She slowly slid her hand over his forearm and pressed gently. He was all muscle and warm skin, his cardamom scent wafting to her nostrils. She took deep breaths, one after the other. She didn’t want him to awaken. She just wanted to take in that heavenly spice, part him, part cardamom. Her breasts swelled at the erotic scent, she grew wickedly wet, yet still she didn’t want to disturb the moment.

She smiled. She had prevailed and she had won the pleasure of being with Kerrick. She had a child growing within. She had a completely naked man at her back. Life could not get better.

He stirred behind her, his thick cock gliding up her backside. Desire rose again, a whirling sensation inside her body, tightening her abdominals, which caused her hips to rock against him.

He groaned. “Lavender. I’m smelling lavender. Please tell me you’re awake?”

“I am.”

“Thank God,” he groaned. His arm snaked around her, over her breasts. He pulled her close, his hands roaming. “You feel like heaven.”

“I love that you’re in bed with me.”

He leaned over her, pushed her hair aside, and kissed her neck. “I want you.”

“I want you more.”

“Not fucking possible.”

She still had yet to get used to warrior-speak. At the same time the profanity grounded the experience for her, made it real when so much of this new life had thrust her into the center of a tornado.

He kissed a line up her cheek, arching over her body, sliding his lips up to her lips, then he kissed her. Even her mouth felt well used from the night’s pleasures.

She drew back and met his gaze. “Why is it I’ve only known you half a minute, but I feel as though it’s been several lifetimes?”

“It’s the call of the breh-hedden. I feel the same way.”

“Kerrick, I want in,” she said, knowing this was exactly what she needed.

He nodded and smiled. He growled. He rolled over onto his back then pulled her on top of him. She settled herself over his hips, his erection a length of thick rope against her. “To do this, you’ll want me inside you.”

She had to laugh. “Spoken like a man. You sure that’s necessary?”

“You think I’m joking but you’ll see. Now climb on board.”

Her body shuddered at the invitation. She rose up then positioned her core over the head of his cock. She was so ready for him as she eased him inside. Her body wept for him, even more when he groaned and arched, his hips thrusting as if he couldn’t help himself. He pushed and filled her.

Heaven, she murmured within his mind.

He sighed and arched again, stretching her then moving in a slow, sensual rhythm. He pulled her down onto his broad, muscled chest, tucking her beneath his chin. His heavy ripped arms engulfed her. She was in a perfect cage of his body, encased, protected, pleasured.

When she had said she wanted in, she hadn’t meant for sex to happen, but as soon as he opened his mind and she fell inside, sex for the first minute was all that could happen. She was aroused like nothing she’d ever experienced before and she understood, in a sudden flash, what it was to be a man when he entered a woman, the strange power, the erotic nature of penetration, the full-on stimulation—because right now, she had penetrated him. His mind was laid out for her, a banquet on which to gorge, and she was so aroused.

The sensation of control grabbed her and before she could think the thought, she arched away from him and orgasmed hard, her power punching at him as it always did. He caught her with his muscular arms, holding her in place. I love it when you do that. So damn sexy. Now take the real ride.

He worked her body, slow erotic undulations, as her mind began to descend within his. It was like sinking into a warm pool and floating, the water just easing out of the way. When she was merged completely, his life, flashes of remembered events, all twelve hundred years of it, began to stream through her, shared and experienced, savored and hated, all his hopes and fears, all the love, sex, and battle, the loss of his two wives, the leaving of an infant son behind on his ascension—the baby, Evan—then the deaths of his two children all those centuries later.

The most surprising element, however, was that she saw and experienced the depth of his devotion to the Warriors of the Blood, a true Brotherhood of men, powerful men, vampires dedicated to a better world, a safer world.

Within the body of the stream, she got to know them all through his eyes and through thousands of interactions, the peculiar bond he shared with Thorne, their leader, with Medichi and his love of wine, with Jean-Pierre and his love of women, Santiago and his ability with weapons, Zacharius and his vanity, Luken and his gentle soul, even Marcus before the terrible breach tore them apart at Helena’s death.

My turn whipped through her mind. She felt a great wave rise up as he moved her out of his head and started to penetrate hers. He turned her bodily at the same time, so that when he crashed fully inside her mind, he was pounding her hard. She let him but couldn’t lift even a finger to touch him. She was overwhelmed with his presence in a way that set every nerve in her body on fire. She shared her life with him, her history as he had, holding back only the new life within and her strange telepathic conversation with Leto.

