of the White Tank Mountains on Second. That night Greaves hammered us with pretty-boys at every Borderland, which was unusual at the time.
“Thorne suspected something big was going down. We all did. We just couldn’t imagine what, which meant we didn’t know what to prepare for.
“Helena wasn’t powerful like you although she had a few fully developed gifts. Her telepathy was perfect. If she had been more powerful, if she had been able to sense something was coming, if she’d had even a small piece of the clairvoyance I know you have she could have summoned me and together we could have done something. At least, I think we could have. I don’t know because I wasn’t there when it happened. Maybe I would have misread the situation as well.” He paused. He didn’t want to speak the words.
To her credit, she remained silent, letting him find his way.
“Helena and I engaged in full communion—body, blood, mind—so we were very close, as close at two ascenders can be just short of the breh-hedden, but it wasn’t enough to help us that night.”
She put a hand on his shoulder. “What was the difference, then? I mean why wasn’t your full communion with Helena the same as the breh-hedden? I don’t understand.”
He frowned. Shit, this hurt because it went to the central issue, the reason he should never have married Helena in the first place. “Because of the difference between telepathy and mind-engagement. Helena didn’t have your power. I couldn’t be in her mind the way I can be in yours, because I would have hurt her. Nor could Helena be in my mind, because she didn’t have the capacity. We were able to communicate telepathically, but that is still very different from mind-engagement.
“All ascenders can take part in some level of full communion by making use of telepathy, but most ascenders can’t get into the head of another. Some believe mind-diving is more a Third Earth ability than a Second Earth power, which is why the breh-hedden is extremely rare and occurs only among the Warriors of the Blood … and powerful women.” His throat felt choked and raw. “Helena just wasn’t advanced, not like you. Other than Endelle, there is no one like you in our world.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to breathe. His chest was tight and his heart pounded at the memories. He took another deep breath and continued. “As for Helena and what happened that night, because of her telepathic abilities and because there had been a lull in the battle, we were talking back and forth within our minds. It was wonderful. She and the children had just come back from town. They’d unhitched the horses. She was very big on making sure our kids learned those kinds of skills early. Kerr and Christine always complained, of course, but at nine and seven those two knew how to care for any of the horses we had on the property and how to keep the wagons and carriages in good shape even if they couldn’t yet do the work themselves.
“God, I was proud of them, all of them. Helena was a wonderful mother, patient, kind.” A new weight descended on his chest and his throat grew tight, the memory pulling hard now. “So, she was in my head, telepathically telling me about some fabric she had just purchased, a recent import from Mortal France, a very fine silk, when the communication was suddenly disrupted.” He remembered the moment as though it were yesterday. “I was standing and before I knew what had happened I was sitting, my head in my hands, tears rushing out of my eyes for no apparent reason … except I knew, I knew they were gone, all of them.
“The stable had been rigged with enough gunpowder to blow a hole through a mountain. The Commander wasn’t leaving anything to chance. In addition to my family, two of the servants died as well. They’d been in the stable helping out, as they always did.”
He felt Alison release a deep breath. “Was the Commander ever charged with the crime?”
“There was no proof of his complicity but he offered up a pair of death vamps for trial. They were convicted and hanged on the flimsiest evidence. Were they guilty? Who knows. I will always lay the crime at the Commander’s feet. He was the one with the motivation.”
He took a breath in, shoved one out. He ached into the pit of his stomach. This was why he didn’t like to talk about what happened. The memories were as fresh as yesterday. The pain as real.
“So you believe he killed your family to hurt you.”
“Demoralizing an enemy is a legitimate tactic of war.”
She turned toward him and looked into his eyes. She kissed him. She kissed him over and over, her hands on his face, her fingers gliding into his hair. She kissed his lips, again and again, pushing at him, her tongue driving into his mouth, her arms snaking around his neck, her body lush, warm, and alive against his.
He drew back and looked into her eyes once more, wet blue eyes, rimmed in gold, sparkling, telling him things she neither spoke aloud nor into his mind, desperate things made up of hopes and dreams.
She kissed him again, those insistent pushing kisses, working his mouth, her body writhing against his. She was here, she was now, she was alive, all for him, to comfort him, to listen to his pain, to hear it, to feel it, to accept all that he was, even his profound failure.
He rolled her onto her back, hard once more, ready for her. When he drove into her, he looked into her eyes and never stopped looking; nor did she shift her gaze away from him even for one passion-drenched moment. Instead the frenzy became about the now of his life
and the now of her life, her ascension that would mean everything to him, that would herald a new, shared future, God help them both.
When her climax took hold of her, and her power punched against his abdomen, blue eyes still locked to his, he spent himself in a wicked blur of movement.
As his body settled down, she kept nodding then finally said what was in his heart as well: “Tonight, at my ascension ceremony, our life together begins. I’ll be free of the Commander. The death vamps won’t be hunting me anymore.”
He nodded.
“Yes,” he whispered, but he kissed her hard and ignored the desperate feeling of the moment. Would they truly begin a new life or was this just one big massive lie?
* * *
Alison stood in the middle of the marble floor beneath the enormous central rotunda of Endelle’s palace with Havily just off to her left side and behind her a foot. She was almost home free. She could feel it. Once she completed the ascension ceremony, Darian—the Commander—would have no legal right to continue his attack on her. According to everything she understood about ascending, he would turn his efforts in another direction, perhaps to another ascension-in-progress, who knew?
What she didn’t understand and what made her nervous right now was why Greaves hadn’t attempted another attack. She didn’t know what to make of it, a circumstance that caused her to look over her shoulder more than once, and the fresh air from the open walls did little to calm her nerves.
Despite her concerns, however, this was the moment she had been waiting for, the completion of her process of ascension, the point at which she would become … an ascender … a vampire … an immortal.
She weaved on her feet. She ordered her mind, or tried to.
Endelle stood in front of her, nearly ten feet away. She wore a formal black robe, which just barely touched the top straps of her stilettos. She held out her right hand and a book appeared. She grimaced, flipped through several pages, put her forefinger on a paragraph, and started reading.