CHAPTER 24
Kerrick took a deep breath and drew his wings back into his wing-locks. He knew one thing as he leveled his gaze on Alison—he’d be taking her to bed and completing the goddamn breh-hedden … tonight.
He was about to suggest they depart when Thorne caught his arm.
The leader of the Warriors of the Blood looked him square in the eye, nodded, and even managed a rough smile. “So this is it, man.”
Kerrick returned the smile. “Yeah.” He doubted his voice could get lower.
Thorne punched him in the arm then laughed. “We won’t be needing you tonight, just so you know.”
Kerrick started to protest since he could always join up later, but Thorne split his resonance. “No,” he stated in his I’m-the-f*cking-boss voice, the one he rarely used, especially with Kerrick. “See you tomorrow.”
For some reason, Kerrick’s throat seized. He was headed down a new path, and Thorne would go to the Blood and Bite for one last drink before Central started burning his ear with death vamp movement. He didn’t know what possessed him, but he grabbed Thorne in a hard embrace and Thorne responded, holding on tight.
“You lucky sonofabitch,” Thorne shot over his ear.
Kerrick’s throat tightened up a little more and his eyes burned.
Christ.
Of course the moment ended about as fast as it began. Kerrick released him. Both men started clearing throats and nodding their heads in quick flurries.
Thorne’s gravel voice rattled the air between them. “You want a lift back to Scottsdale Two?”
Alison drew near, sliding her arm around Kerrick’s waist. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed.
“I’ve got it,” she said.
“Actually,” Kerrick said, looking from one to the other. “I’ve got it.”
They both stared at him. Thorne’s eyes popped. “What the f*ck? You can fold?” Of course this brought all the brothers’ attention in his direction, and within two seconds they’d formed a new arc around him.
“You can fold now?” Alison cried.
He nodded. He couldn’t stop grinning. He felt like a kid at a T-ball game who’d scored his first home run.
All the brothers pounded his back, his arms, his shoulders.
“That’s amazing,” Alison cried. “How? When did this happen?”
The warriors stopped to listen but his eyes were for her. “About the time that I decided I wasn’t going to live my life without you.”
He heard her quick intake of breath and saw her eyes shimmer with tears. “No crying,” he said, kissing her forehead. “There’s no crying in ascension.” Would she get the reference?
She chuckled. “A League of Their Own. I love that movie.”
His gaze locked with hers and he could smell a sudden gust of lavender. He breathed in, his nostrils flaring, his eyes closing. Oh. God.
Thorne took the cue without having to be told. He ordered a full-scale assault on the Blood and Bite. The brothers cheered as they folded one after the other, each casting a raised fist of triumph in Kerrick’s direction before vanishing.
The sudden emptiness, the quiet in the room affected him. He loved the Brotherhood, the jibes, the cheers, the solid comfort of male bonding. He felt their presence even when gone. He looked around the beat-up hovel of a rec room, the flat-screen smashed and hanging at an angle, the ragged leather sofas, spit wads on the ceiling, the pool table that looked like roosting chickens would show up any minute, new bottles of Ketel One and Maker’s and all the other preferred drinks of the warriors, now spread out on the bar.
His brothers.
As he glanced down at Alison, he knew all that would change, from this moment forward. He would have two loyalties now, but the greater would be to this woman, to their child, to his family.
“So you can fold now,” Alison said once more.
He nodded. He eased her from his side to gather her into his arms. She rested her hands against his weapons harness and smiled up into his face. He searched her gaze. They were together and his heart was so full. “I want you to know I meant what I said—I won’t live my life without you, without our daughter. But those are my feelings, my wishes, my intentions. What are yours? Because as much as I long to be with you, I won’t force my will on you. I would never do that.”
As she put her hand on his cheek, her eyes glistened. “I want to be with you more than life itself and I refuse to live apart from you. So I have only one question I need to ask you.”
“And that would be?”
“Can you take me with you when you fold?”
He laughed. “I don’t know but I’m sure as hell willing to give it a try.”
“Then do it, Warrior.”
He nodded and with both arms holding Alison tight, he thought the thought.
He materialized a couple of seconds later next to his bed with Alison still in his arms. She sniffed twice then threw her arms around his neck and wept.
