“Tell me,” he cried. “Tell me. Are you all right? Are you hurt? Has your neck healed? Were you frightened? Did he touch you otherwise? Are you all right? Tell me.”

She gave a little gasp, a small cry, then flung herself into his arms. He wrapped his arms around her, engulfing her, holding her tight. He closed his eyes, his throat knotted, his eyes burning.

“I just don’t understand why he came after me,” she said. “That death vampire, Crace, was so big, like Luken, and he had a squad with him. They … they were going to take turns drinking from me. But why me? It makes no sense.”

Her voice was muffled against his shirt. He stroked her hair, his fingers drifting down her back. He felt the faint ridges of her wing-locks through her shirt, and his body heated up when it shouldn’t have. He knew she needed comfort but the damn breh-hedden was taking over.

She moaned softly. Wing-locks were extremely sensitive to the touch, and he could feel her quick response to the light flutters over her back. He wanted his tongue on them as he took her from behind. She pressed her hips against him and a wave of honeysuckle rose up to knock him senseless all over again. He glanced at the Militia Warriors, each of whom had turned away, allowing for some privacy.

Once more his protective urges took over.

He let his arms fall away from her but at the same moment he shifted and caught her around the waist with his right arm. He drew her to his side. As she melted against him, he addressed the men within the confines of the patio. “Who’s in charge here?”

“I am.” The Militia Warrior nearest the street-side fence stepped forward.

“You may leave. Take your men. All of them.”

“Of course, Warrior Marcus.” So they knew who he was. Good. The last thing he could handle right now was another man questioning his authority. He’d lose it and someone would get hurt.

Within seconds the property was empty, but Marcus wasn’t taking chances. He moved Havily in front of him and with his body shielded her as he urged her back into her home. Once he had her within the cool, air-conditioned house, the slider locked, he created a deep covering of mist over the entire property.

Now that the house was securely hidden, the fact that he was holed up with Havily sent a wave of heat over his body. “I’m not going to be able to keep away from you,” he said. “Tell me you know that. Tell me you understand.”

Her eyelids fell to half-mast as she released a deep sigh. Another wave of honeysuckle hit him square in the chest. “No one is asking you to, Warrior.”

The dam broke and he grabbed her hard, dragging her into his arms and kissing her full on the mouth, punching at her lips with his tongue until she parted and he slid inside. He moaned at the intimate connection. He pushed his hips against hers, letting her feel the hard length of him. He ground against her and was rewarded with a deep moan.

Her arms went around his back and he tensed, breathing hard as she slid her fingers in long glides between his wing-locks. Holy shit. Maybe it was the breh-hedden, but her touch was like fire, an intense burning that went straight to his groin.

He pushed her away in a sudden burst. He caught sight of her passion-drenched face, her swollen lips parted in surprise, the wrinkling of her brow. The cry of protest that broke from her throat put fire on his fire. He dipped, slung an arm behind her knees and picked her up. Another cry erupted from her throat, this time of pleasure, as her arms slid around his neck.

“Which way to your bedroom?” He needed room to maneuver and only a bed would do. This could take a while.

She leaned back, throwing an arm and pointing to the left. He swept her into the hall. She pointed again to the left. A moment later and he was at her bedroom door, which he shoved open with his foot.

The room had a vaulted ceiling and he stopped on the threshold to stare up at dozens of glittering paper butterflies, suspended on strings from the ceiling. “What’s this?”

She leaned away from him to take a look. “Oh, the butterflies. At night when I can’t sleep, I count them.” She paused. “Lately, I’ve counted them a lot.”

He looked down at her face and met her gaze as she shifted back to him. “I know this wasn’t what you wanted. I know you despise me. I would undo this if it were possible. You deserve someone nobler than me.”

She put a hand on his cheek. “I can’t complete the breh-hedden with you, Marcus, please understand that.”

He nodded. “Understood.”

Her gaze fell to his lips and the breath she drew seemed to skip into her chest. “But I want you, here and now … so badly.”

He nodded. “Yeah.” The word ground out of his throat like he’d dusted it with red pepper. He didn’t comprehend all the mysteries of ascended life or what force had brought them together or even why they had to be together and joined in this way, connected in this way, but the hell if he could be close to her, guard her, and not be inside her body right now.

“And I need new memories in my head,” she said. “This room frightens me.”

“We’ll fix that.”

