From the shadowed corner of the courtyard, Nico de Corella watched the festivities for the feast of St. James unfold. A bonfire sent flaming sparks into the night sky, and long tables groaned under the weight of the foodstuffs prepared. The aroma of swine roasting, its skin rubbed with spices and oil, had filled the courtyard throughout the day, tempting even his appetite. Tankards of beer and goblets of wine had rendered the assembled crowd joyful and boisterous. Shallow bowls of pulque were passed around by the servants, who had lost their customarily docile manner under the influence of strong drink.

The amount that the servants were imbibing concerned Nico, and he resolved to watch carefully, less some mischief ensure. Though disease and war had decimated the once mighty Aztecas, they still outnumbered the conquerors by many thousand to one. Insurrection would damn them all.

He had returned only days before from such a conflict. The leader of one of the tribes had surprised a shipment of weapons bound for the new capital and had armed his men, intent upon the shedding of Spanish blood. Knowing what was at stake, Cortez had assembled his armies and moved against them.

Cortez wished to impart a lesson to the conquered, and made no effort to restrain the brutality of his forces. It had been slaughter.

The memories of that last battle haunted him. At each moment not occupied by some task he saw the relentless march of death, the waste of so many lives. Warriors had met their end clothed in the costumes of their ancestors, fur and feathers and fantastical helmets, obsidian blades raised high in exultation. The women had crouched over their children and begged, pock marked faces like open wounds as they died.

Nico had killed until his hands felt naked without the rust stain of dried blood. His sword ranged across the battlefield,leaving a legion of dead in its wake. And his mind had been separate, observing the work of his hands as though they were the deeds of another, all the while praying that some foe would rise and meet his sword and bring him the peaceful oblivion he had dealt to so many.

"My lord, come and drink with us!" one of the captains called from the crowd, a tall, swarthy man named Alfonso. His eyes glittered with the effects of too much wine and the high spirits of a successful campaign.

Nico shook his head, and knowing the black humor that had effected him of late, the men returned to their previous sport: watching the collection of young women who moved about the torches. One figure, taller than her fellows with hair of gleaming red, seemed the object of every man's eyes, but Nico studiously avoided glancing in her direction. Her beauty was a trap that he had been avoiding for years.

Across the courtyard, he caught a glimpse of a black-clad figure. Lucia. She must have felt the weight of his intense stare, for she turned. Seeing him, she lifted a hand and smiled. Her gold flecked eyes did not dim to see him, the instrument of her beloved husband's death. She did not blame him. It was enough that he blamed himself. Come, he had said, seeing in his gathered family an end to his loneliness. And they had come, crossing the ocean in a journey few dared, only to have Juan Borja meet his watery end a season later in an expedition he had organized.

Nico flexed his hand on the pommel of his sword and examined the play of light across his knuckles, which rendered the raised scar more prominent. War and the dealing of death was his genius but he had lost his taste for it. The number of souls sent to their final reward by his hand had become too numerous to count.

Most men remembered their first kill. It was the secret wound never spoken of, the first extinguishing of God's light in a man's eyes. He had no such memory. They had ridden through the night, he and his father, in a desperate race to save Lucia from the pyre. Seeing an old man and a young boy on the road at night, a host of robbers had attacked, gaunt faces demonic in the moonlight. The training his father had taken such care to instill guided his hands, and the first gush of blood over his knuckles as he stabbed a man low in the back blended into the next and then the next. They crumpled like stalks of grain felled by a scythe. Seeing the bodies scattered around his son, Micheletto de Corella had laughed until tears gathered in his midnight eyes.

"By God, boy, I would that my master had lived to behold you." It was the highest praise his father could offer.

Nico took his goblet and made his way across the crowd of men. He sat next to Fernando Avila, the man who had served as his second since they had first come to New Spain. In his quiet corner near the gate they were apart from the others, and able to converse without interruption.

"How fairs it with you, my friend?" he asked.

