“Not in the shower, damn it.” Gordon’s voice was so low I wondered if he was speaking to himself or to me. His mouth met mine, kissing me hard, a claiming for sure. He must have grabbed the soap because the slushy substance was suddenly all over my body, shampoo was in my hair. I almost stopped him from helping. My hair was a delicate balance to get clean, or it puffed up so big. But such things didn’t really matter at that moment when Gordon’s hands were all over my body.

The water turned off. We were both slick from being under the spray, and when my hand, holding onto his back, slipped, he grabbed me. “I’m never going to let you fall, Mika.”

I didn’t feel the moment happening, but suddenly, it was there. One second I stood in the shower, blind, and clinging to Gordon and the next I was deep in his mind. What was happening? I whirled around. Somehow I’d gotten pulled into his memory. He was watching me. I’d been talking to Alexander about something he was reading. The boy looked up and laughed at me. I grinned back down at him. Seeing Alexander panged my heart. Neil had told me what happened with him. Alexander had been a sweet boy, even if it turned out he really hadn’t been that at all.

Gordon leaned in the doorway of the guesthouse, his eyes never leaving my face. In his heart, I felt… longing. He wanted me, wished for nothing more than to walk over, wrap his arms around me, bury his face in my hair, close his eyes and breathe. He couldn’t do as he wished. They were leaving. I was a Sister. There was no room for him in my life. How would he survive the fight he would have with his friends who were like brothers if they found out? He thought they wanted me, too. How did any of this work?

No, he wouldn’t kiss me, wouldn’t hold me, and he’d spend the rest of his life wishing he had.

I gasped, my vision vanishing, I was thrust back into my head. Gordon let out a sigh, and I shivered. “What happened? Did I hurt you? Are you okay? I don’t know how I did that.”

He grabbed my wrist, bringing it to his mouth to kiss my pulse. “Mika, if you could see me, you’d see that my eyes are white. I can see them in the mirror.”

I digested that information. Like Anne, Daniella, and Teagan had with their guards. If his eyes were white, then that meant we’d co-joined. We were bonded, linked in each other’s heads. “I saw you looking at me.”

“I know you did.” He sighed again, and I longed to see his face. What did it look like with the magic, white eyes? I bet he was beautiful. The stark contrast between his dark skin and the pure white in his eyes must be stunning to view. “Don’t be sad, Mika. I can feel it. I’m in your head, too. I love you. I’d do anything to make you happy. Including not taking your virginity in this shower.” He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around me, the soft cloth pulling me out of my stunned stupor. I’d never really believed I could have what the others did, not once I was taken the second time. Or even before that, since I’d been so alone.

But here they were, and Gordon loved me. He picked me up in his arms and carried me from the room into the bedroom. There were no sounds around me but that didn’t mean anything. “Where is everyone?”

“Not here and that is the only thing I care about for the moment. Just us, beautiful.” He kissed me gently, coming down on top of me, his heat letting me know that he was there. Gordon was like an oven.

I reached to touch his face, tracing his features with my thumb. I wasn’t good at this yet, but I’d have to learn. I wasn’t going to miss out on more life than I had to.

Then he was kissing me again, so sweetly, so gently that he stole my breath from my body and thought from my mind. He moved his hands, his swift fingers traveling over my body to caress me all over. I hadn’t known there was a spot at the base of my throat that when he touched it would make my insides heat up.

He pressed a kiss there, and I squirmed beneath him. I wanted something, more maybe. I didn’t know. I’d never done this before, and now I was trying to have all of him without actually being able to see what was happening.

“Easy, Mika. I’m just going to worship your body. Let me. I’m going to take such good care of you.”

I calmed with the sound of his voice. “I want to know you. I want to bring you pleasure as well.”

He brought my hand to his chest. “It beats for you, and my body is yours. There isn’t anywhere you could touch me that wouldn’t feel incredible. Feel me anywhere you want.”

With that statement, he rolled me over until I was on top of him. The movement was awkward, but I quickly adjusted. From this vantage, it was easier to stroke him everywhere I wanted to, his chest, his legs, his shoulders. I leaned over to kiss him above his heart, and his hips jerked against me. He must’ve liked that. I smiled, and he hissed in a breath. I moved back, hoping I wasn’t about to fall off the bed but trusting Gordon to tell me if I was. I found what I was looking for without too much fumbling and grasped his hard length in my hand.

He groaned. “Not too much of that or this will be over much sooner than I want it to be.”

I smiled. He liked how my fingers felt around him that much? I stroked. One length, then two. Finally a third. He grabbed my wrist to stop me. “I love that so much. I’m throbbing for wanting you. But please, Mika, I’ll be done before I’m deep inside of you. That’s not what I want.” When I nodded, he let out an audible breath. “My turn.”

