Her Supremeness still sat on the edge of the desk, swinging her legs up and back at the knees, like a schoolgirl. “Well, ascender? How’s the obsidian flame training going? I’d like a full report from your end. Alison was here last night for a few minutes. She said you both made fireworks.”

Fiona nodded. “We did. It’s an interesting skill—not making the fireworks, that was just a controlled hand-blast and a turn of the mind. What was interesting was lining up beside her, feeling the energy move down her arm, then mimicking the same thing.”

“Have you ever done a preternatural voyeur?”

“You mean Parisa’s main gift?”

“Yep. I have it, too. Wanna try?”

“Of course.” Then she realized what she was saying, that she was offering to get close to the scorpion queen. She almost pulled back but she knew what would happen if she withdrew now. Endelle would hang her up by her ankles and shake her silly … for about an hour.

“So how do you do this thing? Do you touch my face or something?”

Fiona shook her head. “No, it’s not physical in that way at all. I mean it’s very physical, but I won’t be touching you. I mean—”

“For fuck’s sake, just do it. You should know by now that I’m more of a take-action-and-ask-questions-later kind of gal.”

No shit.

Fiona nodded. “Right.” She closed her eyes and focused on the most powerful vampire on Second Earth. She took a few deep breaths and tried to believe she wasn’t stepping straight into a hurricane.

With a quick thought derived from her practice with Alison the night before, she placed herself against Endelle mentally, side by side.

Nice, Endelle sent. So how the fuck does this work? What do you need me to do?

Fiona was surprised that Endelle didn’t know, so she sent, Well, why don’t you open your window and we’ll see what happens?

What do you want to see?

There was only one real answer. The grid at Militia HQ.

You’re a dog with a bone.

Fiona smiled. I am.

Fine. Whatever.

But instead of the grid, Endelle zoomed in on the workout room, which had a host of warriors, in sweaty T-shirts and gym shorts, pumping iron, boxing, running on treadmills. But she kept zooming toward the back of the building.

Endelle, no!

Endelle only laughed and kept moving fast, right past the doors that led to the locker room with more naked male bodies than Fiona had ever seen in her life.

No! Stop it!

Straight to the showers!

Oh, God.

Endelle panned all the way left then all the way right. Some of the men faced front, some back; either way the view was extraordinary. The warriors were very fit, muscled, so much like Jean-Pierre in many, many ways.

Fiona tried to close her eyes but couldn’t, since this was Endelle’s window. She didn’t know what she could do in this situation.

Hubba, hubba, Endelle sent. Are you enjoying the show as much as I am? The warrior on the left. Damn, is Jean-Pierre that long in the cock? Although I prefer girth myself … but, still.

That did it.

Fiona pulled away and because it wasn’t exactly an agreed-upon separation, there was a kind of rubbery snap to the process. At least it was painless.

She opened her eyes and shouted, “Why did you do that? Why did you have to do that? That was such an invasion of privacy.”

Endelle just smirked at her. “You could have left sooner.”

“I didn’t know if I could!”

“What is wrong, chérie?”

Fiona turned to Jean-Pierre and her face flamed. There was so much heat that she put her hands to her face. She didn’t wait. She just left Endelle’s office and started running.

She ran past all the executive offices, past the admin pool, and through the sliding glass doors. She turned to the right where there was a long corridor—no windows, just a dark stretch of hallway. At least none of the admins had shown up for work yet.

She leaned her back against the wall, then bent over trying to recover.

What further surprised her was that soon she saw two pairs of feet, one in brown leather loafers and the other, black stilettos.

She looked up but just shook her head.

“Your boyfriend here insists I apologize. Fine, I apologize, but what the fuck was that about?”

Fiona rose up. She chuckled but still her face grew warm. “I think you keep forgetting that I’ve had three parts to my life. The first part was in a very conservative Boston in the late 1800s. The second was in captivity where there were only women around, and Rith, but he doesn’t count.

“Now I’m here. It’s modern times on both Mortal and Second Earths, and things are … wonderful in many ways. But how did you think I could tolerate … that?”

“Chérie, what did she do?”

Endelle held her hands up. “Nothing. We took a trip to Militia HQ.”

At that, Fiona tilted her head and raised her brows. “Tell him the rest, Endelle. You owe me that much because at some point he’s going to find out and I don’t want him to think, on any level, that this was my idea.”