He wasn’t sure why she was crying so he waited. He stroked her hair, her shoulders, her back. His neck grew wet. “I just thought,” she said at last, dragging a breath into her lungs, “this would never happen.” She sighed and sniffed a little more. He felt a slight movement of air—oh, she’d folded a tissue—then she blew her nose. “But I didn’t mean to cry. I’m just so happy.”
“I know,” he said, savoring her body pressed up against his. “I love you so much. I didn’t think we’d get to be together, either. It seemed impossible but I’m so glad you’re with me. Here. Now. You feel so damn good in my arms … guardian. My wonderful therapist guardian.”
She chuckled. He slid his arms around her a little more then squeezed. With her arms still wrapped around his neck she hugged him back.
He had his woman where he wanted her, in his bedroom, right next to his oh-so-massive bed. He wanted her naked and between the sheets.
“Kerrick,” she murmured, drawing back, her hands now fondling his biceps. “What changed … for you, I mean? Why are you okay with our being together now? I mean I could see that something was different the moment you returned to the Cave, but what?”
He looked into her eyes, her beautiful blue eyes rimmed with gold and still wet with tears. He slid his hand behind her nape and with his thumb stroked her cheek. He loved her so much. “About the time you went to the training camps, I moved into this room, the bedroom I’d shared with Helena all those decades ago.” She shifted slightly and glanced at the bed. She sighed and returned her gaze to him. He continued, “I kept thinking about her, about Helena, about the kinds of things she used to say to me, the arguments she’d used to persuade me to marry her. She was fearless, Alison. But more than that, she had accepted her death, a lesson I needed to learn, especially if I wanted to be with you as well as to have a shared life with our daughter.
“I need you to understand that the warrior drive to protect is like—well, it’s as powerful as the shield you set up to defeat Leto. With that drive comes both guilt and an unwillingness to accept failure.”
She swallowed hard. “So, for you, Helena’s death, and the deaths of your children, was a failure.”
His heart sank. “An enormous one.”
“But Kerrick—”
“No. Don’t try to soothe the pain. You can’t and I’m good with it, I really am, but I won’t pretend that their deaths didn’t create a chasm between you and me.” He huffed a sigh, his hands now gliding up and down her back. “The truth is, I could not have taken this step with anyone other than you, because of the powers and abilities you possess. I could never have married an ascender like Helena again because I know in my heart the results would have been the same. She would have died.
“Which is why our being together seems so miraculous to me and why the breh-hedden, arriving as it did with you, frames that miracle. Who you are, with your powers and abilities, is the reason I can take this step today, the only reason. Nothing less would have made any sense or made our life together possible.
“So I find myself grateful beyond words for you. For. You.”
Here he paused and took in a shaky breath. “Even with all that, however, I still had to take one more step because I know, regardless of your powers or mine, should either you or I err one degree to the right or left, if either of us should commit a miscalculation or misinterpretation like the one at the palace, then that is how swiftly our time together ends. Which means that the other—or God help us, our daughter—would have to bear the results of death and separation.
“So what I chose, instead of losing you, was to let my failure go, as much as I was able, and to embrace what has been given to me today. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve accepted my death, as well as yours and our daughter’s, and that despite my fear of future sadness and suffering, I want to be with you today, to know you, to love you, to have you in my bed, sharing my life and raising our daughter together.”
He looked down at her, willing her to know just how sincere he was. She rose up and kissed him. He thumbed her cheek again and kissed her back. “So what of you?” he said. “What changed for you?”
* * *
Alison struggled to find the words. For one thing, she was still wrapped up in everything he had just said, his words a blanket of comfort yet composed of such startling fear and confession and acceptance that she was overwhelmed. She wondered just how carefully she had thought her own situation through. More tears tracked down her cheeks, for him and for her.
She wiped them away with the tissue that had practically become a lump of clay in her hand. With a quick fold, she got rid of the lump and brought a fresh tissue to her. Once more she blew her nose and wiped her cheeks. Her forearms rested on his massive chest, her arms pressed against the ridges of his weapons harness, the hilt of his dagger between them. She looked up at him. “I don’t suppose you could lose the harness.”
“Absolutely.” A vibration touched her arms and the next moment she landed on skin. She slid her arms up around his neck once more and pressed her chest against his.
He murmured his approval, his arms surrounding her again, a blessed cage of solace and reassurance.
