She brought a hurried fist to her lips.

Quiet your thoughts, she commanded, or he will know. She suspected it was already too late for that, but she didn’t want him to know just how much she longed for him, how much she craved him. Still, the moment her navy heels had crunched pine needles, she had been aware of him.

He was far away from her, maybe thirty feet. She could measure the distance in her mind, one inch at a time. She wanted him next to her, his fingers resting lightly on her shoulder, the shoulder she had deliberately turned toward him. All she could give him was that shoulder. She wanted to give him so much more. Her throat grew tight with longing and tears, with frustration … such deep frustration. But she couldn’t give him more than the little bones she cast at him. Yes, he called them little bones, their dates.

They would have a date soon. It couldn’t be too soon for her because she was in agony. He would kiss her and his kisses were like heaven and hell combined, because much to her great humiliation his kisses brought her. He knew it, too. He savored the moment. She knew he did. What power did a man have that a mere kiss would swell an orgasm through her body like a stream of lightning flying up and up?

Oh, God.

She had to think of something else or she would go mad.

The ceremony. Yes, the ceremony. She would think of the ceremony.

Warrior Kerrick held his daughter, now three months old, in the circle of his powerful arms. She was holding her head well, and he kept a hand balanced lightly against her bare back. The baby wore an infant flight halter because at any moment Helena could do the unexpected and mount her tiny wings.

Fiona shook her head. Apparently, babies with the ability to mount wings were unheard of on Second Earth. Usually wings emerged somewhere between eight and ten for Twolings, those children born on Second Earth. But Helena’s wings were essentially a Third Earth manifestation, the result no doubt of her parentage.

Alison clung to his other arm. She kept dabbing at her cheeks, which brought a rush of tears to Fiona’s eyes. She had come to know Alison quite well and from her history understood that before her call to ascension, she had been celibate, even resigned to being without a mate the rest of her life. Her powers were simply too strong for a mortal to bear.

If Fiona understood the problem exactly, Alison’s power would have been too much for even most ascended males to bear, which caused Fiona to ponder Jean-Pierre once more. If she was his breh, did that also mean that her advanced powers, especially her level of telepathy, would be something few men on Second Earth could handle? Was Jean-Pierre in that sense the only man she could ever truly be with?

Okay, she really didn’t want to think about this very sore subject right now.

Focus.

Once more she brought her attention to the ceremony.

Baby Helena, born to Alison Wells and Warrior Kerrick just three months ago, was being presented to the Creator in a simple baptism of oil and ash. The mark of the oil at the base of the throat, a place reflective of life and growth, would hold the ash, which in turned symbolized the spiritual death and rebirth of the soul into the service of Second Earth.

Yes, so much better to think of baby Helena and the joy of the moment.

From the stone building to the left of the altar, a tall woman appeared wearing a red robe.

Fiona drew in a breath that sounded almost like a hiss. For a woman given in service to the Creator of all six dimensional worlds, she had a face pinched like a withered fig. There was nothing of love in this woman. She looked strangely ancient, even though the relative immortality of Second Earth kept everyone looking thirty-ish.

How much Fiona pitied anyone living in submission to what she could only describe as a very sour-looking hag.

* * *

“Who stands for this child before the Creator to support the parents, Alison Wells and Warrior Kerrick?”

Jean-Pierre heard Thorne growl faintly as Sister Quena spoke. He glanced at Thorne. Why did he despise the woman so very much?

Jean-Pierre glanced at the tall figure with the sharp cheekbones and strangely lined appearance. Most ascenders were youthful, age being irrelevant past thirty.

She wore a red robe heavily embroidered with designs of wings in gold silk. What a strange counterpoint to the lack of care given to the so-called outdoor chapel.

She stood before a heavy wooden altar, two small brass pots in front of her. The sleeves of her robes had wide swaths of fabric that hung almost to the ground and which, when she lifted her arms to the heavens, created another winged effect.

She rolled her strange black eyes back into her head often when she spoke, as though overcome with spiritual fervor.

In response to her query, Marcus and Havily each took a small step forward. Havily held her breh’s arm and smiled up at him. Marcus’s voice boomed around the bowl-shaped space. “We support the baby Helena, Havily Morgan and I, Marcus Amargi.”

Sister Quena’s eyes rolled once more as she lifted her arms and the wings waved back and forth, quite absurd. The woman could perform in spectacle, if she wished.

Thorne released another growl as though he could not contain his dislike of the High Administrator.

Sister Quena made her pronouncement. “The godparents have been approved. Now give me the child.”

