Gates of Rapture (The Guardians of Ascension) (31 page)

He looked at her neck. He needed her blood, that much he knew, and he would take it … soon.

But he still wanted something more.

Using both his hands, he started at the top of her head, and in a long smooth gliding stroke swept down her body, caressing her neck, her shoulders, her arms, then back up the undersides of each to catch her ribs and rub down to her waist, her hips, the outsides of her thighs, her knees, her ankles, even her feet.

He savored doing it, but he also loved that he could feel the pleasure his touch gave her. Incredible.

He flipped her over. Ah, this was what he wanted. He wanted to take her from behind as he had that first time in the basement of his cabin. Now, however, he had control.

He caressed the back of her head, her wing-locks that were still moist, the mounds of her buttocks, which he kissed each in turn, then dragged his hands down the backs of her thighs, her knees, her heels. He stretched out on top of her, his cock pressed between her legs. He felt her laugh—a giggle really, a warm sound.

How had this come to him, this banquet of sensation? How? He didn’t deserve Grace, not even a little bit. Yet she was here, with him, so completely, 100 percent. And she filled him, filled his soul and warmed him where he had been cold and dead, a metaphorical vampire, for how many decades, how many centuries?

He took her arms and spread them out, his own on top of hers. “Spread your legs,” he urged.

She spread them, and he did the same on top of hers.

“We’re flying.”

We certainly are,
she sent.
I’d say the words out loud, but they’d be muffled by the bed.

“Are you comfortable?”

She sighed so that his chest rose and fell with her.
Very.

“I need to take you, Grace. This body, this state, has very definite needs. I need you in this position.”

Leto, you can have me in any position you want.

He shuddered. He let his legs fall between hers and—as he had done when she had first returned to Mortal Earth—he lifted her up so that she was on her hands and knees. He got behind her and made serious use of his tongue once more until she was groaning and pushing back into his face. Her meadow flavor streamed over his tongue.

He rose up and positioned himself at her opening. He held himself steady as she pushed back with her hips. He entered her an inch at a time, pressing into her, watching his cock disappear and at the same time feeling what that was like for her. The dual sensations almost made him come, so he took a few deep breaths.

The rough time in the cellar had been amazing. But this was different, taking his time, watching his beast-sized body connect with hers as only a man can connect with a woman, his cock being drawn into the well of her, into that place built for him.

When he reached the end, he took hold of her hips, kept her steady, and slowly drew back. He groaned the entire distance just as she groaned. He moved his hips back and forth, he arched his pelvis, he teased her as he drove in and out.

He paused and leaned down to reach her back. He licked the weeping wing-locks, as many as he could reach from his position. Each time his tongue swept over a lock, and took in her juices, her body shuddered and her hips twitched, which of course rolled a new sensation down his cock and into his balls.

Sex had never been like this before.

“Take my blood, Leto,” she called to him, her voice hoarse. “I need you to take my blood.”

He almost lost it, hearing the words spoken aloud. To offer up one’s blood was a sacred gesture, the most loving, the most intimate. He licked over her neck, sustaining a slow drive into her body at the same time.

She rose up on one arm and swept her hair away from her neck. She had done the same thing the first time he’d taken her, and somehow that memory rushed forward—of how rough he’d been and how good it had felt—and his hips started to pummel her.

She was vampire-strong and stayed with him, so that when his lips found her neck and his fangs emerged, she held her head perfectly still. He struck, and the taste of her blood brought him in a sudden rush. He groaned and cried out as he sucked, the sounds garbled against her neck.

But he felt her grasp him and pull deep as she held her upper body still so that he could drink and shove himself into her and come and come and come.

*   *   *

Grace felt all this muscled warrior slamming into her and coming and sucking hard at her neck. She was hurting, but it was a good kind of hurt, and it seemed to intensify the sensation of her own orgasm as she held herself immobile. She screamed, long and loud, pleasure streaking through her like flames burning and shooting along every nerve.

