She rose up, her eyes widening, her gaze fixed low.

“If you want this, you’re going to have to work for it.”

He forgot how fast she was, though. She had speed like a warrior and before he knew what she was doing, she had slid on the grass on her knees right at his feet. He meant to prevent her from doing anything, but she took him in her mouth and began to suck.

Okay, he was too far gone with need, desire, and a kind of primordial possessive rage. He caught the nape of her neck and helped her suck him.

She knew what she was doing and took him deep, as deep as she could.

Thorne, give it to me. Give me all you’ve got.

He was so close to letting go, but he held back. He moved away from her, holding his cock, thumbing the tip.

She sat on her knees, staring at his groin, panting. Her nipples were hard buds.

Shit. For a moment, he’d intended to come in her mouth and leave her.

He put out his hand, palm-down. She nodded.

He leaned down and picked her up, a movement that caused his wings to sweep all the way to the ground and for a moment cover her in a tent of feathers.

But this had to be finished between them and because he was who he was, he couldn’t leave in her agony. He carried her back to the picnic table but settled her on her back this time.

I want your blood, he sent.

She said nothing, just arched her neck, and the vein rose without a single swipe of his tongue against her skin. He pushed her legs apart, positioned himself, and drove in. At the same moment, he turned his head, closed in on her throat, and bit deep.

Her body jerked, but a heavy waft of rose flooded his face as he began to suck. He gripped her arms, pinning her, his hips working her low, his mouth sucking hard.

She held still for him, but he could feel the tightness in her well and she’d begun to whimper softly. The lowest part of her began matching his thrusts, tilting into him and creating the familiar rhythm. She was a fist now pulling on him.

He didn’t ask permission this time. He just pressed against her mind, then pushed hard.

She cried out, but he saw her pleasure begin to streak, and as she pulled on him, he could feel the pulses and the ecstasy that had her screaming.

Her blood had created a furnace in his body.

He was ready. Oh, God.

Yes, Thorne, give me all you’ve got.

His balls tightened and even if he’d wanted to hold back, he couldn’t have. He let out a roar as he came, pleasure riding up, straight up as his cock released into her. She kept up just the right rhythm, as though savoring him, just as she always had.

His wings wafted slowly through the air, back and forth, as his body settled down.

You’re all man, came from her mind, a subdued tone.

Finally he withdrew from her and at the same time retracted his wings.

He didn’t say a word as he headed to the back door.

He couldn’t exactly put a name to what he felt as he reached the doorway to the bathroom and he wasn’t sure he’d actually enjoyed the orgasm.

He put a hand to his chest and closed his eyes—then it hit him. Dammit, he was hurt … to the quick. Did she care so little for him that despite her understanding of the breh-hedden she would even think about going to that goddamn club?

* * *

Marguerite was cold as hell as she lifted off the table. She remained standing for about two seconds then fell to the grass, completely naked. She stretched out. She was wet between her legs and her eyes burned. Some of her frustration had eased, but her guilt had about tripled.

What was she doing? This was a good man and she was treating him as though he was a boyfriend she’d grown tired of. But she wasn’t tired of Thorne, not even a little. She just needed … her freedom and some sense that she had the smallest control over her life.

Please God let him understand that much. Please. Please.

She rubbed her fingers over her lips. Her throat felt inexplicably tight. She folded the afghan from the foot of the bed onto her body. The air was cold in the mountains in March.

She felt Thorne’s presence before she heard him. She didn’t even have time to move before he lifted her into his arms, afghan and all.

He looked upset, but much less hostile, just really … sad. She stroked his face. “I’m sorry I can’t be what you need right now.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She could hear the shower running, and since the cabin was so small, the next minute he was pushing the afghan off her and carrying her beneath the spray. This time, he lathered up and washed her body.

He was so somber.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, her hand on his wet hair.

He put his finger beneath her chin. He leaned down and kissed her, a deep probing kiss. “I love you. And I’m sorry that I got all caveman on you. But the thought of you looking at other men—”

She leaned up and kissed him hard. He locked his arms around her and deepened the kiss, his thick tongue searching every crevice.

Oh, God, what was she doing?