Teeth showed in a white smile at odds with the bandage that wrapped his eyes. "Well, sir, except for my bastard of a commander. He has not seen fit to speak to me this day."

Nico chuckled, and caught the other man's hand and squeezed until the bones rubbed together. "Peace, my friend. We shall leave within the week to see you to the coast. Your wife shall be cursing you roundly before another season has past."

Fernando nodded and brought the wine to his lips. He misjudged the distance, and the wine trickled from the corner near his mouth. The healer who had tended to his friend believed some sight would eventually return to one eye; the other had been torn from its socket by an enraged Indian who had witnessed his world crumbling to dust.

Turning from the pitiful sight, Nico signaled to one of the women. He raised a silver coin and cast his eyes at the wounded man.

The woman, heavy breasted and ripe as Fernando preferred, glided to them and ran her fingers over the exposed skin of Fernando's neck. "May I attend you, Sir?" she breathed in his ear, pressing her bosom against his arm.

With a rakish grin, Fernando pulled her into his lap and began shifting through her skirts. "Go and find yourself a woman, Nico," he said before pressing his bandaged face into the heaving mounds, "and perhaps you shall sleep tonight."

Nico doubted it, though knowing that his friend had found a warm and comfortable place to ease his suffering lifted his spirits. He returned to the shadowed corner and watched his men as they ate, the women as they flirted, and the children who ran without restraint through the teaming mass.

He should have known that this crisis of conscience would arrive eventually. He had reached the fruition of his military ambitions and been granted a vast estate only to find that it tasted of ashes in his mouth. With a sigh he thought of his mother, Elizabetta, whose strong, reassuring presence had been the unmovable foundation of his childhood. She had seen his internal conflict and sought to warn him of it.

They had spoken at great length before she had returned to Grosetto to spend her remaining years. In a conversation that had taken an entire night she had recounted the whole of her history for the first time, filling with vibrant color the faint outlines he had pieced together from whispered conversation over the years. As the first strains of pale dawn had begun to lighten the sky his mother had knelt before him and taken his hands into hers. White had finally overtaken the dark of her hair but her eyes were unchanged: dark and brimming with intelligence.

"Nico," she said, voice hoarse from the strain of so many words, "I would charge you with one last task."

"Anything, my mother," he said, awed by her tale and the incredible bravery that she had shown.

"There are times when I see such sadness on you, my beloved son. No, do not shake your head at me," she said tartly, "For all that I am a silly old woman, I know you."

"Do you, Mother?" he asked, thinking of the thousand things he had never spoken of, the sins and lusts and bitter anger he would not impart to a twin soul.

"Yes," she said, face grave, "As I knew your father. We move in the shadows, my son. Our talents and our very natures have accustomed us to no other life. And yet, for all of that, we must never give ourselves over completely to darkness. Find a reason for the things you do, my son, a purpose. I…" and she hesitated. "I committed many sins in the name of love and loyalty, and I regret none of them. Your father as well, before he died." She touched the simple golden cross she wore at her neck, a gift, she said, from Micheletto before their marriage. "Find something that will bring hope and joy to your life, my dearest son, or else it will consume you."

He thought of her words as he watched the crowd of revelers. In an alcove near the gate a small troop of musicians struggled to make themselves heard over the shouting and laughter. At a lull in the tumultuous sound, music finally swelled forth. It was unlike any sound he had ever heard. The lute and the pipes were joined by the primal beat of a large drum, creating a harmony that seemed to echo the beat of his heart and the thrumming energy in his limbs. He had heard something like it, in the night before the battle, when the natives danced around the fire. It was, he thought, the music of a new land. Not the melodies of Spain, or the primal songs of the dark skinned conquered. Rather it was a blending of the two worlds that produced a sound at once untamed and breathtakingly lovely, like the place itself.