Her body seemed so strangely fit for Leto in his beast-state, as though all previous encounters had been paltry. She felt alive, as she’d never felt alive before, as though he was beating new life into her with each heavy thrust. As though with each draw on her neck as he continued to drink, and continued to pulse into her, the act of giving of herself was strengthening all that she was.

The color blue rushed at her from all sides, enlivening her soul, enriching her heart, her thoughts. Her mind was swept with blue and more blue. She felt as though she could soar in this position, take to the skies, with Leto servicing her from behind and taking her blood, as though she could speed straight to the stars and explode into a fireball of blue light, as though she could take her place among the heavens as in the myths of old.

This was ecstasy, oh, yes, a blue heaven of ecstasy.

*   *   *

Later that afternoon, Greaves folded to the Seers Palace, straight to the pit. He needed another hard look into the immediate future so that he could plan his next moves, but what he found was a mess. He wasn’t generally given to profanity, but in this moment he let loose with a couple of very sincere, very descriptive words.

Stannett lay completely naked, his body crusted with red, pink, and white residue. Greaves approached his mind slowly and felt the man’s usual massive shields.

But Greaves wasn’t who he was for nothing. He shaped his mind into a missile and punched hard. He almost fell inside and found a wide sweeping vista of bliss and
nothing,
as though the man’s mind had been erased.

He didn’t think that was possible, so he began to prod around and found the remnants of more orgasms than a man should ever have. Stannett was in some kind of sexual coma and of no use at all.

All six powerful Seers were dead on either side of him.

Greaves grunted his displeasure. Stannett was one of the most gifted men, the most preternaturally powerful men, he’d ever known. But he had an addict’s psyche and would always let his need for mental relief outweigh his rational mind. Stannett had recently forfeited a perfectly elegant setup at the Superstition Mountains Seers Fortress, not because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, but because he couldn’t make sufficient use of his rational mind to keep his schemes on the down-low.

So here Greaves was, cleaning up another mess. He needed pure vision now more than ever. He’d almost succeeded in tearing Grace away from her
breh
—and had he done so, all of his plans would have finally clicked into place. The value of this expensive Seers Palace was proven in his mind, but not with Stannett in his state of excess.

He drew his phone from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and called his command center at the Estrella Mountain Complex. He spoke with an aide, who suggested sending one of his more sadistic Section Leaders over to get Stannett on board. He knew the one, a woman with real potential and strong preternatural power, physically capable of dominating Stannett.

Greaves thought it an excellent plan.

A few minutes later, the woman arrived, a female Militia Warrior with her red hair cut short and pressed flat against her head. Both his army and Thorne’s had the same components: Division and Section Leaders and Militia Warriors. Greaves had added generals at the top so that he need only deal with a handful of military men himself.

Greaves swept a hand in the direction of the pit. The woman moved forward and glanced down. Her lip curled. He had the feeling that if she’d been alone and seen this sight, she would have spit. “Is this the man who raped all those women out at the Superstitions?”

Greaves smiled. Apparently the woman had issues, which meant she would be quite perfect for this task. “The very one. I’d like you to whip him into shape, and I do mean literally. He tends to give himself to pleasure when he should be working.”

The curl of her upper lip turned into a smile, and the hard light in her eye deepened. “With pleasure, master.”

Lovely manners.

He gestured to the corpses. “These will need to be disposed of and more strapped in. You’ll find the cells are full of excellent replacements.”

“Very good, master.”

“As for Stannett, I need him awake and sober. Whatever you need to do to get him to that state—feel free to do.”

“Yes, master.” She jumped down into the pit and folded into her hand a leather whip with silver spikes hooked to the tip.

The sounds of Stannett’s sudden screams accompanied Greaves as he lifted his hand and folded once more to Estrella Mountain and his Command Center.

When he arrived, one of his aides hurried forward with good news. “We have most of the colonies mapped. The rest are close to discovery.”