She searched for the words to explain. At last, she began. “The reality of having destroyed your chest and abdomen wrecked me, tore my confidence to shreds. The last day I was with you in the hospital, I was convinced I could never be with you because I could never again trust myself.
“Being at the training camps was a blessing because all those field exercises, the hours in the gym, the grueling marathon runs tended to block my grief at being separated from you. But once on my cot, for those few minutes I had before sleep plowed over me like a tank, my heart would turn to you and all the longings and despair returned in full force. I would break into a sweat and tears would pour from my eyes. My need for you, to be as close to you as I am now, tensed every muscle of my body. I can’t even begin to explain how hard it was.
“Then sleep would come and I would begin a new day. But night brought the same suffering, the same struggle, and ended the same as each day before, my body sweating, shaking, my pillow damp.
“This evening, however, before the death vamps showed up at the barracks, I’d been asking myself a host of really tough questions, like wouldn’t it be better to live full-out than to retreat into a pit of despair, and retreating was what I’d been doing my whole life. And yes, I’ll cut myself some slack and say it was necessary on Mortal Earth, but here, on Second, ever since I was forced to battle Leto, something inside me changed. In that moment I saw what I had, what I had been given, the breadth of my powers—but more than that, I loved that I could just be myself.
“Then later, after I’d wounded you, I thought I had only one choice … to retreat into myself, to live a quiet, relatively obscure life as I had on Mortal Earth, in order to protect everyone around me.
“Kerrick, I can’t live that life anymore. That life is done. That’s what’s changed. I want to live fearlessly, like Helena. I know I have a lot to learn about my powers, but I’m done retreating in despair. On the other hand, I have to ask, aren’t you afraid I’ll hurt you again?”
He shook his head, his emerald eyes glowing with love. “What I’ve been trying to tell you is that even if you become, through no fault of your own, the instrument of my death, I’m okay with it. We’re at war and I have no doubt the enemy is already plotting the next round of fun for you, for me, for my brothers, and for Endelle.” He paused and kissed her forehead. “We’ll do our best, you and me. The rest we’ll leave in the Creator’s hands.”
Alison felt the peace now dominating Kerrick’s thoughts, his acceptance of what he could never change, that death happened, even the possibility that death could come through her powers.
For herself, she surrendered to the same possibility but grew determined to become a student of her abilities. At least in that way she could gain more confidence in the future.
She felt his chest rise as he took in a deep breath. She also felt his anxiety spike. “What is it?” she asked.
“Are you ready for this—the breh-hedden I mean—and all that it might entail, known or otherwise?”
She took a deep breath. “After all that we’ve been through, I have no doubt that this is the right path for both of us. At the same time, yeah, I’m a little nervous.”
“You want to walk through it?”
She nodded and put her hand to her throat. “So, you’ll take me here.”
He took a deep breath. “Oh, yeah.” His eyelids fell to half-mast as his gaze slid over her throat. Cardamom suddenly drenched the air between them.
The heady spice sent sudden shivers over every inch of her skin. “Then what do I do?”
He nodded and gave himself a shake. “Well, you’ll take my wrist at the same time. The breh-hedden can only occur if we take blood at the same time.”
She touched her lip and felt the incisors lengthen with a mere thought. “I’ll take you with my fangs,” she murmured. “Wow.”
“Exactly.”
Another flow of shivers and desire struck low.
“Sweet lavender,” he murmured, leaning close and sucking in a quick breath as he kissed her forehead again.
“Then we’ll join our minds while we’re joined physically and that completes the breh-hedden?”
“Yep. And if the historical anecdotes hold true, once we complete the process, you and I will be able to find each other even without telepathy. We’ll be able to fold to each other’s positions any time, any place.”
She smiled and kissed him once, a gentle touch to his lips. “Well, that would be something.”
* * *
Kerrick looked into blue eyes, rimmed with gold, that had the power to hold him in thrall without once invoking a preternatural power. She was the woman for him. He loved her. He desired her. He needed her. The thought of communing with her caused his wing-locks to thrum. He always felt out of control when she was near, like if he really let go, his wings would mount when he didn’t want them to.
“I’m smelling cardamom,” she said. “Lots of it.” A dewy blush crept over her cheeks. Her lips grew swollen then parted. “So are you going to do anything about it, Warrior?”
