God, he was so close. So close. He tried to concentrate, licking, suckling, drawing on her clit, her pussy so unfathomably wet, so beyond delicious. He’d never heard a sound so wonderful as Thalia screaming her climax around his cock. But he wasn’t satisfied. Not until she screamed again, and again, panting around him. When the last tremor subsided, Gabriel flipped her onto her back, placed himself between her legs, and plunged into her with one, fierce thrust. She bowed up from the blanket, moaning.
He showed no mercy, not to her nor to himself, as he fucked her with hard, deep strokes. Thalia writhed and clawed, wrapping her legs around his waist, unable to form words except long trills of sound. Gabriel pounded into her, giving her everything. “So good,” he rumbled. “Goddamn it.”
Wrapping one arm around her waist, the other hand braced against the ground, raised up on his knees, Gabriel held Thalia tight and let his body speak what he never could articulate with enough satisfaction. Inside her. Forever. That’s all he wanted. That’s where he belonged.
Thalia screamed once more, clenching around him. Then his climax hit him, so hard he almost lost consciousness. Anyone within miles could hear him, but he didn’t bloody care. He cared for only one thing, one person, and she was beneath him, singing out her own pleasure.
“Thalia,” he gasped. “I love you. I love you so goddamn much.”
He kept himself from collapsing on top of her, but only barely. She sighed when they rolled onto their sides, facing each other, with him still inside of her.
The sun had long since set, but she glowed, as brilliant as her soul. She trailed her fingers through his damp hair. “Gabriel, my warrior,” she murmured. “I never knew I could love anyone the way I love you.”
“And how is that?” he asked, languorous but exhilarated by their declarations.
She pressed kisses against his jaw and snuggled close. “Without fear.”
But as they drifted in a dream bliss, Gabriel could not say the same. He loved her. She loved him. And that scared the hell out of him.
Neither Thalia nor Gabriel were quite ready to return to the encampment, so they wrapped themselves in the blanket, body pressed to body, warm and alive in the shelter of the rocks. Full night had fallen. She wasn’t sure how long they had been at the oasis—time seemed to lose its weight. Minutes, or years. It didn’t matter to her.
“Why did you join the army?” she asked. He was snug against her back, cupped, with his arms around her waist, his wonderful rough hands stroking the curve of her belly. Thalia felt such peace, such rightness, being with him this way.
She felt his breath in her hair as he spoke. “Not much choice in Brumby. Work in the mines, or don’t work at all. I was lucky to go to school most days instead of working in the pit, like other children.”
“I don’t know much about coal mining,” Thalia admitted. “Sounds…dark.”
“And dangerous, and filthy. There were floods, collapses, explosions. The chokedamp and afterdamp that could kill if you breathed it.” His voice sounded flat, as if he was used to such horror. “So I enlisted after my da died. He was my last family.”
Thalia shuddered to think of Gabriel, who radiated light and life, shut down into sunless mines where every moment was peril. She knew that in the army he faced danger nearly every day, but there was something so relentless and futile about clawing fuel from the depths of the earth, where the enemy wasn’t another country’s soldiers, but the work itself.
Whatever darkness took him, she wanted to chase it back. “You must have liked the army, to stay for so long.”
“Well enough. Fine days and bad, like anything. Sometimes, I do miss it. I didn’t like killing, but I liked being on missions, having a purpose. And the day-to-day life could be good. I remember,” he said, growing a bit more relaxed, “think it was in Nagpur, and the rains had come. Months and months of it. Hard to imagine in a place like this.”
“I like being wet with you.”
Gabriel’s eyes glittered with hunger. “This won’t be the last time, sweetheart.”
Her body, much as she wanted him again, was spent. She tried to turn the conversation back. “So, the rains in India?”
He understood her tiredness. “Months of this, constant rain, and we were ready to lose our taffy. One day, me and Lieutenant Carlyle start thinking of everything we’re going to do once the rain stops. Things outside. Paint a picture. Write a letter. Tune a piano.”
“Do you know how to tune a piano?”
“I’d learn, just so I could do it outside.”
He puzzled her, after all this time, but in a way that delighted her. “So, did you learn?”
“No. But this went on a while, Carlyle and me trying to top each other with our after-the-monsoon plans, until somebody, Reynolds, I think, told us to either get off our arses and do something, or shut our gobs. So we went out and played football. After a bit, some more men came out and joined us. Sepoys, too.”
