Emily felt the glow settle inside her like a second hearth, banked warmth spreading from her womb outward through her limbs, and she pressed her face harder into Katherine's throat, breathing her in—woodsmoke and salt and the particular musk of her wife's spent body. She could feel the power Katherine had given her, not just the twin seeds but something older, something Katherine had been hoarding since the night beneath the oak, and it pulsed in time with her own heartbeat, a second rhythm that seemed to say mine, mine, mine. She lifted her head, her green eyes finding Katherine's blue ones, and she saw the exhaustion there, the beautiful, emptied slackness of a woman who had poured herself out completely. She gave me everything, Emily thought, the realization landing somewhere deep and tender, and I'm still hungry.

Marcus moved in her peripheral vision, and she felt his weight settle on the arm of the chair, his calloused hand finding her bare shoulder. She turned her head to look at him—his hazel eyes soft in the firelight, his jaw relaxed in a way she hadn't seen before, like the violence of the past days had finally drained out of him. "You two," he said, low and rough, "are something else." Emily laughed, a breathless, broken sound, and she felt Katherine's arms tighten around her waist. "We're something," Emily agreed, and she reached out to curl her fingers around his wrist, feeling his pulse jump against her thumb. This is what I wanted, she thought, the truth of it settling into her bones. To be seen whole, by both of them, at the same time.

But even as the warmth pooled in her chest, something else stirred in the hollow of her spine—not the old hunger for power, but a newer, sharper awareness, like a tuning fork struck against the edge of her consciousness. She felt it as a faint pressure behind her eyes, a whisper of cold that had nothing to do with the fire. The seeds, she realized, and she placed a hand low on her belly, feeling the twin pulses answer her touch, stronger than they'd ever been. Katherine noticed the gesture, her blue eyes sharpening with concern. "Emily?" she asked, her voice still husky from use. "What is it?" Emily shook her head slowly, not wanting to alarm her, but the feeling wouldn't quite fade—a sense of something vast and patient turning its attention toward them, like a great beast stirring in deep water.

"I don't know," Emily said, and she hated the uncertainty in her own voice. She shifted in Katherine's lap, feeling the slick evidence of their joining still cooling on her thighs, and she let her magic ripple outward—a gentle, exploratory pulse that washed through the room and into the dark beyond the windows. The apple trees stood sentinel, their roots drinking deep of what she'd planted there, and beyond them the sea churned against the rocks, indifferent and eternal. She found nothing wrong, nothing waiting, and yet the pressure remained, a splinter of awareness lodged between her ribs. The goddess, she thought, remembering the vision in the grove, the woman with her mother's cheekbones and her father's eyes. She's watching. She's always watching.

Emily let out a slow breath and made a choice. She turned her face back to Katherine's, pressing a soft kiss to her wife's lips, then reached for Marcus's hand and drew him down until he knelt beside the chair, his face level with hers. "Whatever comes next," she said, her voice steady now, "I want you both with me. Not because I need protection—I've spent seventy years learning to protect myself." She paused, letting the weight of that settle. "Because I want to be seen. By the people who know exactly what I am, and choose to stay anyway." Katherine's eyes glistened, and Marcus's jaw tightened, and Emily felt the glow in her womb pulse once, twice, like a heartbeat answering a question she hadn't known she was asking. The fire crackled, and the sea wind pressed against the glass, and for a long moment none of them spoke—just three people breathing together in the warm, salt-scoured dark, holding each other against the unknown.

Emily closed her eyes and let herself feel the architecture of what Katherine had given her—not just the power, but the shape of it. The glow banked in her womb was warm and patient, the twin seeds pulsing in answer to it, and she understood suddenly that they were not two separate things. Katherine had planted, and she had grown. The planter and the nurturer, she thought, the realization blooming through her like light through water. She pressed her palm flat against her belly, feeling the seeds turn toward her touch like seedlings toward the sun, and she let her own magic rise to meet the gift—not to hoard it, not to refine it, but to feed it. To water what had been planted.

"I want to show you something," Emily said, her voice low and wondering. She shifted in Katherine's lap, turning until she faced her wife fully, her knees bracketing Katherine's hips, the evidence of their joining still slick between her thighs. She took Katherine's hand and pressed it to her belly, then reached for Marcus's hand and drew him closer until his palm joined theirs, the three of them stacked over the twin pulses. "Feel that," she whispered, and she let the power flow—not outward into the world, but inward, down into the soil of herself, where two seeds waited. She felt the glow Katherine had given her mix with her own magic, a blend of nurturer and planter that had no name yet, and she felt the seeds drink it in, growing heavier, more real, more present.