Eyes shining from too much pulque, two girls rushed forward and began to dance. The lighter hair and skin of the mestiza glimmered in the firelight, her bare feet raising clouds of dust that clung to her skirts. The other girl, dark and stocky, moved as though her joints were filled with oil, and from her throat emerged a long, ululating cry that rose the hairs on the back of his neck.

The music became became louder as the relentless tempo was echoed by the dancers. Hips thrusting and hands caressing the air, a crowd of women streamed forward to dance, turning the saint's feast day into a pagan festival.

Looking around, he saw that all who would be offended by the sights about to unfold had retired. His sister and young nephew, the priest and the older folk had disappeared behind stone walls that would muffle the sounds of drinking and wild fornication.

Charlotte alone remained. For hours he had resisted looking for her, trying to mitigate the effect that her dangerous beauty had on his mind. His eyes alighted on her in the act of unlacing the heavy quilted jacket she wore and handing it to a maidservant.

The leaping fire echoed the unrestrained shade of her hair, and in the depths of the inferno resided the blue flames of her eyes. Charlotte was so beautiful and passionate that she effortlessly captured every eye as she joined in the dancing. She twirled, raising her hands above her head, and the pins holding her beaded coif in place scattered. The unbound glory of her hair, reaching to her knees and swirling about her, turned Charlotte into a moving flame. She laughed, the husky, passionate laugh of a woman engaged in the act of love, and his body hardened in a great rush even as his feet crossed the distance between them.

When Charlotte saw that he approached she detached herself from the dancers. She walked toward him and her face assumed an innocent expression that fooled him not at all.

"Lotte," he growled, and caught hold of her arm.

"He speaks to me at last!" she laughed. With her close at hand, he could see past the flagrant loveliness of her hair and eyes to the delicacy of her features, which she shared with her mother. In the year he had been away, Lotte had crossed the final threshold into womanhood, and the most beautiful specimen he had ever beheld. "I had begun to think that you had forgotten my name. You have not spoken to me once since your return, most revered uncle." She lingered over the last words, tasting them with her tongue as though they were a delight to her senses.

In the face of her jibe, Nico lost the grip on his anger. He touched her dance flushed cheek and smiled. "I have not forgotten, most headstrong niece."

It was the remnants of a game they had played during a time when he was the principal architect of her mischief, teaching her to ride the huge horses that carried him to battle and instructing her in the arts of the blade. A mere 11 years separated them. In the heady, sun drenched hours of play in Valencia he had rediscovered his youth by sharing it with her, hearing her laugh as it broke upon the waves when he taught her to swim and dance and run.

"Drink," she said, holding the cup she had brought to his lips. "And dance with me, if you remember how."

"I taught you this dance," he murmured. Forgetting his melancholy, he allowed Lotte to tilt the cup, and the wine flooded over his tongue. Still meeting her intense gaze he licked his lips, capturing the last droplets of the vintage.

"It is immature, though sweet," he said, arching an eyebrow in her direction.

Lotte caught his meaning and laughed. She pressed the goblet to her own lips and drank deeply, emptying the cup. "I would say that it is full ripe, and heady." She tossed the goblet to the servant who waited behind and stepped into his embrace. She took his hands and guided them around her waist. When they were pressed together from chest to thigh she looked up and smiled again, face like a siren.

The music swelled as they entered the press of revelers. Nico could no longer distinguish the sound of the drum from his heart, beating too fast as their bodies followed the sound. They were too close. He could not stop his arousal, any more than he could control the flush that sparkled on her cheek and the rapid pulse he knew had nothing to do with the exertions of the dance and everything to do with the need that was bleeding from him into her. Firm breasts brushed against his chest and she tilted her head back, inviting him to lean in for a kiss.

Nico took her arms and lifted until her ear was a breath from his mouth. "You play at a game you do not understand," he growled,unreasonably angered by her teasing and his bodies' reaction.

"Then teach me," she breathed, and looped her arms loosely around his neck as they continued to match their steps in a dance that had become charged with tension . "As you taught me to ride upon your charger, your hand heavy across my thigh. Teach me, most revered Uncle."

