He released her neck and planted his hands on either side of her head. He moved into her with force so that her body slid over the leather. He looked down at her, at her head moving from side to side. Her eyes were closed, her face contorted. She panted, whimpered, and cried out.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

He eyes popped wide. She met his gaze. He held on tight. He moved over her in heavy waves, pushing her body around. She slung her legs around his hips. He felt it coming, from her, from him, that moment.

With every push a grunt left his body. She matched the sound with a cry. Her body moved with him, then against him. The whole time he looked into her eyes.

Slowly, as though time held onto the moment and dragged it out, she lifted a hand to his face. Her eyes were wide and unblinking. She put her hand on his cheek.

He realized she wanted to be in his mind while they did this. It would take sex to a whole new level, really mind-blowing ascended sex, only possible when ascenders had enough power to be in each other’s minds.

Elise definitely had enough power and he was going to let her do it.

“Oh, God,” left his mouth, just as she pressed her mind against his. In a moment of unparalleled ecstasy, as he began to come, he let his shields fall and her sudden presence in his mind brought him and brought him and brought him, pleasure shooting from his balls, up his cock, out and into the well of her body, over and over.

“Gideon!” she screamed. Her mind rolling through his, teasing, stroking, feeling him up.

He felt her core tugging at him.

“Gideon!” she screamed again.

His back arched as he pumped. Holy shit, he was going to come again. “More” was all that he could push past his teeth.

She slung her arms around his neck and pulled him against her so that they moved as one, in great hard waves, pleasure spiking over and over until at last he was spent.

He heard her deep gasps as she tried to catch her breath. Her body slowed down. His hips eased back.

Oh. My. God.

She kissed his neck, small little wet punches. “Gideon,” she whispered. “Gideon. Oh, God, Gideon.” She drew in another gasping breath. “What was that?”

“Ascended sex, your mind inside mine. Damn, you’ve got power.”

He collapsed on top of her. His heart hammered away at the inside of his chest. He was covered in sweat.

She licked his neck. “You taste … so good.” He felt her chest rise and fall as she, too, worked to breathe.

The dizziness in Elise’s head still turned the booth around and upside down. But, oh, that ride! And what had prompted her to touch his face again, to climb inside his mind once more? As soon as she had, pleasure barreled through her, rushing like a flash flood, pushing everything out of the way except him and his toffee scent, and his thrusts and his hips and the sheer animal power of his body.

The climax had flowed up her body, into her chest, through her neck until she felt it as a geyser through her mind.

He was right. It had never been like that before. But then she had never been truthful with him. If honesty resulted in this kind of orgasm, she planned on being completely straightforward with him from this second on.

Several minutes, later, when she could breathe and when he wasn’t grunting with every other draw of air, the dizziness finally disappeared.

He eased off her and out of her. He unfolded a washcloth from somewhere and as he had always done, tucked it between her legs.

Her heart hurt looking at him, at the way his streaked, brownish-blond hair fell forward and hid part of his face. She would have thanked him for the attention but suddenly she was feeling way too much.

He didn’t meet her gaze as he dropped back on his buttocks, shifted and planted his feet on the floor. He leaned his head back against the velvet of the booth and sighed. He looked as though he had moved about a thousand miles away from her. Maybe he had.

His eyes opened and he looked up at the ceiling. “Please don’t think this changes anything.”

She put a hand to her chest and rubbed her sternum. Her heart had settled down but yes, it ached, very low as though she had rocks caught in the bottom, weighing it down.

Did she want something changed, to be different, with him? She stared up at the ceiling, at the various pipes and large ventilation tubes crossing each other.

A different kind of dizziness returned, the one that meant a vision was coming. This time she saw a beautiful woman with enormous black hair. She pulled at a long feather dangling from her right ear and read from a large book that she held in her hands.

Elise closed her eyes and shut the vision down. She’d learned the skill as a child, that she didn’t have to see every bit of the future that ran at her. But stopping the clairvoyant episode didn’t stop the sensations that now plucked at her heart

What came to her was the simple truth that despite the goods and the bads of ascension, she had opened a door to this new world the moment she sat in her Audi and called Gideon.

She belonged in this new world.

She took one backward look. With her internal eye, she saw herself locking up the optometry building, getting into her car, and calling Gideon.

