To tell the absolute truth, a part of her had been relieved and even eager to shut that door, for she couldn’t regard sex as just a physical act and she wasn’t able to handle the intimacy, the emotional involvement.

Michael gave her a long, deliberate look then walked over to the table and picked up his gun. He reached into the large black bag and removed a sword in a scabbard. “Do you know how to shoot a gun?” he asked.

Jolted out of her preoccupation, she lifted her head and stared at what he held. Then she sat down slowly on the edge of the bed.

She had been right earlier. That was an honest-to-goodness sword.

“I know how to point and pull a trigger,” she said. “Theoretically. I mean it’s pretty evident. Do I know how to aim, or where the safety catch is, or how to clean a gun or reload it? I do not. I’ve never held a gun before in my life, and I never want to either.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I hope you never have to. But in case you do . . .”

“Oh no.” She threw herself backward on the bed with a groan, flopping her arms flung over her head.

“Oh yes,” he said.

He knelt on one knee on the bed, caught her wrist and yanked her upright. Then he sat beside her and proceeded to show her the sleek, black weapon he held in one hand. She sighed as she thought of the BabyMamas.

“This is a nine-millimeter,” he said. “It’s my smallest gun, and it’s the only thing I have that’s halfway suitable for the size of your grip. Here’s the safety catch. This is when it is on safety, and this is how you turn it off. This is how you reload.” He removed the clip and slapped it back into place. “If you ever have to fire this or any other gun, remember it has a kick. Try to anticipate that and brace yourself as you shoot. Squeeze the trigger, don’t yank at it.”

She endured the impromptu lesson as he made her hold the unloaded gun, heft its weight in her hands and practice holding it in a shooting posture. The gun was lighter than she expected. She stared at it in revulsion.

“That’s it, I’ve had it,” she said. She flopped back on the bed again, a Raggedy Ann doll of passive resistance. “I’ve had-it-ten-hours-ago had it. I don’t want to see or do anything else.”

“I guess that’ll have to do for now. Just be sure to grab this one if you need to.” He placed the nine-millimeter on the dresser and laid the sword on the floor beside the bed. Then he went to the black bag and pulled out another, much bigger gun. His large hand gripped it with casual effortlessness. “This is my gun.”

She stared. “That’s not a gun, it’s a hand cannon.”

“It’s an assault rifle. It fires more than six hundred and fifty rounds per minute.”

“Yeah, well,” she muttered. “Like I said, hand cannon.”

His well-shaped mouth quirked. “Whatever. Just don’t grab this one, okay?”

“That is so not a problem,” she told him as she stared at the ceiling.

Guns are not sexy. They’re not.

Watching him, now, as he held a gun, checked the chamber for rounds, took it apart and reassembled it, his every movement economical and efficient, while his tough face remained thoughtful and calm—okay, that was sexy. That was very much sexy.

Damn it. She had never been a soldier-groupie, and she wasn’t going to start being one now.

“Good.” He placed it on the dresser alongside the other one. “Tomorrow I’m going to take you outside so you can practice firing at an actual target and reloading.”

“Just for the record,” she said to the ceiling, “I’d rather not.”

“Duly noted,” he said ruthlessly. “We’re still going to do it.”

She raised herself up on one elbow and glowered at him. Then she touched the edge of the sword’s scabbard with a delicate toe. The scabbard was plain leather, ugly with scratches and scrapes, the hilt of the sword worn.

This wasn’t a replica or a museum piece. This sword was used hard on a regular basis. No wonder his muscles were so built up across his chest and shoulders. She wondered where and how he practiced, and with whom. “Why a sword?”

“Sometimes it’s the best weapon.” He checked outside then bolted the door.

She brooded. “You know how to use a lot of different weapons,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

He sat on the bed beside her. “Yeah.”

“It’s what you do,” she said. “I know.”

