Ram was no idiot. Over such a long and bitter fight, the Templars had tried so many tricks … so many deceptions. This soft voice, this wondrous body, and those enchanting eyes could all be a clearly crafted seduction. He did not blame Docia. She was an innocent in this matter. He had no doubt that her symbiont had made nothing of herself known until this moment. It explained, he thought, why she had been so very quiet. Even with the weakness of transitioning out of the Ether, even with the daunting task of the Blending at hand, there should have been more of her voice. If not out loud, then at least in Docia’s own mind. But she had deceived him … deceived him into thinking she was his queen.

“I swear I did not,” she breathed in soft desperation when she saw the distrust in his eyes. “I was gathering strength, letting my host adjust, and letting you guide her into our world. I never said I was your queen. Never made the claim. Never said I was Hatshepsut or demanded to be treated as such. You only assumed.”

“There is deception in omission,” he said tightly, more because he was trying to figure out how to keep himself from kissing her, how to keep himself from succumbing to the amazing heat and sensation he felt every time they came into contact. What if this was all some kind of elaborate Templar spell?

He didn’t realize he’d voiced the suspicion aloud until he saw the genuine hurt that sliced through her eyes and across her delicate face.

“Is that what you think? You think this is somehow unnatural and forced? Well, f**k you and the horse you rode in on!” she snapped at him.

Docia. That was Docia coming through loud and clear, a sign that the Blending was in full swing. Even she looked a bit surprised at her own reaction. Her verbosity. He found it amusing how different the two personalities inside of this one woman seemed to be. A Templar, notorious for sophistication and strength, notorious for choosing very powerful people when they could. And yet this one had chosen a naïve and very innocent, if mouthy, young woman from a small town with small-town values. She held no great position in life. She had no possible means to further the Templar cause. But she was a good soul. She would never hurt another soul unless it meant saving her own life or the life of someone she was loyal to.

But this gave new reason to why the Templars had recovered Docia. Not because they thought she was Hatshepsut— they had to know there was no convincing Menes’s loyal queen to shift sides— but to retrieve their priestess and brainwash the human she was about to Blend with. Now the capture finally made sense to him.

“Who are you?” he asked with narrowed eyes. “Be honest with me. Who are you, really?”

She swallowed, knowing what he meant.

“I am Odjit’s niece. But,” she added hastily as understanding dawned on his handsome face, “know this. I have been in the Ether for three centuries, rather than come back and be her pawn. And my father, who is up there yet, is the one who sent me down in hopes of being some sort of messenger.”

“Your father? You mean Odjit’s brother? You’re telling me that Uro wishes to defect from Odjit’s side? In the past, both have wielded their hands against the Politic again and again, and you want me to believe—”

“I want you to conceive of a man who sees his sister has gone mad with the hunger for power! He wants more than anything to draw her to heel and end this war! That is what I am telling you! But he knows he cannot manage it without promises from the Politic that the Templars will not be persecuted!”

“As you have tried to persecute us?” he demanded.

“And you in your turn have done the same!” She grunted in frustration, pulling away from him and sitting back, drawing her knees to her chest defensively. “We will never make any headway if we continue to fling accusations back and forth. If we cannot let go of our desires for revenge for past grievances.”

She looked back up at him, her dark eyes imploring.

“This has to start somewhere. Uro has risked the new life of his daughter in order to send me as an emissary of peace to you and the Politic. He is as tired of war as you are and would see it end fairly. No one needs to conquer the other. It does not have to be that way. Can’t we somehow manage to keep it from being that way? Aren’t you tired of all of this?” Then she turned her head aside and made a soft shushing sound.

“What was that?” he wanted to know. But he thought he already knew. “That was Docia’s opinion on the matter? And you were overriding her?”

“I was merely … being more diplomatic than she is. I did not think telling you to ‘stop being a mulish, stubborn ass’ would be conducive to my peaceful overtures.”

Ram smiled, unable to help himself.

“So, it seems you have made a believer out of her already,” he noted. He inspected her with wary eyes for a moment. “I have to say, considering all she has been through recently, it surprises me you’ve already made a champion of her.”

“To be fair, she is not a veteran of the war as we are. She is only just beginning to share the memories of the war that I have. And perhaps you will believe her … believe us … when we claim to be exhausted by it. I want to convince you. I want more than anything to facilitate peace. But if that is not possible, then I have to go. I have to hide, and do so very quickly. Odjit has divined that I am here. She will not rest until she has me at her side.”

“Why? What’s so important about you? Is it because your father will be coming out of the Ether on your heels?”

She lowered her face, shielding it a moment, but something inside him understood it was not because she was trying to come up with a deception. More likely she was about to reveal a truth that was going to give him a great deal of power. Power he could use against her.

But for some reason, she chose to trust him.

“Because I am by far the only priestess with enough power to defeat Odjit where she stands. You know the old adage ‘Keep your friends close, but your enemies’— or potential enemies— ‘closer’? I was no threat to her in the Ether, and with my father’s protection and my submissive behavior whenever I was here on Earth, she did not feel threatened. But she’s cunning, as you know. It will not take long for her to divine my motives and purpose. And once she gets wind of them, Docia and I will become an enemy of the first order, and Menes will become second. She will feel more threatened by me than by Menes. She will spare nothing to hunt me and see me thrown into the Ether for another hundred years. And she most certainly will not want you and Menes and the body Politic to have access to me.”

