Hey, sweetheart, he responded instantly. I’d like nothing better as well, but I’m not sure it’s safe.
Are you almost done?
Just a few more minutes. I just sent the Section Leaders to bring in their teams, then we’ll head out. So give me a few minutes … that is … He fell silent.
Grace waited but that uneasy feeling returned.
Oh, shit. His voice was suddenly loud in her head. More Third Earth death vampires just arrived. Casimir’s with me.
Because she was completely open to all his external physical sensations, she could feel him turn in a complete circle, and within a split second he had his sword in hand. She sensed a vibration all along his skin and knew he was letting his beast-man out.
Grace, you should get back to Second. Now.
Grace sat up. She was in danger. She could feel it.
She lifted her hand to fold, but couldn’t. She didn’t understand. Her heart rate kicked up a few notches.
Then, just as quickly as her fears rose, they retreated. Very odd. Yet she felt sublime waves of peace begin to pour over her. She didn’t need to worry about anything.
She folded her hands over her stomach and closed her eyes. She felt the air move near her, but she was too tired to care who it was. Probably Leto, which would be nice. She wanted to open her eyes and smile at him, but she couldn’t. How heavy her eyelids felt.
Lips touched her cheek several times. As if from a great distance, she heard a stream of words, murmured very softly in a kind of chant. The lips moved and covered her mouth.
Come with me, Grace. The words now flowed through her mind with the most beautiful resonance. We will build a new world together, one without war. Isn’t that what you want above all things?
This wasn’t Leto, but why wasn’t she afraid? Was she being enthralled?
Somehow, she didn’t care.
She felt so at peace, as though she never wanted to be anywhere else in her life than right here with this man’s voice in her head and his lips touching hers.
Tell me you want what I want.
Yes, I want a world without war. Yes. Yes.
Then come with me. Say you will join me. I will make you my empress, and you will have the power to order the world exactly how you desire it to be.
At last, she opened her eyes. Some part of her mind truly did realize that she was looking at Greaves, that he sat on the side of the chaise and petted her head in soft soothing strokes, and that he had been kissing her.
He must have enthralled her. She wondered why he didn’t just take her away with him. He had her in his power—that much her rational mind could make sense of. But she knew that by the rules of COPASS, both he and Endelle were limited in what each could do, all those rules set up a hundred years ago to regulate two powerful ascenders. No, Greaves couldn’t just take her. He would have to persuade her to leave with him.
All she had to do was say yes.
She put her hand on his face. She wanted to. Very badly.
Yet she resisted.
His eyes were lit with a strange, unearthly glow. He looked so beautiful. That was one of the most surprising things about Darian Greaves, just how beautiful he was. He had thick, perfectly shaped dark brows, full lips, and large brown eyes, just like his mother’s. He also possessed the best manners. She had always liked his manners.
He slid his arms behind her back and pulled her against him. He kissed her again. Even his mouth was beautiful and tasted of the sweetest peaches. She licked his lips and heard him groan.
I could love you, Grace. I didn’t know that, but holding you in my arms like this, love is what comes to mind. You are the earth. I can feel that in you. Your power would anchor me and change me. I would be made new. Will you do that for me, Grace? Will you make me a new creature through your goodness and purity? My mother would like that. Beatrice would be indebted to you forever.
She loved Beatrice. How wonderful if she could give her such a gift as renewing her son’s soul.
Come with me. Say you’ll come with me.
She wanted to say yes. More than anything in her life, she wanted to say yes. But there was a part of her that couldn’t do it.
She struggled to find the word, to make her mouth move. “No,” she murmured at last.
The soft chanting resumed.
* * *
Leto had his sword in his right hand and one of his daggers in his left as he battled three Third Earth death vampires, all cloaked behind what must have been Greaves’s mist. He’d already killed three of the bastards.
Casimir had his own problems with the remaining four, who apparently specialized in hand-blast capability. Greaves had clearly learned from the failure at Nazca. Sparks showered everywhere. Casimir kept working the vampires away from Leto, protecting him as he battled sword-to-sword. One hit with a Third Earth hand-blast and Leto wasn’t sure he’d survive.
His opponents were damn experienced. More than once he’d gotten a mild skin burn because one of the pretty-boys would fold behind him and slice at his calves. He could feel that his battle sandals were partly cut away and that blood dripped into the soles. His feet were slippery.
When two folded at once, he lunged under the raised arm of the death vamp in front of him, caught him in his kidneys with his dagger, and took him down. He’d made the right call. The other two materialized in the exact spot where he’d originally stood.
He increased his speed, darting forward and swinging his sword at the same time. He took the hand of one of the vamps, who now rolled on the ground screaming.
The last bastard wasn’t about to be distracted. Leto folded well beyond the prone death vamp, and before he even noticed, Leto brought his sword down hard and took his head. The vamp still standing was almost on him. Leto lifted his sword, and the weight of his opponent’s downward strike sent heavy, almost paralyzing vibrations down his arm.
At the same time, he caught movement to his left. One of the death vamps had broken from Casimir and was lifting his hand in Leto’s direction.
Again Leto lunged, rolling on the ground below the closer vamp.
The hand-blast was ill placed and hit his opponent, sending him screaming into the air and flying backward about ten feet.
Leto was now exposed and on the ground. He waited for a moment while the hand-blast geared up. Then just as he saw the pretty-boy’s smile widen, Leto pivoted, folded, arrived behind the vamp, and thrust his sword through the spine.
Turning, he saw that the three remaining death vamps had moved in tighter on Casimir and that the Fourth ascender had started to struggle. Casimir was not a warrior.
Leto used his speed, and took two heads. The final death vamp standing, turned at the commotion, which was a fatal mistake because Casimir lifted his hand and caught the bastard in the throat with a hand-blast. His head lolled and he toppled over, his skull crunching hard against one of the severed heads.