Gates of Rapture

CHAPTER 2

The painfully slow, meditative walk to the pools took at least fifteen minutes, but just as Grace came within sight of Casimir, a terrible roar reached her ears and stopped her feet. She couldn’t move. She could hardly think.
She’d heard Leto’s roars before, even across three dimensions, but none of them had sounded like this one, like an animal with a leg caught in a trap, the metal teeth grinding against bone.
Beatrice continued on, the silk of her skirts rippling as she floated.
Grace knew Casimir needed her; she could feel his pain. But Leto’s agony had been calling to her for months. So she paused where she was, unable to make her feet move.
Another roar reached her, full of anguish, a call of the wild that drove inside her chest and pummeled her. At the same time, the resonant sounds descended into the well of all that was female until she was weak with need.
What was she to do now?
She forced her feet forward.
Oh, dearest Creator, is it truly time to say good-bye to Casimir?
A few minutes later, Grace knelt beside him.
He was so different from the vampire she had known on Second Earth.
His spiritual reformation had turned him inside out. The guilt he lived with now was beyond anything she could have foreseen. She didn’t know how he survived reliving portions of his life from the victim’s point of view, experiencing just how much pain his selfishness and abuse had caused others.
He wept now and his body shook. He stared at her, unable to move. At first she thought the tremors held him captive, but with a start she understood that invisible restraints held him in place, pinning him over his hips, his knees, and his elbows.
His gaze implored her.
When the next roar reached her from Mortal Earth, however, she threw her head back. She felt Leto’s pain this time, his need, his desperation, his call to her, soul-to-soul, breh-to-breh.
“Don’t … Grace.” Casimir’s voice was hoarse. “Wait until I’ve completed the program.”
Still kneeling, she once again looked down at him. “The time has come. I have to leave today. Now. I can’t explain it.”
“I have seen part of my future. If you could wait, it would be so much safer for me.”
She couldn’t hold back the tears. “I feel the need to fold to Leto deep within my bones. I have to go.”
“Grace…” His voice was all breath and tremor as he extended a shaking hand to her.
“Why did you enter the third pool?” she asked.
His lips curved though his brow was crumpled in pain. “I thought to change the future. But today, probably because I entered a pool before I should have, I saw something about my destiny and about Leto.”
Grace put a hand to her throat. “What did you see?”
“That you were right: Our destinies are intertwined with Leto’s, and I have a task to fulfill.”
She feared asking the question, but she had to know. “What task?”
His body relaxed. “It doesn’t matter. You must do what is right for you, and I’ll go where I’ve never gone before—” He actually smiled.
She squeezed his hand. “And where would that be?”
“Where my conscience leads me. How’s that for a change?”
The next roar struck, still something only Grace could hear. She rose to her feet. Casimir turned to her and strained against the invisible binds. Grace saw Beatrice nod. The restraints disappeared, and he grabbed her ankles. She looked down at him. “I must go.”
“I want you to know that you taught me about love. You loved me when you had no reason to. I will never forget that.”
She backed up, and the weakness of his grip caused his fingers to slide over the tops of her feet and across her toes. She turned and moved as if in a terrible dream back across the gardens that separated the pools from Beatrice’s home.
“My boys,” he called after her. “You must promise to always be part of their lives, no matter what happens. You must promise.”
She stopped for a moment. She had been a mother to them all this time, and now she had to leave. Mind-to-mind, she sent, I will return and we will talk, very soon. I will not disappear from their lives. Please stay here, Caz. Please stay and live. Complete Beatrice’s program. I fear more than life itself that you will die if you follow me.
I have my own path to follow, he returned.
She couldn’t bear it anymore. She lifted her arm and folded, one dimension, two, then three, traveling through nether-space straight through the pathway that Leto’s roars had created for her, a shining blue pathway, like his eyes, lit and glowing, calling, begging, all the way from Mortal Earth.
When she arrived, when she materialized, the room was dark except for one small window. She adjusted her vision, turned, and saw a madman, wholly different from what she had expected. Leto was naked and so changed physically, she didn’t recognize him at first.
He was also fully aroused, hunched, and moving like an animal, a beast. His long hair swirled around his shoulders as though it were alive. But he didn’t seem to see her, so she called to him. “Leto.”
He turned, his eyes widening. He seemed to freeze as he stared at her in disbelief. His nostrils flared then he closed his eyes, squeezing them shut as if in pain. His body shuddered.
