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The recent encounter with Greaves had shaken her. The bastard, for she could think of him as nothing less in this moment, had almost taken possession of her. She’d almost given herself into his power. She shuddered. She had no doubt that once she’d agreed to go with him, he would have had her killed.
She chewed on the inside of her lip.
Leto met her gaze. “Grace, please talk to me.” He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped loosely between his legs. He looked so beautiful, and so different from Greaves. Leto had wonderful thick raven-black hair. She loved feeling his hair. She reached out and touched it now.
Greaves was bald. That circumstance alone should have made her fight him. She still couldn’t believe that he’d been able to place her in thrall like that.
“I don’t know what happened, and I’m frightened. He almost had me.” She shivered and hugged herself tighter.
“Grace, I can feel how tense you are. I just wish I could have gotten to you sooner. But as soon as Casimir and I defeated the death vampires and I folded out of Greaves’s mist, I could hardly move. If I thought about you, I experienced such pain.”
Grace rose from her chair and started to pace. “He has so much power. My God, his power.” That’s what struck her as she walked the length of the Militia Warrior conference room. The vastness of his power. That’s what she could recall and what truly frightened her.
“But he didn’t succeed,” Leto said. “With either of us, and it cost him to do what he did. Mentally, I mean. To hold both of us in some kind of thrall like that, for at least twenty minutes, to keep us separated though we share this bond, means that he’s not all-powerful. He would be drained and even vulnerable right now.”
“He was after me, intent on destroying obsidian flame.”
“No doubt.”
She met Leto’s gaze. “I’m the real threat here. I’ve never wanted to admit it to myself. I shouldn’t be surprised that he came after me. But you know what I really don’t understand? What does a soul-based power have to do with destroying armies? I’m like Alison. I don’t want to kill anyone. I don’t think I could.”
Leto shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t have anything close to your power, nothing like obsidian flame. I’m just a recovering death vampire who can get big enough to give you a good ride.”
Grace stared at him, then laughed. “I can’t believe you just said that.” She laughed some more. “Give me a good ride?”
Then he smiled, and before long he had joined her. She sat down opposite him again and laughed until tears streamed down her cheeks. She couldn’t seem to stop. For Leto to have reduced everything to his ability to pleasure her when he grew into his beast-state seemed so funny. She wished Marguerite were here. Her Convent cellmate would have found what Leto said hilarious.
“I shouldn’t have said that.” He palmed his eyes and laughed some more. “I know what we have is more than just sex.”
Grace went to him and sank down to the side of his knees. She put her head in his lap. She giggled some more then looked up at him. “Well, it is pretty awesome that you can change size. I mean, isn’t that something most men dream about?”
“Oh, shit, I’ve become a cliché.”
“I guess you have.” But she kissed his knees, then his thighs, and again laid her head down. “Leto, I’m really tired. Where can we go? I need sleep more than anything right now. The last couple of days have really drained me.”
He tilted sideways and slipped his phone from his pants pocket. He thumbed, and a moment later she heard him talking to her brother. The conversation lasted a couple of minutes as one location after another was suggested and discarded.
Finally it was settled that they would go to Medichi’s villa. Antony had recently installed a new security system, and Endelle sustained mist over the property. She’d done so ever since Havily and Marcus had lived there over a year ago.
Maybe the enhanced security system would be enough, but at this point, with fatigue settling like an ache into her bones, Grace didn’t care. She just wanted her head on a pillow, any pillow.
A moment more and Leto had her flying through nether-space.
* * *
Once at the villa, Leto stared at the couch in Medichi’s formal living room and the memories flooded back.
Five months ago, Luken had supported him, half-carrying him to the sofa where Leto had thought he would breathe his last. Though Grace had fed him twice from her vein, it hadn’t been enough, and Leto had been near death. He’d been taking dying blood a long time, a hundred years, but he’d made the decision: no more. If he had stayed the course, he would have died, probably that very night.
But his brother warriors and their brehs had stepped in and changed everything. Havily donated her powerful, unusual blood, and he had been permanently healed from his addiction. He never again experienced the severe cramping that occurred at the withdrawal of dying blood. He owed his life to Havily, and to her breh, Marcus, who had allowed him to take her blood, and to their small group for providing all the extra support he’d needed.
Seeing the couch now brought it all back, how his life had changed forever in that moment. Glancing at Grace and giving her hand a squeeze, he was grateful.
She met his gaze and smiled. He just wished that he could see the future more clearly, especially the why of his beast-state and just what role he was meant to play in Grace’s life, even in his world. And what would happen if he really was in his ascension to Third Earth?
Grace had spoken more than once about how she had gone through life as a ghost. The truth was, he could relate. Even though they’d completed the breh-hedden and even though they had amazing sex together, he didn’t feel a complete connection to her.
But he didn’t blame her. He blamed himself. He was as much a ghost as she was. In all his long life, he’d never truly given his heart to another ascender for safekeeping, not once. Maybe the death of his mother had ruined him in that way, but he kept an invisible emotional barrier all around his heart, always protecting himself, always working hard to be the best warrior, perhaps unwilling to love until the last death vampire was slain.
It was in this way that neither he nor Grace had been ready to complete the breh-hedden. It felt strange to be able to feel the pressure of his palm against hers, to know what his skin and the squeeze of his hand felt like from her point of view. They were so close, and yet still so far apart. He wondered if he could ever truly let go with her, truly give his heart completely, truly yield to all that the breh-hedden could be.