“In the rain?”
“In the rain. The pitch was muddy.”
“Who won?”
“My team. Made Carlyle polish my boots every evening for a month.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“With his pillowcase.”
Thalia heard herself actually giggle, for the first time in years. “I hope you got them good and grimy.”
“Always walked through the stables before coming back to my quarters.”
Now she shook with laughter, and Gabriel joined her. It felt so good, to share this with him. When he’d first come into her father’s ger in Urga, Thalia never would have suspected he could be this light, this playful, yet the more she learned about him, the more she felt right in giving him her love. She felt light, too, having at last spoken of her feelings to him. And he loved her. Loved her. Such a blessing.
“I can’t believe I can get a laugh out of you, talking about muddy football and horseshit,” Gabriel chuckled.
“Doesn’t speak very highly of me,” Thalia said wryly. She felt herself turned so that she faced Gabriel, and, even in the dark of night, his eyes burned golden and serious.
“I’m a bloody lucky bugger,” he said with a guttural rasp. “A rough soldier who’s known little of softness or niceness. Never thought I’d find a woman I could talk to without making a complete ass of myself. But you don’t expect me to have dainty manners, and you even like being with me, just as I am.” He sounded genuinely surprised, and he was not a man to devalue himself.
“Just as you are,” she repeated solemnly, then kissed him, her hands on the archangel sculpture of his cheekbones. “I never thought I would find the same, either.”
“Any man would be daft not to want you.”
Her laugh was low and rueful. “Wanting and loving are very different. I know that men can want quite easily.”
Gabriel muttered something about Russian bastards that needed castrating.
“Yes, him,” Thalia said, rather appallingly pleased with his desire for vengeance on her behalf, “but most others, too.”
“Your father is so honest with you?”
“Oh, no. He never wanted to remarry after my mother died, and he had plenty of opportunity. And when it came time to discuss…family matters…” She grimaced. “I think he was more embarrassed than I. But most of my friends are male, and they’ve been good enough to be candid about themselves. And their appetites. Which almost never include things beyond the most basic and physical. Whenever I see Bennett—”
“Who?” Gabriel demanded.
Thalia kissed him again. “Bless you for your jealousy. But I’ve known Bennett Day since I was fourteen. He’s a Blade. He could have very easily been recruited to the Heirs. Extraordinary with maps and codes, and from a good family, too. And, to my father’s unending disappointment, but vicarious thrill, the worst libertine. By ‘worst,’ I mean successful and unrepentant. God, the stories Bennett tells over pipes late into the night. My father always sends me to bed so my delicate ears aren’t harmed, but I listen outside.”
“Burgess should keep you locked up whenever that Day is around,” Gabriel grumbled.
“To Bennett, I’m more of a younger sister than potential seduction,” she said. “And, though I admit to a small childish infatuation with him when I was around sixteen, I’ve not once been tempted, nor has he tried. He’s perfectly happy moving from one conquest to another. I wish I could say that, underneath it all, he’s desperately lonely, but that isn’t the case.”
Gabriel rolled onto his back, pulling Thalia with him so she lay partially atop him. He ran his hands up and down her back, and she shivered with pleasure at his touch. “Not every man is like this Day bloke.”
“Thank God for that. Or we would be faced with a population explosion.” She let her hands drift over the healthy brawn of his chest, feeling the dusting of hair, the puckered flesh of scars. The body of a man who’d lived with energy and purpose, and would continue to do so. At least, as long as circumstances kept him alive. It was horrible that, possibly within a day, the Heirs would do everything in their power to crush out Gabriel’s life, and hers. Horrible for so many reasons.
“Thalia,” Gabriel said, “I’m not the sort of man who’s ever had to think of anybody but himself.”
“You’re not selfish, if that’s what you’re saying.”
“Maybe not. But what I mean is”—he turned his head to look at her—“what I mean is, I don’t mind the battle that’s ahead, but the thought of your being hurt or worse—”
“That’s not going to happen,” she said immediately.
He shook his head. “Years of combat taught me. I can fight and fight, but that might not be enough.” His voice rusted and caught, but he cleared his throat. “Now that I’ve found you, it scares me witless to think of anything happening. To you. I’m not used to being…afraid.”