Only then did the forest scent of him rush at her, forcing her to step back and back. This was so different from five months ago. She didn’t understand what she was seeing or what was happening to him, what he had become. But the scent she recognized.
Oh, dear God in heaven, that scent!
She breathed in, taking a lung-expanding breath, drawing in the sweet, yet bitter and very male tendrils of herbs and fir resin. Desire moved through her, a wet wash of sensation. Her nipples hardened and puckered almost as though she had already orgasmed.
Her knees felt so weak. She ached fiercely and suddenly.
She felt a breath on her neck and opened her eyes.
The beast was in front of her, leaning down from his increased height, and sniffing. His breath came in hot swaths over her chest. He licked at her neck. His hands found her arms and pinned her then slid up to her shoulders and in a quick harsh movement ripped her gown from top to bottom.
“Leto,” she whispered, but her voice sounded hoarse. She didn’t know what it was she meant to say to him: to tell him to stop or to keep going, or to pause, or to take her.
Yet none of it mattered.
She also knew that he wasn’t in control of himself and that the floor was made of stone. It seemed absurd, but just as he pushed her down—in a movement so hard that she was flying backward—in her sensible Grace way she folded a mattress beneath her, the one she had slept on in Beatrice’s house.
Still she landed hard, with so much warrior, part beast, part vampire, on top of her that for a moment she couldn’t breathe. Oh, but that stone would have hurt.
He had hold of her head now and shifted her in an abrupt movement so that her neck was exposed.
Oh, God.
She needed this.
He pushed her knees apart. She didn’t resist. How could she? With every breath she took, more of his scent ripped through her brain. She spasmed deep within, needing him, ready for him. Her hands fumbled for him, reaching, and just as she took hold of him ready to guide him into her, the tips of his fangs paused on her skin.
Slowly, he drew back, as though the touch of her hand on his erection had stopped something. He looked at her, his blue eyes wild and intense. She knew those beautiful eyes, so sharp and clear, extraordinary. His eyes were the same. Leto’s eyes.
He waited, trembling.
She understood. And in that understanding, that he was asking permission, more tears tracked down her cheeks. “Take me, Leto. Take me now.”
He dipped down quickly. His fangs struck and as he began to drink, he pushed her hand away and pumped against her until he found her entrance, then he pushed hard. She cried out but it wasn’t pain, it was a strange and wonderful kind of relief.
She was so wet and ready that as he began to drive into her and to drink from her, as she slid her hands up and down his swollen muscles and weeping wing-locks, as she sank her fingers into his strange long hair that moved restlessly about his shoulders, she came and screamed and came over and over again.
*   *   *

Leto felt as though he’d been on a long journey and had finally come home. Grace’s blood was a sweet-meadow elixir down his throat that hit his stomach and fired his veins.
His beast-body had control. He wanted to pull back and hold her tenderly in his arms, cradle her, comfort her, apologize. But he couldn’t, and her cries that sounded like a bird on the wing, and were full of pleasure, forced him to thrust harder still, to savor the way she gripped him as she came then eased up.
His stamina surprised him but now that he had her beneath him, like hell he was taking this fast. That he shouldn’t be doing this at all was something he would grapple with later, but right now, with her meadow-sweet scent pouring in waves over his brain, he was doing what he was meant to do.
He drew out of her and pulled his fangs back. He hated leaving her neck, but he had other things in mind.
Her lids were at half-mast, her lips swollen, her cheeks a soft peach color. She groaned and her hips lifted up toward him, her hands clutched at him.
He chuffed and breathed at her. Her nostrils flared and her back arched. He moved down her body, biting his way so that she jerked from side to side, avoiding, begging. He reached her abdomen and the muscles rolled, her pelvis arching.
She smelled even more meadow-sweet, and he bit her hip bones and began his descent. She thrashed on the mattress. Oh, a mattress. Smart move.
He couldn’t believe his brain functioned at all.
He reached her mons and opened his mouth wide. He took as much of her as he could and sucked hard.
The groan that left her was guttural and deep, resonant. He planted a hand between her breasts and held her flat. He was strong. He slid the other hand beneath her buttocks and pressed her into his mouth, lifting her up so that she could watch.
Her lips parted as she dragged in air. He slid his hand to the side, caught a nipple between thumb and forefinger, and squeezed. She threw her head back.
Watching her brought a chuff from his throat. His lungs worked like bellows until he was growling and huffing.
“That sound,” she cried.
He couldn’t help the sound he made but when he sucked harder and the chuffs strengthened, her legs locked around his back and he could tell by her cries she was once more caught in ecstasy.