The challenge in her words awoke the beast. He narrowed his eyes and growled, a low sound that vibrated heavily in his throat. He wrapped his arms around her a little more then kissed her, a forceful, don’t-mess-with-me kiss that had her moaning. He thrust his tongue between her lips. She suckled, which brought another growl rumbling in his throat.
He released her but her body had a boneless quality that made him smile. In a quick movement he lifted her in his arms then mentally rolled the comforter and sheet to the foot of the oversized bed. He settled her on the bed, the way he’d wanted her from the first, her long blond hair feathered out over the dark sheet.
He pushed aside one of her legs, making room so that he could move between. He leaned over her then planted his hands on either side of her shoulders. He looked into her eyes. “So, you ready for this, ascender?”
She drew in a deep breath and nodded. “Yes,” she whispered, her hands once more riding his biceps, stroking up and down.
Supporting himself with one hand, he slid the other under her stiff green shirt and made gentle circles on the bare flesh of her stomach. She arched, writhing beneath his touch. Lavender swirled up from her body, from every pore, even from her sweet breath as he leaned down and put his lips on hers once more. He kissed her in a teasing drift that brought soft moans from her throat.
He drew back and looked into her eyes, the blue eyes that had tempted him from the first, exquisite eyes with just a hint of gold around the rim of the iris, her eyes, his breh’s eyes. “I love you so much.”
Her hand slid to the nape of his neck. “Kiss me again.”
He obliged her and for a long time he savored her lips then the moist recesses of her mouth as his tongue drove deep. She slid her fingers through his hair.
He kissed her cheek, her neck, then moved lower to lick her in a long glide up her throat. “I want your blood,” he whispered, his voice little more than a deep hoarse rumble.
Once more she palmed the back of his neck, pressing. “My vein throbs for you.”
He licked and kissed the skin above her vein. He could feel the powerful pulses against his lips, the invitation so erotic. He was already hard but the thought of sinking his fangs and taking what he wanted shot desire through him like a bolt of lightning. The head of his cock ached for release. The arms poised above her shook with need. And they’d barely gotten started.
Jesus. How the hell was he going to last when he swore that with only two deft tugs he’d be gone?
He took a deep breath, his fingers still teasing her stomach. She moaned and arched, her hips pressing back into the bed then up toward him.
“Kerrick,” she whispered. “I want you. How about you get me naked.”
He hissed as he leaned back. “So good,” he whispered. He groaned as his hands slipped to the top button of her shirt. He could have folded her clothes off, but dammit, he needed every precious second of this time with her, even though he thought the waiting might just blow the top of his head off.
He took a couple of deep raspy breaths as he undid her shirt. He followed the release of each button with his lips, one hot inch at a time. She panted and writhed beneath the lingering swipes of his tongue.
Once he had her bra exposed, he used a fang and sliced the damn thing in two, savoring the cry that broke past her lips.
As he pushed the lace away from her breasts, his hips jerked in a single hard pump and once more his wing-locks sent a vibration through his body. He put a hand to her lower abdomen and this time folded off her olive-green pants. He looked down. Oh, God. She wore a black lace thong and he groaned.
“Spread your legs.”
Your voice, Kerrick, she sent. Oh, God, your voice, so deep.
At the same time she parted her legs wide. He settled his thighs low so that he didn’t make too much contact. He’d lose it if he did, and he needed to take his time.
He leaned over her, moving his forearms lower. He drew her left breast into his mouth and suckled. She cried out, flinging her arms wide. She wrapped her legs over his buttocks. He suckled until she was writhing beneath him and begging for more. Her hands once more found his hair. She tugged, pulled, and wrapped her fingers in his thick locks, her hips gyrating against his abdomen.
He tended to her other breast, sucking, laving with his tongue. She panted softly, her chest rising and falling in erotic pulses, moans flowing out of her throat as he continued to tend to each breast in turn.
She kept calling his name within his head, Kerrick, Kerrick, which again drove him crazy.
He released her breast and drew back. He couldn’t get far since her hands were buried in his long warrior hair and she didn’t seem to want to let go. Her face was turned to the side, her eyelids closed, her back arching, her hips undulating, her breath punctuating the air. Goddammit, his wing-locks surged and thrummed. He could feel familiar oil glistening at the apertures, weeping. How the hell was he going to hold on to his wings?