He sat far too close. The mattress tilted down toward his greater weight. The pulse in her throat and wrists gave an erratic leap. Sitting upright, her gaze flew from him, to the fire dying in the fireplace, to the guns on the dresser like a trapped and panicked bird.

“Mary,” he said in quiet voice. He touched her temple and traced along the edge of her hairline. His callused fingers ghosted along her skin with remarkable sensitivity. She shivered. “We should sleep now.”

She nodded. She gave the wall a ferocious frown, miserable with confusion and desire.

She said with grim determination, “Those creatures we once were. They belong in the past.”

He said nothing. He stroked along the curve of her cheek and caressed the soft, sensitive skin of her lower lip.

The muscles of her thighs shook with fine, small tremors. She looked straight ahead then closed her eyes and said unsteadily, “We’re nothing to each other anymore.”

He curled his fingers around her ear. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “We were what we were, and we’ll always have a deep soul connection because of it.”

“We might have known each other for forever, but crazy as it sounds, we also met less than two days ago,” she insisted. Even to her own ears she sounded weak. “We’re human now.”

“We’re more than human. We’ll never be fully human. Look at me.”

She opened her eyes and turned her head. When their gazes met, she felt a deep sense of falling. His lean, tough face was serious. He said, “You are looking at your best friend in the entire world right now.”

She went still, both physically and mentally, everything going quiet and calm, as she realized she believed him. “I know.”

“That would still be true if I was seventy-five years old and looked like Santa Claus,” he said gently.

He surprised her into a small laugh. “Would it? What if I looked like one of Snow White’s seven dwarves?”

“Of course.” He cocked his head, considering her. “You do realize that we have been together in many lives, but we have not always been sex partners.”

She blinked. “I . . . haven’t had a chance to think about it.”

“Of course you haven’t. But the fact is, I am not Santa Claus, and you are not a bearded dwarf. We’re also not siblings in this life, or parent and child, or grandparent and grandchild.” He gave her a slow, male smile that creased his lean cheeks and lit up those pewter eyes. “Instead, you are a woman who is so beautiful and vibrant you take my breath away.”

“No,” she whispered. “Don’t you dare.”

His eyebrows rose, and his smile deepened. Who knew. The tough soldier guy had dimples. His fingers slipped under her chin and caressed the slender column of her throat. “Don’t I dare what?”

Her eyelids lowered to half-mast. Her recalcitrant lips kept trying to droop into a soft sexy pout. She folded them tight and warned, “Don’t you dare try to seduce me.”

“I won’t, I promise,” he murmured. “I’ll just kiss you instead.”

He gave her plenty of time to pull away, she had to give him that. He twisted at the waist and tilted his head, and somehow she found herself leaning forward as she lost control over her renegade mouth. When his warm firm lips took hers she was already kissing him back. Her pulse ratcheted to a higher speed.

His hand moved up to cup the back of her head as he deepened the kiss. The texture and pressure of his firm lips, the penetration of his tongue, were intensely sensual.

Just sharing that one, light kiss with him was more arousing than any sexual encounter she’d ever had. She curled a hand over his thick wrist as she lost herself in shocked pleasure.

He pulled back with obvious reluctance. She forced her heavy eyelids open as he took in a breath that shuddered through his muscled frame. He cleared the back of his throat and said in a husky voice, “I know the timing sucks. And maybe we are more human now than we were, and maybe we don’t know who the hell we are to each other any more. All I know is that we have a rare chance to find out.”

“It’s just all happened so fast,” she whispered.

“I know. But it would be a damn shame if we didn’t keep an open mind about each other. You have been missing for so long, and he took all of your choices away from you for hundreds of years. Give us a chance to find out who we are to each other right now, in this life. Whatever that might be.”

She touched her mouth as she stared at him. Her lips were still slick and moist from his. She whispered, “Yes, you’re right. Of course I will.”

He kissed her mouth again, more quickly, and then her nose, and the thin, tender skin at her temple. “And,” he said, “we need to sleep. I’ll warn you, I am horribly pragmatic.”

