Her nakedness was covered by her wings as he set her on the ground. “You have to draw your wings in before we can fold out of here.”

She glanced at all the warriors. “I … I’m not wearing anything.” Then she laughed. Who cared? She was outside the prison she had endured for three months, and she was still alive. Antony was holding her in his arms. What else mattered?

“You’ll be okay,” he said.

She nodded and smiled. Rain ran down his face. She touched his cheek just to make sure he was real. He turned into her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers. She felt him sigh.

When he set her on her feet and she begun unfurling her wings, he lowered himself to his knees, still facing her, and put his arms around her in order to shield her chest and support her against the wind and rain. In the glow of each bolt of lightning, the scars of his back were visible, a sheet of silvery lines and ridges.

She put her hands on his back, splaying her fingers. She closed her eyes and with the wind whipping her wings around began what turned out to be a painfully slow process of bringing her wings into her back.

The warriors didn’t pay attention to her. They moved to form a protective circle all around her, facing outward, swords drawn in case the enemy attacked.

At long last, her wings finally retracted. But as the powerful ripples that formed her wings from nothing began to settle into her muscles, Rith appeared at the top of the dome, his wings barely moving. He retreated into the mist when he saw Antony and the other warriors.

“Do I take the bastard?” Santiago cried.

Thorne grunted. “No. We’re here to get Parisa home safe. That’s all that matters right now.”

As Medichi rose and encircled her in his arms, lightning set his face aglow. A long roll of thunder powered over the land.

She looked up into his face as he petted her cheek.

Jean-Pierre shouted into his phone. “We have her, Jeannie. Bring us home. To the front lawn of Medichi’s villa.”

Parisa closed her eyes.

The villa. She had dreamed of Antony’s home for weeks.

The vibration began, followed by the long, swift glide through nether-space.

***

The moment Medichi felt the front patio of his villa beneath his heavy battle sandals, he didn’t wait to speak with any of the warriors materializing around him. His woman was completely nude, soaked, and shivering.

“It’s daytime here,” she murmured through chattering teeth.

“Yes, it is,” he said.

“Of course.”

He moved to the entrance, shoved the massive door aside, and once in the foyer slammed it shut behind him. He took long brisk steps as he carried her down the hall to his bedroom.

He took her straight to the shower, fearing she was cold. He flipped on the row of lights above the broad mirror but turned the dimmer down low. With her still clutched in his arms, he shifted her to one arm with her feet dangling off the floor. She didn’t protest.

He turned the water on and set all eight heads to flowing. Only then did he dare set her on her feet, draw her face away from his chest, and look at her.

She tilted her head back. “Antony,” she whispered. She was soaked and trembling. “We have to go back for them.”

He smiled because it wasn’t what he expected her to say. He expected her to rail against her captivity, maybe even to thank him for showing up. Instead, she was concerned about the fate of other women.

He nodded. “Thorne and I discussed it while we waited for you outside the domes. Jeannie’s doing a satellite feed to see if Rith brought any death vampires in. If not, the warriors are headed back.”

“Oh, good. Good.” Her teeth chattered.

She needed to get warm. Maybe it was shock, or maybe she was just chilled. Maybe both. Didn’t matter.

He still had on his leather battle flight gear. He thought about folding it off, but he didn’t want to scare her by having a suddenly naked man in the shower with her.

“How’s the temp?” he asked as she held out her hand to the water.

“Good.”

Only then did he turn her so that her back could feel the spray. She nodded and put her hands palms-up behind her. She wiggled her fingers. “Oh, that feels good.” She took a step into the spray.

He smiled and stepped away … about three inches. He knew she needed space, probably wanted space, but he couldn’t seem to make himself move. He just stood there, his back and kilt getting hit by the spray.

She just looked at him, her amethyst eyes dark in the low-lit room. She moved back another inch and tilted her head so that the water flowed down her hair. She closed her eyes. She looked … dreamy.

He made a big mistake but couldn’t seem to help himself. He took a long journey down her neck, down her chest, and came to a full stop at her breasts. He had forgotten just how, well, stacked she was. And his eyes bulged.

Her breasts were drawn into tight peaks. Kissable peaks. Suckable peaks.

