“Gideon?”

He shifted his gaze back to her. “Yes?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

He narrowed his eyes, tried to focus. “What was it?”

“What areyou doing here?”

“Oh. Okay.” He told her about his earlier conversation with Seriffe. “In the end, Madame Endelle agreed to allow me, or rather us, to protect you.”

She nodded. She glanced around. “You brought so many of your warriors with you.”

He tracked her gaze. “I brought the best. You’re in good hands. My section has one of the best records in dealing with death vamps.”

“So basically, you orchestrated all of this.”

“Yes, of course.”

She shook her head, but she smiled. Her eyes looked watery. “There is noof course, Gideon. This is just amazing to me.”

He was truly confused. “Why would you say that?”

She lowered her voice. “Because you broke up with me and you yelled at me about ascending. I liberated you from any responsibility here, remember?”

He stared into her brown eyes. A slight breeze brought wisps of hair streaming over her face. He pushed them back, tucking the loose strands behind her ear. “You’re important to me, Elise. That’s the beginning and end of it. And I can’t help that I feel a sense of responsibility toward you. It’s who I am. Despite what I said earlier, you must know that I care about you. I care what happens to you. I just wish you didn’t smell like strawberries.” There. He’d summed it all up. Nice, neat, tidy, orderly.

And suddenly, just like that, he couldn’t breathe. All he could do was stare into her eyes, take in her delicate, very womanly scent, and stare.

You’re so beautiful, he sent, forgetting for just this moment that she wasn’t telepathic.

But she smiled and as though she smoothed soft fingertips over his mind, she responded,I was into you from the moment I saw you at the Blood and Bite. I wanted you in a way I’d never wanted a man before. I had to have you and I’m so sorry that I lied to you.

“Oh, Elise,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around her.

“Did you hear my thoughts? Tell me you heard them.”

“Each one,” he whispered, aware that the audience, though dozens of yards away, was considerable. “That you wanted me.” He repeated the gist and she smiled again, leaning against him.

“You have so much power,” he whispered, drawing her against his chest. A chill went through him. Even with thirty-two Thunder God Warriors present, even with his own advanced powers, would it be enough to keep her alive?

Elise drew back slightly and stared into dark blue eyes, her special vision holding him in a glow. Her gaze traveled down to the battle gear he wore. She’d seen it in her dreams and every once in a while a warrior would show up at the Blood and Bite in what she knew to be flight gear, but this was real.

When she saw the two dagger hilts up close, however, she put her hands on his arms. “Oh, God, this is real, isn’t it? Ascension, vampires, dimensional worlds, everything, isn’t it?”

Compassion entered his eyes. “Yeah. It’s fucking real. And you’re ascending. Damn, I can’t believe you’re ascending.”

Once more he drew her close and held her.

She wanted to ascend. This was the right decision for her. But if she ascended, if she made a new life for herself on Second Earth, how could she be near Gideon, yet never be with him again? Although in another sense that was an easy question to answer.

The death of her father had shattered their small, close-knit family of three. Afterward, her mother had usually carried two jobs just to keep the bills paid, so Elise had been on her own a lot.

The one time she’d tried to share her difficulties with her mother, that she’d had a vision about one of the neighborhood kids, her mother had blown up. She’d yelled at Elise about her selfishness and her need to control her absurd imagination. Elise had simply shut down in order to survive.

The increase of her powers over the years had shrunk her solitary existence even more. She’d had the occasional boyfriend, but nothing serious, since what guy would be able to handle a woman who could see the future?

She wasn’t complaining, not really. She’d learned to create a good life for herself and overall, she enjoyed her independence.

But here she was, locked in Gideon’s arms, an ascended vampire who could understand what she was going through, who had arrived to see her through her rite of ascension, and she felt a profound desire to be with him, maybe even in a forever kind of way. But how could she do that when for the bulk of her existence her only relationship skill was keeping as much distance as possible?Not that Gideon was asking. He seemed to be as relationship-challenged as she was.

“We’ll take this one step at a time.” Had he read her mind?

His voice was deep and resonant, calming. She could feel the beat of his heart because her cheek was pressed tight against his throat. Her neck was arched and her lips were oh-so-close to his vein. She stood five-ten to his six-five, so she had to lift up on her toes to hold her present position. Her chest drew into a knot as her nostrils flared and she breathed in the toffee-male scent of him.

