Burning Skies (56 page)

Havily swished back into her primary self, dizziness engulfing her mind. Crace still had Marcus pinned down, still smiling.

But a second later, behind him, Luken appeared, sword in hand. She had never seen such a beautiful sight.

This time, Havily smiled.

“Hey, asshole,” Luken called out.

Crace rose off Marcus as though he were floating. Marcus rose up as well, at least to a sitting position. He shifted toward her. “Havily,” he croaked.

But Havily couldn’t turn away from the other sight of Luken as he faced off with Crace.

Luken’s sword began to whirl almost magically. He was the biggest of the warriors and a good match for Crace. Luken’s face flamed as his sword whipped in circles. How was Luken doing that?

Crace lowered his head and shoulders. He folded a sword into his hand as well. He even laughed, but he misjudged his opponent. Luken moved with preternatural speed and the whirling sword flew in an arc and glided through Crace’s neck as though he’d been cutting through air.

Havily looked away. She didn’t need to see the rest. It was bad enough she heard the thump of Crace’s head as it struck the stone floor.

Marcus rose unsteadily to his feet in front of her. The next moment, arms embraced her and she was lifted up. She smelled fennel, wonderful, glorious fennel. “I’ve got you,” he said. He turned her toward his brother warrior. “
We’ve
got you.”

She felt the fold. The next moment she was back at the spectacle site. Luken appeared to the right of Marcus. She reached her hand out to him. “Thank you,” she murmured. He caught her hand. Tears tracked down his cheeks.

She heard sobbing and turned to her left. Parisa, held in Medichi’s arms, was weeping against his chest. Alison had her hand on Parisa’s head. Kerrick stood nearby, sword in hand, guarding all three of them. The rest of the Warriors of the Blood were stationed all around the perimeter, swords still in hand. Endelle steadied herself with a hand on Kerrick. Darkening work took a toll.

“There’s just one thing I want to know,” Endelle cried. “Is that bastard dead? Did you get him?” Her gaze shifted between Marcus and Luken, back and forth.

Marcus jerked his head in Luken’s direction. “He got him. Crace won’t be causing any more problems.” Marcus drew in a deep breath. “Thank you, Luken.”

“Good,” Endelle barked. She looked around. “Okay. Enough of this shit. We’re getting the hell out of here.” She lifted an arm and the next thing Havily knew, the entire group was on Medichi’s front lawn beneath the ever-present dome of mist.

Havily felt Marcus’s arms lower her to the grass, but she wasn’t certain why. Her mind swam left, then right. In some vague recess of her head, she knew she was clothed only in a thin covering of gauzy fabric but somehow she didn’t care.

Marcus knelt beside her and held her up with one arm around her shoulders. Using his free hand he felt down her arms and over her wrists. He worked down her thighs, her calves, over her feet. He put his hands on her head, her cheeks, her jaw, her neck. “You’re okay. You’re alive. You’re recovering. You’re okay. Did he—?”

Marcus had done something similar before. He’d come to her the day after Crace had attacked her in her town house and fired a bunch of questions at her,
Are you all right, are you hurt, did he touch you.
That moment had been the beginning for them. She had gone to him willingly, now he was here … again. And he was alive! God, how she loved him.

“I’m fine,” she murmured, her tongue dry and thick in her mouth. He took her in his arms and pulled her against him once more. He rocked her back and forth. His arms trembled.

“I thought … you were dead,” she whispered against his neck. Her arms were so weak. She wanted to put them around his neck but couldn’t make them move.

“I’m not.” He drew in a shuddering breath.

“You came for me.”

“Yes, all of us. We all came for you.”

Havily looked around, her head wagging when she didn’t want it to. They were all there, Endelle, Parisa and Alison, and the Warriors of the Blood, every last one of them. Medichi still held Parisa close. Kerrick had his arms around his
breh.
Luken stared at Havily with such affection yet sorrow in his eyes. The rest of the warriors remained at a distance, probably because she was almost naked, in just the strips of gauze fabric. She didn’t care about her nakedness, though, not even a little. She was just grateful, so grateful to be alive, to be unharmed.

Marcus pulled away from. “How did you do it, Havily? How did you manage a split-self?”

She smiled … crookedly … and finally managed to lift her hand enough to touch his cheek. His face was swollen, bruised, bleeding in places, but he’d never looked more handsome. “It was my shields,” she said, her tongue still way too thick and unwieldy from the drugs. She spoke slowly. “My greatest strength … was my greatest weakness. I had to let … my guard down completely … in order to find my way into the darkening.” She drew a breath. “How’s that … for irony?”

“Beautiful,” he said, one hand pressed to his chest, the other tightening around her shoulder. “I think it’s goddamn beautiful.”

Love defies our deepest fears.

—
Collected Proverbs,
Beatrice of Fourth

CHAPTER 23

Havily stared up at the ceiling in the bedroom she shared with Marcus, the coffered ceiling with the beautiful wood beams. She sighed. Three days had passed at Medichi’s villa. Between the drugs in her system and her loss of blood, she had been in a weakened state and recovery had been slow, even for a vampire.

Right now she wore one of Marcus’s soft T-shirts, something he said he only wore on Bainbridge. Nothing else would do, not even her La Perla nightgowns, not because they weren’t soft but because they didn’t carry Marcus’s fennel scent embedded in every thread.

For the first two days she had slept around the clock, waking only at intervals and crying out. But each time, Marcus pulled her close, stroked her back, and whispered his comfort to her.

So she slept, then slept some more.

When she finally knew she wouldn’t be going back to sleep, that she was up for the day, Marcus had kissed her once and promised her a meal. If she understood correctly, he was doing the cooking himself. She wasn’t sure what to think about that.

