This is for you alone, Samuel. This is your moment to be honored for your sacrifices and for your commitment to service. And you have to remember that Marcus sent out a thousand press releases, detailing your part in Duncan’s rescue and about your grayle, Third Earth power. Like it or not, you’re a celebrity.

A moment later, from the left side of the stage, Luken reappeared and waved at the crowd so that within a few seconds silence had fallen. But the energy among the spectators was as vibrant as ever so that the moment Luken said in a carrying voice, “I give you Samuel Daman, of Phoenix Two, our candidate for confirmation,” another round of applause swept the theater.

When Samuel didn’t appear, Luken frowned and cocked his head as though listening.

He nodded, clearly communicating telepathically with Samuel in the wings.

Luken’s gaze then shifted to Vela and he held out his hand to her. All eyes shifted in her direction and the theater once more fell silent.

Heat crept up Vela’s cheeks, just as Samuel’s voice entered her head again.

I’ve made a decision, my love. I’m not doing this without you. We’re a team.

Vela crumbled inside at his choice of words.

We’re a team, she sent back.

Because she knew Samuel so well, she understood the weight of these words, the depth of the meaning behind them.

Samuel had gone it alone his entire life, now he was joining the Warriors of the Blood and he saw their relationship as a team effort.

Endelle leaned over to her and said, “What are you waiting for, ascender?

You’ve been called. Now, go.” Vela met Endelle’s wooded eyes and saw her compassion, the thing that always surprised her about Endelle, that beneath her outrageous exterior, and way beyond her profane mouth, resided a woman of tremendous compassion.

Vela drew a deep breath and to Samuel, sent, I’m ready.

Go to Luken now.

Luken addressed the crowd once more. “We have a slight change of plans.

Candidate Samuel wishes his breh, Vela Stillwell to join him on stage. Please welcome Ascender Stillwell.” One more fire-in-lungs breath and she simply levitated from her seat. Using a little added power, she kept her skirts of her gown fluttering close to her ankles as she moved swiftly to the stage, turning at the last moment to land beside Luken.

The tank-like warrior smiled down at her and winked. She returned his smile and felt herself relax a little, though her heart pounded in her chest.

The audience grew silent once more, expectant. Vela didn’t care that thousands of people stared at her. Most knew who she was because Marcus had built her up as well, including her unusual darkening ability, so that in a small way she had her own celebrity status.

A certain degree of notoriety had come to her because of her darkening power, because of Duncan’s rescue, and of course because of Samuel’s elevation in rank.

She was a target now, just like all the women bonded to Warriors of the Blood, but so be it. She had become a woman of power, something she’d never sought, but each day taught her more of what she possessed of strength and preternatural resources.

Applause resounded once more, this time for her. She inclined her chin a couple of times, but beyond that, she grew very still, and turned to glance once more at Madame Endelle, the compassionate scorpion of Second Earth. The woman smiled and nodded, her peacock and ostrich feathers waving along with her.

Suddenly, Endelle’s voice entered Vela’s mind. You did good, ascender. You did good.

Warmth spilled through Vela’s heart.

She marveled at all that had happened to bring her here, how hard she’d resisted her course, and how much she’d changed in just a handful of days. She valued Endelle’s approval, the woman who had laid down her life for nine millennia, also with great resistance and unwillingness, but who had done it just the same.

She dipped her chin to Endelle, who dipped hers right back.

Vela smiled once more Luken’s beautiful, resonant voice, addressed the audience one more. “Please join me in acknowledging the service of our candidate with warm applause as Warrior Samuel joins us.” The moment Samuel appeared from the shadows of the curtains, applause thundered through the ornate theater once more. He paused for a moment to acknowledge the appreciation that flowed toward him, for his service as a Militia Warrior and probably more for having endured a decade of imprisonment and torture by a Third entity. He offered a short, slow bow. The applause rose to a peak with this gesture, then settled back down to mere thunder once more.

Samuel pivoted in Vela’s direction.

Her own hands ached now from slamming them together with such force, but she didn’t care. Tears brimmed in her eyes as he came toward her. But he didn’t just take her arm, he took her in a warm embrace and to her mind sent, Oh, my darling Vela, how you saved me.

Vela’s tears fell and more followed.

You did the same for me.

He held her for a long moment. When he finally released her, he took her arm, but kept her pinned to his side as he went through his induction.

