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Shit.
***
Condoms.
What a rookie mistake.
Medichi stood in the foyer of his villa and didn’t look at Parisa. He shoved a hand through his hair then pulled his fingers out and looked at them. He’d left his cadroen in Endelle’s office. He rolled his eyes. Whatever. He pushed his hair over his shoulders to hang down his back.
He glanced at Parisa. Her color hadn’t diminished very much. Her cheeks were still bright pink and she was staring at the dark plank flooring.
“Maybe I should go back to the guest room,” she said.
He drew in a breath that sounded like someone was strangling an animal. “No” came out half growl, half hiss.
She looked up at him and took a step back. She put a hand to her chest. “Antony.”
He squeezed his eyes shut then turned away from her. “Sorry. Just the breh-hedden rearing its ugly head. I … I have these instincts that just keep getting stronger. You know, like I want to lock you in my bedroom and never let you out of there—for more than one reason.” He stiffened at what he’d just said.
He whirled back to her. “Parisa, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean … and I would never do that to you.” He stopped.
A ghostly white shade had completely replaced the previous flush of her complexion. Her gaze fell back to the floor, this time skating from side to side. “I know you wouldn’t. This is an adjustment for both of us. I’ve come back here and I want to ascend but”—she lifted her eyes to him—“I don’t know where I belong, even where I should live. You and I are dating, I guess. I told Havily that I’d be sharing your room but we really shouldn’t be doing that, should we? I mean, I can’t just move in with you. I don’t know anything about you. I know I trust you. Of course I trust you.”
She frowned then pressed on. “I have to get through the ceremony first, and then I want training. I know Kerrick trained Alison. I guess I should do something like that. I don’t know.” She put her hand to her forehead and turned away from him.
Medichi stood very still, afraid that if he took a single step right or left, she’d leave him, she’d choose to live someplace other than beneath his roof, and he couldn’t have that. She’d suffered terribly, but so had he. How could he explain to her that the breh-hedden had been its own prison, that he hadn’t been his own man for the past three months, that worrying about her had consumed his mind, his heart, his every waking action? He’d had only one thought in all that time, to get her back whatever it took. Now she was back and he felt her slipping away from him.
He was trying to be reasonable, to find his rational thoughts, but fear rode his skin like a current of electricity. Even his jaw felt tight and hinged shut. He knew she needed space. She should have space. But if she didn’t share his bedroom, sleep in his bed, let him feel the weight of her next to him, her hands reaching for him at night, her body pressed against him … yeah, he thought he would go mad.
“I have no right to ask,” he said, his voice somehow managing to push past the tightness of his jaw. “But would you please stay, at least for the next few days. Please.” He swallowed. A rock had lodged itself in his throat. “Don’t go.”
She looked up at him and blinked. Her turn to stiffen. Her lovely eyes widened. She didn’t seem to be capable of breath. “I don’t want to go,” she whispered. “But…”
“Please.” It was a war of whispers.
She moved toward him slowly. She searched his eyes once more, then put her hand on his cheek. He loved that she was tall. In heels she didn’t have far to go to reach him. Her palm was cool against his skin. Tears glimmered in her eyes. “I … I forgot for a moment what this has been like for you but I’ve remembered. I wouldn’t be so cruel as to walk out now.
“I saw you every night, remember? I mean every morning. I mean it was night for me and morning for you. You would tell me every night what you’d done to look for me, where you’d gone. You gave me hope and that hope kept me sane. I saw how you suffered. I saw you lose weight. I watched the circles under your eyes darken and deepen. I didn’t even think that was possible for an ascended vampire, but a lack of sleep will do it, won’t it?”
He nodded. He lifted a hand and slid it over hers. He pressed gently.
“We’ll give this some time,” she said. “I won’t leave your home, not now, not yet. We’ll take this one step at a time. I can feel your distress and I can see your need. I won’t go.”
“You’ll share my bed?”
“I’ll share your bed.” She paused. “For a few days, maybe a week. Okay? Until we get everything figured out.”
He moaned and dragged her into his arms. He held her close. She wiggled against him, straining. At first he thought she wanted him to release her, but when he gave her a little room she threw her arms around his neck and held on.
Christ. This was too much emotion for people who knew so little about each other. He closed his eyes. He could feel her heart beating in her throat, dull heavy thuds. His neck was getting wet. What a mess. Goddamn the breh-hedden.
The one taken suffers the most,
But do not forget the warrior left in the breach.
—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth
Chapter 9
That evening, Parisa stood in the center of the rotunda floor, Havily behind her and to her left, Antony back and to her right. The rest of the Warriors of the Blood were ranged another ten feet behind her, standing tall and straight, sentinels of Second Earth. Each, like Antony, wore a black leather tunic and a brass breastplate with a silver sword emblazoned down the front, point down, with a green laurel wreath around the hilt.
Endelle’s palace was a collection of white marble rotundas, hanging off the west face of the McDowell Mountains as though suspended in the air. Most of the rotundas had open walls and large terraces with a stone balustrade serving as the only separation from hundreds of feet of airspace.
She had spent the day sleeping, something she’d desperately needed. Antony had kept his distance, giving her some space by stretching out on the couch in the den of his bedroom suite. She had told him it was okay if he shared the bed with her, but he’d only lifted a brow, pulled a pillow off the bed, and headed for the couch. He’d been right, of course. If they’d shared a bed, how much sleeping would they have actually done?
So here she was, somewhat rested and ready to ascend, at last, to Second Earth.
