More cherry tobacco, but he looked away, staring up at the ceiling and taking deep breaths.

“Does this hurt?” Horace called out. “You’ve grown very tense.”

“No, I’m fine. Really.” He still didn’t look at her.

Marguerite laughed but she rose to her feet and wandered outside to the balcony. If they didn’t stop, pretty soon they’d be embarrassing Horace, healing or no healing.

* * *

Thorne could only look at her as she left the rotunda. He was grateful she’d left the room. He needed to settle down as Horace completed his work and he was at last able to retract his wings.

He worked his back muscles until they were completely thinned out and there was no pain whatsoever. He clapped Horace on the shoulder. “Hey, my man, thanks for getting out of bed for this.”

Horace looked around, his gaze drifting up to the now blackened ceiling. “May I ask what happened here? How many death vampires attacked?”

Thorne shook his head. “No death vampires. Endelle and I had a small disagreement on certain issues. I trust this will go no farther?”

He met Horace’s gaze, and the man actually grinned. “I always wondered when the day would arrive that the last straw finally landed on your back. I used to make weekly wagers, but that ended in about AD 109. You have tremendous patience, Warrior Thorne.”

“I don’t know about that,” he said. “The truth is, I’ve always understood her and I’ve respected her.”

“As do I. Only Endelle could have kept Greaves at bay this long.”

Thorne frowned. “We’re in trouble, Horace. Greaves has an army two million strong.”

“Oh, no.”

“Exactly.”

“And do you know this to be true for certain?”

“I had it from Leto this morning. And he would know because he built the army.”

Once more Horace’s gaze took in the ceiling. “Well, that wasn’t just the last straw, that was the last bale.” He met Thorne’s eyes again. “What do I need to do?”

“A final battle is coming, the battle that could change the future of two worlds. And we’re not prepared. Do what you can to recruit healers and train them fast.”

“I will do that,” he said. “And as always, I will keep everything we’ve just talked about, everything I’ve seen here completely confidential.” He bowed then he was gone.

Thorne turned in the direction of the west-facing terrace. Marguerite leaned against the parapet. She held her face to the sun like she was drinking it in. Morning in late March was idyllic, with temps in the high seventies. As he drew up behind her, pressing himself against her and folding his arms around her, a breeze carried all the sharp desert scents up to the palace.

“This is heaven,” she said. “I never saw enough of the sun this last century. I think I could stand here for hours.”

“You’d be blistered.”

“I’d heal.”

“Thanks for breaking my fall.”

“Hey, I told you. I have your back … literally, I guess.” She laughed.

Marguerite seemed to enjoy laughing at her jokes, and he loved that about her. He’d never seen much of this side of her in the Convent. How could he have? They’d always rushed through their lovemaking for fear Grace would return, or one of the regulators, or God forbid Sister Quena.

He squeezed her and kissed her neck. “I want you to come home with me, to my house in Sedona. I have a big bathtub, room enough for two.”

She moaned softly, and her rose-woman scent flooded the air.

I want to suck your wing-locks, he added for good measure.

She shuddered and groaned. How about you suck mine then I’ll suck yours.

His turn to shudder. “Okay, we’d better go now.”

“Can you fold us? I know the security here is tight.”

“I think so. If not, I’ll give Carla a shout.” He squeezed her arms. “Ready?”

“Absolutely.”

He thought the thought and there was no answering restraint, but rather a free glide so that the next moment he was standing with her in the foyer of his home in Sedona Two. He held her like that for a long moment, her back to his front, and let her just look.

“The arrangement is similar to Diallo’s home.” She pulled away from him. “You’re on a promontory that has a two-hundred-seventy-degree view.” She let her gaze rest on it for a moment then asked, “Which way to your bedroom?”

“The left wing.”

She moved off to the left toward the room he used primarily as his library, stepping up three steps, then across a hall to another bank of windows. He followed her, wanting her to explore his home. Maybe if she liked it well enough, she’d stay and she’d choose him over her freedom, over her deep fear of connecting with others.

She drew close to the windows and looked out. “This is the Mogollon Rim, isn’t it?”