Katherine's breath caught. "Emily," she said, her voice cracking. "They're—" "They're hungry," Emily finished, and she laughed, a sound that was half wonder and half terror. "They've always been hungry. I just didn't know what they were hungry for." She looked down at her own belly, at the three hands resting there, and she felt the truth of it settle into her bones: she was not a vessel for power anymore, not a channel for destruction. She was ground. Fertile, waiting, ready to grow whatever was planted in her. The thought should have terrified her—seventy years of wanting power, of wielding it, of being the one who acted—and instead it felt like the most honest thing she had ever been.

Marcus's thumb traced a slow circle over her belly, and she felt his calloused palm warm against her skin. "What do they need?" he asked, his voice rough. Emily opened her eyes, meeting his hazel ones, then Katherine's blue. "Not power," she said slowly, the understanding forming as she spoke. "Not the kind I used to chase. They need to be fed with intention. With choice." She took Katherine's hand and brought it to her lips, kissing the palm, then did the same to Marcus. "Every time you plant something in me—every time we choose each other—they grow a little stronger." She felt the seeds pulse again, a double beat like a heart learning its rhythm, and she placed her own hand over theirs, completing the circuit. "I think," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, "they're going to be born knowing exactly how they were made."

The fire popped, sending a spark spiraling up the chimney, and Emily felt the weight of the moment settle over the three of them like a blanket. She leaned forward, pressing her forehead to Katherine's, and she felt Marcus's hand move to the nape of her neck, grounding her. "Whatever comes next," she said, her voice steady now, "this is what I'm growing toward. Not power. Not vengeance. This." She opened her eyes, looking from Katherine to Marcus and back again. "A family that sees me whole." Katherine's eyes glistened, and Marcus's jaw tightened, and Emily felt the twin seeds pulse one final time—not hungry, not demanding, but content. Settled. As if they, too, had heard the promise she was making. The sea wind pressed against the glass, and the fire crackled, and for a long moment none of them spoke—just three people breathing together in the warm, salt-scoured dark, holding each other and the small, growing life between them.

Emily felt the weight of Marcus's question settle between them like a stone dropped into still water, and she knew the moment had come to stop speaking in metaphors. She shifted in Katherine's lap, feeling the cooling slick of their joining against her thighs, and she took Marcus's face in both hands, forcing him to meet her eyes. "You asked what they need," she said, her voice dropping low. "The truth is simpler than you think. My power isn't just healing, Marcus. It's transformative. It shapes things. It nurtures them." She felt Katherine's arms tighten around her waist, a silent anchor, and she let the words come raw and unvarnished. "Every night you've come inside me—my mouth, my cunt, my ass—you've fed me. You've given me power I've used to heal the sick, to grow trees from ash, to destroy a demon that had lived a century."

Marcus's hazel eyes went wide, not with horror but with a slow, dawning understanding that made his jaw go slack. "All those nights," he said, his voice rough. "You were... feeding." Emily nodded, her thumbs tracing the stubble along his jawline. "Not just sex. Not just pleasure, though goddess knows it was that too. Every time you emptied yourself into me, I took something from it—raw, vital energy that my body learned to refine into power." She felt the twin seeds pulse in her womb, hungry and attentive, and she pressed her palm flat against her belly. "I healed a dying man with what you gave me. I grew three apple trees from a demon's ashes with it. And when Camus took me by force, I used what you'd fed me to drain him dry and crush his skull into the gravel."

Katherine's breath caught against Emily's shoulder, her fingers digging into her wife's hips. "You never told him," she murmured, not a question but a realization. Emily shook her head slowly. "I was afraid he'd see me as a parasite. Something that took and took and never gave back." She looked at Marcus, searching his face for the disgust she feared would be there. "But that's not what it is. The power I take from you, I pour back into the world. Into the ground. Into the people who need it." She swallowed hard. "And into the seeds we've planted together."