Greaves had gone over the electronic grid that showed the entire globe of Mortal Earth. He had identified an almost invisible signal that marked the hidden colonies. Once he recognized the signature, his team had created the transmitters as well as the system by which each colony was being mapped using negative space. The process had been more successful than he’d hoped.

This was good news indeed.

“Excellent.” He moved to the deep end of the room, which held several large screens constantly in play. One showed the Mortal Earth colonies; another showed the various locations of his army. A third screen detailed troop movement based on his most recent orders, including minute-by-minute status updates.

He scanned the numbers. Below him, in the underground tunnels of his complex, the bunkers were filling up. He had been a visionary, and right now it was paying off. He had tens of miles of bunkers, drilled deep into the mountain range, large enough to house and feed half a million Militia Warriors for several weeks at a time.

He had seven ambitious generals, all committed to the Coming Order. Each had been chomping at the bit for a real battle for decades. The spirit in the room said everything. There were no squabbles; just a wonderful tense excitement, like a storm building and building.

The Seers reports out of Bogotá showed a battle over White Lake and another odd kind of spectacle event, both of which would take place within the next two to three days.

He smiled as he watched the screens, as he moved from general to general and listened while each orchestrated the movements of the army, either to the bunkers here in Estrella or to several key places in the world for easy dispatch to annihilate the Mortal Earth colonies.

Despite the presence of the obsidian triad and that Casimir was making it almost impossible to kill Leto, Greaves found he was breathing more deeply than he had in a long time.

And, yes, he was smiling.

*   *   *

Grace sat in the kitchen at the villa island and sipped her coffee. Leto stood opposite her near the sink, mug in hand. His hair was loose and shiny all down his shoulders, arms and back. He wore a black tank, jeans, and no shoes. Though he was no longer in his beast-state, he looked … edible.

Her lips parted but no words came out. Just air, a sigh full of desire. Had the
breh-hedden
done this to her, made her want him like she’d never wanted any man before? Probably, and yet she’d always desired him.

His eyes were so blue and clear now. Five months ago, they’d been clouded with pain and despair, the remnants of his life working with Greaves.

Had the
breh-hedden
worked this miracle as well? His healing both within and without?

She eased up on the mug and set it down with a clink on the stone surface. He seemed preoccupied, which didn’t surprise her given the task set before him.

“You’re so quiet,” she said at last. “And you’ve been staring at the faucet for at least a minute. Should I be worried?”

Leto glanced up from his own mug. He chuckled, at least for a moment, then his expression grew somber once more. “I’ve just been thinking about Greaves’s army—or more accurately, the kind of logistics required to bring his army under my command. What I fear is that if I move the divisions in bits and pieces, Greaves will catch wind of what we’re up to, and then all hell will break loose. We’d lose a huge portion of the ranks, and maybe even provoke a battle we would absolutely lose.”

“How many Militia Warriors we talking about? I know you spoke with at least a hundred Division Leaders.”

At that, Leto smiled. “Grace, I’m almost afraid to speak the words out loud, but I honestly think I could bring over a million.”

Grace’s brows rose. “
Half
Greaves’s force?”

Leto nodded. “I just can’t seem to figure out a way to fold that many troops to safety without Greaves knowing.”

Grace wanted to help. It was a simple as that. She stared at her mug, wondering if obsidian flame could be of use to Leto. She had thought her involvement in the war would somehow mean physical battle. Yet as she sipped and pondered, her thoughts turned to Thorne and his aides bent over the grid tracking the enemy’s movements; to Marcus launching web PR all over the world about the attack on the Seattle Colony; to Leto’s training of the colonial militia.

Overt battle was only one facet of war preparation. Right now, the logistics of how to move a million warriors had become the focus.

He rounded the island, setting his cup down as he drew near. He sat on the stool next to her and rubbed his fingers over her arm. She could feel what that felt like to him, the softness of her skin beneath his fingers. She sighed again. And she felt grateful.