These last words, spoken as they were aloud and in Kerrick’s head, brought his focus straight at Thorne’s red-rimmed hazel eyes. The pain of the combined mind-voice speak nearly brought Kerrick to his knees.

He started nodding without quite knowing what he was agreeing to. However, in deliberate measures, his breathing slowed and he didn’t see quite so much red as before.

“Ready to go?” Thorne asked.

Kerrick nodded.

The vibration began.

* * *

Kerrick stood in the middle of his Queen Creek living room on Mortal Earth.

He concentrated on steadying his heart. When Marcus had folded to the Cave, if Alison hadn’t been in his arms, he would have gone apeshit on that bastard’s ass. It sure as hell wasn’t helping his blood pressure to think about what he would have done, what he still wanted to do to his former brother-in-law. Hatred didn’t begin to describe what he felt for Marcus.

Jesus. After two centuries he still wanted to kill the man for all the things he’d said after Helena had died, all the blame he’d laid at Kerrick’s feet, even if it was the same blame he heaped on his own damn head.

With his woman still in his arms, he started walking around in one large circle, yeah, calming the hell down. He looked down at Alison and let her presence work on him, even in her unconscious state. He took massive breaths and focused on her beautiful face.

The living room smelled of leather couches and chairs, though not sufficiently enough to block the powerful scent of lavender that clung to Alison’s skin. As he savored her peaches-and-cream complexion, the breh started to replace all the stinging rage. Damn, but she was beautiful, lovely straight nose, high cheekbones, and her lips … so fucking kissable. He wanted to kiss her … right now.

Take care of your woman.

His woman.

The words fit. They felt so fucking right. He didn’t want to let her go. He wanted to hold her for hours, years … okay, centuries.

He needed to keep her safe, to protect her, to keep her alive, dammit. So far he’d been barely one step ahead of the adversary, to the point that she’d almost bought it in Carefree. He had to do better. At least Endelle’s mind-shield would give them a reprieve.

Her face held him entranced. She had a small freckle just off to the side of her left eye, barely a mark at all. He couldn’t help it. He drew her close, leaned down, and covered the freckle with his lips. She sighed in her sleep. He drifted his lips over her cheek. He breathed in lavender and hardened—yet something else happened as well. Great chunks of metal, several feet thick, began dropping away from the sides of his heart. The crashing sound chipped at his resolve.

His gaze drifted over the soft arch of her eyebrows, down the straight pretty line of her nose, to the sensual fullness of her lips. Her beauty worked him like a boxer in a ring, punching at him until she dropped him for the count. The breh-hedden couldn’t possibly answer for everything he felt. Maybe the ritual merely heightened what was essentially a godawful attraction.

Yet the vow he’d taken after Helena’s death hadn’t been done in haste or on impulse. He straightened his shoulders then carried Alison into the guest room. He rounded the bed then with a thought drew the covers back. As he lowered her, she awoke slightly, blinking up at him. “Kerrick?”

“I’ve got you. Just sleep for now.”

“Okay. I’m so tired.” She rolled onto her side. He drew the comforter over her.

“Of course you are.” He patted her shoulder. She caught his hand, turned into it, and, oh, damn, she kissed the back of his fingers. Desire flowed through him like gasoline on fire.

“Thank you for getting us out of there,” she murmured, her eyes still closed. Then she turned her head into the pillow, released his hand, and sighed.

He made himself back away from the bed. He took one step then another although it was like moving through quicksand.

This is for the best. Let her sleep.

One more step.

One more.

He finally reached the doorway and could breathe again, but he kept the door wide in case she called for him.

He turned into the hall then moved to the front door and opened it. What he saw mesmerized him. A well-constructed mist confused even the strongest mind, ascended or otherwise, but oh … my … God. Endelle had created one incredible superstructure of mist around not just his house but his property as well. This was helluva lot more complex than the one he’d composed in Carefree.

He moved onto the porch then well out into the yard. He looked back at the house. He had to work hard to see the house at all since Endelle’s mist confused even his powerful mind. Only by focusing could he see that, yep, a dome of mist covered his home, a constantly moving swirl of white gossamer threads. Yet, beyond the threads, he could see the blue sky. Amazing. Just amazing.

He shook his head back and forth. Holy shit. Sometimes he forgot just how powerful Endelle was. He couldn’t imagine Greaves, or any of his generals, getting within a hundred yards of his home.

Only then did he relax.