Endelle backed up. She shrugged. She didn’t exactly meet Jean-Pierre’s gaze. “We might have looked in on the men’s shower room at the workout center.” She pursed her lips and pretended to examine her nails.

“You did what?”

Fiona didn’t quite understand what happened during the next few seconds. The air seemed to tighten all around her, Endelle flew back about five feet and landed on her ass, then Fiona had 260 pounds of pure, lean, hardened vampire pressed the length of her and smashed into the wall.

“Jean-Pierre, stop.” She felt the strange snake-like things begin to swirl in her stomach. “Stop.”

“You are not to look at other men, not like that, not without clothes on. I will not have it.”

She tried to push at him, but he was a brick wall. The writhing thing in her stomach rose. She couldn’t bear to be held down like this.

In the distance, she heard Endelle say, “Well, then. I’ll leave you two kids to it.”

She wanted to call her back to ask for her help, but Jean-Pierre’s body and something she could only feel as his energy flowed over her and around her, poking at her skin as though seeking entrance. She couldn’t breathe.

“You are for me, Fiona. No others.” His voice was deeper than she had heard it before, ever.

The writhing, crawling beast climbed up her chest and into her throat. She felt strangled from within.

Then she felt him against her mind. He pushed against her shields. He pushed hard. She looked into his eyes, saw the strange hard glitter. She understood his dilemma, the extreme protective urges, the need for dominance and possession. He needed to mark his territory. She doubted he was fully aware of what he was doing.

Let me in.

Three simple words. Let him in. He wanted in. He wanted inside her mind, to take her mind, to dominate her mind. She had done nothing wrong and Endelle’s thoughtless little jaunt to MWHQ had cost her this, a major confrontation between herself and her vampire lover, who wasn’t exactly in his right mind.

She held her shields in place so he began to push, slamming against them hard, his body still a wall against her.

Funny … all the writhing fears had subsided.

Why?

Then she understood something else. She liked what he was doing and even more than that, she trusted him even in this ridiculous caveman posturing. He ground his hips against her and he was, oh, God, so aroused.

His scent surrounded her but instead of the usual coffee dominating, that which was male was in the fore, very male. A wind possessed her mind, spinning around and around, and still slamming against her shields.

When he powered against her shields one more time, she dropped them flat.

He bored into her, a deep overwhelming rush into her mind, swelling over her thoughts, her memories, flowing into every narrow recess, swallowing her up.

And still she wasn’t afraid.

She met his mind straight-on and let him possess her.

She slid her arms up around his neck, leaned the few inches that separated his mouth from hers, and kissed him.

He plunged his tongue inside, not a surprise. He drove and drove and drove, making his point. His hips flexed and he pushed that hard, thick, rope-like length against her.

A moment later, without warning, she felt movement, a flying sensation, and complete darkness. A glide through nether-space began.

She landed in a very damp space, so at odds with the desert or even Sedona.

She drew away slightly to look around, but didn’t get far since he pulled her against him. Where are we? she sent since she couldn’t exactly speak.

What returned within her mind was a cross between a grunt and a growl. He moved back from her about a quarter of an inch and over her mouth said, “My house. A grotto. By the creek.”

He kissed her and the storm in her mind kept moving around, searching, hunting.

He found the memories, the quick preternatural voyeuristic vision that Endelle had forced on her, of men working out, of men changing in a locker room and finally men naked in showers.

He threw back his head and roared.

She didn’t know what to do with this beast that had taken her into his grotto. She saw that he was out of control. She felt his desire to do harm to the men she had seen. She felt that he was ready to fly once more through nether-space, to go straight to that locker room and that shower, but like hell was she going to let him do harm to a bunch of men who had done nothing wrong.

She summoned her increased physical power, broke away from the restraints that were his arms, but instead of stepping away from him, she planted both hands on his face. “Look at me,” she cried.

He seemed startled and he froze. She could feel the vibration of the fold that almost happened but didn’t.

He stared at her unseeing, breathing hard. He had to be in there somewhere. “Fuck me, Jean-Pierre. Right here, right now. Take me, as hard as you want, in whatever position you want.”

His nostrils flared. His lips quivered and drew back from fangs that emerged.