Marcus was silent for a long moment, his calloused thumb tracing a slow circle over her belly, and Emily felt the weight of his judgment pressing down on her like the sea itself. Then he laughed—a low, rough sound that cracked something open in her chest. "You killed a century-old demon with my come," he said, shaking his head in wonder. "That's the sexiest goddamn thing I've ever heard." Emily stared at him, her mouth falling open, and then she was laughing too, a helpless, breathless sound that dissolved into something dangerously close to tears. "I didn't know how to tell you," she admitted. "I thought—" "You thought I'd run," Marcus finished, his voice gentler now. "You thought knowing what you are would be too much." He leaned in, pressing his forehead to hers. "Emily, I ate an apple grown from a dead man's ashes. I watched you fly. I've spent sixty nights inside you, and every one of them meant something."

Emily felt the tears break free then, hot and unexpected, sliding down her cheeks as she pressed her face into Marcus's neck. Katherine's arms came around her from behind, holding her together, and she felt the three of them breathe as one. "So when you come inside me tonight," Emily whispered, her voice thick, "know what you're giving me. Know that I'll use it to heal someone tomorrow, or grow something that'll outlive us all, or—" She paused, the weight of the truth settling into her bones. "Or destroy whatever threatens the family I'm building." She pulled back, looking at Marcus, then twisting to look at Katherine, her green eyes fierce and wet. "That's what I am. That's what I've always been. A woman who takes what she's given and makes it into something that matters."

Marcus's thumb stilled on her belly, and she felt the shift in him—not withdrawal, but a gathering, like a man bracing to lift something heavier than he'd expected. His hazel eyes searched her face, and she let him look, let him see the raw truth of her laid bare in the firelight. "So every time," he said slowly, the words weighted with new understanding, "when I pulled out and watched it leak from you, or when you swallowed me down, or when I took you from behind—I was giving you more than pleasure." He said it like a man reading a map he'd been walking blind. "I was arming you."

Emily felt Katherine's arms tighten around her waist, a silent anchor, and she nodded, her throat thick. "Arming me. Feeding me. Making me stronger than I could ever be alone." She took his hand from her belly and pressed it to her chest, over her heart, where the glow Katherine had poured into her still banked like embers. "This power isn't separate from what we do together, Marcus. It's the same thing. The same current." She felt the twin seeds pulse in answer, a double beat against his palm, and she watched his jaw work as he felt it too. "When you give yourself to me, you're not just filling my body. You're filling the well I draw from when the world needs healing, or when something dark needs ending."

Katherine's voice came soft against her ear, warm with something like pride. "She healed a man dying of cancer with what you gave her. Grew a forest from a demon's ashes. And when that thing tried to take her by force, she turned your gift into the weapon that ended a century of cruelty." Emily felt her wife's lips brush her temple. "You've been feeding a miracle, Marcus. Every single night." The words landed in the quiet of the room, and Emily watched Marcus's chest rise and fall with a breath that seemed to carry the weight of it. His calloused hand was still pressed over her heart, and she felt his fingers curl slightly, gripping her like she was something precious and terrible all at once.

"I thought I was just a man who'd found a woman who wanted him," he said, his voice rough with wonder. "Turns out I've been pouring myself into something sacred." He shook his head slowly, and when he looked at her again, there was no fear in his eyes—only a fierce, quiet reverence that made her breath catch. "Then let me keep feeding you, Emily. Let me be the reason you can heal the next dying man, grow the next tree, end the next monster." He brought her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her palm, and she felt the promise in it like a brand. "I want to be the well you draw from. For as long as you'll let me."

Emily felt the tears threaten again, but she held them back, letting the warmth of his words settle into the hollow where her old hunger used to live. She looked at Katherine, then back at Marcus, and she felt the shape of her life rearranging itself around them—not power, not vengeance, but this. "Then come inside me tonight," she whispered, her voice steady with intention. "And know that I'll carry every drop of you into tomorrow." She leaned forward, pressing her forehead to his, and she felt Katherine's arms around them both, a circuit closing. "That's the covenant," she said, her breath warm against his lips. "That's what we are to each other now." The fire crackled, and the sea wind pressed against the glass, and Emily felt the twin seeds pulse once more—not hungry, not demanding, but ready. Waiting for what she would choose to grow.

