Her administration was like a goddam three-ring circus. All she lacked were a few elephants trumpeting and monkeys swinging from chandeliers.

Great.

Fucking great.

Now what the hell was she supposed to do?

* * *

Fiona thanked the healer for taking care of her busted eardrums, yet again, and watched as he lifted an arm and folded from Alison’s library. Rubbing her ears, she went in search of Alison and found her in the living room, sitting in a big comfortable chair and nursing baby Helena. The baby at three months was now a wonderful armful.

Alison’s eyes were drooping. The first year with a nursing baby in the house was always a tough time: beautiful, wonderful, exciting, but tough. Add to that Alison’s duties as executive assistant to the scorpion queen and yes, it was definitely time to leave mother and daughter alone. It had to be one in the morning.

But as her gaze drifted to the black shock of hair, moving gently with each suckling motion, Fiona’s heart squished up into a delicious knot remembering those early months with Carolyn so many years ago. Would she and Jean-Pierre one day have a family?

The thought nearly brought tears to her eyes.

“I should go,” she said.

Alison smiled. “You are welcome to stay as long as you like, but you must be exhausted.”

Oddly, she wasn’t, and yet what a long, strange, frightening night it had been. “I’d better get back to Jean-Pierre.”

Alison nodded.

She made a quick call to Militia HQ to let both the landing platform and Jean-Pierre know that she was on her way. Boy, did she have things to tell him. What a show he’d missed when he’d folded on ahead to HQ.

Once she had things settled with Jean-Pierre, she transferred to the night-duty grid monitor, Donna, and got a fold to the platform.

Jean-Pierre stood waiting for her in battle gear. The sight of him was always a jolt to her feminine sensibilities but especially in a uniform that showed a lot of skin: muscled arms, a good portion of his chest, and parts of his legs. He was tall, ripped, lean as hell with sharp cheekbones—so handsome, well, her knees felt watery all over again. She had the strong feeling that no matter what happened in the coming years, that would never change, how the mere sight of him nearly brought her tumbling to the floor.

Her heart started pounding out a new cadence because she realized that right in this moment, they had no more duties for the rest of the night … except to go home.

Together.

His thoughts must have been similar because when he approached her, he smelled like a warm cup of coffee.

“Croissants,” he murmured, whispering the word next to her ear. He slipped his arms around her and held her close.

She looked up at him. “Is everything okay here? I was a little surprised when you left Endelle’s office.”

“Yes, I needed to speak with Seriffe … about the Militia Warrior training program. I … have some ideas I wish to pursue.”

“Really?” She saw the light in his eye, something akin to hopefulness. What on earth had happened? What had changed? “What’s going on?”

“I am not certain, but I think a new power has emerged for me, something wholly unexpected.”

She blinked. “Empathy. Like Alison. I’m right, aren’t I?”

He nodded. “I believe so, but the application that keeps flowing through my mind has to do with the Militia Warriors and encouraging not just their skills but their powers as well. We need them to grow stronger if we are to win this war.”

“And you think you can help them do that? Sort of bring them into their powers?”

“I am not certain, but that is my wish.”

She squeezed his arm. “Jean-Pierre, I hope you can do exactly that because I know what this means to you.”

His nostrils flared slightly. “I love that you know me in this way, Fiona, that this was your first thought and that you understood how much I want to change the course of the war. I want it as though it is life to me.”

She nodded and put a hand on his cheek.

“We should go home now, non?”

“Absolutely.”

He shifted slightly and waved to the officer on duty.

“Ready?” he asked, looking down at her.

Fiona smiled. She loved that about Jean-Pierre, that he didn’t just take off, folding them both, but gave her a warning, which made a huge difference for her. Folding anywhere was still an unsettling experience. Yes, she loved that about him.

She nodded and the smooth glide through nether-space landed them inside his house right next to the piano.

She blinked, staring at the baby grand. “One day, I hope you’ll play for me, then I’ll play for you.”

“You play as well?” he asked.

She lifted her chin. “I’ll have you know that every accomplished woman in Boston society played extremely well.” But she laughed.

As she took in the piano once more, for a swift moment she was drawn back to her row house in Beacon Hill all those decades ago, to the evening parties, to performing or listening to her dearest friends perform. Those were the requirements of the time and place.

Now she was in Jean-Pierre’s house, a very different time, a very different place. There were new requirements now, one in particular that had been harassing her from the moment she realized that the coffee scent she kept smelling came from him.

Imagine … coffee.

The whole thing was so extraordinary and demanding and upsetting.

Even now she was just a little pissed off that she didn’t seem to have a choice.

“Fiona,” he said softly, again close to her ear. “Tell me what you are thinking. You are glaring at my poor piano.”

She chuckled. She glanced back at him and he smiled for her, showing her all his beautiful big teeth. She put her hand on his face, stroking her thumb over his cheek. “We crossed some serious territory tonight, didn’t we?”

He nodded into her hand, then turned slightly and kissed her palm. She shivered. God, what this man could do to her with just a kiss.

“I have something I must ask you, but I wish you to know that I do not ask this lightly.”

She could see that he was suddenly nervous, but she didn’t interrupt him.

“I wish to know if you would complete the breh-hedden with me?”

Her gaze dropped to his chin. She was afraid to look anywhere else. She already knew what her answer would be, but this was still not a simple thing, not an easy step to take. Marriage would have been a walk in the park compared with this. The joining was so much more involved, more intense, and would come with even greater responsibility.

He rubbed her arms and kissed her forehead.

She loved that he let the moment rest, that he didn’t leap in and try to pressure her.

Finally, she lifted her gaze to his. “Is this what you want, Jean-Pierre, truly want with me? I know that what happened so long ago broke your heart, ruined your heart, and I don’t want you to feel that you have to do this.”

Strangely, his eyes grew wet.

Once more, he kissed her forehead. “Earlier tonight, when I was paralyzed and could not breathe, when I knew that I would die, do you know what I thought?”

She shook her head.

“I thought that no man had been so foolish as I had been in holding my heart back from you. I was already in love with you, but I told myself it was a sweet transient love, not very serious. Lovely, but not meaningful.

“But as I lay there, all I could think was how much I was going to miss you. I could not even imagine what death would hold, but I felt certain I would miss you terribly, that my soul would carry an ache in the very center of my being because I would no longer be with you, have you near, have my arms around you.

“I know it does not make sense, but in that moment I realized that my love for you was … enormous, that it filled every corner of my being.

“As for the breh-hedden, I know it will bring many difficulties for us both. I know that. I know that our responsibilities to Endelle will be greater, perhaps to Colonel Seriffe and the Militia Warriors as well. This I feel also deep in my soul. And for that, for you, I am so sorry.

“Because I love you, I want something so very different for you—a life of peace for one thing. But I cannot have this, because this is war and we do not know when it will change.

“My answer is simply, oui, I want to complete the breh-hedden with you. I want you so much in that way that I can hardly breathe. Despite the difficulties that will come, I want to know you, your mind, your body, your blood all at one time and I want you to know me in the same way. And I want to experience where that joining will take us.

“This I believe, Fiona: Something awaits us on the other side of this, something we are meant to know, to experience, perhaps even to accomplish together.

“But mostly, it is you I want, all that you are. So, yes, I want this joining with you, more than life itself.”

Fiona had to blink several times so that the tears that had gathered while he spoke would dissipate. She had never thought to hear such a beautiful speech from him, to hear him speak of loving her in such a way, that his love for her filled every corner of his being.

She was moved beyond words. More tears gathered then fell. She swiped at them with her fingertips.

He pulled her close and held her in his familiar warm embrace. She leaned her head against his shoulder.

Her life moved at light speed now, so strangely fast. For over a hundred years the rhythm of her existence had been measured month by month as Rith took her blood, as he drained her to death, then gave it all back again with someone else’s blood and the hard, painful jolts of the defibrillators.

But from the time of her release from captivity, life had sped up, or perhaps caught up with the flow of Second Earth and the demands of war.

She was now the gold variety of obsidian flame, able not only to channel someone else’s power, but also to allow a full possession and increase that power exponentially.

What she could contribute to the war effort had made Endelle dance a jig on top of her marble desk. She’d even helped release Marguerite from her captivity and rescue twenty thousand people. Surely a woman who could do all this could also give herself to the mysteries of the breh-hedden.