A sudden realization came to her. “So this is love,” she said quietly. “The daily prospect of joy or disaster.”
For a long time, neither of them spoke as they considered this, touching each other with gentle caresses. Then touch warmed, grew heated. Her tired body revived itself. Gabriel’s hands moved from her back to cup the curves of her bottom while her hands also moved down, from his chest to lower, where she wrapped her fingers around his stiffening erection. He stroked her breast and between her legs, and soon they were both gasping. Wordlessly, Thalia mounted him, thrusting him deep inside of her, wanting to take him as far into her as she could, as if there was a place, protected by the intimate bond of their joining, where they could take shelter and know with conviction that they would share tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and all the days that followed.
There was no certainty to be found, but as their bodies and hearts moved together, pleasure overtaking them both, Thalia hoped that even this small moment of rapture caught the dispassionate gaze of the world’s magic, and that, somehow, there might be just enough enchantment to keep her and Gabriel safe.
A Good Place to Stand and Fight
The rider approached, and his face looked grim. As he neared the waiting group, he shook his head.
“They are no more than a day behind us,” he said. “And their numbers are growing.”
“Is your friend sure?” Gabriel asked.
The rider looked over his shoulder, to where another man on camelback rode away. “He saw them himself, and his cousin did, as well. There are over a hundred men now. Impossible to miss on these gravel-covered plains.”
Yes, the huge stretches of barren expanse would do little to hide an advancing army. And there was no way for Gabriel to hide the tracks of his party. Everything stirred up dust, making their trail blaze like lightning. If they could outrun the Heirs, it would only lead them straight to a battle. He glanced at the assembled group. Two dozen brigands, four tribesmen, himself and Thalia. Against over a hundred. Possibly the monks at the monastery might fight, but Gabriel couldn’t count on that. He’d faced tough odds before. But he’d never gone up against an enemy that not only outnumbered his own forces, but had magic as a weapon.
“And the monastery?”
“It is known as Sha Chuan Si, and it is fifteen miles from here, so says my kinsman.”
“Can we do it?” Thalia asked. She tried to keep the worry from her voice, but wasn’t completely successful.
He turned to her, and there it was. The sweet, sharp pain of loving her in the midst of madness. “We will,” he answered, and had to believe it or else lose his mind. “But we ride hard.”
“I thought we had been,” she said, her smile weary.
“A Sunday promenade, compared to what we have to do.” When she nodded, he put his heels to his camel. Altan and his men immediately followed.
As they rode, Gabriel’s mind filled with a hundred different scenarios. If the Heirs overtook them en route. If they reached the temple but could not get inside. If they could get inside but the monks conspired against them. If the monks would not fight. If the monks would fight. The permutations were endless. And through it all, Gabriel twisted his insides, trying to figure how he could keep Thalia safe throughout all this. She wouldn’t agree to shutting herself up in some locked room while a battle raged around her. He loved her for her fighting spirit, but that same spirit put her in harm’s way.
No. He had to turn his thoughts to something else. So he reviewed past sieges, trying to find the best possible strategy.
Midday came and went, and they stopped briefly to rest the already tired camels. The sturdy beasts were being pushed to their limits. One of them had already died earlier that morning from the hard pace, and a pack camel had taken its place. After everyone shared a quick meal, it was back into the saddle. Gabriel estimated they’d traveled over ten miles.
“Not too much farther,” he said to Thalia.
“You’re an optimist at heart,” she answered.
“If I was an optimist, then I’d say that not only was the temple close, but that they likely had fifty cannons, two hundred rifles, and a huge canopied bed.”
“A bed won’t do much in a battle.”
“I’m thinking about after.”
She smiled wickedly as her cheeks flushed. “I’m beginning to embrace positive thinking myself.”
As she rode ahead, Altan drew up alongside Gabriel. “Are most white women like her?” the bandit chief asked. “If so, perhaps I should consider moving west. Or go to Russia.”
“You won’t find any other woman like her,” Gabriel said tightly. He didn’t care for the way Altan looked at Thalia, not so much a leer as speculation. If Gabriel had his way, he’d make the whole damn party wear blinders.
“That is too bad,” Altan said. “Is she for sale?”
“You do want to keep your testicles,” Gabriel replied. “Or maybe you want to wear them as jewelry.”
Altan chuckled. “Fair enough. But if you change your mind—” He broke off when Gabriel stared at him. “Ah. You mean it.”