Familiar longings, deep and profound, swirled through her entire chest cavity. Her surroundings disappeared. Only he existed. She ached for this man, this vampire. Shecraved him.

But something more reached her nostrils, something rich, thick and heavy, something alive and flowing, something that represented all that he was, a meal that would satisfy her cravings. Her gums tingled and at exactly the same moment, she felt a matching tingle in a V down her back, from shoulder blades to waist.

Desire streaked through her abdomen landing deep, so very deep. Her mind grew clouded, her breathing labored.

“Elise,” he murmured, the timbre of his voice now rough. His arms moved over her, a writhing motion that caused the tingles on her back to intensify.

At the same time, she shifted, arching her neck a little more as she opened her mouth wide. With her teeth, she grazed his neck and moaned. She could almost taste what he had to give her, what she needed from him.

“Shit. What are you doing?”

What was she doing? She hardly knew. She wasn’t exactly in a fully conscious state. Her tongue flicked over his neck and she felt the muscles shift and as she continued to flick, the vein rose. She latched onto the vein and suckled hard. Yes, this was what she wanted, what she needed.

Elise, you’ve gotta stop. Now. Oh, shit, I’m so close to coming. Shit. Shit. You could bring me with what you’re doing.

A low growling sound flowed through her throat while she suckled him. Her teeth pushed deeper into his skin, seeking. She felt frustrated and in need of what he could give her. Why wouldn’t he give it to her?

She slid her arm around his neck to pull him toward her, opening her mouth wider.

Elise … you must stop. But his hands had grown wild and one of them covered her buttocks and pressed her into his groin. That he was hard for her somehow fired her need and she sucked even harder at his neck.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here? Two vampires in heat? Or would that be one vampire and one little ascendiate? Nice show, BTW. Damn, Gideon, she’s right on the verge and if I’m any judge, so the hell are you!”

Oh, God. Endelle. Ruler of Second Earth. Elise, you’ve got to stop.

Gideon’s voice rippled through her mind but the words made no sense. Besides, his vein called to her. She moaned and sucked. She was so close to tapping what she needed.

But Gideon slid a finger between her lips and broke the seal so that her mouth popped off his neck. She bobbed backward, her body on fire, her underwear way too wet, her breasts aching. Fog rolled through her mind. So many cravings and urges possessed her that she wanted to scream in frustration.

Can you pull it together, he sent.We’ve got the ruler of Second Earth here with us.

As her mind began to clear, Elise turned around and faced the woman known as Madame Endelle. She addressed Gideon. “So, how about you make the introductions,” Endelle said. “Or did that little show I happened to catch rob you of the rest of your IQ points?”

Without warning, Elise found herself shoved behind Gideon and when she tried to move, he held her back. “Ease down, Endelle. The ascendiate is having a rough night.”

“Well, those sounds she was making definitely soundedrough.” She laughed.

Elise pushed hard at Gideon’s arm so that she could maneuver enough to get a good look at the woman she’d heard so much about over the past two years. Endelle, sometimes known as She Who Would Live, ruler of Second Earth, Her Supremeness, bitch on wheels, scorpion temperament, and nine thousand years old. She was tall, taller than Gideon, probably, because she wore stilettos even in the desert. She had long black hair, ratted up to an imposing height at the crown, then falling straight to the middle of her back.

But oh my god, what was she wearing?Gideon, is that horsehide?

Our ruler is a bit fashion-challenged.

Her top had a striped beige reptilian look, sewn together in strips. Her skirt looked like spotted appaloosa and around her neck hung a very strange collection of … rattler tails?

“Wow,” she said aloud before she could check herself.

Endelle glanced down at her chest and flicked the necklace a couple of times, which made the expected sound. “Like it?”

“It’s very … unique.”

At that, the woman threw her head back and laughed. “Unique? Loooove it!” But her expression sobered almost as fast, crazy quick, as she approached Elise. “Well, let me have a look at you. So, you’re the one giving us a deep pain in the crotch tonight. You’re pretty enough. This Neanderthal treating you right?”

Chapter Four

Elise glanced at Gideon, whose expression had turned dark, his brow low as he stared at Endelle. He was one giant warrior caveman and still held one arm protectively in front of her as though the real danger right now was Madame Endelle herself.