Gates of Rapture

CHAPTER 19

Greaves felt the future flow toward him like a dark wave, foreboding but exciting. Stannett was gone, so he had no one at the helm at the Illinois Seers palace to block his next moves. His only shot was to act quickly.
He contacted the war room at Estrella and had his generals ready to initiate the attack on the colonies once he was assured that he could burn all the mossy mist away.
Grace and Leto had somehow made their escape. He still wasn’t sure how, except that suddenly a miraculous healing had occurred. Even then he should have been able to blast them all to hell, but they just disappeared and he had no idea how they’d gotten past the shroud he’d created.
Unless of course obsidian flame was involved in a way he still didn’t understand.
He thought about folding back to Estrella, but the location within the Seattle Colony served his purposes better and he could monitor the results of his efforts right away.
He sustained the shroud over the cabin, settled back in his chair, and redirected his hand-blast energy. With great care, he began gathering kinetic energy; in a few minutes he’d be able to ignite the moss-based mist of the Seattle Colony. He’d worked out the sequence, and once he fired this special hand-blast, the burning would ignite all the colonies, one after the other, in quick succession.
He had only a couple of minutes, and then this part of his plan would unfold.
*   *   *

Grace stood on Diallo’s patio, her hand tucked into Leto’s. He was still in his beast-form, and she loved it. He kept looking down at her from his increased height, looking into her eyes as she looked back.
The world was new, different, better, brighter, even though she still wasn’t sure what had happened between them.
I love you, she sent.
I love your hand in mine, the beats of your heart, your smile, your infinite worth.
Love flowed from Leto now as it never had before. She could feel it, a warm, almost liquid sensation of caring and belonging. That was the difference—or at least one of them, since she felt changed as well.
Whatever strange shields had existed before now lay flat, dissolved, obliterated.
He leaned down and kissed her, apparently still not caring that everyone gaped at either his size or his affection for her. When he drew back, he whispered, “I love you so much.”
Her heart expanded, and she sighed.
“I love you, too.”
“Grace,” Thorne called softly.
She could hardly tear her gaze from Leto. She blinked and turned. He put his hand on her shoulder, the expression in his eye tender. “Marguerite has had a second vision about the colonies. It’s time.”
She nodded, but she wasn’t sure she could feel her feet. As she relinquished Leto’s hand and turned toward her obsidian flame sisters, though, she felt her power vibrate deep in the earth and once more rush up her legs and into her being.
She reacted swiftly, opening her mind to Marguerite, who shared the vision with both her and Fiona at the same time. Her breath left her body in a swift rush.
“He’s begun his torching sequence. The colonies will begin to ignite in a little over a minute.”
Grace glanced at Thorne. “How do we proceed?”
He shook his head. “I can only support you. Grace, this is your call. I anchor obsidian flame, but what I understand now is that you lead it.”
She could not have been more shocked—and yet it made sense in terms of the allocation of gifts. Marguerite could only indicate the direction. Fiona’s power could only support what Grace could offer. But Grace could find the location, then learn and amplify the ability needed to fix things.
In this case, what did she need to do? What needed to happen?
Her mind whirled swiftly. She needed to stop the process at the core, at the place where it would begin, where the moss would first be lit on fire.
“The mist,” she said. “The key is with the mist.” She shifted slightly toward Thorne. “And you know how to make the mist, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then may I enter your soul and find the formula for the mist?” She smiled as she said it.
“With pleasure.”
Grace dove and felt Thorne jerk back in surprise. He was very powerful and almost prevented her from sinking. But a moment later, he relaxed and relented.
Grace had finally come to understand that she wasn’t second to him or to Patience, but an equal in power and in purpose. She dove and fell through the deep cloudy space between the mind and the soul where the key to many, many things existed.
Thorne’s landscape was multihued but in subdued tones, like the facets of his eyes that were also multihued in soft golds and greens, light browns and blues, even grays, a perfect hazel. Magnificent, she sent to his mind. You are magnificent, my brother. And so beautiful. I can feel that you are whole and that Marguerite has done this for you, given you peace.
It’s a strange thing to feel you within me. I love you, Grace, and I’m so proud of you and what you’ve accomplished. I can feel your power. It’s amazing.
