Leto. Leto. She had been married. She knew a man’s body, but should she touch him? Really touch him?

Leto.

I’m here. Let it go. Let it all go. Let it happen. I’m right here.

He was giving her such pleasure. She smoothed her hand along the sheet and found his hip.

He groaned and sucked harder. She found the stiff length of him and rubbed up and down, pressing him into her hip on the other side as she moved.

Oh, God, Grace. I’m going to come. If you keep doing that, I’ll come.

She didn’t stop and his voice in her head and the suction on her neck took her to the brink as he sent, I want my mouth on you.

The thought of Leto taking her down low sent her flying over the edge. I’m coming. She moved hard against his rubbing thigh. She came and came and came as she rubbed his arousal faster. She felt his cock jerk as he began to release. His body arched suddenly and his fangs slid from her neck and he groaned long and loud at the ceiling.

She continued stroking him until his body finally quieted and he fell back against the bed. She followed, her legs still spread over his thigh, her body achy now and very tender. Her breathing began to ease. She rested on his chest, savoring the feel of his breaths, in and out.

Grace, thank you. That was … beautiful.

Yes, it was. But she felt greedy. She wanted more, so much more. Would he be able to go the distance with her? She wasn’t sure any man could.

She drew back, planting her hands on the pillow behind his head, careful not to catch his long hair in the press of her palms. She looked into his eyes. Who was this man, really? She knew that her path was bound to his in some mysterious, extraordinary way, just as she knew she was also bound to Casimir. But what could the end possibly be?

His color had returned and he had her blood on his mouth.

His arms were still around her and he was caressing her very slowly up and down her back to her waist. She didn’t know what possessed her but she wanted to taste her blood on him, she wanted to know what she tasted like.

She touched her lips to his but his scent interfered so that though she could taste a slight metallic flavor, her perceptions got completely lost in the smell of the forest that emanated from him, from his skin, even from his breath. When he parted his lips, she slid her tongue down the center of his and he groaned again.

She kissed him for a long time, then drew back. She shook her head. “Leto, why did you refuse my blood earlier?” Though she was pretty sure she already knew why, she needed to hear him say it.

His lips parted as though he meant to tell her, but he closed his mouth and sighed. His gaze shifted off to the right and he petted her hair in a long slow sweep that traveled over her shoulder and down her arm. “I’ve done terrible things in the name of my mission. I don’t think, after all that I’ve done against Endelle’s administration, that I’ll be able to survive what’s coming next. I don’t even think I should. You need to know that, even though the breh-hedden seems to have snagged us.”

“I was committed to the Convent, but I’m not sure I want to go back. I don’t know. Tonight seems to have changed everything.”

“Maybe it has, but never mind.” He pulled her against his chest, and the air swooshed from her lungs. “Let’s just get some rest. I suspect the next few days are going to be a bit rough.”

Grace wasn’t an idiot. Leto had been one of Greaves’s right-hand men for a century. He was famous for his betrayal of Endelle.

There would be retribution.

Leto knew too much.

“What did you do for Greaves?”

He sighed in one heavy release of air. “I built and trained his army.”

Oh, God.

* * *

Marguerite was fresh from the shower and wearing a simple long red cotton gown with thin straps. She leaned over the side of the waterfall and let the cool stream of water run through her fingers.

She was changed, she could feel it, she just wasn’t sure in what way.

She’d made a big decision tonight, to allow the communal effort toward pure vision. Because of it, Leto and Grace were safe beneath an awkward shroud of combined mossy mist.

It was a particularly strange experience to not only be caught by the breh-hedden but see others struck down as well. Grace had barely been aware of anyone in the room but Leto, and when he could finally summon the strength to open his eyes, they always seemed to turn toward her first.

She knew that feeling well: the need to ascertain the exact location of the other, as though somehow her life depended on it.

And yet, as she searched her heart, it didn’t take long to find that part of her that longed for wide-open spaces, for infinite choices, for self-direction.

She sighed. She had never felt more sobered in her life, more weighty within her soul, at all that had happened, from communing with Brynna, to being in the middle of the battle at the Creator’s Convent, to getting Leto and Grace away from Casimir and safely to the colony.