“And tell your men.”
“Judging by the way you look at her, they already know.”
“Oh, thank Tenger,” Thalia sighed hours later. “We made it.”
Gabriel kept his relief in check as he surveyed their destination. He wasn’t certain that the monks would even let them inside the front gate, let alone let them use their monastery as the location of the upcoming stand against the Heirs. Assuming that the monks did welcome them and were somehow willing to take on the Heirs, the monastery of Sha Chuan Si was formidable and well-situated. All the gilded temples in Urga, even the busy sprawl of Erdene Zuu, couldn’t equal the impressive sight of the desert monastery perched at the summit of a broad, flat-topped rock. Though other large rocky outcroppings rose nearby, the temple on its hill stood alone, the square fist of man in the middle of stark wilderness. Wide, dun-colored walls surrounded the temple, topped by curved red Chinese roofs. A tall, round tower stood just inside the front wall. A single steep escarpment led up the side of the rock to a giant, heavy door. Gabriel saw no windows, either. It seemed impenetrable.
“A good place to stand and fight,” he said to Thalia and Altan.
“Hopefully, our welcome will be a little less fearsome than the building itself,” Thalia answered.
“Do you speak Chinese?” Gabriel asked.
“A little.”
Gabriel turned to Altan. “And you and your men?”
“We can say, ‘Throw down your weapons,’” Altan replied.
“I’ll need you to translate,” Gabriel said to Thalia.
There would be no hiding their approach. As the camels struggled up the slope, getting closer to the front gate, Gabriel saw several shaved heads peering at them quizzically over the top of the wall. Judging by the number of guns his party carried, they couldn’t be mistaken for pilgrims, unless pilgrims judged devotion by number of bullets.
Once they were a few dozen yards away, Gabriel dismounted. “I need you and your men to stay back,” he said to Altan.
Grumbling, the bandit chief and his men obeyed.
Thalia and the tribesmen stayed close and dismounted. Gabriel tucked the wrapped kettle under his arm, put the ruby in his pocket, and kept one hand resting on the butt of his revolver. It might not be the most friendly stance, but he was willing to make a bad impression to save lives.
Thalia walked beside him as they neared the massive gate. He resisted the urge to take her hand, since he needed to keep himself ready for any possibility, but he wanted her close.
“It’s very quiet,” she murmured. Their boots on the gravel crunched loudly. “Should we be concerned?”
“Always.”
“Not particularly reassuring.”
“Realistic.”
Nearing the thick wooden gate, he saw there was a small door set into the surface. No doubt to make entering and exiting easier. He didn’t like simply approaching head on, it was too vulnerable a position, but there was no other choice. Just as he wondered whether he was supposed to knock, the small door opened. But instead of a monk waiting for them, they were met by a white man. In English clothing.
Gabriel immediately pulled his revolver. Too bloody late. Somehow the Heirs had gotten to the temple ahead of them.
Then Thalia yelled, bolted from his side and ran toward the man. Jesus, did she think to tackle the bloke herself? “Wait, damn it!” Gabriel shouted, but she flung herself at the Englishman, throwing her arms around him. “Get out of the way!”
Thalia glanced over her shoulder at Gabriel, the smile on her face freezing. “Put the gun away, Gabriel,” she said with enforced calm. She let her arms fall from the Englishman’s shoulders. Gabriel was aware of other people coming through the temple door, but he remained focused on the Englishman, who was smiling with remarkable good humor, considering he had a revolver pointed at his handsome face.
“A new friend, Thalia?” the unknown man asked with a quirked brow.
“Who the hell are you?” Gabriel demanded.
Thalia took the stranger’s hand and drew him forward, reaching toward Gabriel with the other. As politely as if they were in a drawing room, she said, “Bennett, may I introduce Captain Gabriel Huntley, late of Her Majesty’s Thirty-third of Foot. Gabriel, this is Bennett Day. Of the Blades of the Rose.”
“A pleasure, I’m sure,” murmured Day as he held out his free hand, though he didn’t release Thalia.
“The libertine?” Gabriel asked, turning to Thalia. She reddened, but Day laughed.
“Is that what they call me? What a charming name. Most people just call me bastard.”
