Jesus. He hadn’t known, he hadn’t understood what her life had been like all these millennia. She was old, so old, and now, because he’d forced her to sever the mind-link, she was truly alone.

That was what he had seen, the painful breadth of her loneliness, that she’d been battling to keep Second and Mortal Earth safe for thousands of years, long before his arrival two thousand years ago, and that his willingness to serve as her second-in-command for centuries had made him her rock, the anchor that had kept her sane.

And now, he’d done the unthinkable to her: He’d abandoned her.

And yet he’d had to. In order to move forward in his life, perhaps even to save Second Earth, there was nothing he could do but break with her. Marguerite’s presence in his life alone would have demanded it, but even if his breh hadn’t shown up as she had, he’d have broken with her. New powers had emerged, and with those powers a new, larger purpose that moved him out of his role as her main support.

Yeah, he had a new role, and as he awoke to a new life, he saw it as clearly as if a vision had taken hold of his mind: He had to build an army and he had to build it fast. In addition, he could feel that his obsidian flame power was meant to serve as a sort of new anchor, but not for one woman this time. Instead, he would support three, and somewhere in all that support he might just be able to defeat Greaves.

He saw and understood all of this as the three hooded figures continued to work on his wounds, to heal him, to restore his life completely.

What a complete miracle life was, this arrival in a body, replete with every emotion and sensation imaginable. To grow from infancy to maturity and to set a path, to walk that path, to stumble and fall on that path, to get distracted from that path, to face death on that path … yes, this was life.

And he’d been given a second chance.

He had a world to love and, God help him, a new world to build if … oh, God, if Endelle, the Warriors of the Blood, the Militia Warriors, and unknown allies could somehow bind together to forge an impenetrable wall against Greaves. But, oh, God, that goal seemed impossible.

But then it was impossible that he lay here, that three healers, not of this dimension, had just brought him back from the dead.

He couldn’t exactly remember what had happened. He felt that there was a lapse in time, a few minutes maybe, for which he simply couldn’t account.

For one thing, he didn’t know how he’d gotten here. For another, Endelle had been weeping, the woman who never wept, like Marguerite.

Dammit, his stomach jerked again. So much pain moved through him that had nothing to do with a tiger ripping him to shreds. No, this was all about Endelle.

In a moment of clarity, he realized he was saying good-bye to her, to the strange shared intimacy that the mind-link had created.

Everything was changing.

He would no longer be the leader of the Warriors of the Blood. He would be something more. Much more.

He glanced at the healers, their faces completely cloaked. As one, they drew their hands back, bowed their heads, and disappeared.

Which left him with … Marguerite.

Her face was a mess as she wiped her eyes. Her white-blond hair was matted with blood and bits of straw. But her body was whole.

He’d died and come back to life. But unlike the other two times, he had no recollection of floating in space and experiencing the beauty of the galaxy. There was just a complete blankness.

“How did I get here?” he asked her.

She scooted closer and took his hand in both of hers. Despite the fact that her nose was swollen and her eyes red, she looked so beautiful to him.

“You don’t remember?”

He looked back at the ceiling. “I remember the cage and the tiger. I remember telling you to get Fiona.”

She filled in the blanks, ending with, “You were dead, Thorne.” More tears tracked her cheeks. “But Endelle freaked, I mean she really freaked out.” She told him the rest, leading up to this moment as she knelt beside him.

Only then did he realize he was feeling a whole lot of fresh air flowing through the room. He sat up and glanced around. All the windows had been blown out. “That glass was bulletproof. So Endelle did that.”

“Yep. And she was exactly the woman you told me she was in that moment. She looked like a Greek goddess out for vengeance. I’m pretty sure if James hadn’t shown up, she would have destroyed this dimension.”

So Endelle had made sure he lived, despite the fact that he’d broken with her.

He squeezed Marguerite’s hand. “There’s so much I didn’t understand until now.”

She nodded. “I feel the same way.”

He squeezed her hand. “I love you.”

She nodded. He watched her swallow hard. “I love you, too, Thorne. I didn’t understand just how much until we were trapped with that beast. I … I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“For making your life a misery for the past few weeks.”

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. He kept his eyes closed and pressed their joined hands to his chest. When he opened his eyes he wiped her cheeks, one after the other, and said, “I want to complete the breh-hedden with you. I want that more than anything else in the world but I would never force you. Never.”

