Leto glanced at him. He was trying to be mature about the presence of the Fourth ascender since it was clear the whole situation was an ascended convergence, but he still resented Casimir for having taken Grace away. He nodded, then reverted his attention to the corpses. Three of the death vamps needed finishing, so he moved swiftly and took heads.
He took one more long look around, but everything seemed quiet. Satisfied that he wasn’t still under attack, he glanced up at the mist.
Greaves.
Did he really think he could take Leto this way? Was that his purpose?
Then his chest tightened with one simple thought: Grace might be alone in the garden.
He folded to the lane beyond the mist, but the moment he did, his mind felt as though it had just been struck down by a mallet. He couldn’t give shape to his thoughts. Even his body felt heavy and unmovable. But why? What was happening to him?
Casimir materialized next to him. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”
Leto struggled to find the words. “Help Grace. Protect her.”
“No can do. I stay with you, Leto. Sorry. And it looks like Greaves is using his thrall power on you.”
“Fuck.” He had to get to Grace. He could sense she was in danger. For one thing, he couldn’t feel her anymore, not any of her physical sensations.
With great difficulty, he rose from the dirt lane and peered up at Diallo’s large house that overlooked the valley. She was up there, waiting for him. She had agreed to wait, to stay in the garden. At least three squads of Militia Warriors had set up a command center in the house, and Gideon had just gone up there a few minutes ago. She should be safe.
Yet somehow, he knew she wasn’t.
He called to her, mind-to-mind. Grace, Grace.
No answer, which was not possible. They were bonded.
He tried to fold up to the house but couldn’t. He began to walk the long driveway, one uphill step in front of the other. He focused on Grace, but thinking about her only made his mind muddier.
Instead, he focused on Gideon.
That was better. Gideon. One foot in front of the other.
Casimir walked beside him. He glanced at him, even though it was difficult. He sent, Can you fold me to the house?
“I’ll try.” Casimir put his hand on Leto’s shoulder. He could feel the attempt to fold him, but Casimir couldn’t do it, either. Sorry, Leto. This is Greaves’s party.
Greaves. That asshole.
But the moment he thought of the Commander, he fell to his knees and a terrible pain sliced through his mind.
Oh, shit. Once more he shifted his focus to thoughts of Gideon. He kept what was left of his mind centered on the Militia Warrior. Gideon was tall. Yes. He was at Warrior of the Blood level now, but he refused to leave the Thunder God Warriors. Jean-Pierre had brought Gideon’s powers online. Yes, his brother warrior, Jean-Pierre, had developed new powers once he completed the breh-hedden with Fiona. He could now lift other warriors up to higher levels. Yes, that was what Jean-Pierre could do, and that was what he had done for Gideon.
He just had to keep thinking about Gideon or Jean-Pierre.
His feet were so heavy, but it didn’t matter. He understood that his breh was in trouble, but he wouldn’t think her name.
On and on he pressed, but it was like moving through a nightmare. Finally, he made it to the front walk. At last, he pushed the door open. Two Militia Warriors drew their swords to challenge him, though they immediately backed off when they recognized who he was.
“Forgive us, Warrior Leto.” Each looked him up and down because he was still in his beast-form.
“Gideon,” he whispered. His voice sounded hoarse, and he’d barely been able to get the word out.
They called for Gideon. He came running. He had blond hair, but not so dark as Jean-Pierre’s, nor so light as Luken’s.
“Warrior Leto, what’s wrong? You’re covered in blood. Are you injured?”
He put his hand on Gideon’s shoulder and breathed hard as he said, “Grace. Danger.”
“She’s in the garden. Shit, what the fuck has happened?”
“Go to her.”
Gideon called his men in close, and as one powerful unit they marched into the garden calling Grace’s name.
* * *
Greaves was sweating and exhausted. The effort to mind-control two such powerful ascenders, in two separate locations, was costing him. But he was close to shutting Grace’s mind down, getting her to agree to go with him, and the longer he worked her mind, the more he could feel her resistance breaking down.
Come with me. Say the word out loud, and I will fold you to my home in Geneva. Say that you agree to come with me.
Her lips moved. Her jaw worked. She lifted her face to him. I want …
The next moment he heard Militia Warriors shouting. They were calling for Grace. He was out of time. Though he had mist around himself and Grace, the garden was small and the most any of the warriors had to do was to just push through. Or fold.
“Over here.”
Greaves heard Casimir directing traffic. Shit.
“Gideon, break through here.”
Grace, say you’ll come with me.
* * *
Grace was growing weary, fighting against Greaves. She knew if she said yes, it would feel so good. But something deep inside her, perhaps even her soul, refused to give up. If only she could open her eyes.
She felt a strange sliding up and down her arms, and she heard her name called as if from a great distance.
She wouldn’t go with him. “No,” she said, and her voice sounded stronger. “No. I won’t go with you.”
“Come back to me.”
“No.” She began to struggle against the arms now gripping and shaking her. She slashed out at Greaves with her fingernails and screamed at him.
Then suddenly, Leto was in her mind. Grace. Grace. Can you hear me?
Leto?
I’m here.
She fought harder and flew at Greaves. She started screaming and pushing at him, clawing at his face, kicking him. She wouldn’t go. She would never go with him willingly.
“Open your eyes.”
But it wasn’t Greaves’s voice that she heard.
She forced herself to obey. Finally, she popped her eyes wide. Leto was in his beast-state standing beside the chaise, next to her. She was safe, but he had blood running down his face in deep scratches. “What happened to you?” she cried. Then she understood. “Oh, Creator help me, did I do that to you?”
