Now his view of life had changed.

“You look so serious,” she said.

“I feel serious.” He searched her eyes, the clear brown glimmer. “I love you, Marguerite. With all my heart. I need you to hear that, to feel it, to believe it.”

“I do, Thorne,” she said, twisting her neck to move against the palm of his hand.

He kissed her again. He wanted this so much, more than he’d wanted anything in his entire life.

He wanted to be joined to her, to feel her, to feel all her external sensations as she would feel his. The bonded men talked about it a lot. Jean-Pierre said he and Fiona had worked out a way to block it; otherwise they’d go crazy with worry. He didn’t know quite what that meant, either the worry or the sensations, but he wanted it all with Marguerite.

“Where do you want to do this?” she asked.

He didn’t hesitate. “In my bed, that place I’ve lived for so long, alone. I’ve loved having you there and I want you there now. I want this solemn deed done where we’ll live together. But are you sure you want this?”

“I’ve already told you what I want. Twice.”

“Marguerite, I want your happiness more than anything else in the world. I know what escaping to Mortal Earth meant to you.”

She slid her arms around him and pressed her head against his chest. “Those days are gone.”

“But you want them back.”

Her head shifted rhythmically against his pecs. “No. I thought I would, but I don’t. I mean, maybe there will always be part of me, that wild part, that wants to roam free. Maybe. I’m really not even sure about that anymore.

“But what I do know is that I belong here, on Second Earth, with you, with Madame Endelle, with Fiona, with all the Warriors of the Blood. This is home for me now. I feel it to my toes.

“When we were stuck in that cage, I realized that if I’d wanted to, I could have gotten rid of you a long time ago. I could have easily escaped to other parts of the world and you never could have found me. I could have gone to Hong Kong or even New York, anywhere with a big population, and you would have had the devil of a time finding me. Because of your sense of responsibility toward Second Earth, you would have given up the search.

“Don’t you see? I wanted to be found.

“Beyond that, well, I kept thinking about what it had been like to connect with Fiona and with Brynna, even with you, whether it was my Seer power or my obsiddy power.” She looked up at him. “I loved it. I mean, I was uncomfortable at first, but each time it happened, I started feeling more and more as though I’d come home after a really long journey. Do you know what I mean?”

He dipped down and kissed her again. “Yeah, I do.”

“This is where I want to be, here, in your arms, in your house, in your bed.”

“So we’re doing this.”

She tilted her head. “I wish I could have been there for you, Thorne.”

“You were.”

“No, I mean the last two thousand years. Now that I’ve really been inside your mind, despite all the women you’ve shagged, I’ve seen your loneliness. I wish I could have eased you in that way.”

“You’re here now,” he said, setting her back on her feet. “That’s all that matters. But I wish I could have stepped inside that barn and beat the shit out of your father.”

She pulled away from him. “I don’t know. I want to say this and I’m hoping you’ll understand, but when I think back on everything that happened to me, because it led me here, into your arms, into your bed, I wouldn’t change a thing. Not a damn thing.”

“Do you know what I thought when you pulled that wretched gown aside and showed me your breast?”

She shook her head.

He chuckled. “I actually thought, Here’s the woman for me.”

“You did not.”

“The hell I didn’t. Yeah, I was gone on you as well, but I was too lost in the war to know it. But I remember what I felt. Every night while battling, I couldn’t wait to get to you. And yes, it was great sex and I mean great sex.” She shivered because he’d added resonance and he knew she loved it. “But it was so much more. I was at peace when I was with you, and you always made me laugh.”

She leaned against him again and once more he surrounded her with his arms. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

He looked at the bed and tried to imagine completing the breh-hedden with her here, but he had a sudden prescience that this room was not going to be big enough. He recalled having made love with her in Diallo’s garden. They’d both mounted their wings.

He rubbed her shoulders gently. He needed something more right now.

Yeah, he needed more room, lots of room.

* * *

Marguerite listened to Thorne’s heart. She sighed. Could anything be more beautiful than this moment, being held by the man she loved and knowing that he loved her as well?

She was overcome. Her heart seemed to expand in her chest. She was so warm, deep into her bones, into the marrow, into the blood.

She had never expected to feel this way, so content and fulfilled.

The breh-hedden had done this for her, brought this to her when she wasn’t looking, even when she’d adamantly refused the gift.

A vision arrived, listing just off shore, waiting for her permission to enter. She opened her obsidian flame power. She was about to alert Thorne when she had a moment of prescience that told her this was for her.

She directed her obsiddy power to open the vision. It unfolded swiftly. She absorbed it and as she watched, as she saw her body entwined with Thorne’s, she smiled. If there was a separate power that directed the visions, she sent a prayer of thanksgiving heavenward.

“Thorne, do you have a partially completed cabin or smallish home somewhere?”

He drew back and met her gaze. “Did you just have a vision?”

She nodded.

“Why are you crying? Did you see something bad?”

She shook her head. “No. Something beautiful, very beautiful.” She stroked his cheek. “I think we’re supposed to complete the breh-hedden there, in that place. It looked very open to the sky. I didn’t really see a forest but it wasn’t exactly complete.”

“But was there a bed?”

She glanced at his bed. “Yes. This one. What do you make of that?”

He laughed. “Okay. I get it. Good.” He was smiling.

He had such a beautiful smile. She leaned up on tiptoes and kissed him. “Take me there.”

He glanced behind him, out the windows.

“Why do you hesitate?”

“It’s at the Superstitions and there are no walls. Not much privacy.”

“We could make mossy mist.”

“We could. So you want to show me the vision?”

“Sure. Just dip inside.”

He pushed within her mind. That’s it, he sent. My unfinished project. Shall I fold us there?

Do it.

The vibration began.

It was exactly as she’d seen in the vision, but she hadn’t understood the location until now. She stepped off the cement slab and walked over to what was the rim of the Superstition Mountain’s leading monolith.

“You never told me you’d started a home up here?”

He joined her and put his arms around her. A cool breeze blew from the land below. The March temp was like heaven in the desert.

She felt him sigh. “We battle down there every fucking night. I don’t know why I started building at a location where we battle.”

Marguerite stared at the plain below. From here she could see Militia Warrior HQ in the distance, just a smudge on the horizon. The sun was overhead; it would be a long time before the night’s battling began.

Even with all that, she felt the rightness of this place, as though destiny flowed over her in waves. She glanced up at Thorne, all six-five of him, all muscled warrior that she’d grown to love.

He seemed transformed to her, almost god-like, glowing with silvery light as he stared far out into the desert below. His hair flowed away from his face in long streams of gold.

Thorne, Warrior of the Blood, defender of the weak, anchor to obsidian flame, her breh through eternity, her lover, her man. After her raucous bid for freedom, after her stubbornness, after all her running, how could it be that she would receive this great and formidable blessing?

For now, however, they had a certain myth to bring into existence, so she tilted her head, looked him up and down, and said, “All right, Warrior. How about you show me what you’ve got.”

He smiled then grinned. “You are so my kind of woman.”

“And you’re my kind of man but don’t think for a minute that just because we’re gonna bond and you’re a Warrior of the Blood, I intend to lick your battle sandals. Don’t even think it. And you do your own laundry.”

But he brought her up against him hard. “You’re gonna talk about laundry right now?”

“Just wanted to get a few things straight.”

He pressed his arousal flush up against her. “This straight enough?”

Her chest warmed up. “How about you bring the bed over.”

He smiled. “Done.”

She turned and saw that he sure as hell had.

She pulled out of his arms and turned toward the half-built, weathered edifice. There was no roof, just three walls, framing a large room that might have been intended as the living room.

But his bed sat there. She looked up and up, into the blue sky. She’d had a preview in her vision so now she was achy everywhere.

As he had done so many times before, he leaned down, slid an arm behind her knees, and lifted her up. She slung her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. She wanted him to feel how into this she was, that she held nothing back.

He kissed her in return and thrust his tongue into her mouth. She moaned and leaned her head against his shoulder. So for the longest time, he stood there, holding her and kissing her.