Something inside him eased a little as he brought her over and over, resting between and taking her to the heights until she was limp, her eyes glazed, her breathing fast.
He moved over her again, moving up the bed, up and up until he could position himself against her mouth. He pushed his cock against her lips, demanding.
She met his gaze then slowly parted her lips. When she was wide enough, he plunged into her and mouth-f*cked her hard. She used her hands and her nails and scored his buttocks, and it felt just right.
He was taking possession of her. She knew it. He knew it.
He felt his balls grow tight, but he didn’t want to come like this. He withdrew, suspending himself over her, waiting it out. He had to spend himself inside her.
He flipped her over and pulled her up onto her knees. She arched her back, which tilted her buttocks up. He dipped low and licked her until she was flowing wet again then he rose up and drove into her hard.
Damn, his wing-locks. They’d been burning and he had this feeling he would mount his wings, but he didn’t want to. Shit.
As he began to pump into her, he chuffed hard.
“Come for me, Leto. You are so beautiful like this. Come for me.”
Her words, her voice, her body, her scent. He supported himself on one arm and with his free hand he fondled her breasts, squeezing them hard. He bit down on the back of her neck and pumped fast.
Damn his wing-locks.
As he came, he roared because his wings released, adding to the intense pleasure. But would there be enough room for his entire wingspan? Or would he be maimed?
The sensation of releasing into Grace took over and pleasure came from every direction at once. He thrust hard, his wings flapped, and the sound of Grace crying out in pleasure spurred him on. He pumped harder, giving her every bit of who he was as a man. Pleasure rippled over his massive body, and some terrible pain inside him finally drifted away. Grace had come back. She had come home to him. He could breathe again.
He began to slow in his movements and to savor how she sighed and cooed, and that he was connected deep.
At last, his consciousness began to fade, and he fell down on her so that she collapsed under him and under the covering of his wings.
*   *   *

At first, Grace was too lethargic to move—but she wouldn’t have been able to anyway. She was caught in some kind of postcoital bliss that rocked her eyes in her head. She smiled and savored. Her mouth was pressed into the mattress, making it even harder to breathe.
Everything was so very wrong, yet so right, which made no sense at all yet complete sense.
Leto had given her a choice.
She would always remember that as probably the most heroic thing he could ever have done with her. She had understood the depth of his need and she knew he’d been locked into some kind of primordial beast-mode. Yet somehow his rational self had shone through. No, she would never forget that he’d given her a choice.
So here she was buried beneath his wings and his massive, bruising body, and she couldn’t move. She could barely breathe, he was so heavy on her. But she could draw just enough air to survive, which made her smile.
She was with Leto, the warrior she had known for the entire two thousand years of her long vampire life, from the time that Thorne had joined the Warriors of the Blood. Leto and Thorne had been battling death vampires together all these long centuries.
Leto was also the warrior she had written all her erotic poems about during her decades in the Prescott Two Creator’s Convent. It was as though somehow her spiritual mind had known that one day she would be here, fulfilled by Leto’s body.
But as she came down from the bliss of ecstasy, her rational mind began to explore all the implications of such irrational behavior. She wasn’t afraid of pregnancy. For reasons she had never understood, she had been barren for almost her entire life. This was a great sadness to her, of course, but not something she’d been able to change in all these centuries. The one birth she had experienced, when she was young, had not ended well. She had always wondered if that was the cause of her inability to conceive.
She doubted she would ever know.
Her mind drifted very quickly to Fourth Earth and to the vampire she had left behind. How strange to think that just a little while ago, she had been living in a palace in Denver Four, caring for Casimir and his children, enjoying Beatrice’s friendship, and now she was here.
She had left the clouds and had fallen hard to earth.
That her fate seemed inextricably bound to Leto’s was clear. She knew his history, that he’d lost a mother to death vampires when he was very little. His soul had been closed off even longer than her own. But on some deep level, before these truths had been shared between them, she had known him and he had known her.
But what did this portend for her? Or, more accurately, what was she willing to do about it?
She was tired of not breathing deeply, so she pushed at Leto, giving him a hint.
“Hey,” she said softly and pushed again, taking care not to disturb the feathers. A vampire’s wings were strong but they were also in many ways fragile; even pulling on an individual feather too hard would cause pain.
But after a few more nudges, the last two quite firm, she realized he wasn’t just asleep, he was unconscious.
She was about to remedy the situation, but something within her vibrated softly, like a chime deep within her soul, as though something must be understood and known in this very moment, before she took one more step into the future.