Katherine shifted beneath her, and Emily felt the change in her wife's body—not the spent slackness of before, but a gathering, a coiling of intent. Katherine's hand slid from Emily's belly to her own, pressing flat against her lower abdomen, and when she spoke her voice carried a weight Emily had never heard there before. "You think you're the only one who's been changed by what happened under that oak?" Katherine's blue eyes caught the firelight, and Emily saw something ancient flickering in their depths. "I've been carrying something too, Emily. Not just the seed I planted in you. Something of my own."

Emily felt the air in the room shift, the fire dimming as if the flames themselves leaned in to listen. Katherine's hand moved from her belly and rose between them, palm up, and Emily watched in wonder as a tiny spark kindled in Katherine's open hand—not fire, but something greener, more vital, a seed of light that pulsed with its own heartbeat. "The goddess gave me a power too," Katherine said, her voice low and wondering, as if she were still discovering it herself. "Not to heal, not to destroy. To plant. To sow." Emily's breath caught as she understood, the realization landing like a stone in still water. Katherine had been the planter all along—not just the one who grew what Emily nurtured, but the one who began it. The seed she'd given Emily beneath the oak hadn't been a gift of her own power. It had been the first fruit of a new one.

"When I gave you that seed," Katherine continued, her voice dropping to a whisper, "I wasn't just giving you something I'd saved. I was using a power I didn't understand yet." Her fingers closed around the spark, and when she opened her hand again it was gone, absorbed back into her skin. "It grows in me, Emily. It needs direction. It needs to be planted somewhere, given a purpose—otherwise it just builds and builds until I feel like I might—" She stopped, her jaw tightening. "Until I feel like I could blow everything apart." Emily felt the words land in her chest like a physical weight, and she understood suddenly why Katherine had been hoarding it, why she'd poured it all into Emily tonight. It wasn't just a gift. It was a necessity. Katherine's power was too much to carry alone, and she'd given it away because she was afraid of what it would become if she didn't.

Emily took Katherine's face in her hands, forcing her wife to meet her eyes. "That's what Camus was," she said, the understanding blooming through her like light through water. "He had the same power, didn't he? The power to plant seeds—in minds, in bodies, in the world. But he never gave them direction. He just sowed chaos and let it grow wild." She felt the horror of it settle into her bones—how close Katherine had come to the same fate, how easily the power could have corrupted her if she'd kept it bottled up, if she'd let it fester into something that needed to explode. "You're not him," Emily said fiercely, her thumbs tracing Katherine's cheekbones. "You gave it to me. You chose to plant it in something that could nurture it, grow it into life instead of destruction."

Marcus moved behind Emily, his calloused hands settling on her shoulders, grounding her. "So that's why you can't give up what Emily grew for you," he said slowly, his voice rough with understanding. "The cock she nurtured. It's not just pleasure—it's the channel. The way you sow." Emily felt Katherine's body tremble beneath her, and she knew Marcus had seen what she was only beginning to grasp. Katherine's power needed a direction, a purpose, a way to plant itself in the world. And the body Emily had given her—the cock she'd grown with her own magic, shaped and nurtured until it was perfect—was the vessel for that sowing. To give it up would be to lose the only way she knew to direct the power building inside her. "I can plant seeds in minds," Katherine whispered, her voice cracking. "In the world. Sparks that become storms. Ideas that become movements. But I can't shape them after. I can only give them their first direction and let them grow." She looked at Emily, her blue eyes wet. "You're the nurturer. I'm the sower. We're two halves of something Camus never understood."

Emily's laugh started somewhere deep and broke loose like a wave—not the breathless sound of before, but something full-throated and helpless that kept coming until her ribs ached. Of course. Of course an ancient and unknowable creation goddess had looked down at the mess of human desire and thought the cleanest architecture was a division of labor—pitchers and catchers, tops and bottoms, sowers and nurturers. Seventy years as a man who'd wanted nothing but power, and she'd been handed a body that turned out to be ground itself, soil that drank whatever was poured into it and grew it into something that mattered. And Katherine, who had spent forty-five years as the steady one, the planner, the one who kept the ledger—she'd been given the cock that planted. The goddess had a sense of humor like a landslide.