Words spilled from him in a foul stream."Every man who watches you imagines himself in your bed this night. Will you give yourself to one of them, and shame our family name?" He hissed.

Rage burned scarlet in Charlotte's cheeks, abruptly dispelling the wine and passion haze. She wrenched herself from his arms and lifted her chin, uncaring of the other dancers streaming past. "How fortunate it is, then, that my father was sent to his death before he could witness it. Good night, Uncle." She made her statement a curse.

Nico flinched as her words struck at him. The rush of dancers separated them, and Nico watched as Lotte turned and stalked toward the enormous doors and wrenched them open. The darkness swallowed her.

He had not realized his intention to follow until his feet touched the smooth gray stones of the hallway. After the heady warmth of the night, the coolness of the passage restored a measure of his calm. He would follow her, he thought, to ensure that she reached her rooms unmolested. Fear quickened his steps. The remnants of his army were housed here, a ragged group of dangerous men unused to rules.

As he crossed the hall he grabbed a candle from one of the long tables and headed for the second floor, where his sister and her children made their rooms. At the landing he heard the sound of scuffling, then the loud crack of a hand on flesh.

A deep voice cursed, followed by loud jeers.

"Release me, you fools," Lotte said, her voice vibrating with anger.

The men were too far gone to pay her any mind. As Nico crested the stairs he saw them circling her, wolves ready to rend a lamb asunder. He placed the iron candle holder on the stairs and took a moment to steady himself and read his surrounding. Three men, all seasoned veterans of the last battle. Steel hissed as he withdrew his sword from the scabbard.

Intent on their victim, the men did not hear his approach. The cold kiss of a blade against a beefy neck froze the largest man in place. He dropped Lotte's arm and turned slowly to meet the furious gaze of his commander.

"If you wish to keep your head attached to your neck you will be gone from here before the dawn," Nico said, the calmness of his voice at odds with the death in his eyes.

"My lord…"

Nico did not reply, only leaned into the blade until a trickle of blood caused a spreading stain on the man's leather collar. The thought was in their eyes, he could see it, the consideration. Three of them could easily best a single man.

In a lightening movement he withdrew a dagger from his belt. Balanced lightly on his toes, Nico tracked their movements and smiled, cold as ice. "Come, then," he encouraged, motioning them forward. "My blood runs hot and I would welcome the sport."

"She is only a girl," another man said, sweat running into his eyes as he began to move away until his back pressed against the opposite wall. "No different than all the others."

Nico made a furious slash with his sword, stopping it an inch from the speaker's eye. "This girl is mine," Nico hissed. "Of my family. Leave this instant or I shall see your bodies thrown to the dogs before the morn."

The men turned white, at last remembering the unbridled ferocity of their Captain and his reputation as a swordsman without equal. Sidelong glances showed fear and hesitation and, moving as one, they backed down the stairs, keeping a watchful eye on the still figures above.

Nico did not relax his posture until he heard the muffled click of the door closing behind them. Charlotte's face was bone white and tears spilled over her cheeks.

"I thought they would kill you," she whispered. The daggers she had concealed with the fullness of her skirts clattered to the stones, and she buried her face in her hands.

Nico bent and retrieved the daggers. He could not return her to the rooms she shared with his sister that night. He could not bear to cause Lucia more pain. Hand around Charlotte's waist, he led her up the stairs to the third floor and the squat tower where he made his rooms.

It was a simple chamber, filled with light during the day from the large windows, its walls whitewashed. His wide bed lacked the elaborate hangings of his sister's room, who sought to recreate the comforts she had known in Valencia. His chamber was plain as a monk's cell, dominated by an enormous table piled high with ledgers and maps and instruments of navigation.

"Would you take wine?" he asked, keeping his voice low and gentle.

Lotte nodded, and then used the sleeve of her gown to wipe wet cheeks. "What horrible men," she whispered. "Had you not come…they meant to rape me, or any other woman they chanced upon."