She grew very still, her face smashed into the mattress, Leto’s body heavy and warm on top of her.
She searched through her mind and followed the sound of the soft chime, flowing down and down through a veil of dark clouds until her mind pulsed with blue light. She remained in that unearthly glow.
She had never been in this place before, but the color told her she was very close to her obsidian power, her blue flame power. Using her instincts, she wrapped herself in that power. As she focused, Leto’s soul was simply there. She understood then that in some mysterious way, her power was related to her ability to read the souls of others, even to search them, something she had been able to do since she was very young.
This time, however, Leto’s soul seemed sharper and clearer than ever before.
She sank deep into both his character and his past. She saw the battles he had waged, the thousands of conversations he’d had with Commander Greaves, his arguments with Greaves’s generals. Then before his abdication of his Warrior of the Blood status, she saw his close connection to all his warrior brothers, especially to Thorne, and how Leto had once served as Thorne’s mentor. She saw the women Leto had loved over the past century and beyond that, over the full course of his three thousand years. She saw him as a child, back and back until she was able to see what had prompted him to become a warrior. He had always wanted to be the very best warrior in his tribe. From a young age, he had prided himself on being the best. How much it must have hurt him to have been a spy. She moved forward swiftly in time until he was once more serving as a spy on behalf of the Sixth ascender James. She saw how James had explained how critical it was that Sixth Earth get extensive information on Greaves, something only a spy could deliver, and in the ensuing years just how much Leto had suffered as he performed his traitor’s role.
She saw the arena battle in which Leto had been required to fight Alison, each bearing a sword. She felt how much the performance of this duty wounded the depths of his soul, how much he had hated setting his centuries of experience against an untried woman, even how hard he had fought. Then his surprise when her vast powers had emerged and Alison had defeated him using a pocket of time reversal. However, in this moment, Grace saw something more. She realized that Leto had a connection to Alison, a purpose to fulfill with her in the coming days, though Grace couldn’t discern what that purpose was.
She knew that Alison was destined to open the Trough or portal to Third Earth, an unfathomable feat. This much Grace knew from conversations with Thorne over the past year and a half. No one knew the timing, only that when it happened, Second Earth would be changed forever. But what did it mean that Leto had this kind of connection to Alison?
She moved forward once more until she was now in the absolute present with Leto, still in his bizarre beast-form, crushing the air from her lungs, his weight growing heavier and heavier.
She was still locked into her blue flame power and was still rummaging around within Leto’s soul. She saw the nobility of his character—that his loyalty, until the moment he’d become a spy, had defined him. Breaking that loyalty had caused a cancerous growth in his heart. He no longer felt worthy of life, of what was good in life. He especially didn’t feel worthy of her. She also had the sense that the change he underwent with increasing frequency was permanent.
As she released Leto’s soul, she returned to her reality and Leto’s beautiful weight on her. She hated this war and what it did to fine, worthy ascenders, how Thorne had lived in pain for centuries, increasing when her twin sister, Patience, was taken; how a decent man like Leto had been turned into something almost unrecognizable.
Now she had returned to participate in the war in a way she had never imagined doing before. She was obsidian flame and had an opportunity to change the future.
Struggling to take her next breath, she knew the time had come to leave this dark place beneath the earth, to get some distance from Leto and chart the course she had set for herself.
Leto, you’re very heavy. Can you move, please?
She gave him another push back with her shoulders and when he still didn’t budge or respond to her telepathy, she simply folded from underneath him, hoping that his wings would lie flat afterward.
She materialized beside the mattress. The soft light blue linen sheets hung over the sides and spread out like a lake on the dark gray stone of the floor.
She gasped. She had never seen Leto’s wings so close before. She took a step forward, careful not to step on either the mesh superstructure that held the feathers in place or the feathers themselves. She had forgotten how beautiful Leto’s wings were; upper and lower wings essentially created four panels. The feathers were a deep blue like sapphires.
He was so beautiful, even in his beast-form. She felt an almost overwhelming need to stretch out beside him and offer him what comfort she could.
Right now, however, what she needed was time to think about what coming back to Mortal Earth would mean for her in the coming days. She thought the thought, and folded to the bottom floor of Leto’s cabin. A quick search through his home brought her to his expansive bathroom on the second floor and the sight of what she wanted now more than anything. A shower.