Again, he moved in behind her. The view had never been more beautiful because she was here to see it with him, the blue sky overhead and the tree-studded red cliffs opposite. Hawks soared above what was the gorge carved out by Oak Creek who knew how many millennia before his time.

“I think I could look at this view forever,” she said.

How he wished that were true. His heavy sigh forced her to turn in his arms, look up at him, and stroke his cheek with her hand. “No sighing right now, Thorne. Please? Just be with me today, as though there is no other day, just you and me and the promise of a big bathtub.”

“I can do that.” But looking into her beautiful brown eyes, he suddenly felt so lost, so desperate that he kissed her hard.

She pulled back but still had her hands clasped at his nape. “So where’s your bedroom?”

He jerked his head to the doorway and long hall on the left. “Over here.”

She glanced in that direction and said, “Another flight of stairs?”

“I built this house on the hillside, so yeah, lots of stairs.”

She glanced at the stairs then to her right in the direction of the foyer. “I’ll bet this house looks beautiful from the front.”

“The elevation is very pretty.”

“Do all you warriors have big homes like this?”

He smiled. “Pretty much. We have to. We’re big men.”

Her hand found his groin and rubbed the length of him, all the way up. “I am so not going to state the obvious. How about you just show me your bedroom.”

* * *

Marguerite didn’t want to be feeling all that she was feeling: her absolute delight that she’d saved him the pain of damaged wings, her pleasure in his house and in his company, her wish that she could stay in this beautiful place for the rest of her life, as in forever.

But as he took her hand and drew her into the wood-paneled hallway, as she once more had an expansive view of the gorge and the rim and of the magnificent red monoliths everywhere, she slowed to again savor the view. This was one of those homes where every room had an astonishing vista.

She gave his hand a squeeze.

Maybe the design therefore was a perfect reflection of Thorne: The view from any perspective had always been amazing. Certainly on a physical level, the man didn’t have a bad angle, and over the decades she had most definitely seen him from every angle possible.

Now a bath with him, another first of many over the past two days. Sweet Christ had they been together for only two days? It seemed like weeks had passed. Months, maybe.

As she climbed the steps behind him, as he squeezed her hand, she felt like she was being drawn into another world. She had an uneasy sensation and asked, “Thorne, have you brought other women here before?”

He looked back at her as he climbed yet another short flight of polished wood stairs. “No, of course not. You know the year I built this house. During that whole time, just how often did I fail to get to the Convent?”

“A handful of mornings, I guess.”

“Exactly. So please tell me you know that I was faithful to you.”

Her heart seized, one giant fist inside her chest strangling.

She stopped dead on the middle step so that now he really towered above her.

When she didn’t budge, he turned to face her fully, releasing her hand. “What gives?”

“This feels like too much.”

“Would it have helped if I’d brought other women here?”

Her fingers shaped into cat’s claws so fast that even Thorne glanced at them and smiled.

“That’s not the point and you know it.” She lifted her hands to face him, still curled and ready for a fight. “This is the breh-hedden, nothing more.”

He stepped down one step, but he was still like a giant against her five feet five inches. It then occurred to her in the most unholy way that these stairs had real potential.

“I thought we were fighting and now all I can smell in this confined space is a heavy wave of rose. Not that I’m complaining.”

She was eye level with his stomach. She put her hand on his green sweater and looked up at him. “Get rid of this.”

His eyes flared.

Sweater gone.

She drifted her fingers over his abs, and he tightened his stomach for her. She hooked her finger in the top of his jeans. Maybe there were many things about this situation that distressed her, that made her want to run screaming into the hills, but this wasn’t one of them, the banquet that was Thorne.

His hand found her nape, one of his favorite places—and she knew why. He liked to exert control, or at least the appearance of it. And it turned her on as well. She rose to the next step, which put her exactly at pec level, one of her favorite places. He pushed on her nape, forcing her toward him.

She loved playing with him, playing with his body, touching him, sucking on him. His breath rose high in his chest, and that sweet cherry tobacco scent now clouded her senses and forced her mouth open to take in his nipple.

She descended on him like she hadn’t eaten in weeks, sucking hard and biting, using her fingers to push all the muscle into a bunch so she could take as much of him in her mouth as she could gather.