Shit. This whole experience might just kill him.
He settled his mouth on her other breast once more. The feel of her beaded nipple against his tongue … oh, God.
Her lavender scent now flooded the room. She was already close to orgasm and his erection throbbed.
He closed his eyes and focused once more on each breath he took. He swore that if his heart were any weaker the damn thing would give one hard jerk and stop pumping altogether.
Without losing contact with her breast, he folded off his kilt, wrist guards, and sandals. The briefs disappeared as well. Her legs, still wrapped around his buttocks, now connected skin-to-skin.
“That’s nice,” she murmured. “So nice.” She moaned now, deep moans from the bottom of her throat. He released her breast and moved down her body, her legs releasing their hold on his buttocks. When he’d reached the juncture of her thighs, he leaned close then carefully slid his fang beneath the left side of her thong and sliced, then the right. With each tug, she gave a little cry.
He peeled back the triangle of lace to reveal her beautiful light curls. His cock twitched. His wing-locks surged. He stroked her gently with the back of his finger. She groaned. Lavender rose to him in heady waves now until his brain was drunk with the scent.
He had to taste her. He slid his tongue down her cleft, dipped low, and dragged over the entrance to her core.
She cried out. “Oh, God, Kerrick.” He knew what she wanted.
“Patience,” he murmured, his voice hoarse.
“Please.” She was begging for contact, hard contact.
I just have to have one more taste, he sent, laying his thoughts over her mind. He licked deep this time. Your honey is like heaven.
Kerrick. Please.
Her breathing came in long gulps now, her fingers still working through his hair.
He drew himself upright and made eye contact, his knees between her spread legs. Her lips were parted, her breaths quick, full of gasps and uneven. She watched him, her gaze skating over his face, his shoulders, his chest, then falling to his groin.
He took his heavy cock in his hand. She licked her lips. He stroked himself. “Is this what you want?”
She nodded. “God, yes.”
He stroked again. “You want me to give it to you?”
Her eyelashes fluttered. “Please. Now. Hard.”
He stretched out and poised the head of his cock at her wet swollen entrance. When she moaned and her hips rocked, he plunged into her. She cried out, clutching at his shoulders, his back, his waist. He leaned over her, his forearms resting on the bed.
He moved inside her, his cock at hair-trigger. He pulled back, thrust forward. Once more he concentrated on his breathing. He set up a rhythm.
She looked into his eyes, her hands having found purchase on his shoulders. Tears streamed down the sides of her face and into her hair. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” he whispered. “Oh, God. You’re so tight.” She arched her neck, which caused her hips to rock, which in turned stroked him and dammit, he almost came. He hissed and took more deep breaths.
She turned her neck to the side. “Take my vein,” she cried, releasing his shoulders.
He didn’t hesitate. He crashed down on her neck and bit her hard, sinking his fangs deep. She cried out.
Now take my wrist, he sent.
“Yes,” she moaned, her hips meeting his with each thrust of his cock.
His arm felt weighted, heavy, hard to move as he positioned his forearm over her mouth. She grabbed hold with one hand, brought him against her mouth then bit. The feel of her fangs making a virgin strike made his cock jerk all over again and his wing-locks vibrate. Dammit. He was being pulled apart at a thousand different points of his body.
But he would hold himself back. More deep breathing as he drew on her vein, pulling hard. He surged in her now as she suckled his wrist.
Your blood, Kerrick, like an exotic wine.
He groaned, surged, pulled back, breathed, then thrust.
Her blood, flavored of lavender, slid down his throat and power burgeoned in his body. He was a machine over her now, his cock working her deep, his throat swallowing her blood, the muscles all across his shoulders, arms, and back engorged, his wing-locks on fire. So much f*cking power.
Alison, I’m going to enter your mind and afterward you’ll possess mine. Just be prepared … this will complete the breh-hedden.
He heard her breathe through her nose in one long breath as she continued to pull at his wrist.
Do it! her mind called to him.
As he pumped into her, as he took her blood, he pressed his mind against hers and felt her give way. He tumbled inside her, invading her thoughts, seeing instantly just how close to orgasm she was. A tornado of sensation moved around him, whipping his body into a frenzy.