Once again, we traded places on the bed. I could see now why he didn’t want to do this the first time in the shower. The bed made it much easier to move around. Although I wouldn’t mind making love to Gordon just about anywhere. Every place he touched me warmed, and I ached for something I’d never had before. A completion I was knowledgeable enough to know I wanted even if I wasn’t exactly sure what that was.

He kissed my knees before he pushed on them gently, spreading them apart. Gordon trailed kisses down my leg. The anticipation of what he would do next, when I couldn’t see it was as exciting as the jolts of electricity each caress created. Finally, he cupped the outside of my pussy. I was wet with wanting him. We’d had sex education at the Sisterhood to the south, and although I’d always avoided having sex with my guards, I knew what was supposed to happen.

I quivered with wanting him.

Gordon slipped a finger inside of me. He searched for a second and then found my spot. I knew it well. Only my own fingers had ever caressed it, but Gordon seemed to know exactly what to do. He started off softly then picked up speed, increasing the friction. I hadn’t known so much pressure could form so quickly in my core. I hadn’t known that I’d dig my fingers into the bed sheets to hold on. To hold onto what? I didn’t know. I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t function. I just had to—yes—I had to hold on until I…

Pleasure exploded out of me like a release I hadn’t known I needed. I shook, and he pulled me up against him until I laid my cheek on his chest. He smelled like coffee, one of my favorite scents. Smell was going to be so important. I was having the strangest thoughts. There was only how he made me feel. Everything else was background noise.

He tipped my chin until I lifted it, and then he kissed me again. I bit down on his bottom lip for no other reason than I wanted to, and I felt him smile beneath my mouth. He kissed the end of my nose and leaned me back until he was on top.

“I wish I could see you.” I had to say the words. I needed him to know.

“I don’t need your eyes, just your heart.”

“You have that.” And he always would.

He slipped himself inside of me, each inch he pressed stretched muscles that had never been stretched before. It hurt, and then it didn’t. Pain became pleasure, and suddenly, he stopped moving. Was everything okay? I couldn’t see. I touched his cheek. “What’s going on?”

“I’m just taking a moment to appreciate the sheer magnitude of the fact I am deep inside of you, you are mine, and I can be with you forever.”

And through our link, I could feel that. I bit down on my lip, the emotion of the moment threatening to overwhelm me. This was everything. Gordon moved, slowly at first then faster. Each thrust in my body rubbed against that spot again. I held onto him, pressing my forehead to his chest. I knew he’d take care of me. I knew I could give in to this sensation again—this time more intense, more unnerving. This time Gordon was taking all of me, and I was glad to let him have whatever he wanted.

I shattered. Pleasure zinged through my body until it didn’t matter, for just a bit, that I couldn’t see anything at all. Gordon called out my name. I closed my eyes because it felt better to do so, and I held onto him, kissing wherever I could reach. Eventually, he tugged me over until I could lie against him. The sheet was at my waist, leaving my breasts on display, and he put one of his hands on my left one, right over my heart. I smiled.

“Love that look on your face.”

I knew that he would be the one out of all five of them to argue with me, loudly, when he thought he was right. I’d seen it on display at the library. Right now he was sweet, and I was going to enjoy the feeling. “How badly did my hair do?”

“Your hair?” He tugged on an end of it. “Looks beautiful.”

I rolled my eyes. “Liar.”

“It does.”

A thought dawned on me. “Do you feel okay? We just co-joined. Doesn’t that knock you out?”

“Good thought. I wasn’t focused on what happens now.” He scooted down. “I guess we should get moving. If I’m going to knock out, I’d better do it in the carriage.”

I almost wished I hadn’t said a word. This had felt like a cocoon, him and me alone in the world. Now, I was going to have to face the daylight and figure out how I was going to do that for the rest of my life. This would not beat me, but it might knock me down for a little while until I learned how to get control.

Gordon put his hand on my leg. “Don’t be sad, Mika. Nothing changes. In here. Out there. It’s all the same. You can feel me in there, can’t you? Follow the lead. It’ll take you to me every time. I’ll never let you down.”

I believed him.

He held my hand tightly and assured me I was properly dressed, even though I couldn’t see what I had on. I didn’t want to know right then if he’d helped me coif myself in mismatched socks and clothes that didn’t belong together.

I’d work out how to figure out the matter of my appearance at another time. Baby steps, so to speak. Today, I was just surviving. Tomorrow, I would…

Gordon kissed my temple. “Will take care of itself. Tomorrow will, that is.”

