Hot Blooded

None of the rest of us were." Soothingly, he stroked her hair. "You
were absolutely right. The Gift would have driven your mother insane. She would
have been a danger to us all."
    "Which is why I don't want it, either." She rose on her elbows to better
search his gaze, looking for… she wasn't sure what. "I touched Clarice's
mind
, Lance. And what I saw there scared the hell out of me. I don't want
to end up like that."
    "But you wouldn't. There's a bedrock strength in you that will not break.
You're one of the ones that can handle the Gift."
    "Don't be so sure about that." She rested her fist on his chest, then propped
her chin on it. "There was a man I arrested today. He killed a four-year-old in
a drunk-driving accident, and it meant no more to him than running over a dog.
It was all I could do not to draw my weapon and put a bullet right between his
eyes." Sighing, she sat up to slump. "Lance, I can't even be trusted with a
nine-millimeter Smith & Wesson, much less a direct pipeline to the energies of
the Mageverse."
    "Did you shoot him?"
    "Of course I didn't shoot him, but—"
    "Then you can be trusted. The point is not whether you're tempted, but
whether you give in."
    She snorted. "Yeah, and I've been giving in to temptation since I met you."
    "It was my pleasure." He shot her that flashing grin before he said more
seriously, "It's also not the same thing. Look, I've been watching people get
the Gift for sixteen hundred years. I've learned to spot who can handle it and
who can't. You can."
    Grace rolled off the bed and snatched up his velvet robe off the floor. "But
I don't
want
it." She jerked the robe on and whipped the belt into a
knot. "I don't want the power, and I don't want the responsibility, whether or
not I can manage them. And I sure don't want to spend the rest of eternity
entangled in High Court power plays."
    He rose up on an elbow to meet her gaze. "Grace, sometimes you don't always
get what you want."
    "This time I'm going to." She stalked toward the door, determined to find the
nearest spell generator and go home. "Stay the hell away from me, Lance."
    Please.
    Â 
    LANCE lay back across the furs, frowning up at the ceiling. He should
probably go after her, but after the last few minutes, he needed the space as
much as she did.
    A moment later, he heard the telltale whoosh and pop of displacing air that
meant a dimensional gate was opening and closing. Grace must have found the
spell generator in his library.
    His mind circled restlessly back to the moment just before she'd woken from
her nightmare. Something had roused him; he never slept deeply at this point in
his cycle. It was a couple of hours yet before he'd have to enter the daysleep,
when it was practically impossible to rouse him while his body absorbed the
energies it needed from the Mageverse.
    For several languorous minutes, he'd lain there with Grace curled against
him, her head resting on his shoulder. Her scent surrounded him as her heartbeat
thumped in his ears. A sense of peace deeper than anything he'd ever known had
slipped over him.
    Then she'd woken from her nightmare with that look of helpless horror in her
eyes, and he'd felt her fear all the way to his soul. Comforting her, making
that terror drain away, had been deeply satisfying.
    Now he felt the stillness of the castle more than ever in her absence. He
hadn't realized how damn lonely he'd been until this moment.
    Lance stirred restlessly against the furs, wondering when she'd come back.
The daysleep was an hour away yet; he could feel it in his body. He found
himself hoping she'd be there when he woke, even if it was just to give him the
sharp edge of her tongue. She… added something to his life even when she was in
a tearing snit. Perhaps because he understood her as he understood so few of the
Majae. Despite differences in gender—and vast differences in experience—at the
core they shared more similarities than differences. Like him, she was a
warrior, a protector, someone who found her purpose in helping the helpless,
making their lives a little bit better.
    Unfortunately, he also knew that after she gained the Gift—and control of the
Mageverse energies it brought—he would see her only rarely. The High Council
would send him on to other missions, and she'd have her own.
    That thought left him feeling surprisingly empty. Unless…
    He kept her. He sat up in bed, staring