She shook her head and slapped at the water. She was supposed to be driving her stolen convertible up the eastern seaboard right now, looking for bars with lots and lots of Harleys stacked up outside, music blaring, and eating Buffalo wings.

She’d give anything to hear some Gaga right now and bury her face in some hot wings and ranch sauce. Maybe it was the battling, but she was hungry. Her stomach rumbled. She really hadn’t eaten very much lately, either.

She also had an itch and her heart was pounding. Would Thorne never get back from wherever the hell he’d gone? She needed a man and she needed him now, the same way she’d been feeling for three weeks, like her hormones had jumped into overdrive permanently.

She sniffed and rose. She was smelling cherry tobacco, which made her very happy, but there was something else and then she groaned.

She turned around and Thorne stood there grinning at her. He held a foil-covered platter in one hand and two beers in the other. “Hungry?” He also wore jeans and a loose nubby blue cotton sweater that made his shoulders look about ten feet wide. He’d cleaned up for her.

But it was the second scent hitting the air that made her stomach rumble. First things first. “Starving. Is that what I think it is?”

He laughed. “I’ve been trailing you around so I know what you like. Here ya go.”

“Wings,” she cooed. “I am so in love with you.” She meant it playfully, but his expression softened and her heart went all mushy.

Shit.

But he laughed. “Don’t look so distressed. Come eat. Whatever you’re feeling right now, this will make it better. Besides, at least half of these are for me. No. At least two-thirds.”

He set the wings down on the table, along with two Dos Equis, plates, and a stack of napkins about two inches thick.

She forgot about all her musings as well as her need of Thorne. “I’ve never been so hungry,” she cried. She settled herself in her chair, leaned forward, and dug in.

Thorne was right with her. Neither of them spoke for a good long while, until the bottles were empty and red oily sauce dripped down his chin. She laughed and wiped it off. He returned the favor.

“Is it always this way? Are you starving like this when you’ve spent the night battling?”

He met her gaze and smiled, but his eyes were lit with something other than laughter. The garden lights flickered over his face. He looked almost young in that moment. “Actually,” he said, his rough voice sending a few shivers straight down her spine, between her wing-locks, “there was only one thing I wanted when I was done battling.”

She knew exactly what he meant because she’d wake up long before dawn, every single morning, waiting for him to show up beside her bed.

She reached over to him and ran a thumb over his lips. With a jerk of his chin, he caught her thumb with his lips and drew it into his mouth. Then he sucked. She hadn’t been expecting that and a new shiver began at the point of contact, shot up her arm, and flowed over the rest of her body.

She suddenly lost all interest in the wings. Besides, all she could smell was Thorne’s tobacco scent now, and since he seemed to be enjoying nursing on her thumb that scent only sharpened, flooding the cool night air.

Her gaze never left his and even though she wasn’t in his mind, she could read it. She left her seat and climbed onto his lap and replaced her thumb with her tongue until she was plunging into his mouth and his hands were caressing her ass.

I need you, she sent.

I need you, too.

Are we alone in the house?

Oh, yeah.

Good.

I didn’t know

The heights of love

Until my beloved

Took me in the air.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 14

Marguerite slid off his lap, stood up, and took both his hands in hers. “Come with me.” She had something very specific in mind and she hoped he’d be game. Of course, she couldn’t remember when he’d ever said no to her, but then they’d never had so much room before. And this would be big. Her Convent cell, on the other hand, had been small.

He didn’t say anything. He just smiled and rose to his feet. She dropped one of his hands and pulled him deeper into the garden near the waterfall. There was a white chaise-longue there, almost love-seat-sized, which meant it was big enough for a warrior.

He started to take her in his arms, but she planted a hand on his chest and said, “Would you mind if we did this my way for starters?”

His brows rose. “You want to take charge?”

“Yes.”

A low growl formed in his throat until the airspace around her vibrated.

“I take that as a yes?”

He nodded.

She glanced at the chaise. “This probably won’t make much sense at all, but I’d like you to get good and naked then lie down for me, on your back.”

He grinned. “Sweetheart, that makes perfect sense.”

She liked him. God help her, she liked him so much.

He thought the thought, his sweater and jeans disappeared, and in that athletic warrior way of his, he stretched out, all his golden skin on the white of the cloth. He was almost fully aroused, which meant that her breath caught in her throat and for a moment she forgot what she meant to do.