He positioned himself as well as he could. She slid her arm around his neck to anchor him. She struck and the sensation caused his cock to jerk inside her. He tensed, holding back. Dammit, he almost came. He breathed light shallow breaths as she began to draw on his blood.

Whatever he was going to do, he had to do it quick.

He closed his eyes. You ready?

Yes.

Within her mind, he moved swiftly to her obsidian flame channel. He dove within and he heard her groans and it was all good.

Thorne. Oh, God, Thorne.

I know. I’m feeling it, too. Sweet Jesus all that sensation is going straight to my groin. He pumped faster. The tunnel was dark and long. Pleasure flowed all around him, teasing his mind, sending streaks of pleasure down through his torso and into his lower abdomen in pulsing streaks that built the deeper he dove.

He saw the pinprick of light that zoomed toward him opening suddenly and then he was inside her power, inside obsidian flame. All that pleasurable sensation intensified and the pulses quickened.

He could tell her orgasm was close.

Her screams were the first signal. The second was the bright flash of light. The third was the sudden energy that propelled him back up through her mind as at the same time he began to ejaculate. He pulsed and pumped and came, the orgasm taking him on a long, long ride all the way back up through her dark tunnel, now made light and brilliant.

He had never felt such intense pleasure, such a complete orgasm, still pulsing within him. She writhed beneath him. Thorne, I’m still coming.

Yes. He couldn’t say more than that. He was still flying. His body stilled for a moment, but he threw his head back as another orgasm caught him and he came a second time, apparently to Marguerite’s pleasure because she was screaming again, and arching her hips into him as hard as he was thrusting against her.

When he finally burst from her obsidian flame power it was like being propelled into outer space. He floated as the last of the second orgasm eased out of him, small twinges, sharp and perfect.

He was breathing hard as his body settled down on hers. I’m going to withdraw from your mind.

Huh? Oh. Sure. Okay.

She was breathing hard as well.

He withdrew, but it felt strange and rubbery until a final little pop separated his mind from hers.

She chuckled against him. “That was weird. Wonderful but weird.”

“Yeah.” He could speak. Sort of. “Wow.”

“I know. My mind is full of beautiful rainbow-colored sparkles, like a shower of fireworks. I think I’m high.”

“I know I am.” He drew out of her so he could pull back and look into her eyes. “That was beautiful. What was it like for you?”

She shook her head. “I’m befuddled.”

He smiled and leaned close to her, propping himself up over her with one arm. “Befuddled?”

“Bemused, confused, idiotic. My mind is like a slug right now, but it feels so good.”

He kissed her, a soft pressure on her lips, then drew back.

“When you left the center of my power—”

“You mean when your orgasm propelled me out—”

“Is that what happened?”

“That’s what it seemed like inside your mind.”

“When you flew through that channel, oh … my … God. It was like a lightning strike of pleasure that kept coming and coming. I don’t why I’m still alive. And you know what else?”

“What?”

“We are so doing that again. A lot.”

He chuckled and kissed her. He spent the next several minutes just kissing her, thumbing her cheek, feeling her tongue on his lips, kissing her some more. He looked into her eyes and wondered how he could have ever thought of not having a life with her. He wondered if he should complete the breh-hedden with her—as in, maybe there was such a thing as destiny, maybe they even had a shared job to do, something together. Who else could have made love to her like this, traveling within her mind and entering her obsiddy power, as she called it.

It struck him as not insignificant that she matched him in power.

“What are you thinking about so hard?”

“You. Me. This thing between us. I’m trying to understand what it is. All this … power, especially my ability to handle all that you can give me.”

She nodded. “Do you think it’s more than the breh-hedden? More than that weird myth?”

“No. I think it is the myth.” He held his hands out to her. She took them, and he drew her back into the tub to rinse off.

Marguerite splashed in the water, then floated. He pushed on her shoulder, hip, or ankle and spun in her circles, moving away from her as necessary. She giggled and released very deep sighs. She looked happy.

The bathroom had a grotto-like appearance, with all the dark, rough gray stone and deeply inset ceiling lights.

“Do you know what I’d like?” she asked.

“No. What?”

“A nap. Maybe all afternoon until Alison’s dinner.”

