“What’s wrong?” James asked, but he was grinning.

“You know exactly what it is.”

He laughed, although it was more like a ringing sound as though someone had struck a bell. “Marguerite has a lot of spirit. And power.”

“And punch.” His wildcat was after him. He could feel it. Suddenly her words reached him: Get your ass back here, now. His corporeal head started to hurt all over again. What the hell was she doing to him? I didn’t come this far to have you take off on some mystical adventure. Get back here.

He looked at James. “Did you get all that?”

“The question is, did you?”

He smiled. “How much time have I got?”

“About fifteen seconds.”

“You gonna help out with the war?”

“This is as much as I can do. Sorry.”

There was a story in this vampire, but Thorne didn’t have time to dissect it. “Later.”

James nodded.

Thorne sighed, closed his ghost-like eyes, and began to stream back from whence the fuck he’d come.

When he reentered his body, pain shot through him because of Marguerite’s thrust into his obsidian power and because the side of his face hurt like a bitch. Oh, so that’s what she’d been doing to get his attention.

He opened his eyes, the ones with corneas, retinas, and lenses, which now rattled in his head. He saw her arm drawn back and her palm wide open; it was beet red from slapping him. “Hello, sweetheart.”

She dropped her arm. “Oh, thank God, you’re back.”

He opened his arms and she fell into them.

* * *

Endelle understood something significant in this moment as Thorne held Marguerite close: Marguerite was the right woman for him. How many other ascenders could have brought him back from the dead like that? The woman had guts and strength, and by God she’d need both to live as his breh.

She had a sudden sense of the future, that these two would be up against the gates of hell in the coming hours.

She sent a silent message to Horace, telling him it was okay to take off. Horace offered her a slight bow, lifted his arm, and vanished.

Alison, a little red-cheeked, probably because Thorne didn’t have a stitch of clothes on, turned away from the couple to face Endelle. “I’m going to leave, if that’s okay with you.” Her eyes had a drawn, pinched look.

Endelle rolled her eyes even though she knew what the problem was. Thorne was completely naked and once Kerrick saw the memories, something Alison would never be able to keep from him because of the bonding nature of the breh-hedden, Alison would have the devil to pay even though none of this had been her fault. Bonded warriors were notoriously protective of their women, and jealous as hell. Kerrick would not like on any level that Alison had seen Thorne in his full glory.

She knew Alison had been at the villa getting ready for the coming-home dinner for Thorne. Big-fucking-deal. “I know you have things to do.”

Alison frowned. “You can still come, you know.”

“Don’t think so.” Jesus, her throat felt tight.

Alison nodded, lifted her arm, and was gone.

Marguerite drew back slightly and looked up at Thorne “What happened? I could feel that you weren’t coming back. But why?”

At that, Thorne grew very still and stared at her. “You’re right, I wouldn’t have, if you hadn’t been there. I got lost in the beauty and peacefulness of it. But you brought me back and that’s what matters. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here now.” He drew her close once more and Marguerite burrowed her head beneath his chin.

Thorne met Endelle’s gaze.

It was clear she wasn’t needed here.

She nodded once, lifted her hand, and folded back to her palace to the west-facing parapet. The sun was heading for the horizon at this hour. The shadows had lengthened, a beautiful time of day.

Alison had asked her to come to the villa for Thorne’s dinner, but she’d refused. She wasn’t ready to speak to Thorne yet. She was still much too angry and there was a new pit in her stomach that she kept falling into, a real Thorne-shaped hole in her body that kept her as furious as she was sad.

She had never felt so alone in her struggles, so goddamn fucking bereft.

She could feel the scowl on her face as she released a sigh.

She felt the air next to her move and caught the shimmer from the corner of her eye, a large wavering of light and air that turned into a sizable vampire. But she was so not in the mood for Braulio’s flirtations. Not today.

“Fuck off, Sixth ascender. Crawl back into your hole.”

“Now, is that anyway to greet your lover.”

She turned toward him and gave him a hard stare. “Former lover.”

“Doesn’t have to be.”

“Bullshit. You’re on an automatic timer that lasts, by my calculations, about three minutes, and that just ain’t long enough.”

“You never complained about our quickies.”

She rolled her eyes and moved back into the rotunda. “What do you want, Braulio? Did you come to bust my chops about Thorne?”