She put her hand on his cheek. “I know you wouldn’t. That’s something I finally figured out. I have freedom with you, Thorne. I have freedom with Endelle. She tried to tell me that the night you and Jean-Pierre busted me out of the Superstition Seers Fortress. She said she’d give me autonomy. I’d just never had that before and I honestly didn’t believe her, but I know I was wrong. Endelle would have kept her word. And you? In all this time, you’ve never tried to corral me. Not once.”

He leaned into her and kissed her very wet lips. “I love you so much. When we were in that cage together, it finally dawned on me just how much I love you—I mean really love you and need you—and how much wonderful peace you’ve always brought to my life. I was so weighed down with a sense of responsibility about everything that I didn’t see all that I’d been given or how well I’m supported. You’ve been a huge support in my life. I see that now.”

“Ditto,” she murmured.

He kissed her again.

She took a deep breath. “I want to go all the way with you as well, no matter what the breh-hedden means. Even if it means we’re joined at the hip.” She lifted up and moved into him, sliding onto his lap until he held her in his arms and she was kissing him. “Even if it meant I had to wear a stupid ankle guard, Thorne, I’d do it for you and you know why? Because I trust you. With all my heart, I trust you.”

He kissed her again but when she pulled back he said, “What is it? You’ve tensed up. A vision?”

She shook her head. “I guess I’m just a little worried about what the breh-hedden will mean, what it will be like.”

“I know. I don’t think either of us enjoys the unknown all that much.”

Marcus appeared in the doorway. “Hey.” He stared hard at Thorne, that slash of brows over light brown eyes. “Well, damn my ass, she brought you back.”

Thorne twisted to look at him. Marguerite slid off his lap and he stood up next to her. “Not sure exactly how it happened, but yeah, she did.”

Marguerite said, “Healers from Sixth came and brought Thorne back. Once he was safe, Endelle dematerialized. She was pretty upset.”

“Okay. Okay.” He nodded several times, but he swallowed hard. “Shit, boss … we thought … damn…”

He crossed to Marcus and put his hand on the brother’s shoulder.

Marcus released a rush of air then suddenly Thorne was just being hugged hard. “We thought it was over, all of it. You were so gone.”

“I know. I know. But I’m here and Marcus, things are going to change. Let everyone know. Okay? Yeah, we’ve got a shitload of work to do, but things are going to change.”

Marcus pulled back and jerked his head up and down a few times. He sniffed and flared his nostrils. He looked anywhere but at Thorne.

Thorne laughed. Marcus knew how to front. They all did.

“So what time is it? I mean how long was I gone? How long did this whole thing take?”

Marcus glanced at his Rolex. He shook his head. “Maybe forty-five minutes.”

“So Greaves’s little party is still under way.”

“Oh, yes, it is. Coverage on every channel, on every continent. It helps to own most of the mineral rights of Second Earth.”

“Is COPASS still holding to their position that they have his permits under review?”

Marcus lifted a brow. “Precious, isn’t it?”

Thorne nodded. “Tell you what. Why don’t you get the warriors back here. I think we have a fucking spectacle to disrupt.”

Marcus’s eyes lit up. “Hell, yeah, we do.” He flipped his warrior phone from his pants pocket, thumbed it, and shot it to his ear. “Carla? Get all the WhatBees to Endelle’s office pronto.” He smiled suddenly. “Yeah, it’s Gideon’s fault. We’ve kind of taken to the nickname.”

A few seconds later the men started folding in.

But it was Havily who, after arriving within seconds as well, made the most interesting suggestion. “Why don’t we film this?” She met her breh’s gaze. “YouTube? Or at least the underground.”

“That’s a fantastic idea. Why don’t we put Gideon and some of the Militia Warriors on that detail? That way, if Greaves wants to rumble, we’ll have more men in the field.”

And so it was decided.

Half an hour later Thorne flew at the head of the Warriors of the Blood, in a strict V pattern. Kerrick, Luken, Jean-Pierre, and Santiago were off his left flank; Leto, Marcus, Medichi, and Zacharius off his right.

He hadn’t at first realized that the light illuminating the space as they flew emanated from his silvery white wings, but so it did. Raw obsidian flame power, unheard of on Second Earth, connected to his woman, and to Grace, and Fiona, strengthening all of his powers, including flight, which meant he’d had to slow it down a little to keep the squadron in tight formation.