He glanced down at the bed. He released her, setting her feet on the floor long enough to jerk the comforter and top sheet back so that an expanse of black silk met his gaze. Her red hair would look beautiful on black silk. He turned back to her, nuzzled her neck, then licked in long slow glides over her vein until her body grew lax and she arched her head, giving him more territory to cover.

He put a hand on her shirt and folded it off along with her bra. Her breasts were so perfect. He fondled her.

“Oh,” she cried. He kissed her and her fingers found his biceps. She started stroking his muscles through his shirt, clawing. He folded his clothes off. Skin met skin and the inferno erupted once more.

He didn’t wait, but finished getting her naked. He pushed her back on the bed, half on, half off, and took her breasts in his mouth, taking deliberate turns, working her body into a matching inferno. Honeysuckle flooded the air.

Truth? His mind no longer functioned.

* * *

Havily threw her arms back against the sheets and trembled from head to foot as Marcus suckled her breasts, his hands cupping them. He tasted one, then the other, then back. He was thorough and she loved it. His erotic fennel scent drifted in clouds over his body.

She hadn’t been with a man since Eric … a dry spell of fifteen long years. She hadn’t exactly taken a vow not to be with another man, but she hadn’t planned on it since the war … well, the war made everything dangerous and full of too much death.

However, Marcus had come to her in a strange and mysterious way, and with so much momentum and desire that she was allowing the connection … or perhaps more like succumbing.

But oh, his big warrior body was a heavy delicious weight on top of her, pressing her into the soft cushion of the mattress. Her lower half was bent over the edge of the bed, her feet flat on the floor, her legs spread, his heavy pelvis and powerful thighs pressed into various parts of her and … she loved it. Oh, how she had missed this, the weight of a man.

He dove his arm under her waist and held her tight, but his fingers reached upward behind her and found the lowest of her wing-locks. He teased the pad of his fingers back and forth.

She cried out. The combination of his suckling mouth on her breast and his drifting hand working a wing-lock quickly sent her into an outrageous state of need and desire. “Marcus. Please. Please. Please,” rippled in a hoarse whisper out of her dry, open, pleading mouth.

She felt his mind reach for her and she released her powerful shields to hear his words, Please what, Havily Morgan?

You’re torturing me, she sent.

Good. The least you deserve for haunting my dreams.

She moaned as he bit at her nipple at just the right pressure. “Do more. Please.”

He released her breast and shifted, moving his hips between her legs, and with his powerful thighs pushed her legs farther apart. She groaned at the touch, the feel, the strength of his legs holding her wide. She felt utterly exposed but very, very sexual.

His hand skated down her ribs, making her want to both giggle and moan at the same time. He grasped her behind her waist, lifting her upper body with one powerful arm and propelling her higher up on the bed so that she sprawled on the sheets beneath him. He then climbed toward her, one hand, one knee, opposing hand, opposing knee, his big warrior body prowling over hers. She felt weak and lethargic, like she could disappear into the mattress.

In her strange dream-fantasies, she was always on top, but this, being overcome by the sheer size of him, was … better.

His lips were parted as he looked her over from her eyebrows and eyes to her cheeks, lips, chin, drifting lower to her breasts. A faint growl sounded in his throat, a low rumble that caused her back to arch and her internal muscles to clench. She wanted him so much.

He had a faint dusting of black hair between his pecs that descended his abdomen to a line that led her eye to … his cock. She licked her lips and couldn’t breathe.

She had felt him inside her while caught in her dream-like state, but this was different, so real, so awake.

It had been a long time. She had known two men before Marcus, and both men she’d loved. Now she would have Marcus, whom she did not love but whose body she craved as though even his skin meant life to her and his body every blessing possible in ascended life.

He pushed back on his arms and straddled her. He cupped himself, holding his erect cock in her direction. She looked up at his face, uncertain of his intention. His lips were still parted. His expression was serious, his eyes at half-mast, his chest rising and falling with deep heavy breaths.

Her gaze dipped low again, taking in the swollen head. A bead of his essence appeared at the tip. He still waited.

She leaned up on her left elbow and with her right hand she stroked him the entire thick length, from tip to the heavy thatch of black hair at the base. She brought her fingers up the back of his hand since he still held himself. More of his fennel scent teased her, sending shivers up her thighs.

He hissed. “Havily.” Her name emerged from his lips on a growl.