Mentally, she simply slammed the door to the past shut. There was no going back. Not now, not ever.

She opened her eyes and sat up, shifting her legs over the side of the red leather seat.

Though she sat naked beside Gideon, she turned her head to look at him. He must have seen the movement because he shifted to look at her as well.

“There’s something else I need to tell you and I have a feeling you’re really not going to like it.”

He groaned, rolled his head back to thump against the velvet back of the booth, and muttered, “Well, fuck.”

Chapter Three

Elise waited until he turned to look at her once more, until he said, “Let me have it.”

So she did. “I’ve had a dozen dreams over the last month, dreams about Second Earth, of living in an ascended world, of flying over a long narrow lake, of mounting a pair of dark blue mottled wings, beautiful wings. I have been full of this aching need here—” she put a hand to her chest—“I can’t ignore it any longer and something about this, about being inside your mind, has changed me.

“Because of all that you’ve told me over the past two years, I know exactly what’s going on with all the dreams and all these painful longings.”

He shook his head. His eyes had a wild look. “Don’t do this, Elise. I’m begging you, don’t say it. Don’t fucking say it.”

She lowered her chin. “I know that this is my call to ascension.” He groaned long and loud. He put his head in his hands. She continued, “I have no doubt that I’ve been called to ascension. Yet for the past month, before I had the vision of Rachel and the death vampires who were after her, I wasn’t going to act on it. Tonight has changed everything. I know that now.

“So here it is. In about an hour and a half, however long it takes me to get back to my house, then drive over to the north end of the White Tanks, I’m going to answer my call to ascension at the White Tanks Borderland.”

“No,” he cried, almost a shout. He shook his head back and forth, back and forth. “You can’t. I won’t let you. You can’t do this. I won’t have one more person on Second that I have to look after. Rachel has been enough. I need my freedom, Elise. I need to be a warrior. I can’t do more than that, be more than that.”

“No one’s asking you, Gideon. You’re not obligated to help me or to be with me or anything. I’m doing this for me, because I have to, becauseI’ve been called and I know I belong on Second. This has nothing to do with you.”

She thought the thought, and brought both sets of clothes back. She dumped his T-shirt and jeans on his lap. Though it made her cheeks burn, she withdrew the washcloth, thought another thought and sent it to her clothes hamper. Sometimes sex was just embarrassing, but what could she do? She started getting dressed the old-fashioned way, one leg at a time.

“You’re not getting it,” he cried. “I’ve felt your power. You’re not going to have a simple ascension. Darian Greaves, who heads up the opposition, will want you dead unless you agree to align with him. You know how things are set up. He’ll have three days during your rite of ascension to find a way to destroy you with impunity. That’s the law. You’ll have to battle your way into our world. Don’t fucking do this.”

He was breathing hard at the end of this speech, but his plea changed nothing.

When she had her jeans back on and most of the buttons buttoned, she met his horror-stricken gaze. “Get over it, Gideon. Sorry if this puts a crimp in your plans, but I’m ascending. Tonight. And don’t think I’m elated. I’m not. I liked my life. Ilovedmy life, but that life is over.” She took a deep breath. “Case closed.”

He turned away from her and let one big “fuck” bounce around the booth.

“Let me understand you,” Seriffe said. He had a low, strong voice. “Your woman, Elise, is answering her call to ascension and you want to serve as her Guardian of Ascension. But you do know that’s a job relegated to the Warriors of the Blood.”

Gideon stood in front of Colonel Seriffe’s desk. The Colonel was a big man, like Gideon, a worthy warrior, and commanded the respect of his men. He remained seated.

“I’ve been gaining power lately. Last night I offed two death vampires by myself. That’s been happening a lot.”

Seriffe narrowed his eyes. “I heard it was three.”

Gideon’s jaw tightened. “Not exactly. The third was a woman. I’m not proud of it, but she came at me, sword and dagger, and there was nothing I could do.” Female death vampires were very rare but it happened. None of the Thunder God Warriors liked taking a woman’s life, even if she was powerful, dangerous, and had killed innocent mortals or ascenders to get at the addictive dying blood.

Seriffe nodded. He knew the score. “I still think you’re out of line making this request.”