Gabriel grudgingly gave Day his hand to shake, eyeing the man without attempting to hide his mistrust. He didn’t quite have Gabriel’s height, but he was a pretty collection of bones, dark haired, light eyes, and built like a boxer. Day might smile and twinkle like a beau, but Gabriel didn’t doubt he could lay out a decent right hook. His grip was strong enough.
Day turned to Thalia with an easy smile that probably charmed scores of women. “Desert living must agree with you, Thalia. You look positively radiant.”
She made a face while Gabriel considered how far down the man’s throat his foot might go. “You mean, I look sunburned and haggard,” she corrected.
“A bit more golden, perhaps—” Day conceded, “but lovely, just the same. Or perhaps”—he turned a considering eye to Gabriel—“it isn’t the desert, so much as the company.”
Thalia must have sensed how close Gabriel was to pummeling Day, because she quickly changed the subject. “What are you doing here?” Even though it was a perfectly ordinary question, it rankled a bit to see how much pleasure Day’s presence gave her. This was the man she had admitted to fancying once. The man who bedded women as often as most men put on their boots. Who still held her hand.
“Your father sent us,” Day answered.
“Us?” Gabriel repeated.
“Yes, us,” said a deep voice behind them.
Everyone turned, and Thalia let out another girlish yell to see the newcomer, breaking free from Day. “Catullus!”
One of the most elegant men Gabriel had ever seen smiled down at her as he embraced her. He looked as though he’d just stepped off the pages of a fashion journal, complete with dark green embroidered waistcoat, perfectly fitted gray coat and trousers, and sparkling boots. He wore neat, wire-trimmed spectacles that barely hid the powerful intelligence in his dark eyes.
“Gabriel, this is Catullus Graves,” Thalia said, stepping back. “The Blades’ scientific wizard.”
Gabriel couldn’t stop himself from blurting, “But, you’re Negro.”
“I know,” Graves answered, his gaze hooded.
“Sorry,” Gabriel said, shaking his head, “just a little thrown.” He stuck out his hand. “Damned glad to meet you, Mr. Graves. That viewing eagle you created is brilliant. Really saved our arses. You’ll have to tell me how you came up with the idea.”
Relaxing, Graves shook Gabriel’s hand. “Glad it came in handy, Captain. It’s a design I’ve been refining for the past few years.”
“Hsiung Ming,” Thalia said brightly as she turned to a lean Chinese man who had come forward, “you here, as well? This is quite a reunion.”
“Graves and Day collected me in Peking,” he answered with a smile. His English was perfect, better than Gabriel’s; it spoke of private tutors and exceptional intellect. “Graves, brilliant as he is, has no ear for the Chinese language, so I have accompanied them from there.”
Thalia introduced Gabriel to this man, adding that he represented the Blades in Northeastern China. It was certainly one of the most strange experiences of Gabriel’s life, standing outside the walls of a Buddhist temple in the Gobi Desert, cordially shaking hands with men who were all part of a secret society with as much pleasantry as if they were meeting by a punch bowl.
Before any of them spoke any further, Thalia, Graves, Day, and Hsiung Ming gathered in a circle, with Gabriel looking on curiously. The four linked hands.
“North is eternal,” Thalia said.
“South is forever,” said Graves.
“West is endless,” said Day.
“East is infinite.” Hsiung Ming was the last to complete the watchwords. At their conclusion, everyone seemed to breathe just a bit easier. Then Day turned a shrewd gaze toward Gabriel.
“Can he be trusted?” he asked Thalia as he kept his eyes fixed on Gabriel.
A reasonable question, given the circumstances, but Gabriel still wanted to plow his fist into Day’s well-formed face, perhaps see how well he’d fare with a broken nose. Although, a small bump already marred the bridge of Day’s nose, so maybe someone, a jealous husband, had already enjoyed the privilege.
“I trust him completely,” Thalia said with absolute sincerity. She laced her fingers with Gabriel’s, and he felt at once the effect of her touch and words, like warm satin sliding over his skin.
An older man in monk’s yellow robes approached and spoke with Hsiung Ming, who quickly translated. “Have you the Source?” he asked Gabriel.
Unwrapping the fabric that swaddled the kettle, Gabriel revealed it to the monk, whose eyes widened. “Please, inside, everyone,” said the monk. “And quickly.”
“But who are these men?” Day asked, looking at the tribesmen.
“Friends,” Thalia answered.