Otherwise, he filled every hidden cache of her memories. Rapture once more approached, spearing her deep between her legs where he had taken possession of her body, where his cock thrust. The sensation of intense pleasure spread upward through her torso, engaged her heart, swept into her head and cast fireworks around until she screamed the orgasm over and over and over. The resulting roll of power took him into the air, her hips with him since he refused to lose the connection. Landing back on the bed, he spun her out, thrust, retreated, thrust harder, rolled his hips, and sucked on her neck.

Come for me, she sent as her own orgasm barreled down on her once more. Now. I need all of you.

She cried out as pleasure took hold of her, a great fire in the well of her body. As the sensation increased, she cried out over and over, another wave of power punching at him.

He shouted, groaned, cursed, then with a final cry spent himself hard into her, thrusting until completely sated.

At last, he lowered himself back onto her.

Now her arms could move … well, a little. She wrapped them around his broad shoulders and drew in a ragged breath.

“Awesome,” she murmured. “Let’s do it all over again in about fifteen minutes.”

He laughed, bouncing on her chest. “I love you, Alison. I’m so in love with you. There, I’ve said it. I love you.”

Alison’s heart swelled. To hear him speak of love—! And yet there was something in his tone, an edge of desperation that caused her a ripple of concern. She had been inside his head. She had seen his grief after Helena and the children died, she had felt the impact of two hundred years of keeping his vows so he wouldn’t be a threat to another woman ever again.

She breathed in and out, struggling to find the right words, but nothing came to her, no gentle ease-into phrasing, just four words and she said them aloud now: “Tell me what happened.”

* * *

Kerrick lifted up and looked at her. He knew exactly what she meant, what she wanted to know.

Christ. He drew out of her, breaking the erotic connection. He slid his hips to the edge of the mattress, his legs following. When she turned on her side away from him, he stroked the back of her neck. Right now he wanted to bolt, to leap out of bed, to run hard, away from the house, away from her, away from the subject. He didn’t want to talk about Helena or his children, not with Alison, especially not Alison, because this was his failure, his greatest failure.

He had let her inside his mind, let her romp around, and he’d loved it but it also meant she had seen his past, especially the nature of his grief. She was also a therapist so of course she would want him to talk. This far down the road, he saw no point in trying to evade the subject.

He summoned a breath then another. He let the words flow. “I was fighting. It wasn’t very late, maybe eight o’clock. I was at the north end of the White Tank Mountains on Second. That night Greaves hammered us with pretty-boys at every Borderland, which was unusual at the time.

“Thorne suspected something big was going down. We all did. We just couldn’t imagine what, which meant we didn’t know what to prepare for.

“Helena wasn’t powerful like you although she had a few fully developed gifts. Her telepathy was perfect. If she had been more powerful, if she had been able to sense something was coming, if she’d had even a small piece of the clairvoyance I know you have she could have summoned me and together we could have done something. At least, I think we could have. I don’t know because I wasn’t there when it happened. Maybe I would have misread the situation as well.” He paused. He didn’t want to speak the words.

To her credit, she remained silent, letting him find his way.

“Helena and I engaged in full communion—body, blood, mind—so we were very close, as close at two ascenders can be just short of the breh-hedden, but it wasn’t enough to help us that night.”

She put a hand on his shoulder. “What was the difference, then? I mean why wasn’t your full communion with Helena the same as the breh-hedden? I don’t understand.”

He frowned. Shit, this hurt because it went to the central issue, the reason he should never have married Helena in the first place. “Because of the difference between telepathy and mind-engagement. Helena didn’t have your power. I couldn’t be in her mind the way I can be in yours, because I would have hurt her. Nor could Helena be in my mind, because she didn’t have the capacity. We were able to communicate telepathically, but that is still very different from mind-engagement.

“All ascenders can take part in some level of full communion by making use of telepathy, but most ascenders can’t get into the head of another. Some believe mind-diving is more a Third Earth ability than a Second Earth power, which is why the breh-hedden is extremely rare and occurs only among the Warriors of the Blood … and powerful women.” His throat felt choked and raw. “Helena just wasn’t advanced, not like you. Other than Endelle, there is no one like you in our world.”