He was in my head now. Maybe that should have been invasive, but considering I could feel the sunlight on my face and not see it, any company was better than none at all. A shadow popped into my vision. Not a shadow of darkness against light but just the opposite, light to dark. I stumbled forward, and Gordon caught me.

“You okay?”

“I…” How to explain. “I saw the outline of something. The blurred outline of something.”

“You saw it?”

Whatever it was had gone. I hoped it wasn’t Katrina banging around in my head, getting through Clara’s blocks. I’d have to find out. The brief intrusion of light into my darkness had been so startling, and I’d only been this way for such a short period of time.

I shook my head. “Hard to explain.”

“Hey.” Neil’s voice caught my attention. “Gordon. Your eyes. You did it. You co-joined.” A hand came to my back, rubbing beneath my neck. “Hi, gorgeous.”

I cleared my throat. “Hi.” Was it going to be weird that I co-joined with Gordon and not the others yet? Was that going to start problems? “How are you?”

Neil kissed my cheek. “Good now that you’re here and thrilled you co-joined with Gordon. You need that support. I’m going to see to it that we’re all okay. You can count on me. I’m good at this. I take care of problems. I make things right.”

Gordon squeezed my hand before he let go. “He does. Annoyingly so, sometimes. Even though we love him. I’m getting in the carriage before I pass out.”

There was suddenly a flurry of voices and all sorts of bodies coming and going, people knocking into me. Neil tugged me against him, taking my hand in his. “Watch it.”

Some of the commotion stopped, and I tried to listen to what was being said. Daniella was saying goodbye to her daughters, who were weeping. The conversation I’d had with Reed that I remembered while I’d slept came back to me. She wasn’t going to see them again. Why not? Goosebumps broke out all over my arms. What was about to happen that she couldn’t at some point see her daughters?

“Hey.” Wayne approached. “Just saw Gordon. So incredible. You did that. You joined to him. You’re so magical.”

He was sweet, but I was cold. How in divinity did anyone think it was a good idea to leave me in charge of anything?

“Mika?” Wayne touched my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

I shook my head. “Not at all, actually.”

“Can I help?”

No, I really didn’t think he could. “Wayne, I—”

I was interrupted by Daniella’s approach and her request slash demand I look out for her kids. I told her I would. I thought it was more likely they’d somehow have to take care of me.

“Are you sure you want to do this? Where is it written that you have to? Keep your daughters here.” I hadn’t really thought about any of this. Losing my sight had taken all of my attention. Why did we have to leave here at all? We could stay put. All of us together.

A gentle hand touched my own. When she spoke, I knew it was Teagan. “The future is always changing. It’s fluid. Every word we say alters how the next moment, the next day, the next breath goes. Whether we can beat back the demons is another question altogether. But what we know—what I can see—what you’re going to have to trust me to know is that you have to be protected. The Oracle holds the future. You have to keep our future Sisters safe and learning with you. You see them. You draw them to you. Then you teach them. You aren’t meant to be in the fight, Mika. The Oracle isn’t. Trust me to know this.”

I wasn’t sure how to argue with the Prophet. A pit formed in my stomach. Something about this was so wrong. Or maybe it wasn’t. I was overwhelmed. I’d been cursed for a year, and not for the first time, unfortunately. Maybe I didn’t have any sense anymore of what should be. My guards seemed more than happy to bring me home to Peter’s.

I had to live in the dark so Katrina couldn’t see through my eyes. The only things I could see were the new Sisters, and only then because Clara made that safe.

Teagan squeezed my hand one more time. “You’ll know when they’re ready. You’ll send them to us then. Good travels, Sister Mika. I will miss you.”

I climbed into the carriage silently, waving in the direction of Anne’s voice, nodding to Daniella one more time. Her daughters wept quietly inside the carriage with me, and although I couldn’t see him, I felt Gordon’s presence near.

He was asleep, taken over by the joining. We jolted forward, heading toward Peter’s. We didn’t need a train to get there, just days in this carriage.

“Sister Mika.” Devyn touched my leg. “We’ll be okay, won’t we?”

I really hoped so. I smiled, my best trained Sister smile, and used the line I’d been trained to speak. “We are always in the hand of the divine.”

But what if we weren’t? What if there was something else going on much different than that? What were the birds saying? The spirits had gone quiet. They weren’t speaking to me. Or maybe I wasn’t listening. How could I know the difference?

I cleared my throat. There were questions I should have asked that I hadn’t yet. I needed to focus. My eyes didn’t work right now, but my brain was fine. “Girls, which one of my men speaks to the birds?”