Oh, shit. In his urgency to make her safe, to get her the hell out of Burma, he’d forgotten about this part of the arrangement, the mind-numbing need he had to possess her body.

His gaze fell farther and his lips tingled as he watched rivulets of water circle, run into, then fall away from the most beautiful navel in the world. A shallow lake formed at the base of her belly button; he wanted his tongue right there, sucking the water into his mouth.

His gaze wandered a little more, down and down, landing on the nest of her hair and staying there.

Only then did he realize the steamy room had filled with a delicate tangerine scent. Only then did he remember what his presence did to her. Only then did he nearly double over in agony as a sudden fierce erection fought with his kilt and the snug briefs he wore under it.

Jesus H. Christ.

First love,

Oh, the thrill

But savor what may not last.

Yes, savor.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 7

Parisa was right where she wanted to be, more than any place in the entire world … in two worlds.

She smiled and let the warm water heat up her chilled skin. She took a deep breath and there it was, the one thing she could not experience when she voyeured Antony: his sage scent. The strong masculine smell pierced her brain and sent shivers over her entire body.

Her knees buckled and she would have fallen but he was suddenly there and caught her. He still wore his black leather kilt and battle sandals in the shower, but her hands landed on his bare chest. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. Sort of. He was pressed up against her. She could feel him, all of him. His erection was a hard line up past her belly button. His height and long legs put her at a disadvantage unless she wore heels, stilettos maybe. She’d always felt gangly at five-eleven but his height made her feel petite. “My knees sort of gave out.” She couldn’t tell him why because suddenly her cheeks were on fire.

He had been her fantasy for well over a year now, from the moment she had first voyeured him. She had thought of him as belonging to her, even all those times she’d watched him take women into the red velvet booths at that naughty club, the Blood and Bite. She understood the needs of a man and she felt his need right now.

The only question was, what was she going to do about it?

Three months ago, she had been prepared to leave him behind—the world of ascension had been too brutal for her. She had intended to refuse ascension and return to her quiet, solitary library life.

But three months in captivity, added to her discovery of what Fiona Gaines had endured since the late 1800s, had shifted something inside her.

She couldn’t go back to Mortal Earth, not now, not ever. It wasn’t so much that she believed she belonged on Second Earth; rather, she had a job to do, and she could only do it if she chose this world here and now. Maybe choosing ascension would mean an eternity with Antony, maybe it wouldn’t. But right now she wasn’t choosing Antony, she was choosing a sense of duty and purpose.

But how did this man, this fantasy of maleness, fit into her change of heart? She just didn’t know. The thought of being with him in a real sense, not a fantasy, frightened her—and not because he was powerful. What frightened her was how vulnerable she felt when she was with him, as though the real power he had over her was that he could hold her heart in his hand and crush it, something she had not allowed from anyone since her fiancé had walked out on her. She had kept her heart close and safe in the same way she’d kept her friends at a distance.

She had learned from an early age to live a life of independence.

But now she was here, in Antony’s shower, with his arms wrapped around her holding her up. From the moment she had first seen him, she’d wanted to kiss him, to press her lips to his beautiful mouth, to see what it would be like to be connected in that very simple way to this powerful warrior.

He looked down at her now, his arms tense behind her back, his nostrils flaring, but he seemed frozen. Perhaps he sensed her reticence, or maybe he was just being considerate after all she’d been through.

So she moved. She slid her arm up and around his neck, his thick, muscled warrior neck. His hair was trapped in the cadroen. She leaned up on tiptoes. She drew very close to his face. He searched her eyes.

“So beautiful” came as a soft murmur, a gentle waterfall from his lips.

She pressed her mouth to his, just so, not hard, not gentle, a first meeting, an invitation, a decision.

He trembled. She felt it all down his body, in every place he was connected to her.

He moaned and his body moved serpent-like, a fluid motion of sensation. His arms traveled around her even more, gathering her close. She drifted her mouth from side to side, and his lips parted. She kept drifting until she took his breath into her body and all that sage traveled into her lungs.

His scent rose inside up and up, then penetrated her brain. She weaved on her feet.

One of his arms left her back, and he shut off the water. “Will you come to my bed?”

The decision was already made. She couldn’t deny the man who had saved her life, who had saved her sanity during a period of incarceration, who smelled of heaven and earth blended into one.