"How do you feel?"

"As if I could eat an entire cow."

Her smile deepened. "But... what do you remember?" she asked him.

"Everything," he told her solemnly. "And everything is vivid, except..."

"Except?"

"When we fell, when you were in my arms... there was a tremendous flash of... light. And you were with me, and it was as if we were floating, rising. Rising above all of it, and then... I felt the strangest stab of pain, and then..."

"And then?"

"I woke up."

"I had the dream, too," she said very softly.

"The same?"

"The light... the rising... floating, in clouds. I woke earlier than you."

He nodded, looked around.

"Valeria-Reggie-is dead."

"Sadly, yes. And Arturo, too. And Francois. Destroyed, forever."

"Why do I feel this way?" he asked her. "We should have been in a hospital or something. And instead, I feel as if I could take on the whole world.""I'm not sure," she said hesitantly.

"But you think you know."

"Well, fate brought us here, you know."

"Yes?"

"I think we were supposed to... be buried with the quake."

"But we weren't?" he whispered.

She shook her head.

"Fate, as Lucien told me, can be changed."

"And what does that mean?"

"Francois had a chance to rise again. So many more would have perished. But we triumphed."

"I still don't understand what you're saying."

"We have some friends who are... different," she told him.

"Yes?"

"Could we be different now, too?"

He stared at her hard. "Jesu!" he breathed.

"There is good and evil in all existence!" she told him.

"You don't mean-"

She shook her head, rising.

As always, she was the most beautiful creature in the world to him. She might have been descended from the sorceress, and G.o.d knew, apparently, she even had some of her power. But she had used that power for good.

Her hair was a cascade of dark silk down her back. Her eyes... held just the slightest glistening.

And she moved toward him. She crawled atop him, straddling him.

He felt a rise like nothing he had ever known before. His muscles tensed, his being quickened.

She leaned against him. "Are you very, very hungry?" she whispered.

He nodded. "Starving."

She sighed, lowering her head. He reached out, lifting her chin. He drew her to him then, finding her lips, savoring them, wondering how one could awaken from a near-grave, and feel such a desperate burst of s.e.xual urgency.

It was Stephanie... Always Stephanie.

Always had been Stephanie.

"Food can wait," he told her huskily.

He kissed her again. And again. And then he rose against her, and rolled her to his side, and kissed every inch of her.

He reveled as he never had before in the scent and taste of her. She was lithe and sinuous, she moved like magic and liquid against him.

He needed her like air, like water...

More than either.

They made love. And he knew that he was fierce. And they made love again, and he knew that he was tender.

Later, they rose, showered, and dressed. And then walked to the cottage where they hoped to find Lucien and Jade.

Jade ushered them in, a.s.suring him that Drew, Lena, and Suzette were all fine, and all-including Drew-thought that they'd just been part of the great quake that had struck the area.

Giovanni was dead, caught in the quake, but Merc and Franco had reported that they had forensic evidence that he'd been the killer, and so, despite the havoc, the region could rest in peace once again.

There was more, much more, of course. But... there was time now, too.

Lucien poured wine; Jade had made dinner in the cottage.

They sat down together, and at last, Stephanie said, "There's something... strange."

"Oh?" Lucien said.

Grant cleared his throat. "Well, I was half dead. And I awoke feeling like... well, feeling like the greatest d.a.m.ned s.e.xual tiger in the world. I was dying of thirst, starving... and I looked at Stephanie, and I... I wanted her more than anything." He looked from Stephanie's huge and luminous eyes to Lucien. "Does that mean... ?"

Lucien smiled, glancing at his wife. "I think that means that you love her more than anything in the world. And you'd probably better ask her to marry you quickly. Before something else comes up."

Grant arched a brow. "Is something else going to come up?"

Jade let out a sigh of exasperation. "Grant. You idiot! Didn't you listen? You're in love!"

He turned to Stephanie. "I'm in love. I need you more than water, food, air to breathe-even life. Will you marry me?"

And she smiled. "In a heartbeat," she told him.

And he didn't care that others were there.

He kissed her.That, he decided, was fate.