“That is quite a claim,” he said quietly. He had studied her the entire time she spoke. There had been no ego in her words. No false pride or bravado. To her, it had been a cold, hard truth.

“If you reject me,” she said softly, “you will resign Docia and myself to a life on the run.”

“Ah. And now a manipulation,” he said dryly.

She looked up at him through her lashes, and a small, impish smile toyed at the corners of her lips. “If guilt works to get you to see things my way, then yes, perhaps a little manipulation. You and I both know Docia is an innocent in all of this. And I hope you know I chose her very carefully. Not because I wished to endanger her, but because I saw her soul. I saw the good-heartedness in her. I knew that if anyone could help me bridge our differences enough to begin steps toward peace, it would be a simple, truthful young woman who had so much love for her brother that it was all she thought of when given the opportunity to be resurrected. She didn’t think of herself, her things, her own selfish ends. Not until I manipulated her into it. And when she eventually came to wanting vengeance against those who tried to kill her, she only thought about it in terms of legal justice. She wasn’t thinking to hunt them down and kill them … she thought only to sic her law-enforcing brother on them so they would serve jail time. A far gentler approach to justice than we Bodywalkers have, Templar, Politic, or otherwise.”

“That is very true,” he agreed with a nod. Ram felt as though things were a bit surreal in that moment. This was by far the longest amount of time he’d ever spent in the presence of a single Templar. He’d certainly never had a conversation that had gone beyond posturing or threatening. And when he took a moment to think about it, he realized that he had slept the day away in her arms. She could have, at any time, done any of a thousand things to take his life. If she was as powerful as she claimed to be, he would very likely have slept into his death and not raised a hand in defense of himself.

Yet she had slept, too, hugging and cuddling him, just as caught up in the residual intensity of their joining. There had been no deception in her reactions. Her tears had told him as much. That honesty had not been just Docia’s, any more than his sense of finding utter peace inside of her had been Vincent’s doing alone.

“Have you decided,” he asked archly, “who is going to be dominant and who submissive in your Blending?”

“That is a Templar way of putting it,” she said with a frown. “A radical Templar, in any event. The Blending is perfect. At least it should be. It should be a harmony. Equal give and equal take. We do not come here to seize these bodies, wresting control from their originals. We ask to share and should be grateful to do so. Only Odjit and her like think they have the right to be dictators in their original’s bodies.”

She looked at him with steady, courageous eyes.

“You wish to test me? Ask me anything. But my answers will all seem practiced and false to you if you do not trust me. And I know you have no reason to trust a Templar. But you cannot afford to not trust me, either.”

And to prove it, she spoke soft ancient words, spreading her hands between them with her palms facing him. Suddenly he felt cold for the first time in her presence since their trek outside. Terribly, horribly cold. His feet grew painful, and he jerked back the covers to see them. Ice was growing over them; like kudzu smothering a tree, it climbed his legs. He tried to move, to balk in some way, to fight, but he couldn’t. His whole body was cold and heavy and quickly being encased in ice.

And then she lifted cupped hands to her lips, spoke a word into them, and blew it softly into his face.

Just like that, it all began to melt away, disappearing as if it had never been, but for echoes of distress and a wicked chill to remind him it had indeed happened.

“You see?” she said to him. “I could have destroyed you if I wanted to. No one would be the wiser. I could pretend to be your queen, as you have told everyone that I was, and wait for Menes to be in front of me and send him back into the Ether.”

Ram was breathing hard, adrenaline from fear and other emotions pumping through him. He was furious that he had been so easily disabled and so helpless against the power she had wielded over him. But he was not furious with her, because what she said rang wickedly true. He might have brought her to Menes … and she might have been an assassin. But he had thought she was Hatshepsut, had just assumed she was his queen since Cleo had sent him there specifically to find her. The understanding that he might have brought a viper into Menes’s presence chilled him far deeper than her spell.

“Docia … I mean—”

“No. We like Docia best at present. She and I will discuss which name is preferred later, but for now we like Docia. I find it to be a very pretty name.”

She smiled and there was a kind of warm innocence to it, a blend of the Templar’s sincerity and Docia’s spirit. It was beautiful and disarming, slowing his heart rate.

“Docia, you are right. You could have done all of these things. Between that understanding and the fact that I still see the strong presence of a woman I do trust inside of you, I would be foolish not to believe you. You took many chances. You took a risk, coming to me like this.”

He reached out and picked up one of the dark, choppy locks of her hair. He toyed with it between his fingers a moment.

“Did you lure me with magic in order to soften me up?” he asked suddenly, looking into her eyes. “I cannot explain this heat and undeniable craving for you any other way.”

The look in her eyes was utter, shattering hurt. There was no indignation, no fury. Just flat-out pain and shock. Tears sprang to her precious mink eyes and suddenly he felt like the worst kind of villain. The expression was pure and innocent.

“The only explanation?” she choked out, a slow burning anger rushing up in defense of her pain. “Really, that’s the only thing you can think of? You, who have watched Menes and Hatshepsut cling to one another so faithfully and fiercely throughout the aeons? This is all you can think of?”

She moved to get up, reaching for the dress she had discarded the day before. She struggled to turn it right side out, a pained little sob squeaking out of her as she hid her face from him.