“I’ve got it,” she said.
“Actually,” Kerrick said, looking from one to the other. “I’ve got it.”
They both stared at him. Thorne’s eyes popped. “What the f**k? You can fold?” Of course this brought all the brothers’ attention in his direction, and within two seconds they’d formed a new arc around him.
“You can fold now?” Alison cried.
He nodded. He couldn’t stop grinning. He felt like a kid at a T-ball game who’d scored his first home run.
All the brothers pounded his back, his arms, his shoulders.
“That’s amazing,” Alison cried. “How? When did this happen?”
The warriors stopped to listen but his eyes were for her. “About the time that I decided I wasn’t going to live my life without you.”
He heard her quick intake of breath and saw her eyes shimmer with tears. “No crying,” he said, kissing her forehead. “There’s no crying in ascension.” Would she get the reference?
She chuckled. “A League of Their Own. I love that movie.”
His gaze locked with hers and he could smell a sudden gust of lavender. He breathed in, his nostrils flaring, his eyes closing. Oh. God.
Thorne took the cue without having to be told. He ordered a full-scale assault on the Blood and Bite. The brothers cheered as they folded one after the other, each casting a raised fist of triumph in Kerrick’s direction before vanishing.
The sudden emptiness, the quiet in the room affected him. He loved the Brotherhood, the jibes, the cheers, the solid comfort of male bonding. He felt their presence even when gone. He looked around the beat-up hovel of a rec room, the flat-screen smashed and hanging at an angle, the ragged leather sofas, spit wads on the ceiling, the pool table that looked like roosting chickens would show up any minute, new bottles of Ketel One and Maker’s and all the other preferred drinks of the warriors, now spread out on the bar.
His brothers.
As he glanced down at Alison, he knew all that would change, from this moment forward. He would have two loyalties now, but the greater would be to this woman, to their child, to his family.
“So you can fold now,” Alison said once more.
He nodded. He eased her from his side to gather her into his arms. She rested her hands against his weapons harness and smiled up into his face. He searched her gaze. They were together and his heart was so full. “I want you to know I meant what I said—I won’t live my life without you, without our daughter. But those are my feelings, my wishes, my intentions. What are yours? Because as much as I long to be with you, I won’t force my will on you. I would never do that.”
As she put her hand on his cheek, her eyes glistened. “I want to be with you more than life itself and I refuse to live apart from you. So I have only one question I need to ask you.”
“And that would be?”
“Can you take me with you when you fold?”
He laughed. “I don’t know but I’m sure as hell willing to give it a try.”
“Then do it, Warrior.”
He nodded and with both arms holding Alison tight, he thought the thought.
He materialized a couple of seconds later next to his bed with Alison still in his arms. She sniffed twice then threw her arms around his neck and wept.
He wasn’t sure why she was crying so he waited. He stroked her hair, her shoulders, her back. His neck grew wet. “I just thought,” she said at last, dragging a breath into her lungs, “this would never happen.” She sighed and sniffed a little more. He felt a slight movement of air—oh, she’d folded a tissue—then she blew her nose. “But I didn’t mean to cry. I’m just so happy.”
“I know,” he said, savoring her body pressed up against his. “I love you so much. I didn’t think we’d get to be together, either. It seemed impossible but I’m so glad you’re with me. Here. Now. You feel so damn good in my arms … guardian. My wonderful therapist guardian.”
She chuckled. He slid his arms around her a little more then squeezed. With her arms still wrapped around his neck she hugged him back.
He had his woman where he wanted her, in his bedroom, right next to his oh-so-massive bed. He wanted her naked and between the sheets.
“Kerrick,” she murmured, drawing back, her hands now fondling his biceps. “What changed … for you, I mean? Why are you okay with our being together now? I mean I could see that something was different the moment you returned to the Cave, but what?”
He looked into her eyes, her beautiful blue eyes rimmed with gold and still wet with tears. He slid his hand behind her nape and with his thumb stroked her cheek. He loved her so much. “About the time you went to the training camps, I moved into this room, the bedroom I’d shared with Helena all those decades ago.” She shifted slightly and glanced at the bed. She sighed and returned her gaze to him. He continued, “I kept thinking about her, about Helena, about the kinds of things she used to say to me, the arguments she’d used to persuade me to marry her. She was fearless, Alison. But more than that, she had accepted her death, a lesson I needed to learn, especially if I wanted to be with you as well as to have a shared life with our daughter.
“I need you to understand that the warrior drive to protect is like—well, it’s as powerful as the shield you set up to defeat Leto. With that drive comes both guilt and an unwillingness to accept failure.”
She swallowed hard. “So, for you, Helena’s death, and the deaths of your children, was a failure.”
His heart sank. “An enormous one.”
“But Kerrick—”
“No. Don’t try to soothe the pain. You can’t and I’m good with it, I really am, but I won’t pretend that their deaths didn’t create a chasm between you and me.” He huffed a sigh, his hands now gliding up and down her back. “The truth is, I could not have taken this step with anyone other than you, because of the powers and abilities you possess. I could never have married an ascender like Helena again because I know in my heart the results would have been the same. She would have died.
“Which is why our being together seems so miraculous to me and why the breh-hedden, arriving as it did with you, frames that miracle. Who you are, with your powers and abilities, is the reason I can take this step today, the only reason. Nothing less would have made any sense or made our life together possible.
“So I find myself grateful beyond words for you. For. You.”