Page 75 of Gates of Rapture (The Guardians of Ascension #6)

But it was Patience who rolled her eyes.

“Grace, I was never celibate like you. And I’ve had many wild centuries.

Casimir knows that. We’ve talked it all over.

As for your relationship with him on Fourth, we’ve agreed that without you having taken him there, he would never have entered the redemption pools and would never have agreed to serve as Leto’s Guardian of Ascension.

I met him, essentially, because of you, so I regret nothing. ”

Grace looked from one to the other. She could see the breh -bond forming between them. Once more her eyes filled with tears. She just couldn’t believe that Casimir, of all ascenders, had brought Patience home.

A long series of embraces followed. Patience would return to Second Earth, and Casimir stated without hesitation that he wanted to make his home on Second, not just because of Patience but because of his boys as well.

“After all,” he said, “I promised Kendrew and Sloane that Auntie Grace would always be in their lives.”

Grace smiled. “You know, I always promised to take them camping in the Cascades.” She took Leto’s hand. “I hope we can do that soon.”

Leto pulled her close. “Absolutely.”

Casimir frowned. “And the new school term is about to start. I’ll need to get them enrolled right away.”

Grace stared at Casimir for a long moment. It was hard to remember the man he had been. Never in a thousand years had she thought she’d hear him speak about enrolling his kids in school.

She thought of Greaves. If Casimir could be redeemed, maybe it was possible that Greaves could be transformed as well.

***

Beatrice sat in her favorite chair in her living room, the one with the footstool that Grace had occupied while helping Beatrice to roll her balls of yarn. She missed Grace and wished the younger woman was here. She needed some comfort.

She leaned forward and covered her ears.

Tears began leaking from her eyes. She was trying to be strong, but her son’s screams could be heard all over her floating estate.

His agony, his rage, his remorse had erupted from the moment he’d touched the water of the first pool, the gentlest pool, the one that was meant to ease the sinner into the process.

Instead, Darian might as well be bathing in fire.

How great were his sins.

More than could be numbered.

He was the author of blood slavery, he had led countless ascenders into addiction to dying blood, and he’d used his squads of death vampires to kill any who stood in his way.

Her son had no conscience.

And so he screamed.

Beatrice covered her ears and wept, unable to fathom how many years or decades or even centuries would be required to wash away the last ramification of all his evil deeds.

***

Grace had forgotten the trials of childhood. A vampire’s long life had created a nearly infinite distance between the sufferings of the two decades required to reach adulthood and the almost boundless challenges of living as a mature ascender.

She glanced at Leto, who stood on the opposite side of their small campsite, in a clearing in the forest on Mortal Earth, deep in the Cascades. He’d built a large campfire that had roared and crackled and was only now settling down.

She sat with Kendrew on her lap. He was the elder of Casimir’s boys—six years old now. Sloane sat in his kiddie camp chair, but he had drawn as close to her as he could get and held her hand tight.

These boys had had a rocky beginning, but their lives were beginning to smooth out and Grace was part of that, as she had promised.

But it was Kendrew who had brought up the current offense.

He had entered the first grade in the Seattle hidden colony’s school and—children being what they had always been—one of his schoolmates had already brought up a supposed past crime of his father’s.

He had told Kendrew that Casimir had been the instigator of a bomb attack in Las Vegas Two that had nearly killed twenty thousand people.

“I know for a fact that is completely untrue,” Grace said.

Kendrew twisted in her arms and looked up at her. “My papa didn’t do that terrible thing?”

“Not at all, and you can tell your friend that Fiona was there, Warrior Jean-Pierre’s breh, and she told me that it was Greaves who had ordered his death vampires to blow up the building.

Your father hadn’t even known about it.” Greaves had intended for Casimir to die as well, but Grace didn’t think Kendrew needed to hear that.

Kendrew smiled and turned back around to face the fire. Sloane now leaned against her arm. It was getting late, and the boys were tired.

Grace shuddered inwardly on Kendrew’s behalf.

Maybe the six-year-old who had attempted to malign Casimir had gotten the facts wrong in this case, but one day someone would speak the truth about his crimes; then what would Grace say?

Casimir’s list of wrongdoings was long, horribly long, and the truth one day would be out.

She leaned down and kissed the top of Kendrew’s head. He had curly hair like his father. “Your father is one of the bravest men I’ve ever known because he saved Leto’s life and almost died doing it. There is nothing greater on earth than laying down one’s life for another.”

At that, Kendrew once more turned into her and looked up at her. “He is brave.”

“Oh, yes. And smart, so very smart. And he has the funniest sense of humor.”

Sloane’s hand grew slack in hers. She could feel his body sinking against her.

“And now, my darlings, time for bed.”

Kendrew didn’t protest, but slid off her lap. Sloane, on the other hand, at three, could barely walk he was so drowsy.

She called to Leto. He turned and smiled that beautiful smile of his, now full of affection for her, of love. She inclined her head in Sloane’s direction. He moved swiftly and lifted the three-year-old as though he were a feather.

The boys’ tent was at a right angle to theirs and held two cots. She tucked Kendrew in and kissed him. She put her hand on his forehead and offered a prayer and a blessing.

She left the tent and Leto performed a similar ritual with Sloane, though the younger boy’s eyes were closed when he put his large hand on the small forehead and offered another blessing and a prayer.

When Leto zipped down the front of the tent, he led her back to their larger tent.

Before going inside, he glanced around. “I was going to put a dome of mist over our campsite, but then I realized it wasn’t needed.

The colony is safe, and the one vampire powerful enough to break through Diallo’s mist is corralled on Fourth Earth. ”

In the distance, she heard wolves howl, a long plaintive cry in the dark.

She loved that sound. She loved Mortal Earth, where all life had begun, humankind and vampire-kind alike.

She loved the hidden colony as well. She would have been content anywhere, in any dimension, with Leto, but she confessed she was happy in this quiet, secret ascended world, happier than she would have been on Second Earth.

This was a good place to begin her life with Leto, camping with Casimir’s boys. She wanted to have children, and maybe one day she would.

***

An hour later, Leto was buried inside Grace and trying not to laugh. Making love to her and attempting to keep as quiet as possible in order not to awaken or frighten the boys had given his woman the giggles.

“I’m just not used to this,” she whispered, laughing all over again.

“Hush,” he said, but his smile was broad. “You’re not helping, and if they wake up we’ll have to stop.”

At that, she grabbed his bare ass and sunk her nails. “Oh, please don’t stop,” she whispered back.

He thrust hard into her just once, which made her entire body arch and her mouth fly open. He crushed what he knew would be a loud moan, by kissing her and driving his tongue into her mouth.

She gave up her laughter then, and with her own hips met his pelvis in answering grinds. But her moans started anyway. Ah, well, it couldn’t be helped. Grace was very vocal, and he loved it. Better to just make it quick.

By now he knew her body well. Because of the breh-hedden he could feel her responses, the pleasure she felt with each thrust, just as she had to be experiencing what it was like for him to have her body encase him and pull on him.

Heaven, he sent.

Yes, oh yes. I’m so close.

I can feel that you are.

He felt her orgasm ride through her body, which caused him to speed his thrusts just a little bit more. Sharp cries left her mouth. So much for keeping their lovemaking a secret from the boys. Hopefully they were sleeping deeply enough.

He came then, pleasure streaking through his cock so that even he, despite his self-control, uttered a long low moan. But his pleasure brought her again, so he sustained the rocking until her body grew quiet and slack beneath his.

Her hands were on his face, something she had done from the beginning. “I love you, Leto.”

“I love you, too.”

“You’ve made me happier than you’ll ever know.”

But he thought he knew. If she experienced even a tenth of what he felt, the joy, the deep sense of peace, and even a feeling of purpose in their breh-hedden union, then he did know something of her happiness.

Later, as Grace fell asleep in his arms, Leto gave thanks for the life he’d been given, for a life that had been returned to him in full measure. How far he’d come from Moscow Two when he was on the brink of death. Now he stood, and perhaps would forevermore, at the gates of rapture.