“It’s okay. I will heal very fast.” He dragged her into his arms and held her tight. “He almost had us. Both of us. He used some kind of mind control. I couldn’t think straight. I barely made it up the hill to get to you.”
Grace pushed back. “He promised me so many wonderful things, to bring peace to Second Earth, no more war, if I would just go with him. He had me in thrall.” She shuddered.
“He’s gone. But we can’t stay here. He got through Endelle’s mist.”
“How could he have known where I was?” Even as she spoke the words, she understood. “Stannett and the future streams.” She shook her head and slid her arms around Leto’s neck. “Leto, we’re in trouble. Greaves divided us, even though we’re bonded. He found me because of the future streams. I … I don’t know what to do. Where do we go? Where do we hide that he can’t find us?”
* * *
Greaves folded back to his penthouse in Geneva and collapsed on the floor in the living room, facedown. His fingers grasped the thick carpet, and he squeezed. He experienced a profound preternatural exhaustion. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d exerted so much effort. Trying to gain control over two extremely powerful ascenders at the same time had used him up.
So much power. His body vibrated with what he’d felt from both Grace and Leto. Greaves had power, but he’d just attempted the impossible, to wrest a woman from her breh.
Maybe he would have succeeded if Casimir hadn’t jo
ined Leto in his fight against the death vampires. Even then, the shield he’d put around Leto should have kept him immobile. But Leto wasn’t himself anymore. He had somehow gained the power to transform into a Third Earth warrior.
The entire time he’d been working at breaking Grace’s will, he had felt Leto’s impossible walk up the hill to Diallo’s house. At least Casimir had been unable to help him fold to Greaves’s position.
Grace. My God.
There was something within Grace’s power structure, because it was anchored by the earth, that was both highly compassionate and at the same time incredibly erotic, unlike anything he’d ever known. He panted as he lay on his carpet.
Grace would never be sadistic, but she had power that vibrated along the insides of his thighs and up through his testicles. For a woman who espoused all things spiritual, she was surely a reincarnation of Aphrodite. She could command him if she understood her power. That she didn’t and probably never would was the only real advantage he had in this situation. He couldn’t be manipulated by her because it would never occur to her to make the attempt.
Greaves had been so close with Grace, so close to getting her to surrender. By the rules of COPASS, neither he nor Endelle could kill anyone outright or abduct them. And though he had over a third of COPASS in his pocket, he knew an outright abduction wouldn’t be overlooked by those members of the ruling committee who still held to their morals.
For just a moment, however, he had debated taking her and having her killed immediately, which would have ended the obsidian flame threat.
But the repercussions would have been swift. Endelle would have gone to Prague and argued against him in front of the entire COPASS committee. He was simply unwilling to take that kind of risk at this late hour, not with a decisive battle looming before him.
He could feel the battle coming now, and with it his chance at securing his ambitions. In so many ways, he was fully prepared. He even had an ace up his sleeve, something no one knew about. If all else failed, he would use this specialized power and hopefully overcome whatever odds presented themselves.
Yet because of a mere woman, the key to obsidian flame, he was living a nightmare. All his plans had come down to Grace and her ability to fulfill the power latent in the triad. He understood that once a triad came together, there was always one member who could acquire the abilities of other ascenders. The nature of the power or ability didn’t matter—from wielding a sword to healing the mind to throwing hand-blasts. Once that triad member learned the skill, obsidian flame could then magnify that skill a thousandfold. He knew for a fact that there was at least one triad operating on Third Earth. He had witnessed for himself a valley of warriors slain by a single hand-blast, and in turn he had seen a hundred thousand people folded out of the path of a flash flood.
If only he’d had been able to persuade Grace to surrender to him, he could have turned her over to his favorite death vampires and let them dispose of her.
But she had held steady to the end. He had failed.
His blood finally settled down so that he could ease himself up off the floor. He showered and changed into a fresh Hugo Boss suit. He put on his pinkie ring of black onyx. He would head to Estrella next and continue working military strategies with his generals.
Before leaving, Greaves checked on Julianna, his current love-slave. She was facedown on the bed, naked, a sheet just covering her buttocks. Her wing-locks were torn but healing well. Their last session had been one of the best yet. Despite his arousal while feeling Grace’s earth-based power, Julianna was his preference. The claw that he could bring forth from his DNA-altered left hand tingled at the thought that she might be healed as early as noon, at which time they could enjoy another energetic half hour or so.
He glanced at her nightstand and frowned. There was a vase with at least two dozen long-stemmed peach-colored roses in it. He saw a card on the table.
He wondered if someone was attempting to seduce his woman. Casimir had once held Julianna captive in his Paris One apartment. Maybe he wasn’t as reformed as he appeared.
Greaves moved to the table and read the card. He couldn’t help but smile. Sometimes he thought he and Stannett were brothers. The words on the card, in Stannett’s hand, were very simple, “Grace has come home. Casimir, too.”
He saw something gleam behind the vase. Ah, a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Julianna had needed some solace.
He leaned down and kissed one of the upper shredded wing-locks. “Patience,” he whispered. “You will have your chance to destroy one or both of them, I have no doubt.”
Grace had stolen Caz away from her, and to a woman of Julianna’s temperament, that was an unforgiveable sin.
* * *
Grace sat across from Leto in the Apache Two conference room, her arms folded over her chest. It was past midnight now, and all the events of the day and evening had taken a toll. She was beyond exhausted. But no decision had been made yet about where they would settle down for the rest of the night. Leto had reverted to his normal size, and he’d changed from his stained battle gear into jeans and a dark T-shirt. He’d even showered in the Militia Warriors locker room.
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.
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“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.