Ascension (Guardians of Ascension #1)(45)
Author: Caris Roane

Alison Wells. Vampire. She shivered suddenly.

“You okay?” he asked, not looking at her. His thumb again tapped the steering wheel, slower now, a dull thud in the confined space.

“Sure,” she said. “I’m sitting next to a vampire and if I follow this path to a logical conclusion, I’ll grow a pair of fangs myself.”

He glanced at her, his features solemn. “You’re doing fine.”

“You know, you have the most beautiful voice.”

His smile emerged once more.

He looked incredible in the weapons harness and black kilt. Her fingers itched to slide her hands under all that leather. She glanced at his legs and noticed the twitching of his thighs.

“You’re jumpy, too.”

“Kind of,” he said, his voice rough. “In a different way.” Once more, he looked out his side window and drew in a series of long, deep breaths.

“And if you don’t mind my saying, you have the most wonderful … scent … like cardamom.”

He nodded, yet he still wouldn’t look at her.

She laid a hand on his arm. “Thank you for getting me out of the alley.”

He jerked, stiffened, then relaxed. When she withdrew her hand, thinking she might have offended him, he caught it and pressed it back in place.

“You’re very welcome.” He took another deep breath. “But I need you to know a couple of things.”

“Okay.”

“First, I want to explain about earlier at the club. I was caught up in what is a rare experience called the breh-hedden. I was crazed when I went after you, but I wouldn’t have hurt you.”

“I know that.”

“You do?” He glanced at her, relief in his eyes.

She nodded.

“Good. And I’m going to do my best not to let it happen again.”

“Okay.” She became acutely aware of his hand covering hers and his thick muscled arm beneath her palm.

“So it’s the ‘bray’ something?”

“The breh-hedden.” He spelled it for her. “An old expression from a language no longer much in use, just the occasional term or phrase.”

“What is it exactly?”

“First, it’s rare, very rare, but presents itself as an almost impossible drive where the man feels a need to possess a woman sexually, to protect her as well as to exchange blood and to engage the mind in a very deep way, to be in the other’s mind.”

“You’re not talking about telepathy.”

“No. Something much deeper. Mind-engagement, sometimes called mind-diving.”

“Does it have to be all three?” She didn’t want to say them aloud. It all seemed so personal, so intimate: blood, sex, and the mind.

“To complete the breh-hedden, yes, all three, all at once, both parties, at the same time.”

Alison released a long breath. The thought of being so fully joined to another person, to a man, possibly the man sitting next to her, made it difficult to draw the next breath. She swallowed … hard. “So, the attraction I feel for you is part of the breh-hedden.”

“Yes, but I hope you can just forget about it.”

“Kerrick,” she whispered, her face tingling, her breaths shallow, desire flowing. “I don’t think I can.”

He turned toward her and met her gaze. “Oh, God, you smell like lavender.”

“I do?”

He nodded. “Alison, listen. I’m hanging on by a thread here. This experience is powerful, like almost everything that occurs on Second.” He gently slid her hand off his arm. “So you would be really wise not to touch me again, to do what you can to resist this attraction.”

Alison felt completely and utterly trapped between a desire to move forward and an urgent need to restrain herself as she always had, to make certain she didn’t hurt the man beside her. For a split second she wanted to run home, pull the covers over her head, and stay there, like forever. On the other hand, ever since she’d thrown the hand-blast into the air, something deep inside her had shifted and changed. She would never again return to the safety of her simple, lonely, cloistered life. For the first time in a long time, perhaps ever, she felt like she was coming alive.

Her breaths sat high on her chest. She needed to know something important—whether she could be with this man, this vampire, and not hurt him. The level of his powers gave her hope, but could he handle who she was?

She put her hand back on his arm and watched his lips part and his chest rise. He turned to meet her gaze. She overlaid his mind with a question. Would you do me a favor?

He didn’t hesitate, not for a second, as he sent, Anything, beautiful one.

What a perfect response.

Aloud, she asked, “Would you kiss me, Kerrick?”

A dream brought to life is more precious than gold,

But beware the price.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 10

Thorne whipped his phone from the pocket of his kilt, ran his thumb over the strip, then wiped his forehead with his arm. The sweat ran. As it should. He’d been battling on and off for hours. His muscles twitched, a couple of them screaming for relief.

“Central.”

“Hey, Jeannie. We’ve got a mess for you to clean up at the Superstitions.” He stood with his back to a wall of cliffs. The land in front of him was lit by starlight and strewn with unfriendly cacti and the bodies and feathered debris of slain enemy … the usual.

Luken sat nearby, his hands planted in the dirt behind him, which enabled him to lean back. Horace tended a deep sword cut on his thigh. The warrior didn’t flinch as the healer held the wound closed and murmured soft prayer-like intonations. Jesus, that had to hurt.

“How many, duhuro?” Jeannie asked.

“Hey, what’s with you and the duhuro shit?” His hands shook and he felt like his entire chest cavity was on fire.

Jeannie chuckled. “Just showin’ the love, boss.”

“Yeah, but you haven’t used that expression in, what, the last how many years? What gives?”

“Thought it needed a comeback.”

“You know what Medichi says, don’t you?”

“About duhuro? Yeah. He says it means ‘slave’ but we know different.”

“Whatever.” But he laughed.

Jeannie’s throaty chuckle rippled through the line as well. What would they do without the women at Central?

“By the way, why are you still working?” He glanced down and kicked at a small rock.