Gates of Rapture (Guardians of Ascension #6)(7)
Author: Caris Roane

That he could form coherent thoughts was a complete mystery and an equal punishment, since he couldn’t always act on those thoughts. And once he was well into the process, he wouldn’t be able to fold.

His brain seemed to be split so that while he observed his conduct as if at a distance, the rest of him was locked into this barbarous state and equally barbarous feelings.

His right hand flexed, longing for his sword. He wanted to kill, but not in a general sense. His desire was more specific. He wanted to kill Casimir, to slay him for having taken his woman, having lured her with his scent and his power, having stolen her from him.

He moved in an oval in the small, dark basement. There was one ground-level window at ceiling height with steel mullions. He couldn’t fit through the window, though God knew he’d tried to escape his self-imposed prison more than once during his episodes.

The healing of all the bruises and cuts had taken a couple of days. He’d even tried to tear through the stone and mortared walls so that his fingers were bleeding and torn down to the bone.

He was a beast.

Throwing his head back, he roared long and loud, sending shudders through his house and a trembling through the earth.

The beauty of the world

Is only appreciated

With arms opened wide.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 2

The painfully slow, meditative walk to the pools took at least fifteen minutes, but just as Grace came within sight of Casimir, a terrible roar reached her ears and stopped her feet. She couldn’t move. She could hardly think.

She’d heard Leto’s roars before, even across three dimensions, but none of them had sounded like this one, like an animal with a leg caught in a trap, the metal teeth grinding against bone.

Beatrice continued on, the silk of her skirts rippling as she floated.

Grace knew Casimir needed her; she could feel his pain. But Leto’s agony had been calling to her for months. So she paused where she was, unable to make her feet move.

Another roar reached her, full of anguish, a call of the wild that drove inside her chest and pummeled her. At the same time, the resonant sounds descended into the well of all that was female until she was weak with need.

What was she to do now?

She forced her feet forward.

Oh, dearest Creator, is it truly time to say good-bye to Casimir?

A few minutes later, Grace knelt beside him.

He was so different from the vampire she had known on Second Earth.

His spiritual reformation had turned him inside out. The guilt he lived with now was beyond anything she could have foreseen. She didn’t know how he survived reliving portions of his life from the victim’s point of view, experiencing just how much pain his selfishness and abuse had caused others.

He wept now and his body shook. He stared at her, unable to move. At first she thought the tremors held him captive, but with a start she understood that invisible restraints held him in place, pinning him over his hips, his knees, and his elbows.

His gaze implored her.

When the next roar reached her from Mortal Earth, however, she threw her head back. She felt Leto’s pain this time, his need, his desperation, his call to her, soul-to-soul, breh-to-breh.

“Don’t … Grace.” Casimir’s voice was hoarse. “Wait until I’ve completed the program.”

Still kneeling, she once again looked down at him. “The time has come. I have to leave today. Now. I can’t explain it.”

“I have seen part of my future. If you could wait, it would be so much safer for me.”

She couldn’t hold back the tears. “I feel the need to fold to Leto deep within my bones. I have to go.”

“Grace…” His voice was all breath and tremor as he extended a shaking hand to her.

“Why did you enter the third pool?” she asked.

His lips curved though his brow was crumpled in pain. “I thought to change the future. But today, probably because I entered a pool before I should have, I saw something about my destiny and about Leto.”

Grace put a hand to her throat. “What did you see?”

“That you were right: Our destinies are intertwined with Leto’s, and I have a task to fulfill.”

She feared asking the question, but she had to know. “What task?”

His body relaxed. “It doesn’t matter. You must do what is right for you, and I’ll go where I’ve never gone before—” He actually smiled.

She squeezed his hand. “And where would that be?”

“Where my conscience leads me. How’s that for a change?”

The next roar struck, still something only Grace could hear. She rose to her feet. Casimir turned to her and strained against the invisible binds. Grace saw Beatrice nod. The restraints disappeared, and he grabbed her ankles. She looked down at him. “I must go.”

“I want you to know that you taught me about love. You loved me when you had no reason to. I will never forget that.”

She backed up, and the weakness of his grip caused his fingers to slide over the tops of her feet and across her toes. She turned and moved as if in a terrible dream back across the gardens that separated the pools from Beatrice’s home.

“My boys,” he called after her. “You must promise to always be part of their lives, no matter what happens. You must promise.”

She stopped for a moment. She had been a mother to them all this time, and now she had to leave. Mind-to-mind, she sent, I will return and we will talk, very soon. I will not disappear from their lives. Please stay here, Caz. Please stay and live. Complete Beatrice’s program. I fear more than life itself that you will die if you follow me.

I have my own path to follow, he returned.

She couldn’t bear it anymore. She lifted her arm and folded, one dimension, two, then three, traveling through nether-space straight through the pathway that Leto’s roars had created for her, a shining blue pathway, like his eyes, lit and glowing, calling, begging, all the way from Mortal Earth.

When she arrived, when she materialized, the room was dark except for one small window. She adjusted her vision, turned, and saw a madman, wholly different from what she had expected. Leto was na**d and so changed physically, she didn’t recognize him at first.

He was also fully aroused, hunched, and moving like an animal, a beast. His long hair swirled around his shoulders as though it were alive. But he didn’t seem to see her, so she called to him. “Leto.”

He turned, his eyes widening. He seemed to freeze as he stared at her in disbelief. His nostrils flared then he closed his eyes, squeezing them shut as if in pain. His body shuddered.