"She's laughing at us," Emily said, the words tumbling out between gasps. "I can feel it. She's up there somewhere, watching the three of us sit here trying to make meaning out of the fact that she built the whole cosmos on who puts what where." She pressed her forehead to Katherine's, still shaking with it, and she felt her wife's body hitch against her—not laughter, not yet, but the edge of it, the crack in the dam. "A creation goddess. The architect of everything. And her grand design for how power moves through the world is—" Emily gestured down at herself, at Katherine, at Marcus's hand still warm on her shoulder, "—a system that runs on cocks and cunts. On who opens and who fills. On who plants and who grows."

Marcus's laugh came low and rough behind her, a sound that vibrated through his chest into her spine. "You're telling me the fate of the universe runs on fucking." Emily turned to look at him, her green eyes bright with mirth and something rawer underneath. "I'm telling you I spent seventy years trying to accumulate power through will and force and strategy," she said, "and the goddess took one look at me and decided the only way I'd ever truly understand creation was to become the thing that gets filled." She felt the truth of it land in her chest like a stone in still water. Every night Marcus had emptied himself into her, every time Katherine had planted a seed in her womb, she had been learning the oldest lesson there was—that to create, you had to first be willing to receive.

"I think she's been laughing at me my whole life," Emily said, her voice softening as the laughter finally ebbed into something quieter. "All those years I sat on the bench, judging, deciding, thinking I was the one who shaped outcomes. And the whole time she was waiting to show me that the real power was never in the gavel." She looked down at her own belly, where the twin seeds pulsed their patient double beat. "It was in the ground. In what I could grow if I ever let myself be planted." She felt Katherine's hand find hers, and Marcus's palm settle on the nape of her neck, and she understood that she was not the one holding them together—she was the soil they were all growing in, the place where their choices took root and became something more than any of them could be alone.

"Then let her laugh," Katherine said softly, her blue eyes catching the firelight. "Let her watch. We're her design, aren't we? The sower and the ground." Emily felt the words settle into her like a seed finding soil, and she looked from Katherine to Marcus and back again, the shape of her life rearranging itself around them. She thought she could feel the goddess's attention then, vast and amused and somehow tender, like a mother watching a child discover their own hands. "She gave us each other," Emily said, her voice barely above a whisper. "That's the real creation. Everything else is just what we grow from it." The fire crackled, and the sea wind pressed against the glass, and Emily felt the twin seeds pulse once—not hungry, not demanding, but answering. As if they, too, could feel the goddess's chortling approval washing over them from somewhere vast and unknowable and deeply, deeply pleased.

Emily's laugh bubbled up again, lighter this time, almost giddy, and she felt the absurdity of the whole situation crest over her like a wave she had no interest in swimming out of. She shifted in Katherine's lap, feeling the weight of both of them against her, the fire warming her bare skin, and she let the thought that had been circling her mind finally break the surface. "You know," she said, her voice carrying a wondering edge, "I've been thinking about the first time—when Josh and Katherine both took me at once." She felt Katherine's arms tighten around her waist, felt Marcus's hand still on her shoulder, and she let herself remember the fullness of it, the way she'd been so completely occupied that she couldn't tell where one of them ended and the other began. "Getting double stuffed in one hole really did feel like cosmic magic at the time."

Marcus's laugh rolled through his chest, low and appreciative, and she felt it vibrate into her spine where his hand rested. "One hole, both of them?" he asked, his voice rough with interest. "That's not a small thing to take." Emily felt heat rise up her neck, not from shame but from the memory of it—the stretch, the fullness, the way she'd felt so completely claimed that she'd lost track of which body was which. "It was the first time I understood what this body was for," she said slowly, her green eyes finding the fire. "Not just pleasure. Not just power. But space. Capacity." She pressed a hand to her belly, where the twin seeds pulsed their patient rhythm. "I was built to hold more than one thing at once."

Katherine's voice came soft against her ear, warm with something that sounded like wonder. "You've always been able to hold more than anyone expected." Emily felt the words land in her chest, and she turned her head to look at her wife, seeing the firelight catch the gold in Katherine's hair. "I used to think that was a weakness," Emily admitted, the confession slipping out before she could catch it. "That wanting more meant I was greedy. That being able to take more meant I was somehow less." She swallowed hard, feeling the truth of it settle into her bones. "But it's not. It's the whole point. The goddess didn't make me this way to punish me. She made me this way so I could be the ground for more than one kind of seed."