*   *   *

Endelle wasn’t alone in her office, but she might as well have been; at least that’s the way she felt. Thorne stood across the room by the east-facing windows, his back to her, talking quietly into his phone to his woman, his breh, Marguerite. Every once in a while, he’d laugh. Despite the passage of five months when Thorne had bonded with Marguerite, Endelle still had a rock in her chest that she couldn’t seem to get rid of. The rock was Thorne-shaped. He had a new life now with his breh and as the Supreme High Commander of the Allied Ascender Forces, but that didn’t change how much she missed him.
Thorne had been her right hand all these centuries, but he’d split from her and now lived his own life. She understood and respected that he had a new role to play. She just hadn’t realized how much she had relied on him or how important he’d been to her.
She’d get over it, of course. But today was one of those days. She had a nasty gut feeling about the war, that something bad was on the wind. In former times, she’d have had a sit-down with Thorne; they’d talk it over, then strategize.
Now? He had other duties, important ones, like building her army.
He was powerful as hell now and actually served as part of the obsidian flame triad, not as a significant player but as the anchor. Between that, and adding to her massive Militia Warrior forces daily, he sure as hell didn’t have time to soothe her shitty loneliness.
She rubbed the back of her neck, which reminded her of the other glorious part of her life right now, that she had permanent scars back there, also something she couldn’t get rid of. That Sixth bastard, Braulio, had put them there, but she still didn’t know what they were for or what he’d really done to her. She only knew she often woke up sweaty and nauseated and ready to do battle with anyone and anything.
Jesus H. Christ. Too much shit in her life.
She sat at her desk in her office, leaning back in her tall chair, her head pressed against the Appaloosa horsehide that hung over the back. With her elbows on the arms of the chair, she formed a steeple with her hands and tapped her fingertips together.
Her gaze shifted past Thorne. The windows had been replaced since her last freak-out when she was sure Thorne was dead. She’d gone full-out, batshit crazy and demanded that James, another real Sixth Earth piece of work, get his ass down to her office on Second, bring healers with him, and restore Thorne’s life. Hell, she’d threatened to destroy the planet if he hadn’t.
So James had come, with the Sixth healers, and brought Thorne back.
And there Thorne stood, a changed man, his back to her, his Droid Ascender pressed to his ear. Marguerite was pregnant with twins, and he was playing the concerned husband role like he’d been born to it. God, staring at him was like looking at an amputated leg, the portion that had been removed. She kept wanting to reach for Thorne and reattach him somehow.
“So how are you doing?”
Endelle flipped around in her chair to find that Alison had just folded into her office. “How the hell did you sneak in here without my knowing and why the hell are you grinning like that?”
“I have news.”
Endelle waited to hear what it was. But Alison didn’t say a word, she just kept grinning like someone was tickling her ass-crack.
“Okay, I am so not in the mood for any f*cking games.”
Alison lifted a brow then turned slowly around until Endelle had a perfect view of her bare back and what looked like wing-locks.
“Holy shit.” She rose up from her chair and looked closer. “Alison, don’t be shitting me. Does this mean you f*cking got your wings?”
Alison turned back around, her expression euphoric. “Yes, Madame Endelle, I so f*cking did. I woke up this morning, felt a little strange, then a vibration flowed through me like an electric current. The impulse to mount my wings was almost overwhelming. As soon as I told Kerrick what was going on, he folded me to the back lawn and I let them fly. I still can’t believe it.”
Neither could Endelle. Despite the fact that Alison was only recently ascended from Mortal Earth, Endelle had always known that Alison would mount her wings early. Anyone with that much power wouldn’t wait decades to take to the skies.
Damn but wasn’t she a beauty; about six feet, long blond hair pinned back this afternoon with a gold clip. Was it any wonder Kerrick had fallen hard for her? But then had he really had a choice? Her warriors were succumbing fast to the breh-hedden, one after the other, a bunch of overbuilt dominoes. She had long suspected that the appearance of the breh-hedden on Second Earth was a balancing force against Greaves, a set of dimensional scales working on behalf of ascenders everywhere to keep evil from triumphing.
Thorne was the latest victim of the breh-bond, and for the past five months she’d received reports from the Seattle Colony on Mortal Earth that Leto was still caught in the fist of that myth-that-wasn’t-a-myth. Oddly, it was Thorne’s sister, Grace, that Leto had lost it for.
But as she met Alison’s gaze, she had a strong prescience that there was more to the sudden appearance of her wings than just flight capability. Endelle could feel it in every cell of her body.
Her heart started beating like a bird trying to get out of a cage. She put her hand to her chest.