"Indeed."

"How could they be so cruel?"she asked, for the first time displaying the innocence of youth, which was so at odds with her intelligence.

Nico led her to the chair placed before the banked fire and pressed the cup of wine into her hand. Moving about, he lit the brace of candles on the table, which threw scant illumination about the large room. He opened a window and from the courtyard below he could hear the sounds of revelry: laughter and music and the occasional low cry.

"It is this land, I think," he said. "It changes men into little more than beasts. Brutality is all that we remember."

"Not you, Nico," she said, lapsing into the familiar address.

"Especially me." With a sigh, he turned from the window and stalked over to the table. He unbuckled the heavy belt that housed his scabbard. Methodically he stripped off his weapons: knives concealed in each boot and secreted throughout his clothing, nearly a dozen in all, the garrote wires as each wrist, the vial of poison. "These things that we do…they change the very fabric of our nature, Lotte." He held up his hands and examined them closely, seeing the scars and callouses as though they belonged to another. "I see them covered in blood, no matter how often I wash."

"Nico…," he started to feel her gentle touch on his arm; he had not heard her approach. "You are nothing like them." She trailed her fingers down his arm to his hands, tracing each bone and sinew. Her artless touch sent a shiver of pleasure down his spine.

"Do you think not?" In truth, her presence kept the worst of his demons at bay. He chucked her under the chin and moved away, where the scent of her skin could no longer beguile him into unworthy thoughts. "But come, let us speak of other things. What is the mood here? What have you overhead?" That Lotte spoke fluent Nahuatl and several of the other Indian dialects was one of his most closely guarded secrets.

Charlotte lifted the wine to her lips and took a small, considering sip. "They are a people used to brutality. Did you know that the Aztecas made war on this place each year simply to have hostages that they would sacrifice to their gods?"

Nico nodded. "The stones of their temples were so crusted with blood that they burned."

Charlotte made a disgusted face and crossed herself. "They call us white devils and laugh at our devotion to the dead god." A teasing light came into her eyes. "Except for you, Nico. They call you the red devil, though I do not know if it is because of your hair or the legendary prowess of your…"

"Lotte!"

"Sword," Lotte finished demurely, and then could not hold in her laughter. After a moment of chagrin, Nico joined her.

"I saw you deep in conference with your mother soon after my arrival two days past. What new scheme is she devising?"

Lucia's various projects for improving the lives of his Indian subjects had become a source of great amusement. She tended to ailments, taught the youngest ones their prayers, and stood as a campion against the cruelty of his overseers in his absence.

"She has received inquires regarding my bridal portion from nearly every unmarried man in the whole of New Spain," Lotte said with an exaggerated rolling of the eyes. "She wished to know my thoughts on marriage." Her shoulders gleamed with a pearlescent light as she leaned against the table.

"From whom?" Nico said, not bothering to keep the sharpness from his voice.

"Fernando de Guzman, for one," Lotte said, eyes twinkling up at him.

"He is of an age with Cortez," Nico spluttered, "Nearly old enough to have sired your father."

"And gouty. Were I to marry him I would be forced to fluff his cushions and cosset him like a babe." She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Pedro de Tovar."

"He drinks wine until he can not stand each night," Nico said in disgust. "His person reeks of vomit." He crossed the room and sat in the chair next to the table, close to the fire. Lotte, after a moment's hesitation, followed and sat at his feet.

"Juan Jasso."

"No," Nico said with a shudder. Unlike those who would only fall upon young boys when there were no women to be had, Juan de seemed to prefer that sport. "You are a jewel, my Lotte, and I would not see you given to one who is unworthy."

"Who would you suggest then?"

"I have given little thought to the matter. What qualities would you seek in a husband?"

"Handsome," she said, running her fingers over his hand in a rhythmic motion. "And strong. With an agile mind." She pressed a kiss into his palm. "And I would have my heart race each time he touches me."