She smiled and focused on the mossy mist. A memory glowed a vibrant blue color, of Diallo teaching both Marguerite and Thorne how to make the mist that protected all the colonies. She found the lock and inserted her blue flame obsidian key. In a flash, she drew from him what she needed, then swiftly pulled out.
As she opened her eyes, she realized she needed more than just Thorne’s ability to make the mist. “There is another key. Excuse me. I must go get it right now.” She had to act fast and couldn’t stop to explain.
She apparitioned to the hospital on Second, then sought and found Diallo. He was still bruised. Diallo, forgive me.
He turned his head in her direction. I can see you, Grace. You look lovely. What form is this?
A sort of split-self.
Ah. But I can feel your discomfiture. Tell me what I can do.
First, she relayed as swiftly as she could all that was happening. I have the key to the mist, but there is something more I need. I felt it within Thorne, but he doesn’t have the key to the rest of the colonies. I need to acquire the ability from your soul.
His brows rose, but a smile tugged on his lips. I have been wondering how to be of use when my body is broken. Now I know. Please, take from me what you need.
She explained in more detail what she would need to do, and when he gave permission, she dove as she had with Thorne.
She marveled at how different each person was. Diallo felt as though he carried great riches within, and when she sank into the clouds separating the mind from the soul, she landed in a place of the brightest gold. She gasped and she felt him laugh within his mind. I can see what you are looking at, Grace. I am equally surprised, but I believe that my wife may have created all that beauty. I can account for it in no other way.
Grace wanted to stay and to savor, but she had a mission to accomplish. She focused on the mossy mist and the lock came forth, almost blinding in its beauty as well. She put her blue energy within, and the gate to his knowledge opened. What she saw astonished her—the sheer simplicity of how Diallo had created the interconnected mist that sustained the secrecy of so many hundreds of colonies all over the globe. She took the secret into her soul and flew from Diallo, nodding to him in her apparition-form as she swiftly returned to the courtyard garden.
“I’ve got it,” she said the moment she reconnected with her physical self.
Thorne stood behind Marguerite, his hands on her arms. Jean-Pierre moved in to support Fiona in a similar way, and Leto wrapped his oversized arms around her. She looked up at him and smiled.
I’m with you, he sent.
She felt it again, a wave of love that hadn’t been there before. She nodded, then turned back to Marguerite. “What’s our timing?”
“Twenty seconds.”
Grace looked up. “The mist is still intact,” she said. Everyone looked up.
“But not for long,” Marguerite said. She continued the count down, “Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen…”
“Fiona, I’m coming to you,” Grace said.
“I’m ready.”
Grace opened her obsidian flame power, which flowed quickly and easily now after so much practice. She focused on the job at hand, on protecting all the colonies. She let Diallo’s knowledge of the interconnected mist flow through her as well. She apparitioned to Fiona and slid inside. She felt Fiona’s ability to enhance a skill take over so that the obsidian power was responding to the event about to unfold. How different this was from the mass-folding experience, as though this time a whirlwind flew around the garden at tremendous speed.
“Hold steady,” Marguerite said aloud. “Eight, seven, six … Hold. Hold.” Then finally, “Now.”
The energy began to flow upward in a swirling stream of silvery light. But with the light, Thorne began to levitate as though part of the stream.
“Thorne,” Grace called out, although the voice was Fiona’s since she was possessing her. “What’s happening?”
“Thorne?” Marguerite added.
“It’s okay. I’m safe within the stream of energy, but I must go on this ride.” Then he was smiling.
Suddenly the stream of light whipped through the dome of mist and stopped the charring effect. The mist began to knit back together. The light sped off into space, carrying Thorne with it.
She could feel him traveling almost at an incredible speed as the obsidian power moved from dome of mist to the next, and the next. Each time the burning was stopped and the healing of the mossy mist commenced.
“This is amazing,” Marguerite said. “My Seer vision is tracking him. He’s flying to every colony and watching as the fire on each dome is quenched by the power we just released.”
Unbelievable, Fiona murmured within Grace’s mind.
Grace gloried in the achievement. How glad she was she had returned to serve as obsidian flame. Greaves had been so close to decimating all the hidden colonies, and the triad had stopped him.