She pulled back. “Thorne, please try to understand. I’m holding on to this dream, the one I’ve had for the last century, of doing whatever I wanted to do, of having real freedom. And I’m so afraid that the longer I’m with you, the more I’m getting trapped in a different kind of prison. You’re a Warrior of the Blood. I know what you do every night. You battle death vampires. I don’t want to be hanging around your house, waiting for you to come home, wondering if you will make it through the night.”

“I know.” His rough voice filled the tight space, water flowing down her back. He kissed her again. “Just forget it, all of it. You need to go out tonight. I’m not going to stop you.” Then a smile touched his lips. “But I may tag along.”

She stroked his cheek. “Thank you for understanding or at least trying to.”

“I don’t like it. Any of it. I want you to have your freedom but this fucking breh-hedden…”

“I know.”

The water stopped. Thorne must have mentally shut it off again.

“Okay, sweetheart, let’s dry off, get dressed. Diallo invited us to lunch. He’s also given us one of the guest rooms in his house while we’re here. He thought it would be safer than the cabin.”

Lunch. Her stomach turned over a couple of times. She wasn’t exactly hungry, but then it was hard to have much of an appetite when she was so damn stuck. “Okay,” she said.

But as Marguerite dried off and brought the rest of her shoplifted clothes from her hotel room to the cabin, she couldn’t ignore the tightening of her chest. The future was rushing at her in hurricane-like blasts now. And the harder she fought for her freedom, the farther away it seemed to move.

How do you build a new world

Out of one that is broken?

Slowly and with great care.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 9

Thorne saw the clever nature of Diallo’s home, the easy flow of room to room. He could see the colony’s council in a social setting, the tempers dialed down with food and drink, critical jurisdictional and administrative concepts discussed with a smile instead of over a blaring microphone or with a sword in hand.

The house was built in a U shape with a large central courtyard. The front of the house faced west, while the east backed up to the forest. The principal front rooms had a meandering effect, lots of sofas and big low chairs, the palette in soft greens and beige, some in leather, some in soft-looking fabrics.

He got it. He understood the entire purpose.

“People would settle down in here,” Marguerite said.

He wasn’t surprised that she saw it, too. Maybe it was her nature or that she’d been in such a cold, harsh environment for so long, but she felt the intention of the layout as sharply as he did. “Yeah, they would.”

Thorne had a house in Sedona that he used just for himself, but as he looked through the living room and the enormous glass windows with a view that covered the entire length of the valley, he felt the need for a new home.

No, not a home, something more. Something with purpose, something Endelle’s palace should have been but wasn’t: a gathering place.

Endelle had built a series of vast domed rotundas, all connected, one to the next, the entire edifice built out from the side of the McDowell Mountains on the west-facing slopes. But the place was only used for the occasional ascension ceremony or formal dinner. It wasn’t even furnished except for a few dining tables and chairs.

Endelle had never quite grasped the need for state functions, the reception of dignitaries, the bringing together of ambassadors from around her allied Territories, the need for public address, diplomacy, and presence. She was a woman from some of the first tribes that had roamed Mortal Earth and in a very basic sense she should have been a warrior, not an administrator.

He withheld a heavy sigh. She should have ascended millennia ago because the level of her power was tremendous, but the Upper Dimensions had kept her on Second since there had been no one of an equivalent power to balance Greaves. Second Earth would have long since fallen without her darkening work and the sure threat that if Greaves ever once personally used his preternatural power to strike, she’d be able to take him on.

So COPASS had been formed by a majority vote of all the Territories during their bi-century worldwide congress, a committee designed to oversee the process of ascension to Second Earth and to define the rules of engagement for both factions. The original intention had been to keep powerful ascenders safe during the ascension process—Greaves had been systematically killing them off before they could ascend.

Unfortunately, from the moment COPASS had been formed, the Commander’s subtler skills of manipulation had been able to take full flight and he’d been steadily turning members of the committee. In turn COPASS had step by step begun moving all the rules and regulations in his favor.

Endelle had ended up hamstrung by a specific COPASS law, which stated that no person was allowed to cross the threshold of a Seers Fortress without the express permission of the High Administrator of that fortress. So guess who had operated the Superstition Fortress? Owen Stannett.