"Can such a paragon exist?" Nico asked. He was transfixed by the play of light in the coppery mass of her hair and the feeling of her lips playing against the rough skin of his hand.

"Oh yes, he exists, though he is blind." She released his hand and rested her cheek against the leather of his breeches. The scent of her wove a spell around his senses: the faint fragrance of soap and woodsmoke, the tang of horses, and the muted delicacy of her skin, like rose petals and fresh herbs.

Succumbing at last to temptation, he turned and placed his hands around her waist and lifted her to stand close to his seated form. He pressed his forehead against the swell of flesh exposed by the low neckline of her gown and felt her heart beat with a frenzied rhythm.

"Lotte," he said, voice very low, "What you suggest is forbidden."

Lotte moved closer, skimming her fingertips across his temples and through the thickets of his hair. When he did not forbid her , she slid down and sat across his thighs, their faces now level.

"Why is it forbidden?" she asked. "We share no blood relation."

Nico started. He had not realized that she knew the truth of her mother's parentage. Still, it was only one of the impediments. "I remember your birth, Charlotte. I am too old, too scarred, to be a fit mach for you."

"In all the world I think there is no other that would suit me half so well," she said, and when he would have protested she placed her finger on his lips. "Have you ever met another woman whose mind was a match for your own? Whose humor and very nature formed a more suitable foil than mine?"

With a sigh, Nico leaned forward began to trace the faint blue lines in her throat with his breath, raising prickles of gooseflesh as his lips inadvertently brushed her skin. "I have known this for years," he admitted. Though he adored his family, Lotte had ever been the one closest to his heart, his dearest friend and secret ally against a world that too often seemed peopled with fools and scoundrels. At first it had been a blessing, the young niece who he could talk to and laugh with for hours. And then she had arrived in New Spain and looked at him with a woman's eyes and he had known it to be a curse.

"And yet still you resist."

"I try to resist surrendering to my baser instincts, though perhaps I have failed. If I truly meant to leave you untouched I would never have brought you to this chamber or allowed you to sit upon my knee."

"Nico," she whispered, eyes devoid of the usual humor and instead expressing a touching vulnerability. "I have loved you the whole of my life, since before I knew the true meaning of the word. Do not send me away to be wife to another when all that I desire is to remain here with you and call you "husband."

"Those are the only foolish words I have ever heard you utter," Nico said around a swell of emotion that closed his throat, making his voice husky.

"I am never foolish," she said, and bridged the distance between their lips.

There were no words in Nico's mind to describe the sweetness that was Charlotte's lips moving beneath his own. Sweet, like honey or morning dew that collects in the cupped petals of a flowers. Innocent as a child, and sensual as the play of oil down sun warmed flesh. That she had never been kissed before he knew with absolute certainty and yet he could not resist deepening the kiss, sliding his tongue between her lips when they opened on a gasp. And then the flavor of her captured him, sucking him into a whirlpool of need. His arms clasped tightly around her, molding her to his chest.

He drowned in her mouth, losing the cares that consumed his mind until all he could feel was the silk of her hair tangled between their bodies, her delicate bones and the scent of her, like something fresh and unspoiled in the springtime.

Some remnants of morality must have remained, for he wrenched himself back from her lips with a pained groan. Opening her eyes slowly, Charlotte smiled at him with such love and tenderness that he felt the remnants of his control slip away like leaves before an autumn breeze. When she leaned in for another kiss he stopped her with a touch.

"Lotte," he said, nuzzling her neck, trying to control his racing heart. "Are you sure? There is no return from this."

In answer Charlotte extricated herself from his arms and stood before him, a mass of tumbled hair and lips swollen from his kisses. She stripped the gown from her body slowly, allowing his clever fingers to assist her without once lowering her gaze from his intense midnight stare. The wine colored skirts of her gown puddled around her feet, the threads of embroidery glimmering weakly in the dim light.

When only her shift and stockings remained, Lotte lifted her leg and placed a leather slipper at the juncture of his thighs. Her smile and raised eyebrows communicated an unmistakable challenge.