“I know,” she said.

Surprise bolted across his face. He burst out laughing.

She gave him a small grin and hurried on to say, “No, I mean, I agree. You’re absolutely right. We’ve got to get some rest.”

“All right,” he said. “Scoot over. You get the wall side of the bed.”

He was putting himself between her and the door, in reach of his weapons. She didn’t argue with that logic. Instead she slid over and slipped under the blankets. He stretched out on top of the covers with a weary sigh, reached for her and pulled her down against his side. She curled against his long body. He kept one arm around her shoulders, passed the other hand over her hair and kissed her temple one more time before closing his eyes, while she rested her head on his warm bare shoulder.

His male energy surrounded her, warm and nourishing. She relaxed, basking, and something cramped and long-starved melted away.

Maybe that had nothing to do with her ancient, alien self. Maybe that was her human self, relishing the simple pleasure of being held in a strong man’s arms, the exotic sensation of feeling safe and well. She blanketed him with her lighter, more delicate energy, and felt him ease into peace.

They seemed to fit together with such perfection. Contrast and confluence, two interlocking pieces that balanced and sustained each other.

“I’m so glad you found me,” she whispered.

His arms tightened. He murmured, “I am too. Rest.”

She did. She slipped gently into a deep, dreamless sleep, as light and silent and drifting as snowfall.

Chapter Twenty

GRATEFUL FOR THE chance to let his tired body go lax, Michael fell into a heavy sleep.

If asked, he would have said he was so unconscious that he didn’t know a thing, but there was a part of him that went deeper than unconsciousness, that was more buried than his bones. That part was aware of the warm slender body curled against his side, and the bright energy that lay over him like a silken blanket.

The sensations sent him on a strange journey. He crossed a border into an exotic country filled with comfort and easement, and for the first time in centuries, he enjoyed a nourishing peaceful rest.

When an entity began to probe at the corners of his mind with a subtle, delicate dexterity, he roused.

He met it head-on. When he recognized it, he managed to stay the daggerlike psychic lash he had almost flung in its direction.

He said, Astra.

Michael. Amusement colored Astra’s words. Always the stronghold.

Naturally, he told her. It’s what I do.

I’ve never once managed to get all the way inside your head, she mused. Or touch your dream images, not even when you were a child.

He said nothing. He remembered it well, how she had probed at him, trying to get in.

I wish I could figure out how you do that, she continued. It’s a hell of a talent. I can get into anyone else’s dreams, human or otherwise, even the Deceiver’s, although I do not like going there. But not you. You do dream, don’t you?

Of course I do. He pulled an image around him, the mental gesture like donning a cloak.

A great hall in an early Norman castle appeared, with a long scarred wooden table, a massive fireplace standing cold and empty and suits of armor displayed at various points around the room. The castle was from that first, strong memory he had recovered, their home in a previous life. The life that had taught him the simple, powerful lesson of happiness.

He had never let Astra see any other mental image but this public arena where he had once ruled as warlord. It served as both message and reminder to her.

After he had formed the great hall, he created the mental construct of his physical self. Soon afterward, Astra’s small dark, feminine shape appeared. She never appeared as an old woman in dream or psychic sendings. Instead, she wore the appearance of the young woman she had once been so long ago.

She looked so delicate and innocent, in the first blush of her youth, and that, he knew, was one of the most dangerous illusions anywhere in the world.

“What do you want?” he said, his tone truculent. He stalked over to the head of the table and sat. “I’m busy.”

“Are you? Busy doing what?” she asked. She studied him with large, expressive eyes. “I wouldn’t have been able to reach you if you hadn’t been sleeping. Why don’t you want to visit with me?”

She still probed along the edges of his awareness with delicate little touches, rather like a cat lapping at a bowl of cream. He had lost count of how many times he had endured it before. He had always been faintly repelled by the sensation.