She smiled at the thought that Marcus,
Warrior
Marcus, head of a multibillion-dollar Mortal Earth financial empire and former Warrior of the Blood, was preparing dinner for her, Havily Morgan. Who was she—an occasional Liaison Officer, a current executive in Endelle’s administration, a vampire whose blood had some of the qualities of dying blood, and an ascender with the ability to split-self and move a second corporeal self into the darkening.

She was calmer now. Sleep had helped, and the heavy sedative had finally left her system. Her mind had therefore started making sense of all that had happened.

She could feel that she had changed but she couldn’t seem to define the next step in her life. Something needed to be different, but what?

Some part of her, an old useless part of her, had died in Crace’s forge.

She was made new, but in what way and which direction should she go now?

She had never expected to see Marcus again. She had been so sure he had perished that none of her new thoughts had included him and yet her life, in some bizarre,
breh-hedden,
elemental way, belonged to Marcus.

But to continue as they had been seemed impossible.

Tears dampened her hair and trickled into her ears. She didn’t even know why she was crying.

The door opened and Marcus appeared with a tray in hand. Her eye was drawn to a really tall red rose standing in a short bud vase. The flower flopped around as he moved. The whole thing looked ready to fall over.

She smiled and her heart swelled.

Then love swallowed her whole. She couldn’t speak as she looked at him. Mostly she was afraid she was glowing with the sensations passing through her, over her, around her. She loved him. Oh, my God, how she loved him.

Then she understood what had changed, what had transformed within her … her ability to love had just expanded to embrace the entire universe. She no longer feared losing Marcus. She had already lost him. But that wasn’t even the point. Life required this kind of love, from the heart, from the soul, from every molecule of the body, fully present, 100 percent engaged, willing to risk, even if that love would never be returned.

“Are you all right?” he asked, rounding the bed. “Your skin looks flushed. Do you have a fever?” Fevers were rare in ascended life so he looked astonished as he asked the question.

She pushed herself up to a sitting position and shoved a pillow behind her back. “I’m fine,” she said, the words a miracle of understatement. Yet she had no other words to speak, even though her heart felt full to overflowing.

He looked like a million bucks since he was dressed in a business suit, black wool, tailored to every muscular curve. But then no one dressed like that in June in Phoenix. Her heart sank. Where was he going? Was it possible he was leaving Second Earth?

She sighed as he settled the tray over her lap. Funny little odors reached her nose and she worked not to grimace. The toast was badly burned on one side and the coffee—grainy looking—had sloshed onto the saucer. The eggs had brown streaks. “This looks wonderful,” she said, her gaze again skating over the suit. She knew he preferred Tom Ford and she could see why. But … where was he going, when, and why? Her heart ached.

He glanced down at the tray and grimaced. “I made everything myself and for that I apologize.”

She looked up at him. She reached for his hand. “Thank you, but you’ll stay, won’t you, right now, and talk to me?”

“Actually, I have to leave.”

So, there it was. Havily’s heart constricted and she only barely restrained a gasp. “So soon?” Over before it had really begun?

He dropped to his knees beside the bed and took her hand. “I should be back within a day or two. Don’t worry.”

Why did two days suddenly seem like the razor edge of eternity? She nodded.

He pushed his longish hair away from his face. “I have business to take care of on Mortal Earth. My CEO has been blasting me with urgent texts. Decisions have to be made. A lot of decisions.”

She nodded. “Absolutely.” Decisions had to be made.

Choices. More of them. Big choices.

She piled some egg on the toast and crunched a bite. She took a sip of gritty lukewarm coffee to wash it down. She smiled. It was the best dinner-breakfast she’d ever eaten.

“Havily, I’m coming back,” he said. “Permanently. I need you to know that.”

Tears rushed to her eyes. She crunched another bite and nodded over her breakfast. “Uh-huh,” she said, blowing bits of dry crust out of her mouth. She sipped more coffee. She chewed and swallowed. Okay, a little more coffee.

She looked at him again. He was frowning at the breakfast. “I can’t cook worth shit. You should know that about me.”

“I do all right but I’m very fond of restaurants.”

At that he looked at her and smiled. He took her hand, drew the fork from her grip, then kissed her fingers. “I have many things I want to say to you, but not today, not like this, and certainly not over burned toast.”

“You should go,” she said. She drank more coffee until the crumbs got swept down her throat.

He touched a tear that rolled down her cheek. He nodded then leaned close and kissed her on the mouth. He kissed her for a very long time, not penetrating, just his lips to her lips. She felt his promise in that kiss, everything that he was, and her heart swelled all over again.

She breathed his fennel scent and savored. Part of her feared that this would be the last time she ever saw him, but the new part, the part that seemed to understand, let it all go, every damn expectation that life would turn out the way she wanted.

So, yeah, she let him go.

He drew back and stood up. “I’ve asked Alison to check in on you. She also said to call her day or night if you needed her. Parisa’s also staying in the villa until Endelle figures out what to do with her. Medichi will be checking on you as well.

“Parisa hasn’t said anything, but I think she’s hoping for another flying lesson.” His expression softened. “You’ll call Alison if you need her, right? Because I’m not happy about leaving you like this.”

“I’ll be fine. You need to go so you should go.”

He leaned down and kissed her once more. He held her gaze for a good long moment. Then he rose back up to his considerable height. He smiled, lifted his arm, and he was gone.

She brushed another tear away then looked at the meal, at the cold brown eggs and black toast. She chuckled. Well, protein was protein and whatever else this experience had been, she needed to eat. Besides, eggs had iron and she still felt weak, dizzy. That bastard had taken
a lot
of her blood.

*   *   *

Marcus folded to his home on Bainbridge Island. The house seemed dark. Of course. Phoenix had brighter sunlight and lots of it. Although June in the Seattle area was a beautiful month, still, he missed all that light.