Born of Ashes

But this, Fiona having conversed telepathically with Marguerite without ever having met her, then having received a warning from her, smacked of convergence. And convergence always meant escalation … like today’s battle at a goddam baptism.

He needed to tell Endelle that they were in for it but if he did then he’d have to explain about Marguerite. Revealing his woman’s Seer power would blow his life all to hell. And yeah, he was being selfish, but he just wasn’t ready to do that.

He uncrossed his arms and with a string of harsh gulps he downed the rest of the Ketel.

“What do I do, Warrior Thorne? Jean-Pierre will want to know more and we … well, we tend to share things with each other. He’s my guardian, after all.”

“Shit,” Thorne muttered. Mentally, he let loose with a really long string of obscenities, but for Fiona’s sake he kept his trap shut. “Well,” he said at last. “I think you’d better tell him everything, but I’m asking that both of you keep all that we’ve discussed, especially anything concerning Marguerite, close to the vest. Okay?”

“Of course. Of course.”

He supposed that if anyone would understand discretion and restraint it would be this woman. She was really lovely, her complexion like milk, her eyes a silver-blue, her brows arched and so pretty.

Suddenly all he could think about was that she’d been used as a blood slave. “I’m so sorry, Fiona. I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“For that whole thing, being trapped like you were, your blood harvested like some kind of farm animal. I’m so sorry. If we’d known, we would have come for you. I promise you that, but we just didn’t know.”

He heard her gasp, a faint sound from deep in her throat. She lowered her chin and her gaze. He hadn’t meant to upset her, and it didn’t surprise him that Jean-Pierre picked up on it and moved with preternatural speed to get to her side and put his hand on her shoulder.

He glared at Thorne. “What have you done? What did you say to her?” He let loose with a really long string of French. It couldn’t have been a compliment.

Fiona put her hand to her forehead.

“What the fuck did you say to her, Thorne? Why is she so unhappy? Merde.”

“I … I said I was sorry that she’d been used as a blood slave. I didn’t mean to cause her pain.”

Fiona turned toward Jean-Pierre and put her hand on his cheek. “It was kindly meant. He just took me by surprise and sometimes, I’ll confess, sometimes certain things, at unexpected moments, have the power to take me back there. I was back there. But I’m not now. It’s okay. Alison said it would happen and it does, but Thorne was expressing a great kindness, nothing more.”

“Shit.” Sheet.

Thorne wanted to apologize again and again, but now he feared that another I’m sorry would once more have the opposite effect and remind of her where she’d spent the last hundred years.

His gaze flicked to the ratty brown leather sofa against the back wall adjacent to the bar. Luken, the biggest of the warriors and as muscled as hell, sat on the couch, his head back at an angle. He had a beer in one hand, propped on his thigh. His eyes were closed. The beer listed sideways and Luken snapped awake, righted it, then closed his eyes again.

Santiago was slumped on one of the bar stools, and Zach was stretched out on the floor yawning.

Thorne shook his head. They’d battled all night, stayed up a little longer to be at baby Helena’s baptism, then battled some more. “All right, you men,” he called out. “Head home. Now. Get some sleep.”

Heads bobbed. All three struggled to their feet and with each lifting an arm, they disappeared. Luken took his beer with him.

“I’ll say a good night or good morning or whatever the hell this is. We’ll see you at midnight, Jean-Pierre.” The warrior worked a split shift so he could stay on guardian duty, so yeah, the brother had circles under his eyes.

His gaze once more met Fiona’s. “I’m here if you need me. Central can reach me day or night, okay?”

“Thank you, Warrior Thorne.”

He got that sick feeling again but hell, he needed some sleep, too. First, however, he had to make his report to Endelle. This would be no fucking picnic. Okay, maybe one or two more belts before he folded to administrative headquarters.

* * *

Endelle leaned her hips against her marble desk, the thick slab cutting across her ass but hardly making a dent through the thick boar’s-hide skirt she was wearing. The thing was bristly as hell but she loved it. In the past five months, she hadn’t changed much about her wardrobe except to add a little embroidered leather. That bastard, Owen Stannett, High Administrator of the Superstition Mountain Seers Fortress, had actually inspired her; the man had some serious kick-ass embroidered leather shit goin’ on. He made her feel like a fashion slacker.

Other than her admiration, however, of the last leather ensemble he’d worn, she hated his guts. He was a narcissistic care-for-nobody and she still didn’t have access to his Seers, the only Seers on the planet she was supposed to have access to.