Some great happiness within Thorne’s chest pushed at two thousand years of defensive bulwarks. An ease began to flow through him and he could breathe, really breathe. He helped her step out of the pool, followed after her, then folded a huge fluffy bath sheet into his hands to wrap her up.

She stood with her eyelids hanging low, but she was smiling. Her short blond hair was pushed straight back, which made her brown eyes appear huge in her face.

He dried off as well, then he led her to the bed, folding the covers back with his mind.

She looked around. “I need something to wear.”

“Why?”

Her gaze snapped to his face, then she laughed. “A hundred years of Convent training. Well, fuck that.” She dropped the towel and dove into bed, which gave him a fine view of her ass. He followed her.

Funny how she opened her arms and grabbed him, latching onto his neck with her mouth and sucking over his vein hard. At the same time, she pushed him onto his back, which was very easy for her to do since he sensed the direction of her thoughts and had no will to resist her.

Within a minute, he slid into all her beautiful rose wetness as she moaned and once more took his blood down her throat. He held on to her waist as he pumped into her, keeping her seated and enjoying the ride all over again.

Because he had come so recently, and all the nerve endings of his cock were still beautifully enflamed, this orgasm was almost more exquisite than the last two, which seemed impossible.

He held her for a long, long time afterward, keeping himself inside her and savoring that in such a position she simply fell asleep in his arms, satisfied and content.

He could stay this way forever, his woman in his arms, his maleness keeping his essence inside her, the soft mounds of her breasts warm against his chest.

He fell asleep and dreamed.

He led an army of thousands. No … millions.

Militia Warriors and a group he didn’t recognize but he thought, Underground.

He flew at the head of this army that covered the skies for miles and miles both in depth and breadth.

He flew holding his sword aloft and in front, away from the vast sweep of his enormous silver wings. But the wings had flames now, dark iridescent gray against the silver.

He woke up with a start. He was now on his side, spooning Marguerite. He glanced at the clock on the dresser opposite. He’d been asleep for several hours; it was just after four.

He tried to recall the dream in its particulars, but he could only capture the images in brief flashes. All that he could really remember was the size of the army—vast—and the feeling that it was one of several armies all in flight, all at the same time, some under a dark night sky, others in full daylight.

The end of everything.

Or the beginning of peace and the eradication of all death vampires from two dimensions.

Purpose began to flow through his veins, a very deep abiding purpose, something large that filled his chest with fire and made the muscles of his limbs tense and release, tense and release.

Marguerite awoke with a start and pushed away from him, sliding from bed and staring at him. “What’s happening to you? I suddenly felt like I was being burned.”

He didn’t know. The sensation was acute, however, and full of heat. He slid to the side of the bed but remained seated, his feet flat on the cool stone floor. He put his head in his hands and took deep breaths. He felt sick to his stomach, and a pain began to build within his head.

Marguerite drew close and put a hand on his shoulder. “Thorne, what’s wrong. Look at me. Talk to me.”

He met her gaze through a veil of pain. “I don’t know.”

She put her hand on his forehead, then said, “Oh, God, I’m having a vision.”

* * *

Marguerite felt the vision press in on her, but then stop and remain outside of what she now knew was her obsidian flame power. She called her power forth, as though wrapping it around her shoulders.

She saw the ribbon and knew that it belonged to Thorne, an elegant silver and gray, but iridescent. It rose to a vast height, something that generally the ribbons never did. She intuited that Thorne was in the process of change, big change, enormous change. She wondered suddenly if he was destined to ascend to Third Earth. He had been on Second Earth a long time, and he was very powerful. It was possible, but for the moment she set that aside.

Without hesitating, she dove inside the ribbon to see what the future streams were shouting about.

The vision came in slow steady images, of Thorne leading a huge army, in the sky, in the lead, his sword outstretched.

The vision shifted and there was Greaves’s army led by a man she didn’t know, who had waves of red hair flowing behind him. His eyes were a light blue, and power radiated from him in dark waves. She felt the weight of his darkness like a suffocating blanket in the future streams.

The image shifted back to Thorne and this time she saw the gray flame markings on his wings, and his wings had become enormous. They even billowed with what looked like silver flames from the tips.

Then she understood.

Obsidian flame.

By the time she pulled out of the vision, Thorne had dropped to the floor and was rolling in pain.