Burning Skies (Guardians of Ascension #2)(14)
Author: Caris Roane

What came out of her smelled richly of … oh, God … fennel.

This was a man’s essence, his seed.

Marcus?

No.

Impossible!

So what was this? What had happened? She hadn’t been with a man. She’d just had a sexy dream, a hot sexy dream, that’s all.

Really.

Her heart rate increased. Had she been drugged? Enthralled? Raped?

Was someone in her house?

She glanced around at the shadows. She reached out with her senses but she knew her home was safe. No one else was present.

She stared down between her thighs, at the white tissues below her peachy-red pubic hair. Once more that deep, musky fennel scent, like grasses in summer, spiraled up to her.

There could be only one answer. Somehow Warrior Marcus had gotten to her. He’d found a way to penetrate her dreams then penetrate her.

Marcus.

That bastard. What had he done to her? How had he done this to her?

* * *

Antony Medichi, out of Italy in the late Roman era, sat next to Havily on the ratty brown leather couch. The hour was early, not yet seven, and given Luken’s accident and her role in the near-tragedy, she couldn’t have gotten much sleep.

There was a haunted look about her lovely light green eyes this morning.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked. The night’s fighting, thank God, was over and as usual the brothers were together at the Cave, one last bonding before heading to bed for the day.

Havily sat next to him, a venti iced coffee held between her hands. “Of course I’m okay. I mean I could use a little sleep, but all that matters is that Luken is doing so well.” She stared down at her cup and twirled the straw.

“That’s all that matters.”

Thorne had just given a report on how well Luken was recovering; a team of healers was with him and would remain working on him until Horace was satisfied. The warrior had even awakened for a few minutes and conversed with Thorne. He wasn’t in too much pain. Horace had seen to that. As for Luken’s wings, it was a wait-and-see.

Still, Havily wasn’t used to seeing that kind of horror, and he couldn’t help being concerned about her. She’d become important to the Warriors of the Blood, sort of a mascot, a beloved mascot.

He held a café mocha in one hand and a buttermilk doughnut in the other. He took a sip, then a bite. He loved that she sat next to him. He’d forgotten how soothing the presence of a woman could be, especially in the off-hours like this, after a night of battling when a warrior’s nerves were still standing up straight and screaming, his body bruised and hurting. Havily was like sliding into a warm bath, an ease, a comfort. He treasured her.

She was dressed to kill this morning as well, which always helped. She wore a short skirt in light blue that showed off her bare tanned legs. She had on elegant heeled sandals with sapphire-like gems on the front straps. Her blouse was cream silk, and around her neck hung a large piece of jewelry on a chain that sparkled in black and gold with small light blue crystals. The blouse had a perfect V-cut, and because she was leaning forward on the couch, her arms on her knees, she showed a nice line of cle**age. Dynamite.

But her hair was her finest feature. It floated all around her shoulders, a cloud of red, and a beautiful red at that, dark, lustrous. A man could sink his hands into that kind of hair. Her skin was very creamy. She was beautiful.

On her Liaison Officer salary Havily could have afforded a much larger home than her modest condo. Instead, he suspected she spent most of her money on clothes—or at least she looked like she did. She liked the labels. Her Gucci sunglasses hung over the edge of her Marc Jacobs bag, and he had talked with her enough over the years to know that she preferred Ralph Lauren to other designers. Endelle might still dress up in her animal skins, but Havily now set a tone in the admin offices that had all the women fussing with makeup and hair and clothes.

Yeah, the office was improved, and maybe that was something about her he’d never really understood until now. Wherever she went, the environment improved. That may not have been a preternatural power, but it was a certain kind of magic at headquarters.

Even here at the Cave, her magic had been spreading. She’d recently seen to the repair of the TV for them and now it ran on CNN, set up to be activated by a motion detector. As soon as anyone entered the room, the news flared up, not too loud, just a steady background drone full of Mortal Earth info. That, too, had a strange soothing quality.

Okay. He was half in love with her but then they all were.

Lately however, whenever he was around her, he’d started feeling an ache in the center of his chest, a longing he didn’t quite get. He wasn’t foolish enough to think she could ever have feelings for him, not after the breh-hedden in the form of Warrior Marcus had hunted her down in March and shot her full of intense lust for the bastard.

No, he’d lived too long on earth, either dimension, to think there could ever be anything between himself and Havily Morgan. But for the strangest moment he wished he could take her home, make love to her, then fall asleep curled up around her body.

With such a vivid thought, his body reacted and the coffee slid from his hand. With vampire speed he caught it before it hit the floor, splashed, and made a mess.

“Careful,” she murmured.

“Long night,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. He kept his gaze away from her.

He felt her hand on his shoulder. She rubbed back and forth, a real comfort, and it was all he could do to keep from either flinching or grabbing both of her arms and hauling her against his chest. Shit. He wondered if this was the way Luken felt around her.

Luken of course had been on his mind, on all the brothers’ minds. Havily’s, too, no doubt. She had a connection to Luken. He’d been her guardian during her ascension but he’d also had the worst crush on her since.

Medichi still didn’t quite get, though, how Havily had found Luken in a vision. She had related as best she could what had happened to her, that she had somehow seen the sky on fire and Luken fall to the earth.

Warning bells had gone off at her description of having a vision. The whole thing smacked not of a Second Earth power but of a third-dimension ability—and if that was the case, she could be in trouble. If, after a century as a vampire, she was now developing new powers, powers that would finally explain why the Seers a hundred years ago had insisted she needed a warrior guardian during her three-day rite of ascension, then she could be in danger all over again. Third abilities were rare on Second Earth, and Greaves would not want anyone with that level of power aligned with Madame Endelle, simple as that.