Alison had ascended over a year ago, one freakishly powerful mortal who had carried with her just about every preternatural ability a Second ascender could ever possess. She had ended up serving as Endelle’s executive assistant, even though she could have been anything in the second dimension, including a Warrior of the Blood. The woman, however, had the killing instinct of dandelion fluff, so executive assistant it was.
Endelle clapped her hands together. “This is some righteous shit. So are they white, blue, orange, what?”
Alison shook her head and her eyes glittered. “Emerald, like Kerrick’s eyes. A beautiful deep green with black banding at the tips.”
“Mount them for me.”
Alison looked around then shook her head. “I can’t.”
Endelle smiled. “The wingspan is too big.”
“Yep.” Mounting wings in too small a space could cause damage.
Endelle narrowed her eyes. “Okay, spill the rest of it, because I know there’s something else, right?”
Alison nodded. “My dreams have returned, the ones about opening the Trough to Third Earth.”
“The portal to the third dimension,” Endelle murmured. She put two fingers to her lips and sat down. Her heart was still that wild bird. Vampires didn’t usually stroke out, but she thought if she didn’t calm the hell down she might just be the first one. So Alison had mounted her wings and now her dreams had returned, the ones that placed her at White Lake with the blue spinning vortex above: the portal to Third Earth.
She swallowed hard. She had a feeling that everything relating to the war and to Greaves was coming to a head.
Then she felt something new slam into her from the direction of Mortal Earth and another holy shit shot through her mind.
When Thorne finally put his phone away and turned in her direction, she said, “You’d better get your woman over here, and while you’re at it, I want to see Jean-Pierre and Fiona as well. Now. Within the next sixty seconds.”
Thorne might have been the Supreme High Commander of the Allied Ascender Forces, but she was still in charge. He met her gaze, his hazel eyes clear and beautiful in a way they hadn’t been in centuries. He was a new man thanks to the bonding of the breh-hedden. He nodded and withdrew his Droid from the pocket of his slacks, then started issuing orders.
“What’s going on?” Alison asked.
Endelle looked up at her. “You’ll find out, and it isn’t just about your wings.”
Marguerite arrived first. Her hair was short and platinum blond and her six-months-pregnant belly stuck straight out in front of her. She was a full foot shorter than Thorne. He slid his arm around her back and leaned down to kiss her. She wore a snug blouse, and his hand went to her stomach. She looked beautiful. Hell, together they could have been a pair of Mortal Earth movie stars.
Marguerite had turned out to be one big surprise in Endelle’s world and in their small circle of über-powerful vampires. She had a mountain of power as a bona fide red variety of obsidian flame and as the most powerful Seer on the planet. Endelle had made her Supreme High Seer of Second Earth, a distinction that had no particular perks and a lot of responsibility. Marguerite had translated her job into a constant effort to secure global Seers rights for the frequently enslaved Seer population.
Near the east wall of windows, a shimmering brought Jean-Pierre and Fiona into the office, both wearing jeans with matching tanks and gazing at each other like no one else existed. Fiona had fang-marks on her neck. Oh, shit, the couple had been doin’ the nasty when she pulled them in here. She was almost sorry she’d disturbed them, but she had more important stuff going on than a little nookie between breh-mates.
Jean-Pierre had a head of gold-streaked light brown hair that curled however the hell it wanted. She could tell he’d crammed it into the cadroen, another sign that he’d been busy when he got Thorne’s call. He had eyes the color of the ocean, big teeth, and a big smile. F*cking gorgeous.
Fiona, the gold variety of obsidian flame, had silver-blue eyes and long chestnut hair. She’d at least combed her hair, but with the exception of some lip gloss, she wore no makeup. She didn’t need to, though. She was in love and all aglow, maybe the best makeup a woman could ever wear.
“What is it, Endelle?” Jean-Pierre asked as he and Fiona drew close to her desk. His accent still carried a French lilt and drove the ladies wild. She often heard him speaking quietly to Fiona in French, after which of course she would end up wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him. How many times had she seen the couple just take off from any old event once he started in with his mother tongue?
She glanced from one ascender to the next. “Have a couple of things to share, and before you start yelling at me about not sharing sooner, I just found out about both these things.” She jerked her thumb at Alison. “This one got her wings this morning.”
A round of congratulations flew from both couples in Alison’s direction.
“We should have a party,” Marguerite said. Her bonding to Thorne five months ago had released a hostess on the Warriors of the Blood. She often had everyone over to Thorne’s Sedona house. Poker had become a big deal and even drew the unbonded warriors, like Zacharius and Santiago, out of that shithole of a rec room the boys called the Cave.
