She understood the breh-hedden perhaps better than he did because Thorne had given many reports of it, how it had afflicted Kerrick and Alison, and the other warriors and their women. She saw how it affected him now. It always brought change and—perhaps more important—a complete shifting of purpose and drive.
She had her purpose and she couldn’t imagine that changing. Still, she smelled Leto and his primal scent worked in her body, reminding her of every poetic couplet she’d created over the past hundred years.
“I am unworthy of you,” he said.
She turned back to him, horrified. “Is that what you think I’m pondering right now?”
“It would be natural.” He held his palms out and stared at them. “I have so much innocent blood on my hands and even more in the future.”
She moved to him so fast it was a blur of speed. And since she dropped to her knees, he jerked backward, stunned.
But she took his hands and held them tight. She stared into his clear blue eyes. “You are worthy, Leto, a thousand times over, a thousand times more than you believe.”
His breath was ragged. “Do you know what you smell like to me? The most fragrant earth, clean and pure with just the faintest hint of sweet wildflowers.” His hand found the back of her neck. She liked it there, almost possessive, very intimate.
“You’re the forest to me, Leto, heavy and wild, dark, foreboding, exciting.”
He groaned softly. “Let me kiss you.”
She felt the pressure on her nape and she allowed him to pull her toward him until his lips found hers. A tingling traveled over her lips, so enticing. Her lips parted and his tongue dipped just a little, rimming her mouth, gliding over the edge of her teeth.
She had forgotten, truly, she had forgotten how wonderful it was to have the physical connection, the touch. She had loved kissing her husband and it had been a very long time.
He moaned softly as he pushed his tongue deep into her mouth. The little shivers returned to skate up and down the insides of her thighs, little guiding lights aimed at the well of life, the place where such swelling took place, such rising of pleasure to the point of ecstasy.
He dragged her up until she lay against the breadth of his warrior chest. This was the moment that brought home to her all the physical truths of what giving him up would mean. He kissed her hard now, his tongue working her mouth the way his c**k would work the deep, dark part of her body. He held her in his powerful heavy arms so that she was pressed against his muscled chest and through the thin layer of his shirt and her gown, she could feel the dips and swell of him.
Her mind began to grow very lax, very loose, as though the scent that now engulfed her was like the heavy blanket of dry summer forest air. She couldn’t quite think.
But as he kissed her, another image intruded, of a handsome face, dark eyes, and long curly hair.
Casimir.
A trembling began at the soles of her feet, pulling at her. She couldn’t help that she drew slowly away from Leto until she stood upright and flat-footed on the woven antique carpet of Warrior Medichi’s living room.
She closed her eyes and held her arms wide, her palms flat and facing upward toward the ceiling. The strange energy began to ripple up her legs, through her hips, and up through her torso.
Then Leto’s hands were suddenly on her face.
She opened her eyes and for a moment, the energy diminished. But she shook her head. “Something is wrong, Leto. I can’t explain it.”
A strange collection of words suddenly flowed through her head, accompanied by an almost singing quality, almost like music: To not love them both, is to lose them both.
“I can’t do this with you, not yet. I want to, but…”
“It’s Casimir, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “He’s my breh in the same way you are.”
Leto sank back down on the couch. He looked as though she’d kicked him.
To not love them both, is to lose them both.
“Leto, you must listen to me. Our fates are intertwined with Casimir’s. I can’t explain it but you must accept that. At all costs, he must live. And now, I have no explanation except that it’s a message that has come through my obsidian flame power. Tell me you understand.”
Leto closed his eyes and leaned back against the sofa. “I have understood nothing for a hundred years. I’ve lived a life I’ve deplored, one that went against every belief, every tenet of my soul. Now the breh-hedden comes when I’m ready to pass from ascension, brings you to me, but I’m not allowed to possess you. So no, I don’t understand.”
Grace waited. The one thing she had learned in the Convent was the power of waiting, of patience. How her sister would have laughed at the irony that Grace had to go into a convent to learn to be her sister’s namesake.
She waited now. She settled her spirit down, that part of her that wanted to crawl into Leto’s arms, to touch him low, to give to him every erotic experience she had imagined through the decades. She drew a single deep breath and willed him, if not to understand, then to accept.
Finally, he opened his left arm. His smile might have been crooked and his clear blue eyes may have still been full of sadness, but she saw his acceptance.
She slid next to him and put her head on his shoulder as he surrounded her with his arm. How safe she felt like this, with his powerful muscles holding her close to his heart.
But she could feel the truth: that hell was about to break wide open, if not tonight, then in the early hours of the morning.
But she knew what to do.
She would rise early.
And she would pray.
* * *
“Do you know what I’ve loved?” Thorne asked. He lay flat on his back, in his Sedona bed, and Marguerite rode him, one of his favorite positions because he could see her. All of her.
“What have you loved?” she asked, tilting her pelvis just a little.
He groaned. It was getting difficult to hold back. When he’d been outside with Marcus and the rest of the brothers, he’d gotten so worked up. It was different now, because of the breh-hedden. A kind of communal response had resulted so that Marcus’s suffering had become his, and shit how he’d needed this with Marguerite.
She dipped forward and kissed him. The forward movement of her body stroked him so hard that he could have come just like that, but he wanted the moment to last.
“What do you love?” she asked again, keeping her rhythm strong.
“This. Getting to make love to you anytime I want to. Sometimes when I had to wait until dawn I thought I’d crawl right out of my skin.”