Marcus's hand slid from her shoulder down her arm, his calloused fingers finding hers and intertwining. "So when you say cosmic magic," he said slowly, "you mean it literally." Emily laughed again, a breathless sound that cracked something open in her chest. "I mean I felt the universe rearrange itself around me," she said, her voice dropping low. "I mean I understood, in that moment, that I wasn't just a woman being fucked. I was a vessel for something older than any of us." She felt the twin seeds pulse in answer, a double beat against her palm, and she looked from Marcus to Katherine and back again. "And now I get to feel that way every time you both choose me."

Katherine's lips found her temple, a soft brush of warmth. "Then let's give you something to remember," she murmured, her voice carrying a promise that made Emily's breath catch. Emily felt the shift in the room—not the gathering of before, but something lighter, almost playful, like the goddess herself leaning in to watch what would grow next. She turned in Katherine's lap, feeling the evidence of their joining still slick between her thighs, and she reached for Marcus's hand, drawing him closer until the three of them were a circuit again. "I want to feel it again," Emily whispered, the words carrying a hunger that had nothing to do with power. "I want to remember what cosmic magic feels like when I'm not fighting for my life." The fire crackled, and the sea wind pressed against the glass, and Emily felt the twin seeds pulse once—not hungry, not demanding, but eager. Ready to grow whatever she chose to plant.

Emily's laugh came soft and knowing as she rose from Katherine's lap, her bare feet finding the worn floorboards. She felt the firelight play across her skin, and she let her power unspool from her fingertips in a lazy, golden current. "Before we get to that," she murmured, her green eyes traveling over both of them with an appraising hunger, "we have unfinished business. I haven't been properly eaten out yet tonight, and neither of you deserve to do that in yesterday's mess." She lifted her hands, and the room seemed to draw a deep breath.

The transformation rippled outward from her palms like light across water. The leather chair sighed as months of salt air and sweat and the particular musk of three bodies lifted from its grain, the fabric brightening to its original worn suppleness. The fire leaped cleaner in the hearth, the smoke drawn up sharp and sweet. Emily felt the magic wash over Katherine first—the silk robe losing its creases, the honey-blond strands of her chignon resettling into a glossy sheen, the pearl earrings catching the light like new. Then Marcus, his white tee brightening to a freshness that made his sun-browned forearms look all the more rough against it, his hair losing the day's salt and wind. "There," Emily said, stepping back to admire them both. "Clean slate. Clean table."

She didn't stop there. Her magic turned inward, and she felt the particular signatures of the three of them like threads she could braid. She reached for Katherine first, laying a scent across her wife's skin—jasmine and musk, heady and floral, the kind of perfume that made a man lean closer without knowing why. Then herself, lavender and raspberries, sweet and clean and just a little tart, the kind of scent that promised a taste. She paused before Marcus, her lips curving, and she laid cedar and fresh ground coffee across his shoulders and throat—warm and woody and sharp, the smell of a man who worked with his hands and woke before the sun. "So we all smell like who we are," she said softly, breathing in the blend of the three of them, "instead of who we've been."

The last trick required more care, and Emily felt her magic deepen as she turned her attention to the cultivation juice Katherine had poured into her—that banked ember glow that now pulsed in her own belly. She drew on it gently, a careful sip rather than a gulp, and she felt the warmth travel down through her own body and out along the threads that connected her to both of them. She sent it into Katherine first, a stirring current that made her wife gasp and shift, her cock thickening against Emily's thigh where she stood close. Then Marcus, and she watched his jaw tighten, his hand moving instinctively to cup himself as the warmth settled low in his balls, a tightening, a gathering, a readiness that made his eyes go dark. "A little help," Emily whispered, her voice carrying a wicked edge, "for what comes next. Consider it a head start."

Katherine's hand found Emily's hip, pulling her close, and Marcus rose from the chair to stand behind her, his calloused palms settling on her bare shoulders. Emily stood between them, clean and scented and buzzing with the power she'd just stirred in both of them, and she felt the twin seeds pulse in her belly—eager, ready, hungry for what she'd promised them. The fire crackled, and the salt wind pressed against the glass, and Emily let herself be bracketed by the two people who saw her whole, the three of them breathing together in the warm, clean, fragrant dark. "Now," she said, her voice dropping low and sure, "I believe someone owes me a very thorough apology for neglecting me." She looked from Katherine's blue eyes to Marcus's hazel ones, and she felt the weight of what they were about to do settle over her like a blessing. "And I intend to collect."