“To the guards-to-be?” Jayne answered me. Yes, that was what Daniella called the ravens. They had so many names. Ravens. Crows. Birds. I had to find my patience. These were young girls who had not been raised in the Sisterhood like I had. Their mother, until recently, had hidden them away and raised them with her husbands. They’d been afraid most of the time they were with us. They didn’t have the kind of cynicism that came from my upbringing. I never heard anything but sincerity in their voices. I wasn’t going to lose my temper on them just because they were the closest people present and awake.

I nodded, hoping the sweet girls didn’t know the talking to I’d had to give myself not to say everything wrong. “Yes. Those. Which one of my guys talks to them?”

Jayne answered again. “Gordon.”

And of course he was asleep right now. I sat back in my seat. The girls sniffed a few times—I couldn’t tell who, but it sounded like all three of them—then started speaking softly. I listened to their chatter. This was going to be a long ride since I couldn’t even look out the window to see scenery pass. The girls were talking about something they’d read. A book about third level demons. I remembered it vaguely. The third levels were tricky. Sometimes they were easy, sometimes they were hard. What did it matter? I should, apparently, never have been fighting demons to begin with.

Oracles had to be protected.

But, no, dang it, I didn’t.

I pounded my hand on the wall, and the conversation stopped. “Sorry. Don’t mind me, ladies. I’m going to be a little off until I get used to this.”

I had taken care of an Original demon all by myself. I’d dealt with Beelzebub. I survived being cursed not once but twice. I saved a girl who was so close to death she’d been all but dead already. I had cleared countless demons.

I wasn’t a wilting flower.

But I couldn’t see a thing and that meant adjusting my thinking. The things I used to be able to do were over. Maybe that was why the Oracle always got blinded, one way or another, because no one would ever agree to be locked away, either in the Sisterhood or on Peter’s, otherwise.

Or maybe they would. Why was I questioning what had to be a gift? I was going somewhere where there would be no demons for me to deal with at all. I would have visions and I would teach. I hated the visions but they were happening whether I wanted them to or not. I liked teaching.

“Sister Mika, sometimes I can hear your thoughts.” Jayne caught my attention. “I don’t mean to. I have to stop doing it. I don’t know how. Is that something you can teach me?”

I thought about it. There were books on the subject. “I can tell you where to go to get that information. Did we bring any books with us? Because if we haven’t, we need to turn around and go back.”

“Nearly the whole library is strapped to the back of the carriage.”

Well, there went that idea. “We’ll figure it out. Devyn, how did you know that you could take my eyesight?”

She was so quiet I wondered if she wasn’t going to answer. Then, finally she did. “Brother Reed told me I could.”

“Oh he did, did he?” Brother Reed was mixing things up quite a bit it seemed. I’d dreamed of him and here he was again. “And Clara, I saw an outline of light before. Could that be Katrina trying to get in?”

“I…” The young woman cleared her throat. “No, ma’am. Katrina can’t get through my shielding. I don’t know what that was. Only Jayne can visit your head and only because I let her. We could stop that, but I think she needs to learn how to cease on her own. Maybe? Devyn, is there something wrong with the eye spell?”

Devyn touched the side of my cheek, and I jumped. People had to start giving me warnings if they were going to touch me. “Not a thing.”

Well, I supposed that was good news. The rest of the day was quiet. We’d knock if we needed to stop, but none of us did. Maybe they were on the same page as me. We simply had to get this over with as fast as possible.

Gordon woke suddenly. I felt him come awake through our link. He made a groaning noise. Was he okay?

“Mika? Your thoughts are all over the place, beautiful. You’re going to give us both a headache. Okay if I touch you?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

He grabbed my knee. “What’s going on in that head? I can hardly follow it.”

I sighed. “I don’t want to be locked away.”

There. I had said it.

He let go of me and knocked on the roof. The carriage slowed.

“What are you doing?”

Neil’s voice sounded in the carriage. “Need a break?”

“Did any of us ask Mika here if she wanted to do this? I don’t think we did. Teagan told us this was happening, that it should happen, and we did it. Did any one of us ask Mika? I told her she could stay, but then I brought her outside and got in the carriage.” He paused. “Ask her before you touch her. I heard that thought, Mika. We’ll all do that. No one grabs her unless it’s an emergency without asking her first.”

The next time Neil spoke, he was closer to me. “He makes a good point. Do you not want to go to Peter’s, love? We can turn around right now.”

It was just in that moment that my powers turned on. I gasped, grabbing the side of the carriage. This wasn’t a vision. It was a demon.

My three young charges cried out, their own powers probably doing what mine were. There was a demon nearby. I was blinded, and the girls had never fought the evil creatures before. This wasn’t going to go well.

“Right now, Peter’s sounds great.” I reached out my hand toward Neil. “Ask me if we live through this. I’ll let you know.”