Nico groaned low in his throat, months of celibacy now seeming a regrettable decision as he had to restrain himself from ravishing her. The placement of her foot only a thread from his codpiece had him swelling painfully, and from beneath the fabric of her shift he could see long, supple legs.

He removed her slipper and tossed it over his shoulder, where it landed among his maps and papers. "I'll not take your maidenhead tonight," he said, voice rough with need as he slipped his hand around her ankle and then slowly up her leg, learning the feel of her bones and soft skin. "No," he said when she would have protested. "We shall wed first."

"Mother watched from the hall when you led me to your room," Lotte said breathlessly as he caressed her knee and untied her garter. "Doubtless she knew what we were about and made no move to intervene."

Nico froze for an instant and then began to laugh as he drew off her stocking. Lotte placed her now naked foot on the rug and lifted the other. Instead of setting it at the juncture of his thighs, she pressed the ball of her foot on his codpiece.

Nico felt no weight or pain, only the agonizing pressure of her touching him, rousing his passions to a fever pitch. "Sweet mother of God," he groaned, and began to hastily remove her other slipper and stocking. They flew over his head and landed on the table, causing papers to scatter with wild abandon. He jerked her down and settled her legs across his thighs. When her hands moved to the laces of her shift he caught them and placed them around his neck.

"Don't," he ground out, then captured her lips in an unrestrained kiss. "We will wed," he repeated, then smoothed his hands down her throat to her breasts, which heaved with each ragged breath. He cupped them with his palms and toyed with her nipples until they rose into prominent peaks beneath the linen. "And you shall be a virgin intact. And I will love you that night until we each bleed." His lips tasted her neck around the passion-laced words.

"But for this night I will show you pleasure." He stood, wrapping her legs around his waist and striding over to the bed.

The candles had burnt low, forming puddles of wax around the hollowed base when Nico finally lifted his head from its resting place on Lotte's shoulder. He propped himself up on his elbow and looking down at her, seeking to imprint the sight on his memory forevermore.

His mind was at peace. He loved her. She was his match, his bride, the source of such unbearable tenderness that he felt tears form in his eyes. His mother had been correct. With a light in the darkness he could face the world once more.

The cream of Lotte's skin blended with the tangle of linen, and was marred in places by pink burns from his beard. The shift had been discarded eventually, torn from her body as their need to press skin upon skin overwhelmed. Her eyes were mellow with exhaustion and the trill of newly discovered ecstasy. She caught her bottom lip in her teeth and smiled impishly, tracing long scratches that spanned the length of his torso. Her fingers caught on the reddish hair that festooned his chest.

"I have added to your collection of scars, Uncle," she teased.

Nico groaned and flopped onto his belly. He buried his face in the linens and his shoulders began to shake. "What ever shall I tell my sister?" he said, laughing.

Lotte began to chuckle as well, and she moved to stretch out on top of his body as though she were a cloak. She folded her arms and rested her chin on her hands.

"You may tell her that you took her virgin daughter and spent an entire night teaching her the ways of pleasure. That there is not a place on her body that you hands have not caressed, no spot you have not kissed. That she found joy she did not know existed again and again…"

Nico rolled and pinned her beneath his weight. At the feel of him, the strong, lean muscles and coiled power, she trembled.

"I will tell her that you are mine," he said against her lips after he had bent down for another kiss. "My bride, to be blessed by God as soon as can be arranged. And after we are wed you will come with me, Lotte. To the coast, to see my friend safely home, and then to wherever our hearts desire to take us, throughout the whole of this land. They tell such stories, my love, of cities made out of gold and temples like those of ancient Egypt. We shall see them all and you shall never leave my side."

"Yes," she murmured, and her arms brought him closer until they were one flesh.

Author's note- I am thinking of another spin off featuring Nico. Let me know what you think or if you want details of my book, which will be released late September!- Bess