She rolled her head from one side to the other.

Fiona, he whispered inside her mind.

She could hear him, but she couldn’t focus on him. Oui, she sent.

She heard him groan, and his thrusts were faster now.

I want to remove you from thrall. Will you allow it? Will you try?

I’m afraid. This is so wonderful. You don’t know. I’m afraid. Afraid.

Never mind. His voice was but a whisper. Are you close?

Close? Close to heaven? Yes, she was. Close to ecstasy? Oh, God, yes. She had never felt anything like this before.

But there was one thing she desired, something very specific to the vampire world in which she now belonged. She wanted Jean-Pierre to take her blood.

Jean-Pierre, she sent.

He groaned. I love your voice in my head. Tell me what you desire. I will do anything.

Take my blood. There she had said it and the moment she did, her internal muscles tightened around him.

Cherie, I wish for nothing more than that, you know I do. But after all you have been through—

She cut him off. It’s not the same thing at all. You have to remember, what was done to me was done with needles and machinery.

But are you certain you are ready? Blood is what was taken from you all those years.

Jean-Pierre, you’re not “taking” my blood, I’m giving it to you and I want this more than I can say.

“Shit,” he said aloud and his body stilled.

The trouble was, she was so ready and thoughts of his fangs in her neck so aroused her that she played him, deep within, as though the well of her had fingers and he was her instrument. She couldn’t exactly control what she was doing, but the feel of him, so still, so hard, brought deep groans from her throat.

“You must stop. I’ll come. Fiona.” He gasped each word. “Please stop.”

She sucked in a deep breath and grew as still as he was. She panted lightly, trying not to feel so much. The only thing she regretted was that she had waited so long to give herself to him.

After a long, long moment, he relaxed his shoulders and seemed to take a deep breath. He leaned over her now and nuzzled her ear, her throat, her neck.

He began to lick right above her vein. Each stroke of his tongue sent shivers down her shoulders, her breasts, over her abdomen, and caused her to tighten around him. He began to move within her once more, slowly now.

The enthrallment surprised her, that she could feel so much, almost acutely, and yet her mind could be so relaxed.

She felt her vein rise to meet him and before she could prepare, he struck deep and began to suckle.

The sharp sting passed so fast and the suckling, as he took her blood down his throat, was an erotic ballad. She savored the sound and loved that what she gave him would nourish him in a way that was a mystery on Second Earth. She knew that her blood contained her power and that in some way, his power would be affected by hers.

His hips moved, his thrust grew quicker. Her heart sped up and he groaned, drawing harder at her neck.

You taste exquisite, chérie.

Her hands drifted over his long hair then found his back. Wing-locks were so sensitive, and she found that his wept with pleasure. She drifted her hands down them so that he writhed beneath her touch, moved faster into her, sucked harder.

His movements grew quick.

Jean-Pierre. So close.

He left her neck and drew back. His lips tinged red.

Kiss me, she sent.

He crashed down on her. The moment that she tasted her blood coupled with the flavor of him, pleasure began to flow, to pull hard within her body, in spasms that sent ecstasy shooting over the folds low on her body, traveling up her well to rise, higher and higher, grasping her abdomen, her stomach, flowing, another kind of geyser.

I am giving you what I have to give, his mind cried within hers. She felt the power leave her body and he cried out sharp and loud, driving into her in hard punches that once more brought her.

Your power is a wave over me, plucking at my skin, my nipples, stroking my neck, now low, so low … oh, God. He shouted now, words in French she didn’t understand, but it didn’t matter. The orgasm flew then retreated to build and fly again until she was screaming at the wooden beams of the ceiling, her back arching, his back arching, his body slamming against hers.

Jean-Pierre. Jean-Pierre.

Fiona. Mon Dieu!

The orgasm drifted away, like the last note of a beautiful song, something French, “La Vie en Rose,” perhaps.

His hips slowed and finally stopped. Her body grew slack.

A moment later, he lifted the veil of thrall. Fiona blinked several times. He was poised above her, holding himself away from her but still connected.

She brought her hand to her chest and looked into his eyes, ocean eyes.

She put her hand on his cheek. “Oh, Jean-Pierre, that was so beautiful.”

“Only one thing would have made it more perfect,” he said.

She nodded. “I know. Perhaps soon I can do this without the thrall—but for this moment, perfection.”

He kissed her and she tasted her blood once more and that which was from the depths of her body.

But even as he remained within her and held himself just inches away from her chest, the fierce wild thing in the pit of her stomach began to wriggle around. She fought for her next breath and the next.

“Please,” she whispered.

He seemed to collapse within himself, though he did not fall on her. His head dipped forward and in a smooth movement he pulled out of her. But at the last second her body seemed to cling to him, very low and tight. She met his gaze. She was startled that she clung.

His brows rose. “Fiona?”

She shook her head, trying to ignore the swirling in the pit of her stomach. “I … I.” She covered her face with her hands.

He completed his withdrawal and folded a washcloth into his hands, pressing it gently between her legs.

This gesture, so normal, so absurdly normal had a strange calming effect on her, and she chuckled softly. “Thank you,” she murmured. She had forgotten how messy and how embarrassing sex could be and yet as she met his gaze, she saw only tenderness.

With the thrall gone, she looked at him, his flushed complexion, the sheen of sweat on his forehead, his throat, his chest, his eyes very bright and his glorious warrior hair hanging about his shoulders.

“You look like … a god, something out of mythology. I swear it.”

He chuckled and in the playful manner she’d come to know as uniquely his, he lifted his right arm and flexed his bicep.

The vampire had muscles and she cooed. She lifted up, put her hand on his bicep, and squeezed. A wave of coffee scent flowed over her. She breathed in and her eyes closed. Desire once more swirled over her as though she hadn’t just had the best sex of her life.

But this was ridiculous. She sat up the rest of the way. She was suddenly aware how few clothes she wore and that the room was cool. She covered her chest with her arms.

He held out his arm and a moment later another blanket appeared. He wrapped her up so that she felt warm and safe. He held the front together with his hands.

He was a very attentive man, in every respect, and her heart reached for him, an almost physical leap in his direction. Would it be so very bad to make a life with this man?

Could she? Could she give herself again?

She didn’t know. The truth was, she hadn’t expected to go even this far. But Endelle had helped her to release a new power and in that release, some of her resistance to the demands of the breh-hedden had fallen.

This she could do, making love to Jean-Pierre.

“Now,” she said, scooting to the edge of the table and sliding to her feet. “I want to see you in bed. No, stop that. Asleep. I want you to sleep.”

A sigh flowed out of his chest. “I think I could, if you were with me.”

She nodded. She knew what the last five months had cost him. This she could give him: just a little peace of mind so that he could sleep.

The enemy wears a variety of masks,

But the ascender lacking wisdom cannot discern the difference.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 7

“I didn’t expect her to be so goddam short,” Endelle cried.

An hour after she left Thorne, Endelle stood in the cell that belonged to the now infamous Marguerite. How could Thorne’s woman be so short? “She can’t be more than five-five or five-six. What the hell?”

Sister Quena’s nostrils flared. She held her hands pressed together in front of her. The woman was tall and too lean. She looked scarecrow-like with a weathered face, something that should have been impossible on Second Earth. Maybe she took some really nasty Chinese herbs.

Endelle liked her own height a lot. Though to be fair, she hadn’t always been six-five. She’d gained a few inches as the millennia moved along. But at least she’d started out at five-eleven. Hello.

Sister Quena, the High Administrator of the Creator’s Convent, looked as prim as hell, her thin lips pinched together like she was trying to erase her mouth.

“Yes, Madame Endelle. Sister Marguerite is not as tall as you but she is considered average in height. Not short.”

Disapproval reeked from every word, every expression, even the whitening of her compressed lips.

This of course had the worst effect on Endelle. “Well damn my pussy, I never thought Thorne would fall for a shorty. Goddam.” She all but slapped her leg as she said it.

Sister Quena’s complexion turned the color of a beet and not because she was embarrassed. Endelle smiled. She snorted. “Would you please just relax a little? Can’t you see I’m jerking your chain, Quenny? Now, what can you tell me about this ascender?”

She waved a hand over Marguerite, who lay on her back, the skirt of her coarse woven nightgown caught between her knees, her lips parted. The woman was out. Her complexion was as white as Quenny’s was red but Endelle suspected the lack of color reflected the drugs that sister-bitch had used on her devotiate.

Sister Quena’s hands never left their glued-together state. Her nostrils widened once more as she looked down at the prostrate woman. “Sister Marguerite is a very difficult and a very sad case. Though her Seer gifts exceed any that I have encountered in quite some time, I have not found the key to her rehabilitation. I fear she is perhaps my greatest failure in my three thousand years as a servant of the Creator. Her stubbornness is beyond comprehension. She was consigned here by her parents because of a particular inclination she exhibited in the area of mores. More specifically, nymphomania.”