“Hold your horses, red flame,” Endelle said. “There’s more.” When all eyes were fixed on her once more, she continued, “Alison has been dreaming about the portal to Third Earth again and flying over White Lake. You know what that means, right?”
As one, everyone shifted to stare at Alison.
“Damn, Alison,” Thorne said. “I didn’t think it would be so soon.”
“What?” Marguerite turned to Thorne. “Why don’t I know what this means?”
He looked down at her and told her the story about Alison’s ascension, how she’d had numerous dreams about flying over White Lake, about looking up and seeing the blue vortex that led to the third dimension, and that somehow she knew that her destiny was to open the Trough to Third.
Marguerite shifted to stare once more at Alison. “Holy motherf*cker.” She then clapped her hand over her mouth, patted her stomach, and said, “Sorry, kids.”
Endelle laughed. But from the time Alison’s daughter, Helena, arrived, they’d all started curbing warrior-speak. Alison scolded everyone because she said she didn’t want baby Helena’s first word to be shit or worse.
Fiona returned to the subject at hand. “Do you have a sense, an intuition, that you’ll be opening the portal soon?”
At that, Endelle, swiveled in her chair to look up at Alison as well.
Alison blinked several times as though pondering the question. She then met Endelle’s gaze. “Yes, it will be soon. But doesn’t that mean the war will heat up? I always thought, or maybe felt, that once we had contact with Third Earth, the war with Greaves would end.”
“We all thought that,” Thorne said. He said to Endelle, “But how likely does this seem? I’ve been building the army, but we don’t have anywhere near enough warriors to battle Greaves directly.”
Endelle nodded. “I know. But now for my second bit of news, although”—here she glanced at Fiona and Marguerite—“I confess I’m a little surprised that the two of you don’t have word for me as well.” She then looked at their brehs and smiled. “I guess the pair of you have been too busy to notice that Grace is back.”
“What?” At least three ascenders shouted that word at the same time.
Fiona shook her head. “I don’t sense her at all.”
“Well, hopefully it’s because she’s with Leto on Mortal Earth. Maybe the mist Diallo creates to protect the colony isn’t allowing information to travel far. I felt her, though, just a few minutes ago, but then, well, I’m me and I have more power than the bunch of you combined.” She didn’t often brag but it felt kind of good right now. She then launched into exactly how she thought things should unfold, starting with Alison.
She looked up at the blond beauty again. “You’d better get to practicing your flight skills. I have a feeling they’ll be needed within the next few days. Got it?”
“Absolutely. Kerrick has already been working with me. We’re both feeling the urgency. My God, Endelle, do you think this is it? I mean, the war has gone on for so long.”
“I won’t say for sure, but I think it’s possible.” She clapped her hands together. “Now, the second thing is equally important. We’ll need to bring obsidian flame up to speed as fast as possible.” She looked from Thorne to Jean-Pierre. “If I remember correctly, though, most of the warriors will be out at the Borderlands. Both of you said you’d join Leto at the warrior games.”
Marguerite said, “Yes, the four of us are going. So it looks like we’ll see Grace there.”
Endelle nodded. “Good. We’ll get things rolling.” She addressed Thorne. “I just hope your sister doesn’t intend to pull any of her spiritual bullshit and refuse to participate because she needs to meditate or something.”
He just stared at her, looking exasperated as he often did when she opened her mouth.
“Hey,” she said. “Don’t look at me like that. Grace was the one who took off with that good-for-nothing and left Leto flat-footed. Why should I trust that just because she’s come back, she means to do her duty?”
Thorne leaned forward and held her gaze. “Because Grace has tremendous integrity and you know that. She also knows what obsidian flame will mean to you, to all of us. When she left like she did, I know she had a good reason, even if she didn’t share it with us. Coming back, she’ll have a better one.”
“Do you have to be reasonable?”
He smiled. Thorne had a beautiful smile—maybe not quite as brilliant as Jean-Pierre’s, but damn close.
“All right,” she said, waving her hand in his direction. “The warrior games will start in a few hours. The four of you can take off, but, Thorne, please do what you can to impress your sister with all of this. Let both Leto and Grace know about Alison’s wings as well.”
When the two couples vanished, Endelle turned back to Alison, whose gaze dipped down to Endelle’s chest. When Alison frowned, Endelle also glanced at her latest creation. She flipped the pinecones and the resin-coated monarch butterfly necklace. “You no like?”
Alison said, “Well, it’s not in your usual style?”
