Gideon directed his men to spread out, to form a large circle with Elise at the center, at least two dozen yards away from her, well beyond the large boulder she still leaned against.
At last satisfied with the location of each squad, he turned his attention to her. He crossed the ten or so yards to her, his preternatural vision seeing the darkness around her as though lit with a soft light. She wore a T-shirt, jeans, sensible running shoes. He approved.
When he reached her, he grabbed her arm. “You okay?”
She blinked several times. “Yes, but you’re kind of hurting me.”
“Shit. Sorry.” He released her arm. “A little wound-up.”
“I can see that. So why are you here? I mean, what are you doing here?”
Gideon couldn’t quite focus. His gaze slid past the boulder to the squad on the other side. His thoughts darted in several directions at once: who would Greaves send to present his offer, would Endelle show up, would his men do what they needed to do, would anyone die tonight?
“Gideon?”
He shifted his gaze back to her. “Yes?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
He narrowed his eyes, tried to focus. “What was it?”
“What areyou doing here?”
“Oh. Okay.” He told her about his earlier conversation with Seriffe. “In the end, Madame Endelle agreed to allow me, or rather us, to protect you.”
She nodded. She glanced around. “You brought so many of your warriors with you.”
He tracked her gaze. “I brought the best. You’re in good hands. My section has one of the best records in dealing with death vamps.”
“So basically, you orchestrated all of this.”
“Yes, of course.”
She shook her head, but she smiled. Her eyes looked watery. “There is noof course, Gideon. This is just amazing to me.”
He was truly confused. “Why would you say that?”
She lowered her voice. “Because you broke up with me and you yelled at me about ascending. I liberated you from any responsibility here, remember?”
He stared into her brown eyes. A slight breeze brought wisps of hair streaming over her face. He pushed them back, tucking the loose strands behind her ear. “You’re important to me, Elise. That’s the beginning and end of it. And I can’t help that I feel a sense of responsibility toward you. It’s who I am. Despite what I said earlier, you must know that I care about you. I care what happens to you. I just wish you didn’t smell like strawberries.” There. He’d summed it all up. Nice, neat, tidy, orderly.
And suddenly, just like that, he couldn’t breathe. All he could do was stare into her eyes, take in her delicate, very womanly scent, and stare.
You’re so beautiful, he sent, forgetting for just this moment that she wasn’t telepathic.
But she smiled and as though she smoothed soft fingertips over his mind, she responded,I was into you from the moment I saw you at the Blood and Bite. I wanted you in a way I’d never wanted a man before. I had to have you and I’m so sorry that I lied to you.
“Oh, Elise,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around her.
“Did you hear my thoughts? Tell me you heard them.”
“Each one,” he whispered, aware that the audience, though dozens of yards away, was considerable. “That you wanted me.” He repeated the gist and she smiled again, leaning against him.
“You have so much power,” he whispered, drawing her against his chest. A chill went through him. Even with thirty-two Thunder God Warriors present, even with his own advanced powers, would it be enough to keep her alive?
Elise drew back slightly and stared into dark blue eyes, her special vision holding him in a glow. Her gaze traveled down to the battle gear he wore. She’d seen it in her dreams and every once in a while a warrior would show up at the Blood and Bite in what she knew to be flight gear, but this was real.
When she saw the two dagger hilts up close, however, she put her hands on his arms. “Oh, God, this is real, isn’t it? Ascension, vampires, dimensional worlds, everything, isn’t it?”
Compassion entered his eyes. “Yeah. It’s f**king real. And you’re ascending. Damn, I can’t believe you’re ascending.”
Once more he drew her close and held her.
She wanted to ascend. This was the right decision for her. But if she ascended, if she made a new life for herself on Second Earth, how could she be near Gideon, yet never be with him again? Although in another sense that was an easy question to answer.
The death of her father had shattered their small, close-knit family of three. Afterward, her mother had usually carried two jobs just to keep the bills paid, so Elise had been on her own a lot.
The one time she’d tried to share her difficulties with her mother, that she’d had a vision about one of the neighborhood kids, her mother had blown up. She’d yelled at Elise about her selfishness and her need to control her absurd imagination. Elise had simply shut down in order to survive.
The increase of her powers over the years had shrunk her solitary existence even more. She’d had the occasional boyfriend, but nothing serious, since what guy would be able to handle a woman who could see the future?
She wasn’t complaining, not really. She’d learned to create a good life for herself and overall, she enjoyed her independence.
But here she was, locked in Gideon’s arms, an ascended vampire who could understand what she was going through, who had arrived to see her through her rite of ascension, and she felt a profound desire to be with him, maybe even in a forever kind of way. But how could she do that when for the bulk of her existence her only relationship skill was keeping as much distance as possible?Not that Gideon was asking. He seemed to be as relationship-challenged as she was.
“We’ll take this one step at a time.” Had he read her mind?
His voice was deep and resonant, calming. She could feel the beat of his heart because her cheek was pressed tight against his throat. Her neck was arched and her lips were oh-so-close to his vein. She stood five-ten to his six-five, so she had to lift up on her toes to hold her present position. Her chest drew into a knot as her nostrils flared and she breathed in the toffee-male scent of him.
Familiar longings, deep and profound, swirled through her entire chest cavity. Her surroundings disappeared. Only he existed. She ached for this man, this vampire. Shecraved him.
But something more reached her nostrils, something rich, thick and heavy, something alive and flowing, something that represented all that he was, a meal that would satisfy her cravings. Her gums tingled and at exactly the same moment, she felt a matching tingle in a V down her back, from shoulder blades to waist.