*   *   *

Thorne was over the hidden colony above Nigeria One and watched the same miracle occur that had been happening all over the world. When obsidian flame had released the answering power that would counter the burning and destruction of the concealing mossy mist over the Seattle One colony, he’d been swept along in the wake.
Initially, he hadn’t understood why he was the one moving through space, but now he knew he served as a witness to what was happening. His report would further anchor the triad and support their power and reputation before the world. This alone would enhance Endelle’s reputation with all her allied High Administrators.
Watching the obsidian power quenching each dome of mist, then rebuilding what was burned, made him smile. This was a new world, a new beginning for Second Earth. He was sure of it.
The hot humid air rose from the continent beneath him as he continued to be caught in the stream of obsidian flame’s power. His silver aura glowed all around him. If he’d been visible to human eyes, he would have looked like a strange comet streaking through the dark night sky and even in the lightening dawn that appeared farther east.
When at last the stream of power brought him full circle back to Diallo’s garden, he explained what had happened and what the experience had been like. “Of course the most important part is that the colonies are safe once more.”
*   *   *

Leto had his arm around Grace’s waist, a natural place now for him to be. He listened to Thorne’s explanation of events and marveled at how different life was now among the Warriors of the Blood. Even Jean-Pierre looked relaxed as he leaned down to kiss Fiona on the cheek.
Marguerite had her arm around Thorne’s waist. She was beaming, as she should have been. The triad had done all that they’d needed to do and had saved all the colonists tonight, even more cause for celebration.
The air changed suddenly, as though charged with a new energy.
He looked around. Casimir? Leto sent.
The Fourth ascender returned. Let them know I’m here, and I’ll go visible.
Leto made the announcement, and Casimir materialized.
“Is something wrong?” Thorne asked. He looked from Leto to Casimir.
Casimir also glanced around the garden as though sensing someone was there. “Yes. But I’m not sure what’s going on? I don’t sense Greaves, though.”
Grace turned toward him. “My obsidian power is rising again.” She took a step past Leto, peering into the foliage near the south end of the patio. “Who’s there?”
Suddenly, swords were in hands as a figure materialized.
A woman, a very beautiful woman with cat’s eyes, appeared. She wore a provocative gown in a deep shade of peach. Her dark hair was dressed in waves. She looked harmless.
“It’s just me.”
Leto knew the woman, but not well. Her name was Julianna, and she was known to be Greaves’s companion. His uneasiness grew, especially when her gaze settled on Grace, so he kept his sword in hand.
“I have a score to settle, Grace of Albion. You know I do.”
“Julianna,” Casimir said. “You must leave. Nothing good can come of this.”
She turned toward Casimir, who was on her right. “What I will never understand,” she said, “is how you could have chosen Grace over me. You and I were soul mates, we understood each other, but as soon as you caught her scent, you were hers body and soul.”
“I used you ill,” Casimir said. “Blame me, not Grace. I pursued her when I should have attended to the woman sharing my bed. But I was a bastard then, and I’m trying to do better now. How can I make it up to you?”
“So that’s the way of it then?” Julianna’s eyes were wide. “You wish to redeem yourself? Greaves said you were immersing in water and trying to get yourself clean. But how does that make up for what you did to me?” Her gaze shifted to Grace. “For how that woman stole you from me.”
Leto’s uneasiness grew.
“Julianna,” Grace said. “I beg you to leave. If you do, all will be well and you can continue your life as it is now.”
“My life?” Julianna said, turning slowly to face her. “You dare to speak to me about my life? Casimir was mine, and you took him from me. You have done this, so you must die.”
Everything happened at once.
Julianna’s wrist flicked, and power flared, more power than Leto had ever seen a Second ascender deliver before. He threw Grace to the pavers and stepped over her body into the blast.
Oh, God, he would die.
But at the last moment, Casimir streaked in Leto’s direction, moving with his Fourth ability, protecting Leto as he had promised to protect him. Casimir took the full blast in the abdomen.
The air smelled of burned flesh.
Julianna screamed long and loud, “No.” Her voice echoed around the garden as she ran toward Casimir.
Leto lifted Grace up. She turned to stare at him. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Casimir protected me.”