“Don’t do it,” Thorne muttered.

Kerrick and Alison approached the altar. Kerrick slid a hand beneath Helena’s neck and supported her bottom with his other hand. The sister took the baby—and it was as though one door closed and another opened. She held Helena in a tender cradle of her arms and smiled. Most of the lines and frowns left her visage. The infant smiled back and made small noises. She kicked her feet.

Sister Quena looked at Kerrick. “Warrior, you will place the oil at the base of the child’s throat.”

Kerrick moved but Jean-Pierre was too far away to see anything. “Yes, there. Good. Now, Alison, please touch the ash, just a little will do, and rub it three times in a circle over the oil.” She scrutinized Alison’s movements. She nodded. “Yes, very good. Now you will both repeat after me. As the Creator has designed us for service…”

The combined voices, male and female, rose into the air, to the tops of the pine trees. “As the Creator has designed us for service…”

“So we serve this child.”

Again the parents spoke. “So we serve this child.”

Jean-Pierre thought it beautiful, very beautiful. Some ritual did bring good things to earth, any dimension.

“And offer ourselves a living sacrifice.”

Kerrick and Alison looked at each other as they repeated, “And offer ourselves a living sacrifice.”

“Amen.”

When the final amen floated through the air, Sister Quena lifted her eyes and let her gaze scan the warriors and guests. “For those of you who have witnessed this baptism, will you join with me in repeating the Holy Affirmation?”

Jean-Pierre had been a mildly observant Catholic during his mortal life, but the French Revolution had stolen the last of his faith.

In this dimension, he had been inside a Creator’s Dwelling, as the places of worship were called, a mere handful of times, nothing of significance. But the Holy Affirmation he could believe in, and since it was often used in ceremonies such as this, he’d memorized it. As one, the group spoke: “Oh, most Holy Creator, make of me an instrument in our beloved dimension, of peace, of goodwill, and of service, for as long as the years are given to me. Amen.”

Yes, he could believe in peace, goodwill, and service.

* * *

Fiona wiped her cheeks. The ceremony had been very short but for some reason, even though the elements weren’t known to her, they moved her. Somehow, the giving of the child to God, to the Creator, eased her heart, and she smiled.

It was also a joy to watch the devoted sister holding Helena and obviously delighting in her. Her demeanor preceding the moment of taking the baby in her arms had been one of near-hostility, as though she disapproved of everyone gathered in the outdoor chapel. Perhaps she did. Maybe that was why the ceremony had taken place outdoors instead of in the richly appointed chapel.

As it was, Sister Quena smiled down at the child, her expression rapt. She didn’t seem to want to give her up, but at last she rounded the altar and with a heavy sigh placed her in Kerrick’s arms once more. Alison still pressed her handkerchief to her face. Her blue eyes glowed with pride and an unearthly light, her smile as warm as sunshine.

She met her breh’s gaze and leaned up to kiss him on the lips. Fiona couldn’t hear her but she felt certain the words she spoke to Kerrick were, Thank you.

Fiona’s heart hurt. She had thanked her husband once for giving her their two beautiful children. Together they had presented Carolyn and Peter in baptism a long time ago, when they were infants, a different kind of baptism but still much the same in spirit.

Because the ache grew and grew, and made her think and wonder once more about Jean-Pierre, this time she did not stop from turning and looking at him over the tightly directed shoulder.

He met her gaze and for once she let all that she was feeling just flow toward him, holding nothing back: all her fears, her frustration that they had still not caught Rith, the depth of her loneliness, her wish that they did not live in a world caught in a war, her longing for another family, a different life, even the breadth of her desire for him.

He put a hand to his chest. He held it there and closed his fingers into a fist as though he was holding all her thoughts close to his heart. He was unexpected, this warrior. He possessed a soulfulness that constantly surprised her.

Please come to me, she sent.

He nodded and moved toward her. I do not think I can do anything else but obey you. What have you done to me? It is as though I am bound to you by a leading rope.

She smiled, loving how he put words together.

His eyes, blue and gray and green, so beautiful, loomed closer and closer. He was here now beside her. She looked up into his face.

“Warrior Jean-Pierre!” The second eldest Seriffe boy, Alexander, lifted up his arms, a silent plea to be picked up and held.

Jean-Pierre didn’t look at him. Fiona didn’t think he could. But without breaking their locked gaze, he leaned down, slid his arm around the boy’s back, and hefted him to hold him as a father would hold his son. But not once did he shift his gaze from her.