A century ago, COPASS had started establishing the rules of warfare between her faction and Greaves, but had somehow been manipulated into giving Stannett sovereignty over the fortress. She’d been future-blind for ten decades and it was the most powerful reason why Commander Darian Greaves was winning the goddam war.

Of course, all that wasn’t what troubled her in the here and now.

She sighed, and the sound was a rush of wind through her administrative office. Even the door rattled. Yeah, she was just a little upset.

And it was barely noon.

She stared at the zebra-skin rug closest to her desk and flipped the edge with the pointed toe of her black stiletto.

She always wore stilettos.

She could wear them day and night because she was ascended and could heal her feet constantly.

Otherwise she’d be screaming. And fucking crippled.

Right now, though, she felt like screaming anyway. She wanted to pull every last goddam strand of her long thick black hair out by the roots until she was bald and she’d do it screaming the entire time.

Yeah, that’s what she wanted to do.

She couldn’t, though. She had to maintain her composure for the sake of all of Second Earth. She was the Supreme High Administrator and this was her job.

So instead of screaming, she gripped the edge of the marble, one hand on either side of her hips, and with the toe of her stiletto she lifted up the edge of the zebra skin then put it down, patting it in place then lifting it up again. Lift, release, pat. Lift, release, pat.

She’d done this maybe a thousand times in the past half hour.

She’d lost track because her mind had shifted back to the fiasco at the Creator’s Convent. Earlier, she’d gotten a sick-gut feeling and, using her preternatural voyeurism, had checked in on the doings with no one the wiser.

Everything had been fine until Fiona, their newest breh-candidate, had gotten a funny look on her face and told Thorne they had incoming.

The battle had been okay. A victory, actually.

The fighting hadn’t bothered her and yeah, she was glad so many death vampires had bit the dust, or bit the pine needles as it were. Her men had performed admirably, and she was surprised as hell at Fiona’s calm under pressure.

No, that’s not what had bothered her.

In fact, she would have tuned out the whole damn thing except Thorne had looked at Fiona and his expression had been … guilty as hell.

Something was up with her second-in-command.

Something big … and not his oversized cock.

Her internal alarms had sounded like an enormous bell ringing on a mountaintop; Himalayas maybe.

So, instead of getting back to work at her desk, and reviewing Marcus’s latest reports on which of her High Administrators around the world were most likely to turn traitor and align with Greaves, she’d followed Thorne back to the Cave using her same voyeuristic powers.

Flip. Release. Pat. Flip. Release. Pat.

That’s when she’d listened in on one little horrific conversation between Thorne and Fiona.

She’d been dreading this moment for a long time, a century maybe, and right now she wanted to scream or cut her throat.

Marguerite.

Endelle had known about her almost from the first, having seen the glow of a memory deep within Thorne’s mind. She’d pushed her way in when she shouldn’t have. Thorne had hooked up with a powerful Seer in the Convent and was keeping her hidden.

But now that the Seer had become a player in their little thing called “the war,” Endelle would have to act. And she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to hurt Thorne.

* * *

“She wants to see me now?” Fiona asked. Thorne looked pale, his bloodshot eyes blinking strangely.

Thorne nodded. “Ten minutes. Both you and Jean-Pierre, and no I don’t know what it’s about but my guess is it has something to do with what happened at the christening.”

“What does she know?”

Thorne shrugged, but his lips parted and for a good long moment she watched him dragging air into his lungs. He rubbed his forehead. “Okay. Okay. We can do this. She’s in her office at HQ.” He looked at Jean-Pierre. “Bring Fiona with you when you’re ready. I’m heading for the shower. See you there.” He lifted his arm and vanished.

Fiona turned to Jean-Pierre. “I don’t want to do this.” She shook her head back and forth. Endelle on a good day was hard to take, but Fiona suspected Her Supremeness would want to investigate everything that had happened at the christening.

She shuddered. She understood now that she truly did have emerging powers, that what used to be a simple form of telepathy had escalated into something more, something much more. Endelle, on the other hand, collected powerful beings around her, but the last place Fiona wanted to be was near the scorpion queen.

The woman might have had a few endearing qualities a couple of millennia ago. But the intervening centuries had worn away any superficial charm, any means by which the ruler of Second Earth could pass through the world with a nod and a smile.