* * *
Alison felt the orgasm sitting at the knife-edge of her consciousness. The big body pounding into her, drinking from her vein, penetrating her mind, whose blood flowed down her throat, now possessed her in every possible way.
She wept for release yet held it at bay, holding back, restraining, wanting the moment to last. She panted over his wrist, her mouth still suckling as though she had always known how to take blood in this way. She longed for the moment she could take Kerrick at his neck, and the thought sent new blistering sensations straight up her core.
She felt the seizing begin, deep inside, around his thick hard presence. She could no longer restrain what had to be released.
You’re going to come, he whispered within her mind. I can feel it.
Deep guttural groans poured from her throat even as she continued to take his blood. She tried to warn him, but the orgasm swamped her, filling her with pleasure that spread like fire from her tender cleft up through her core to rise like a powerful geyser through her body. She screamed against his wrist, but kept drawing his blood into her mouth. At the same time, power rolled from her and struck Kerrick, who groaned heavily in return.
Oh, God, Alison. I’m so close. His hips thrust harder and deeper as she held him with tightened muscles. He kept taking her blood at her neck, groaning, then grunting. A jumble of words moved through her mind, beautiful, f*ck, hard, like-a-fist, touch me, oh, God … Alison.
Yes.
Move into my mind. Now. This is it.
She obeyed the command, still panting over his wrist, his blood like small explosions in her throat. But as he retreated from her mind and she moved into his, as she saw the height of his pleasure, as she saw his love for her, a second orgasm barreled down on her, streaking like lightning over all her sensitive flesh. She screamed. Her power rolled from her and once more beat at him.
Then everything changed, shifted. The sudden oneness she experienced with Kerrick in the middle of this profound moment stunned her. She felt all her pleasure. She felt his. She felt him taking in her pleasure at the exact same moment.
As one, each released the vein, the retreat of the fangs sealing the wounds. His gaze locked with hers as pleasure flooded his body, her body, his, hers. Theirs.
Holy shit, he murmured inside her head.
No kidding.
He kept thrusting, hard and fast. She couldn’t look away. She orgasmed, power released, and his mouth opened. I felt your pleasure, he said.
I know. I can feel what you feel. Unbelievable.
She felt the tensing of his back.
I’m going to come, he sent.
She could feel the intense rush of fluid through his cock, the tremendous pleasure of his orgasm as he pumped into her and filled her. His orgasm continued on igniting hers. Fireworks lit inside her brain. She laughed. She cried.
He laughed with her, his body still surging. Oh, shit.
What?
Again, he cried within her mind. I don’t know how but I’m going to come again. She could feel it as well, that he was readying, which in turn fired her up all over again.
At the same time she could feel the thrumming and weeping of his wing-locks. She also saw the connection and she knew exactly what she wanted to do.
No, he protested.
“Yes,” she whispered. She teased the sensitive apertures, her fingers gliding between the hypersensitive ridges between each engorged lock.
“Oh, God,” he moaned.
“Just let it go, Kerrick, because I can feel it, too.” She started writhing as his pleasure rose, which sent her pleasure skyrocketing. His pleasure, her pleasure, theirs. Jesus.
Within her mind she felt his lower back tense, the tightness of his balls, the pleasure riding the length of his cock, then the pleasure riding once more along the tender flesh of her cleft and streaking up her core.
“I can feel your orgasm.” Holy shit.
She felt his wings begin to mount as he continued to plunge into her.
Can’t help it.
The pleasure of wings mounting, of his orgasm, hers, theirs.
Oh. God.
She screamed. He cried out as he filled her with his seed. Stars exploded in her mind. In his. She levitated as his wings took them off the bed, into the air. She held his neck, his buttocks. He held her back and her buttocks. He grunted with each thrust, her fingers gentler now on the ridges. He managed, still surging, though slower now, a loving rock of his hips while he sustained them in midair, the practiced flight of centuries.
Slowly, he drew his wings closer to his body until she felt the bed once more beneath her back. He took several deep breaths and since she was still so deeply connected to him, she felt his body calling the feathers back, one by one, absorbing the intricate mesh-like filaments that created the superstructure. Flight hormones, like sex hormones, drifted through his body. She felt it all.
He looked into her eyes. “How strange is this? I can feel my lips and your lips. I feel my pleasure and yours.”