He moved in close and took her arm. She wanted to shake him off, but the man was wearing that really nice cologne of his. Made her think of Obsession. He leaned in and whispered next to her ear. “I’m glad you got rid of him. That mind-link was a real Thorne in my ass.”

Endelle snorted. “Oh, you are so funny.”

He whispered in her ear, “Every time he telepathed you, I wanted to kill him.” He’d used resonance, which made her tremble, and his breath sent shivers down her neck and sides.

But she still wasn’t game. “Well, too fucking bad.”

He moved behind her and pushed her hair away. She tried to move away from him but didn’t get very far since he gripped both her arms and held her tight. He had the audacity to kiss her neck. She wanted to punch his lights out, but decided to just dematerialize instead, leaving him in the rotunda.

She folded to her meditation room, set up a trace-block, then set the walls aglow by mentally lighting all the candles at the same time. They now shone in a circle around the room, broken up by long lengths of burgundy velvet panels.

She turned to flop down on her chaise-longue, but there he was, stretched out as pretty as you please and not wearing a damn thing.

She was about to protest when it occurred to her: Other than seeing Thorne naked a few minutes ago, she hadn’t really laid eyes on a warrior of Braulio’s caliber in a really long time. Well, she had seen Marcus a few months ago, but he wasn’t lying on his back, on full display.

She liked it.

Braulio had strong cheekbones, even stronger and more pronounced than Medichi’s, and Medichi’s were phenomenal.

Braulio’s nose was somewhat narrow and sharp but perfect for his dark blue eyes and square jaw. He’d been birthed in one of the Germanic tribes eons ago and had ascended when he was just twenty, one of the most powerful ascenders of his day and for millennia afterward. Long before Thorne had arrived, Braulio had served as a leader of the Warriors of the Blood.

He had dark brown hair, which had changed over the millennia. She’d remembered a time when he’d been a streaky blond. But time changed a lot of things.

Her lips parted and as her gaze moved from all that dark beauty and settled on his pecs and on the light dusting of dark hair between, he shifted to slide one arm above his head. The move flexed so many different parts of his body that she actually stumbled on her stilettos.

He leaned up on an elbow. “Easy there.”

“You … you should leave now.” She hated how vulnerable she felt.

“Why? I’ve still got a couple of minutes left on the clock.”

He began sliding off the lounge, and flexing his powerful thighs, which led her gaze straight to his cock. It was in that beautiful half-erect phase and still hung down but showed off every serious dimension.

The warrior was hung.

Her abs tensed and a long, rolling slide of sensation worked her so hard and fast that her breath caught and dammit, she almost came.

But she still wasn’t in the mood to be humored by a man who was supposed to be fucking dead. She backed away from him and lifted her arm, ready to fold out of there, but he was on her again, from behind and holding her fast. Though she tried, she couldn’t fold.

What the hell?

The next second her heels were gone, then the rest of her clothes. The Sixth ascender had power and lots of it—more than she did.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Something I must do, Endelle, and you’re going to hate me for it.”

In the next instant, he slammed her down onto the chaise, facedown, and all the candles blew out so that the space was in complete darkness.

She heard him breathing, deep chuff-like sounds, strange sounds, animal-like sounds. He pushed against her mind.

But like hell she was going to let him take her.

Hell, no.

She erected her shields, holding them tight, but it was as though she’d constructed them of water and suddenly he was just in her mind, damn Sixth ascender.

Then her mind went loose and all she felt was pleasure, and she knew he was seducing her, stroking her mind. He’d put her in thrall and it felt so good, like she didn’t have goddamn care in the world. Her body felt removed from her and yes, she knew he was doing something to her, but what did it matter? What did anything matter?

She lost herself in the mental thrall and in the way her body was experiencing sexual pleasure, even though he hadn’t penetrated her. She could feel his rigid cock, how big it was, as he slid up and down her ass-crack, and it felt so good. She tried to shift her hips up so that he could find what was right now so wet and swollen for him, she ached up to her navel. But he had her pinned in a strange way, and she really couldn’t move.

He felt bigger somehow, and his skin felt strange. However, given the mental distance, she just couldn’t quite figure out what was going on.

His voice floated through her loose mind. I’m sorry. But one day, you’ll understand.