“Lacks the glam I’m used to rocking. It’s in honor of the warrior games. I’m telling you, though, that colony is so organic, it gives me the scratch. But I thought I should make an effort. I have bee-stilettos to die for.”
“I’m not even gonna ask.”
“Good. So how’s Helena, anyway?” Warrior Kerrick had gotten his woman pregnant on about the third day of her rite of ascension. Talk about virile. Now baby Helena was ten months old, or something like that.
Alison shrugged. “She’s got too many powers for an infant. It’s hard to know what to do with her. She can communicate telepathically now, but hearing that baby gibberish in my head all day is driving me bonkers.”
“Bonkers? That a new psychobabble expression?” Alison had been a therapist by profession before her ascension.
“It is today.”
“Well, you should bring her by. It’s good for morale.” Endelle clasped her fingers together. She doubted she was fooling anyone, but she actually liked Helena. There was a kind of intelligence in her green eyes that Endelle approved of. She wasn’t your ordinary kid.
“I’ll do that.”
Endelle was about to let Alison go, but she had one more person she wanted to alert to these sudden changes. She focused her thoughts on Marcus. Get your ass in here, she sent. She’d given up the complete futility of politeness, oh, about three millennia ago.
On my way. Marcus didn’t complain. He was older than Leto and had a tough hide.
To Alison, she said, “Marcus is coming. I want to let him know what’s doin’.”
“Good idea.”
Within a minute, Marcus appeared at the end of the long, glass-lined hallway. He was one good-looking sonofabitch. He had dark hair, which was now a few good inches down his back and secured in the cadroen. Two nights out of seven he battled at the Borderlands alongside his warrior brothers. The rest of the time he had an office down the hall where he worked his PR and administrative magic.
He was the High Administrator of Southwest Desert Two, but that was just a title. He was really in charge of global PR for Endelle’s administration and had effectively staved off the defection of at least a dozen of her territorial High Administrators around the globe. This was no small thing. If Greaves had gotten his hooks into them, Endelle was pretty sure the self-styled Commander would have already taken the war to its inevitable conclusion and bombed the hell out of Metro Phoenix Two.
Marcus had become one of her numerous miracle workers. But whatever happened from this point forward, especially from a PR standpoint, Marcus would need to be included.
“So, what’s going on?” he asked, glancing from Alison to Endelle. But he frowned as he looked back at Alison, his gaze running over her flight suit. “Is that what I think it is?”
Alison smiled and nodded.
“Shit, you got your wings.”
“I did. This morning.”
“Hot damn, that’s good news.”
Endelle told him the rest, about the dreams and about Grace returning. By the time she was finished, Marcus looked like she’d slapped him hard a few times.
“I’m f*cking speechless,” he said. “You know what all this means, or could mean, right?”
Endelle was smiling so hard that her cheeks hurt. “Damn straight I do.”
Marcus put his hand on the top of his head and turned in a full circle. “Okay. Okay. Okay.”
“You’re repeating yourself.”
“I’m in shock. This is amazing. Okay.”
“You said that.” But Endelle was enjoying herself. These moments that happened so rarely—when she took the time to savor what was a feeling of tremendous hope. She was sure there’d be more assf*cking in the days to come, but right now the possibility that the war might just end had her heart still flying about wildly.
Once more, she looked up at Alison. “I want Kerrick off warrior duty. I’ll let Luken know. Your man is now assigned to you indefinitely. Get your flight skills up, and be ready for anything. And in your off-hours, I want you to work with Grace like you did with Fiona. Help her get her obsidian power up to speed.”
Alison tapped her pants pocket and said, “Call me when you need me. As soon as I get back to the house, Kerrick is taking me to White Lake. You’ll find us there for the next several hours.”
“Good. That’s good. And let me know if you see any sign of the vortex.”
Alison left, which meant Endelle was alone with Marcus, but she could do little more than grin, and he kept turning in a circle. She knew his mind. He was no doubt plotting all the ways he could make use of this information to tighten his hold on the High Administrators who’d been making noises about joining Greaves and his bullshit Coming Order.
She was not surprised when he suddenly took off running back down the hall, shouting over his shoulder, “I have calls to make.”
Now that she was alone, Endelle let the moment play itself out. Her heart was on fire, revved up because for the first time in a long time, she had hope—beautiful, wild, shining hope.

Breathe, my beloved,

Take my essence into your soul,

That you might live

Forever in my arms.

—Collected Poems, Beatrice of Fourth