“Ours.”
He shook his head back and forth. “The oneness.” He slid his hands down her arms until he locked their hands together.
She sighed. He kissed her. She sighed again.
“I love you,” he said. “I love being this close to you, feeling you from the inside out. I knew the breh-hedden would be wonderful, but I sure as hell didn’t expect this. The moment you moved into my mind, I felt everything you felt while feeling everything I felt.” His lids lowered, and his voice was husky. “And can I just say, your orgasms are amazing.”
“Ditto.”
He kissed her hard. Drew back. “I love being inside you.” He rocked into her.
She moaned. “I love you being there.” She moved her hips to feel him better. He groaned, and why wouldn’t he since she could feel the pressure of her body stroking his cock and just how good it felt to him.
She kissed him, suckled at his swollen lips, breathed in the fierce cardamom scent that suffused the room. “I love how you smell.” She put her nose to his thick muscled shoulder and breathed in then licked his skin.
He stroked her cheek and gazed into her eyes. He sighed. “I’m going to remove my mind now. Okay?”
She nodded. He withdrew slowly until his mind separated from hers, but she didn’t feel bereft as she had before.
An odd sensation traveled around her head, a strange kind of awareness. Even though he was no longer in her head, she could feel his location, the way his stomach felt pressed into her hips, the way his forearms dipped into the mattress supporting his torso, the way his lips felt as he smiled his crooked smile. She touched his lips with her fingertips. She kissed him and could feel his lips kissing back.
“This is weird. I can still feel you, even though you’re no longer in my mind.”
He cocked his head. “You’re right. Huh.” He leaned down and kissed her then drew back. “I can feel you as well, but just the exterior of you, your head against the mattress, your fingers in my hair—you like my hair, don’t you?”
“I love your hair.”
He kissed her again. “Yeah, I can feel you.”
“Right now the toes on your left foot are rubbing the sheet back and forth very slowly.”
He lifted his brows. “So they are.” He frowned then smiled. “And I can feel what the pads of your thumbs feel as you stroke my biceps.”
He took her hand and lifted her fingers to his mouth. He kissed each one. “I love your smell. Mm. Lavender.”
“Cardamom.” She smiled.
He remained inside her for a long time, his weight pinning her to the mattress, anchoring her to her new life. She slid one arm around his massive shoulders, and with the other buried her hand in his long hair.
He nuzzled her neck. He stroked her arms gently.
You’re mine, he whispered softly through the euphoric pathways of her brain. I’ll fight with everything I’ve got to stay alive and to keep you safe. You know that, right?
With all my heart.
Later, wrapped up in his arms, in a warm cocoon of love, a great love, a profound love, she fell into a deep sleep.
The dream came again. She wafted her wings as she flew over White Lake, her lake, the lake she now protected as a Guardian of Ascension. She sensed a presence, an evil warning, that plucked on the hairs at the nape of her neck.
She drew up and in the distance she saw squadrons of death vampires heading toward her. She was about to fold, her thoughts full of her need to reach Kerrick, but before she thought the thought, Kerrick appeared in front of her, in flight gear and in full-mount, a sword in each hand, his white feathers gilded by the early-morning sun. The brilliance of his presence rendered her speechless. She could no longer see the approach of the death vampires; nor did she fear them. Her warrior flew as her vanguard.
The lake once more called to her, and she lowered her toes into the water and looked up to see the blue swirling brilliance of Third Dimension above her, calling, calling, calling. She felt a tug on her hand and when she looked to her left to see who it was, Havily was there, smiling at her.
The longing returned in full force. She turned her gaze back up to the blue vortex. She tried to rise, but she couldn’t, even though she felt Havily encouraging her to try.
Not yet, but soon, the man’s voice spoke within her head.
When she awoke with Kerrick’s arm surrounding her, she thought of the dream and what it would mean for the future. She didn’t know exactly but trusted that time would reveal what she needed to know. She drew his arm tighter across her chest and hugged him. He shifted slightly in his sleep, his big warrior body a shield around her, now and forever.
Soft words came to her, a whisper from deep in her soul, so deep she didn’t at first hear them, but they repeated, spoken in that same masculine voice, Tend to Havily’s dreams.
The future gains peace,
In the resolution of the past.
—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth