He tipped his chin toward his partner in a gesture to get going.

Silence smiled down at Nynn and the two men in her life—one barely formed, one scarred and just as new to the world. “Take care, friends.”

Then they were as much a part of the night as the stillness and stars. Leto helped Nynn stand, so that he could lead her back toward the huddled bundle of shivering bodies. Leto knelt next to Pell and touched her cheeks. “Jack, come sit with my sister, will you? Her name is Pell. And you’re both cold.”

“It’s all right,” Nynn said to Jack with a growing measure of calm. “I’m right here. And I’m never going anywhere without you again.”

Jack threw his arms around her neck and kissed her there—there, where she wore no collar and could feel his small, sure gesture. “Love you, Mama.”

She swallowed back tears as her son scampered from her arms and laid down beside Pell’s motionless body. He huddled under a makeshift blanket that may have been from the young woman’s gurney. Nynn considered her survival and her reunion with Jack—let alone her love for Leto—to be miracles. There had been no future for Pell before, and she would’ve died in the labs. Maybe now . . .

Leto settled behind Nynn, with his legs crisscrossed around hers. He’d held her that way on several occasions. She adored the safety and possessive weight of his limbs wrapped around hers. She leaned back against his chest, reveling in the man who’d become hers through a hell she would spend years trying to understand. At least she would have Leto to hold her throughout it all.

Over her shoulder, looking up at him, she whispered, “I love you, Leto. I’m glad you came for me. I could’ve given all I had, but that wasn’t my right. It would mean sacrificing you and Jack, too—your happiness.”

He leaned close and kissed her. Tenderly at first, but then with the growing heat of having survived. Together. His arms were her refuge. His heart was her home. His soul was the treasure she’d never knew she sought. She could never put right what had been lost, but she could look ahead to years filled with boundless potential.

Leto’s tongue stroked over hers. Passion and power. Sweetness and sweat. They were everything and more.

“I love you,” he said with that rough, deep rumble. “Be mine. Be mine . . .”

As the distant sound of helicopter rotors filled her with another surge of hope, Nynn smiled against his mouth. “Always, my warrior. No matter what the future holds.”

Tallis shed his heavy leather jacket and levered over Kavya, the legendary goddess known as the Sun, where she sprawled on the ground, sheltered by the canvas tent. He wore sturdy military-style cargo pants, while she wore only a silken sari. She would be able to feel his desire taking physical form.

“Should I kiss you again?” He touched her only from the waist down, where he used the weight of his lower body as more threat than seduction. Arms straight, he braced his hands on either side of her head. “I’d learn secrets about the Sun you’re too arrogant to admit possessing.”

“More of the so-called justice you seek? I’ve done nothing to you!”

“You know my weaknesses better than I do. Every fantasy—even those I can’t arrange into thought.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ve used that knowledge against me for years,” he said, voice deepening with anger. “If I resisted, you invaded dream after dream like some Dragon-damned monster. You’d raid another corner of my mind to find more secrets.” He was still aroused. Kissing her had been calculated, but he’d been swept into the vortex where fantasy swirled with reality. “Is it any surprise that I desire you in person?”

“You have the only mind I’ve never been able to read. How could I have done anything to your dreams?”

A clamor of voices came from beyond the tent’s dingy white canvas. For a moment Tallis thought she’d managed to telepathically call for help, but she wore no expression of triumph. Then came more voices, more chaos.

He edged away and grabbed the deadly Norse seaxes he’d kept out of her reach.

His sense of hearing gave away her attack from behind as Kavya swung a cooking pot. The determination and, frankly, the vehemence in her glittering brown eyes was pure surprise. Ropes around her ankles meant she had one chance before losing her balance, but she made the most of it. The bulk of the pot hit his shoulder. One seax with its etched blade and honed edge skidded along the bare rock floor.

She rolled onto her back and grabbed the hilt with both bound hands. A quick slice parted the ropes at her ankles. She spun so that she knelt again, bloodying her knees. Shins braced against the ground gave her more stability. The split skirt of her sari bared the sleek skin of her thigh.

Although his shoulder ached, Tallis could only grin. “I’d hoped there was more to you than words and specters.”

“Why would you think that of someone you kidnapped and profess to hate?”

Her eyes were bright and widely spaced, wedded to the high, rounded apples of her cheeks. She had a tiny nose and a chin that, for all her defiance, was softly shaped. Tallis shivered. This was her, really her, not the witch who’d infected his dreams for two decades. The real Sun, this woman Kavya, was the perfect compromise between truth and fantasy, virgin and whore—a bound innocent holding his blade.

Although she remained still, she vibrated with near-visible energy. Tallis could practically smell the heady cologne of her fear and focus. Her telepathic seductions were vile, but the surprising resilience of her fighting spirit made him smile more deeply.

“I like to think,” he said, “that when I break you, I’ll have broken someone who deserved the worst I can dish out. Seems you’re in the mood to make me a happy man.”

“Happy? I want you dead.” A look a horror crossed her face. She inhaled sharply, which lifted the supple curve of breasts draped in silk.

Tallis chuckled. “You didn’t mean to say that, did you?”

Exaggerating the ache in his shoulder, crouching before her, he shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet. Rather than leap, he leaned and swept his right leg. The toe of his boot caught her behind her upper thigh with a hard kick. He yanked. Between the blow and the pull, she fell hard onto her side.

She coughed, struggling for air. He pushed forward with two crouched strides and snatched the stolen blade from her bound hands.

“The Sun can fight. Gratifying, but it won’t change anything.” The gathering ferment outside the tent caught his attention again. “Stay. Unless you want to remain unaware of what’s happening among your flock.”

Her mouth was . . . gorgeous. There was no other word. Bee-stung lips twisted into a sneer. “Do it.”

“That’s the only command of yours I’ll obey.”

Intending to piss her off, he took one more taste of the lips he’d never believed could be real. Seeing her in the flesh, tasting and smelling and touching her—those intimacies made her night visits more ephemeral. They were mere shadows compared to the sweet bitterness of the kiss he took without permission.

She bit him. Tallis reared back. He swiped a hand against his mouth and came away with blood.

“That wasn’t very nice, goddess.” But he was still grinning.

Both seaxes firmly grasped, Tallis peered outside again. Dusk approached to take the place of full sunlight. Amiable pods of Indranan had been gathered around their fire pits. Now they hurried around wearing frightened expressions.

Strange.

Tallis’s own clan, the Pendray, were generally insane and suffered from historic self-esteem issues, but at least they displayed what they felt without pretense. They were boisterous and unapologetic. The Indranan, however, were made of mystery. To see the camp transformed into a frenzied, buzzing collection of scared souls was shocking—so many emotions laid surprisingly bare.