She turned slowly in Casimir’s direction. She put a hand to her mouth, then moved to drop down beside him. “Casimir, you must not die.” She began to weep.
Casimir shook badly as he turned to look at her, then at Leto. He nodded. “Good. You’re all right.” His eyes closed.
Leto glanced at Grace. This was what she had meant, the task that Casimir had been destined to fulfill. Leto would not have survived the blast, and the only way Casimir could have been here to act as a shield was if he had taken Grace to Fourth and been changed by her presence in his life. What had she said? Something to the effect that the only way to keep Leto was to love Casimir.
And now Casimir was dying.
Leto knew he had less than minute to change the future if he could. Whatever animosity he had felt toward Casimir a few months ago had died in the past few days.
He touched Grace on the shoulder. She turned to him weeping, but he said, “Obsidian flame. You can do this.”
She straightened suddenly, as though remembering. She reached toward Marguerite and Fiona. Both women came running and joined her on the ground next to Casimir. Thorne and Jean-Pierre moved with them. “I acquired Horace’s healing ability earlier. I want to try it now.”
Julianna was still kneeling nearby and crying hysterically. But a moment later, at Thorne’s instigation, two Militia Warriors arrived and hauled her away, one on each arm. The trio vanished.
She would see prison time for doing harm against a fellow ascender.
*   *   *

Grace was trembling as she put one hand on Marguerite and one on Fiona. As the triad had proven during the spectacle event, touching wasn’t necessary, but right now that’s what Grace wanted. She was freaked; she needed to calm down.
But with the touch, the obsidian power rose, vibrating beneath all of them as they sat grouped around Casimir. She split-self, then jumped inside Fiona who, thank God, was waiting and ready.
The amplification of the healing power began, so that Fiona, possessed by Grace, turned and held her arms above Casimir. He was unconscious now, his body still. Grace felt little life in him—but if ever a power had been designed to do the impossible, obsidian flame was that power.
Healing flowed not in gentle waves, but in massive dips and swells so that Casimir’s body floated above the patio pavers. The smell of burned flesh disappeared first. Then Grace watched the organs re-form and the skin knit together. She remembered her own healing in Leto’s cabin, how swift it was because of Fiona’s ability to enhance a power.
Barely a minute later, Casimir’s eyes opened and he rose to his feet. He stared at his hands and fingers. He felt his stomach. He said something, but she couldn’t quite hear him.
“Casimir, what did you say?”
He turned to her. “Patience.”
Grace shook her head. She wasn’t sure what he meant, but then his eyes were wide. He was still in shock. Suddenly he grabbed her and held on to her. She felt that he was weeping.
Leto moved to look at her, but for the first time since Casimir had returned, he wasn’t jealous. Leto put a hand on Casimir’s shoulder. “Welcome back, brother.”
Casimir reached for Leto as well, so that Leto was caught in the same embrace as Grace. “You’ve both given me so much, I who deserved nothing. Thank you. And I promise that I will spend the rest of my life atoning for how I hurt each of you.”
When Grace drew back, it was Leto who held on to Casimir a little longer. “You saved my life. Repeatedly. I owe you everything. I could not have withstood Julianna’s hand-blast. So thank you, Caz.”
When Leto finally let him go, Casimir wiped at his face and nodded. “I was just doing my job.” But he laughed, and Leto laughed with him.
Grace stood beside them, wondering at this long journey that had brought both amazing men into her life: Leto so deeply fractured by his service and Casimir twisted in his hedonism because of centuries of sexual slavery.
She was moved and content and shaking with the remnants of the obsidian power.
Leto must have felt her trembling, because he slipped both arms around her and held her close. You were brilliant, he sent. Thank you, my beautiful Grace. Thank you for saving him.
Yes, everything was changing.
*   *   *

When Casimir folded back to the observation deck, he used his Fourth ability and reached out to Patience. He wanted her near him, he wanted to speak with her, he wanted to lay his life before her.
Death had come to him and he’d been spared.
Casimir? He loved her voice in his head. How quickly the breh-hedden could make such a small thing as the voice of a woman seen like the most important element of his life, as though his next breath depended on it.
Will you come to me? he returned. There is something I want to say to you.
Of course.
He smiled. She hadn’t argued; she had simply said, “Of course.”
She arrived within minutes, wearing her jeans, just like his jeans. He used to wear leather, but no more. Leather had been all that he’d been allowed to wear for centuries, then later all he’d worn to sustain his seductions. Jeans were so down-to-earth.
She smiled. “You smell like wine, and it’s getting to me.” But her eyes narrowed and her head tilted. “Something has happened?”
“Your sister just saved my life.”
“Grace? How?”
He asked her to sit beside him on the sofa. For the next hour, he told her everything about his life, about his association with Grace, about the redemption pools, about serving Greaves, about Leto, even about his early centuries often chained to a bed and passed from master to master. Everything.
She touched his fingers gently and with compassion. Later she rubbed his arm. She shed tears with him. She kissed his cheek and neck. She embraced him.
She told him about her reckless life, her lack of focus, the dangerous choices she had made over the centuries, then her journey here on Third. “I’ve never felt I belonged anywhere. And now you’re here. I hardly know what to think.”
“Will you date me?” he asked. “I mean, the breh-hedden will be difficult to withstand anyway. But if it’s okay with you, I’d like to date you, go out with you. I don’t want to just hop into bed with you.”
“I want to apologize for the last time I saw you. I kind of panicked and left you standing at the observation deck.” She drew a deep breath. “I’m not good with relationships. I never was. I’ve often thought it was a warrior kind of thing. I don’t know.”
“All I’ve ever known is how to seduce a woman. But I don’t want that with you, even though I know the breh-hedden would make it so easy.”
She nodded. “Tell me about it. All I can think about right now is how to get you out of your jeans.”
He laughed, but his expression sobered almost as quickly. “I want you so badly right now that I ache. But I think it would be wonderful to wait. I want you to trust me as I’ve seen Grace put all her faith in Leto. I haven’t been trustworthy for most of my life. I think it’s something that has to be earned.
“Also, I intend to complete Beatrice’s redemption program. And that will take time.”
Patience took his hand. “Casimir, I’d like nothing better than to date you. And I will wait as long as you need me to wait before we share a bed.”
Casimir felt his heart open as it never had before. He couldn’t believe this was happening to him. He felt as though an angel had taken pity on him, had believed in him, and had given him a method by which he could transform.
Of course, in reality, that angel was Grace.
*   *   *

All the walls had come down. That was the truth that Grace knew as she slid into bed beside Leto. They were back in the villa guest room and wouldn’t return to the cabin until the Seattle Colony was safe from Greaves permanently.
Something mysterious and magical had happened during the time that she and Leto had battled Greaves in Leto’s cabin. She had passed through some kind of veil that had given her new insight into herself. She had embraced Endelle’s ability to live out loud, and Beatrice had helped her to see that by returning as she had to Leto, to serve as obsidian flame, she had already begun the process of becoming real in her life, of giving up her ghost-ways.
Leto, it would seem, had experienced something similar. He was fully present when he looked at her, when he touched her face, as he did now, when he kissed her.
She slid beneath him and parted her legs. She wanted this moment with him more than anything, to have him make love to her with both hearts wide open.
“I love you so much,” he whispered.
She looked into his clear blue eyes. Her heart strained toward him. She would never get enough of him, of being this close, of looking at him. “Everything is different now, isn’t it?”
He smiled a very soft smile. “Yes. That separation I felt is no longer there. Earlier in my cabin, facing death, somehow I began to see things more clearly, especially my relationship with you. I let go of my holding back. I realized that if I had been fully engaged with you, Grace, if I had shared myself with you in a deeper, more profound way, we probably wouldn’t have ended up in that situation.”
“I know what you mean. And because of my ghost-ways, I didn’t have enough life experience to do battle with Greaves. In that sense, I was as much to blame that the situation devolved as it did. But I’m here now, Leto.” She squeezed his buttocks, and his smile broadened.
“Me, too.” His gaze fell to her neck, and what do you know, his fangs emerged.
Her back arched.
He smiled a little more. She lifted her hand to touch the sharp tip. She punctured her thumb, then let the blood pool. She slid her thumb into his mouth and let him taste. He closed his eyes and groaned. He pushed his cock up against her hand. She squeezed his crown.
I’m too close, he sent.
She released him, and he shifted his hips. He found her entrance and pushed. She savored both sensations: what it was for him to feel how tight she was as he made his way inside her, and how much pleasure all that pushing gave her.
I love the connection, she sent. I love being this close to you, feeling you, then enjoying the pleasure you feel. It’s extraordinary.
He moved slightly and began licking her neck above the vein. Her voice caught in sharp little gasps. Do it, Leto. Please. I’m in agony now because I feel how close you are and now I’m close all over again.
He struck and began to pull heavily on her neck. Oh, God, your blood, Grace. It’s sweeter than I remember, and the power is heady, a rush everywhere. He groaned, and she felt that he would change for her, become the beast that she loved, which made her grow lax and smile.
He kept pulling at her neck and making short jabs within her body, but the entire time he swelled and transformed. She petted his arms and shoulders, relishing the size of him, thrilling at the massive growth of his muscles.
Even his cock was bigger, broader, so that with each new push, she arched in pleasure.
I’m here, he sent. She knew what he meant because his powerful mind was suddenly pushing within hers.
Everything had changed.
That was what she thought the moment Leto pierced her mind.
She surrounded him with her arms and savored. His right hand drifted up her thigh, her waist, and squeezed her breast. She felt tears start to her eyes. She had never felt so possessed, never felt like she belonged so much as she did right now with Leto stretched out on top of her.
She overlaid his hand with her palm and pressed that she might feel the pressure of his hand once more against her breast.
He groaned.
I love you, he sent. It was so different when he was deep within her mind and spoke telepathically, as though his words had resonance. But it was also different because there were no more walls. The intense physical sensations began to blend with all that she felt for him and with all that love that he was pouring into her.
She took his hand and lifted his wrist to her mouth. With the practice of two millennia, she brought her fangs forth and struck.
She felt the piercing because she could feel his external sensations. It hurt yet felt so good at the same time.
His blood hit her tongue and thirst was all she knew. She drank, and somehow the power of his blood eased back the closeness of her orgasm, holding it just offshore. The breh-hedden hovered at the edges as well, like last time, yet it all felt so very different because his love was like a constant wave pulsing over her now.
And in the same way, she let her love flow toward him.
Leto, I want to go deep into your soul this time.
Yes, please, yes.
She pushed against his mind, then fell in, because he wanted her there. She dove to the limits of his mind, then fell again through the cloud that separated his soul.
But once inside his soul, it was as though an iridescence surrounded her and covered her—and she knew it was his love, newly birthed in the past few hours. She let him feel her love as well, and the iridescence brightened.
I love you so much, he sent.
Delight filled her, a layer over the physical pleasure, a gentle coloring over the depth of the love that now flowed back and forth, two waves meeting and passing through each other, returning to meet and pass again.
Then suddenly the breh-hedden struck, so unexpected, like a wonderful fire that erupted to great heights.
The iridescence burned bright; pleasure filled her deep within her soul, then her mind, then shooting outward to wash in heavy waves over her body. She knew she was screaming, and Leto’s cries wrapped around her own, rising high into the sky.
She felt his pleasure as he began to come, which ignited hers. All the years of loneliness and separation burned away in the face of the breh-hedden, as though a fire ripped through her and through Leto. On that fire burned, forging a rapture that simply exploded.
She withdrew her fangs. He withdrew his.
“I’m coming again,” he cried against her ear. He pumped into her, that great hulk of him, hard and fast and true and honest and beautiful.
She received what he had to give. Her body responded with ecstasy again and again, pleasure flinging her into the stratosphere, waves of heat driving her back to be flung wide again until her screams resounded through the room and his roars could be heard all the way to the edge of the universe.
After a time, she floated back into her body.
She felt him float back into his.
He lay on top of her, sated, beyond sated; she could feel in him the intensity of his satisfaction.
She was moved beyond words as she embraced him. His wing-locks wept. She was damp beneath her back as well.
“The gates of rapture,” she said.
“What?”
“It was something I read in one of Beatrice’s collections, something like, ‘Approach the gates of rapture with wonder, Lay down the past, Then fall.’” She chuckled. “I fell hard.”
“Me, too.”

Only the deepest, most unexpected changes

Can conquer great evil.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth