He bowed backward and gave a shout, then another.

He spilled his seed but didn’t slow. Another orgasm caught her hard, really hard. Pleasure spiraled up through her body then down, streaking up her labia and clitoris. She rocked against him and still he kept pumping into her.

She drew back and looked at him. His eyes were rolled back in his head. “More,” he whispered. “Oh, God there’s more.” He cried out and as he ejaculated again, she was swept up into the stratosphere, pleasure like lightning moving over her entire body while she clenched and tightened around his driving cock.

Finally, her body quieted, and Antony was able to slow his movements. He lowered himself onto her, released a sigh, and relaxed. She surrounded his shoulders with her arms.

“I haven’t felt this way in a long, long time,” he said.

“How long?”

His body stiffened, then he forced himself to relax. “Not since my wife. I haven’t allowed this kind of closeness since my wife.”

She held him tighter. “And for me, not since my fiancé. He kind of broke my heart. We were planning our wedding, I’d just bought the invitations, and he announced he couldn’t marry me. He thought I was inaccessible.”

“I’d offer to break his neck but I’m too glad you’re not with him anymore.”

She laughed. Funny, that was the first time she’d ever thought of Jason without hurting. She sighed and slid her arms around him even harder. Only her fingertips met in the middle. All his powerful warrior muscles got in the way. Ah, too bad.

She giggled.

He sighed.

“You know what the bad thing is?” she asked.

He lifted to look at her. “What?”

“That your bedroom is so far away. I’d love to curl up next to you right now and take a nap.”

But a slow smile spread over his face. The vibration began.

The next minute she was lying in exactly the same position, with him still inside her, but stretched out on his bed. She’d totally forgotten he could do that.

“Hey,” she cried. “I told you to give a girl a warning.”

But he only laughed and nuzzled her neck. “Couldn’t help myself.”

She chuckled. “What a world,” she said. “Right this moment, I’m glad I’m here.”

“Me, too.”

No greater gifts exists on Second Earth,

Then that which comes from the vein.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 15

Greaves made several attempts to break back through the shield that surrounded his voyeur-link with Parisa. He sat in his Geneva office contemplating the most recent occurrence.

He’d caught a strange glimpse of naked bodies, a breast, a very large breast, the scars on Warrior Medichi’s back; then he’d felt Parisa’s mind push at him, hard. He hadn’t been prepared, otherwise he could have prevented it, but she actually pushed him out of her head and slammed impenetrable shields in place.

The level of her power had surprised him. He questioned his wisdom in letting her escape from the Burma house.

He had only himself to blame. At the time, he’d thought Julianna’s suggestion rather brilliant but now, given that the newly created ascender had more power than ever, he realized his error.

But this most recent event which involved the loss of twenty-four death vampires to the attack by the Warriors of the Blood on the Toulouse farmhouse, really elevated his blood pressure. On the other hand, because he’d had the foresight to order Rith to import a proper amount of death vampires, Rith been able to fold all the blood donors out of Toulouse and secure them in a new facility. In that sense, the smooth running of his emerging empire was kept firmly in place.

There was that silver lining again.

As for what he meant to do next, well, those decisions were presently dancing in the air. Rith’s most recent, Seer-based emails had changed his view of the future, especially where the mortal-with-wings was concerned.

The emails had been both encouraging and alarming. The most powerful Seers Fortresses had predicted a major decisive battle, which he would win. On the surface, this sounded like good news, but Greaves was not a neophyte in any sense of the word. He might have been exhilarated by the prophecy, a millennium ago. But he had lived too long as a vampire not to know how changeable the future really was. His only real difficulty right now was determining exactly what he should do with this information.

But it was the other set of emails that concerned him most, that had the power to send little shivers down his neck and spine.

Though Greaves knew, by Rith’s account, that Parisa had royle wings, he hadn’t given the circumstance much thought or even interest. The supposed magical nature of royle wings had, over the millennia, slid into the category of vampire mythology, nothing more.

Legend held that such wings had the power to create peace. According to Philippe Reynard’s definitive work on the history of ascension, the actual translation for royle from the ancient language was “benevolent wind.” Greaves could recall that as a little boy, when he’d been in the care of his mother, she’d told him stories about the first vampire, Luchianne, her royle wings, and how she had the power to create a vast wind that could calm an entire army’s fighting rage.