The ceremony that followed became a blur of speeches made by Luken and Marcus, of ritual responses given by all the warriors that sent a profound and beautiful array of deep masculine voices into the theater, of oaths to serve Second Earth with all his might for the rest of his years as a Warrior of the Blood.

The ceremony concluded when Luken presented a new sword to Samuel, one that he took firmly by the grip. Holding it for a few long seconds, as the audience watched in silence, he forged the deadly identification signature.

Once complete, he held the sword aloft and another cheer resounded through the theater.

Two days after the confirmation, Samuel held Vela’s hand and strolled beside her along a row of Scottsdale Two shops. One of them had caught Vela’s eye and she perused the window display, head bent, eyes wide and seeking.

The door opened, a customer came out, and a familiar scent wafted beneath his nose arousing things that shouldn’t be aroused in a public arena.

What the fuck?

He glanced through the door and saw that the place sold, among other things, scented candles. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

“You’re going inside?” Vela turned to him, blue eyes wide and hopeful.

He smiled. “Yes, but let me do this alone. There’s something I want to see about.” He knew she would want to come with him; her eyes had that let’s-spend- some-money glint.

But she nodded and he went straight to the candles. It took him a bare split- second to locate the one that came damn close to Vela’s scent. He lifted the lid of a candle in a jar and sniffed.

He barely repressed a groan.

He glanced at the label and smiled.

He even chuckled. But sniffing again, his pants shrunk. He liked this scent too damn much.

Putting the round glass lid back on the jar, he tucked it beneath one arm, them gathered up a bunch of small candles, called tea-lights or something. The latter appeared to require individual glass holders so he grabbed a bunch of those, too. He took deep breaths and named the planets starting nearest the sun to try to calm down.

By the time he’d paid for his purchases and made it outside, he held the bag up to Vela and said, “We have to go home. Now. Sorry.” She smiled, then sent, I guess we do because I can feel how your zipper is pressing into something that shouldn’t be that big at least not out here in front of God and everybody. That, and you smell like a chocolate bar, which I’m dying to take a bite out of.

He growled softly, took hold of her arm, and folded her straight to his bedroom.

She laughed as she sat down on the side of the bed. “Okay, warrior, what’s going on? And what on earth did you buy that got you so worked up?” Damnit, he was a Warrior of the Blood, and buying candles in a woman’s shop, just felt wrong. He handed her the bag and said, “Here. This is for you, or maybe for me. Maybe for both of us. Hell, I don’t know. Just take a look.”

“Uh, thank you? And…why do you look so mad?” He rolled his eyes and waved his hand at the bag several times. “It’s just so damn girlie.” She opened it and pulled out the box of tea-lights. She sniffed, showed mild pleasure with a lift of her brows, then read the label. “Oh, sweet-peas. I know this flower. Everyone grew them on trellises when I was a kid.” She then lifted her gaze to him.

He let her work it out, which made her laugh. “This is my scent. I smell like sweet-peas?”

“Yes. You do.” But he wouldn’t say anything more. He wouldn’t say, You smell like sweet-peas, sweetheart. It was too fucking much.

“Well, then,” she said, her scent rising to compete with his purchases.

“We’ll have to do something about these candles.” He watched as she drew everything out of the bag. She opened the glass jar and set it on the night stand. She did the same for the tea-lights and the glass holders, placing them around the room.

Folding a lighter into her hand from the kitchen, she lit every single candle, then turned to him and started unbuttoning her blouse. Standing across the room, by the window, and in full daylight, she started stripping for him, slowly as the candles combined with her scent and flooded the room.

But by the time she’d reached the last button, he’d grown into a desperate state.

He panted and his shoulders hunched. He felt his grayle power itching to release.

He folded his shirt off and let the smoky mist rise around him.

Her lips parted and she gasped. “I think this is taking too long.” She waved her hand and poof, clothes gone. He growled and came at her fast, turning her toward the bed, plowing her backwards, and as he got her flat, he made his way inside her beautiful wetness.

That she laughed, cooed, and whimpered told him she didn’t mind, not even a little. He made love to her briskly, barely two minutes of wild touching and pushing, before she arched beneath him, crying out, his body releasing into her in electric pulses of ecstasy.

They were definitely on their breh- moon.

She held him fast, her arms encircling his neck as she kissed him on his cheek, his forehead, his lips.