He crossed to the guest room to check on Alison. Hell, he just wanted to look at her once more. If he ever communed with her fully—entered her body, exchanged blood with her simultaneously, and engaged her mind at the deepest level—she would be bound to him in a way that would haunt her if he died. The breh-hedden wouldn’t be like a simple Second Earth marriage, not between them, not with so much power on each side. They would be linked, joined, bonded, an inseparable pair. Death would never be a straightforward matter because grief, for the one left behind, would be magnified to the tenth.

For these reasons, he would never engage in full communion with Alison. He had a high-profile warrior job and the chances of his buying it one day were way too high to let her bear the burden of having to cope afterward.

So, yeah. He wouldn’t complete the breh-hedden with Alison. It was too much to put on the shoulders of a fellow vampire ascender. As much as his groin strained toward her, as painfully as his chest tightened while he watched her roll onto her back, even as much as death seemed a welcome alternative to this denial, he wouldn’t bond with her.

He forced himself to move on. He went into a utility room off the garage and folded his sword and dagger onto the long table he’d had installed just for this purpose. With Choji oil and clean rags, he cared for his weapons.

After he was satisfied with the sharpness of both the sword and the dagger, he returned them to his weapons locker on Second. He located his guns, still in the Hummer, and mentally folded them back to the same location. He went to his master bath, stripped, then hopped in the shower. As he soaped up, the warm water eased his aching body.

So much power on Second.

So much responsibility.

And the temptations were a hundred times harder to resist.

When the heat had worked some of the tightness out of his neck and shoulders, he rinsed, shut the water off, then wiped down with a towel. He sat on the side of the bed, a second towel draped over his ritual long hair. He felt better. He had a plan of action now. Maybe things would happen with Alison, involving blood and sex, perhaps even a sharing of minds, but he could make sure the ball game didn’t play to the end. Yes, he could do that.

Screw the breh-hedden.

As he finally climbed between the sheets, and as sleep overtook his mind, he wondered what anvil would drop on his head in the next twenty-four hours.

* * *

Marcus wiped the blood off his lip as Horace tended to him. The healer, who looked like all those retro pictures of Christ, had his hands over the deep cut on his arm, taking care of biz.

His heart finally beat like it was supposed to. Yet from the moment he’d folded to the Cave with Medichi and caught sight of the bastard-from-hell, he’d been in a state. Even now, as he sat forward on the ratty brown leather couch nearest the bar—that bar with all the broken bottles—his left knee bounced. He’d tried to make it stop several times but he was so damn juiced, too much damn adrenaline and nowhere to put it.

Luken and Santiago worked to clear up the mess, which had to be done manually. Only Central, or maybe Endelle, had the power to clean up debris without a mop or a broom. However, a lake of combined alcohol and broken glass hardly qualified as a crisis demanding Central’s intervention. The boys were almost done anyway, although they might want to throw away the reeking mop afterward.

Whatever.

If only his foot would stop thumping on the cement.

“Are you in pain, Warrior?” Even the healer’s voice had a soothing quality.

“I’m fine.” His words came out clipped. He blew the air from his cheeks, leaned forward, and planted his forearms on his thighs. Horace moved with him, his hands still hovering above the wound.

“Almost done,” Horace said.

“Oh. Sorry,” Marcus muttered.

Marcus had spent the entire night at the downtown Borderland above the Trough, battling wave after wave of death vamps. Medichi had joined him just before dawn, thank God.

Marcus found himself grateful, beholden to the warrior. He wasn’t used to fighting and as much as he’d savored the first twelve or so engagements, after that his muscles ached in places he’d forgotten he had. So yeah, Medichi had saved his ass, something he hated to admit.

Who gave a fuck?

The rest of the warriors stood in a group not far from the upside-down pool table, shooting the breeze. Luken and Santiago, having finished their chore, joined them. His gaze skated beyond the group to a smashed-up TV hanging at a weird angle off its wall mount. If the TV had worked, he would have fired up the dimensional hookup to Mortal Earth and started running CNN. He kept the network on in his office, day in, day out, just to keep up.

Horace’s hands shifted to his face. He felt the soothing warmth travel through the fat lump over his eye. He glanced at him. The healer’s brown eyes had a gentle appearance, a kind expression. He tried to imagine being a tender sort of man. Impossible. He’d always have his hard abrasive edges. He was who he was. Though he had lived on Mortal Earth for two centuries, he was still a warrior.

Speaking of which, he sure as shit could use a little jugular time. He’d love a woman right now. He felt his iPhone vibrate, slid it from the deep pocket of his kilt, then scanned the text. He let a couple of obscenities fly. One of his corporations, the one that exported to Second, had just lost a major contract. He really needed to get the hell back to Mortal Earth before his empire turned to dust. His nerves shot off skyrockets and his muscles jumped and twitched.