It was absurd, of course. Yet because he’d heard the story at his mother’s knee, somehow the fable had intense meaning for him. He was a man more of instincts than analysis, and in this situation, he felt the critical nature of all the emails that had begun flowing his direction concerning the emergence of Parisa’s royle wings, more than he had about a possible forthcoming decisive battle.

So, the larger question for him had become what to do about Parisa Lovejoy. The smaller question—should he orchestrate a battle—he had already turned over to his generals in his Estrella Complex in Metro Phoenix Two. They had been ecstatic to learn he actually wanted two full divisions assembled in northern Arizona, as surreptitiously as possible—yes, that had been a little joke. Setting up supply lines alone for thirty thousand soldiers would be a work of monumental proportion.

Even now, General Leto was importing death vampires from all over the globe, provided by his allied High Administrators. He did take a moment to smile, even to fantasize about such a battle. The truth was simple: He could take Endelle’s forces in a heartbeat if it came down to a numbers game. And he was a smart enough vampire to work the numbers.

But there was that other pesky, nagging truth that often wars weren’t won by the numbers. So many other factors could alter an obvious outcome. One had only to follow both amateur and professional Mortal Earth sports to know this was true, that occasionally the team with all the right numbers could lose a championship to a phenomenon known as ‘heart.’ Absurd but true.

So he was preparing, and in his preparations he was cautious. What else would a vampire over two thousand years old be?

Rith arrived with the usual empty medical blood bag, plastic tubing, and sterile needle. Time to feed the blood donors.

He rose from his chair and removed his suit coat. He pinched the shoulders and brought the sleeves together to effect a careful fold. He paid a fortune for his suits, tailored as they were by Hugo Boss on Mortal Earth. He had fittings four times a year.

He removed the French cuff link from the right sleeve of his silk shirt, an amethyst color this time in honor of his continued pursuit of the mortal-with-wings. Though she was now ascended, for him Parisa Lovejoy would always be the mortal-with-wings. She had been an anomaly as great as either Alison Wells or Havily Morgan.

Three powerful women had arrived to serve as brehs for the Warriors of the Blood.

He sighed as he set the amethyst link on his desk.

He moved to the large plate-glass window of the building he owned, a stone structure that resembled work from the mid-1800s but of course with electricity and running water. The basement, blasted out of the earth, held his famous Round Table, the seat of his Coming Order. Greaves did value modern times, enormously, but there were occasions when his soul longed for the earlier days of stone and earth, of fire, and of hundreds of servants to carry out the menial tasks of slaughtering and preparing food, and scrubbing laundry on the banks of a river.

Now he had to hire his help and pay decent wages.

As he began rolling up his right sleeve, he looked out over Geneva Two. Its population was a mere hundred thousand, a fraction the size of Mortal Earth’s city. He had chosen his site well, at almost the tip of the Petite Lac, that part of Lake Geneva that seemed almost like a lake unto itself. The view from his penthouse was really exquisite, especially at night with the black expanse of the water surrounded on both sides by the twinkle of modern lights.

With his right sleeve rolled up past his elbow, he turned and made his way to the black leather sofa. Rith already had the necessary equipment set up.

He sat down, and Rith used the tourniquet to bring his vein forward. With the precision of decades, Rith drove in the needle and the blood started to flow. He donated once a week; his blood formed the basis of the cocktail that brought his female donors back from oblivion and had them ready to serve in another month’s time.

He glanced at Rith, at the broad forehead and relatively unattractive features. Rith didn’t partake of dying blood, though many believed he did. He could have used a little beautification. But the man was staunchly opposed.

He watched the bag fill. “Have you ever tasted my blood?”

Rith glanced at him, giving him his infamous blank expression. “No, master. Never.”

Darian flared his nostrils. He breathed in the perfume of the man’s skin. Most of the time he could smell a lie, but not today. Or at least not on Rith.

“Have you read the latest emails about the Mumbai and Bogotá predictions?”

“Yes, of course. You flagged them.”

Rith’s fingers actually trembled. As well they should.

“What are we to do?”

Rith pulled the needle out and pressed a square of gauze against the wound. He taped the gauze in place. “I have begun the process of mobilizing my army. As for the mortal-with-wings, I wish to know your opinion. What do you think we should do about her?”