Born of Ashes

“Good, I’m glad you agree, that you understand.”

He stepped into her and put his hand on her right hip, very lightly. He held her gaze. “We should take it very slow. I would like that.”

He would like that? What was she missing here?

Then he dipped down to her and she felt those sensual lips, now very moist, on her neck just below her right ear. He kissed her then moved his lips in a long slow line down her neck, down and down, onto her shoulder and down to the mound of her breast. Very slow, he sent.

When she weaved on her feet and her mind started playing “La Vie en Rose,” she began to understand he was thinking of something else entirely. Just like a man.

Yet here she stood, desire washing over her in a heavy ocean-like wave, so that she didn’t even protest, not when he rose up and rubbed her lips with his thumb.

“Open your mouth, chérie.” Another command, and dammit, she obeyed him.

He slid his thumb inside and her knees buckled. But he was a quick vampire and he caught her around her waist. Then he did the most terrible thing: He began moving his thumb into her mouth then pulling back in a slow, deep rhythm.

She couldn’t help herself … she began to suck.

He groaned and released a whirlwind of his coffee scent, heavy with all that was male.

He went back to her neck, licking in a long slow line up to her ear. Once there, he said, “I want you sucking me … très lentement. Chérie, would you do that for me? Would you enjoy taking me in your mouth and sucking me?”

Oui, Jean-Pierre. Absolument.

Then his tongue dipped into her ear and he Frenched her slowly in a rhythm with his thumb so that she was close, so close. She moaned and sucked harder.

But much to her intense frustration, he drew away from her. “I must go, chérie, but we will finish this, oh-so-slowly, when the night’s work is done, ça va?”

She nodded. Her lips felt bruised they were so swollen. She blinked up at him and he bent down and placed a light kiss on her lips. Then he backed away from her and leaned against the wall. He stared at the floor.

She understood, or thought she did. Arousal was very different for a man, especially one as large as Jean-Pierre. He needed time to grow calm so that he could change into battle gear and head out to slaughter death vampires. An erection wasn’t easily concealed with a kilt.

She needed some space herself, and some air. Maybe a bucket of cold water would help. She smiled and with a little off-site telekinesis, she put a washcloth from Jean-Pierre’s sink under a flow of tap water. A moment later she brought the damp washcloth into her hand.

She immediately placed it at the back of her neck.

She heard him chuckle, then she looked at him and in a quick motion she flung it at him. “This is all your fault. What a tease.”

He laughed again. He unfolded the cloth and put it over his face.

“And your hair is sticking out in a ridiculous manner. You look like a clown.”

He laughed a little more then flung the washcloth back at her. She caught it in her hand. She loved his smile, all those big gorgeous teeth. He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath. A split second later he wore black leather battle gear. He lifted his now very bare and supremely muscled arms to pop the cadroen and take command of the mass of his hair.

Okay, this was so not fair, to be presented with so much male beauty. She wasn’t sure who had designed the flight gear but that black leather kilt just did it for her. Of course, it helped to look like Jean-Pierre from head to foot.

She forced herself to remain where she was, she worked hard at it, because all she could think was that she wanted her hands under that kilt, she wanted to fall on her knees and savor what he’d asked her to savor slowly just a few minutes ago.

“Your beautiful patisserie scent, chérie. Mon Dieu!”

“Jean-Pierre, don’t take this the wrong way, but I really wish you would leave right now and please don’t come over here and touch me. Okay?”

“Fiona, look at me.”

She once more followed his bidding and met his gaze.

He looked so serious, but then a very sneaky smile curved the corner of his mouth. “Slowly,” he said.

Then he moved with preternatural speed, crossed to her, kissed her, then left the room.

The bastard!

But she smiled as she touched her lips. He was a tease and much too demanding but then he would smile and disarm her, keep her off balance. And the real problem was, she loved it!

He was so not helping to keep their relationship headed in the right direction … as in a very necessary eventual separation.

Just not tonight, when she would return home with him.

Seriffe stuck his head in the door. “I thought we’d wait in the grid room. You okay with that?”

She drew in a deep breath and nodded. She knew what he was really asking. The grid room had the best speakers for listening to the inevitable battle. Was she up to listening to it? Of course she was. But as she headed to the door, she halted.

This time, her man was in the battle.

Sometimes the attack comes from the shadows,

But a clear eye, unfettered by fears, will always recognize the enemy.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 10

Jean-Pierre folded to Copán Two, Honduras. Humidity hung in the air, so different from the desert. He extended his preternatural vision. So much green everywhere.

He folded his sword into his hand. He heard laughing in the distance, deep male laughter.

Gideon was beside him, chin down, eyes scanning.

Thirty-two Militia Warriors ranged behind them both.

Gideon looked at him. “Let my men see to this first. We need the practice in order to get stronger, to battle better. Do you understand, Warrior?”

Another pissing contest. Jean-Pierre stared at the Militia Warrior Section Leader. Although Jean-Pierre felt a bristling down his back, what Gideon said made sense. There would be no reason for him not to observe at a distance.

“As you wish.” He could always engage the battle when he was needed.

He slipped into the thick vegetation. Gideon lifted his left arm high, then dropped his arm, the signal for forward movement.

The Militia Warriors blurred their speed as they shot forward, moving with stealth, low to the ground, swords ready.

Jean-Pierre nodded his approval.

When the last of the warriors faded into the jungle, he looked around and found high ground back and to his right. He moved to the new location in a split second, found a perch in a tree, and extended his vision farther. He watched each squad maneuver around a death vampire, separating the overly confident pretty-boys from one another.

Very intelligent. Gideon was right. His men were extremely well trained.

But when he felt the hairs on the nape of his neck rise, he instinctively knew he was not alone. Slowly, he looked around, scanning the vegetation for any sign of movement. He extended his hearing; nothing returned, yet the uneasy sensation remained.

Then he understood. The Upper ascender. A bare split second later he took the invisible punch to his chin, which threw him backward off the branch. His sword slipped from his hand, spinning through the foliage. He hit the ground on his back.

He rolled swiftly and heard a thump in the empty space he’d left behind. He leaped to his feet. He could feel the presence of the other but he saw nothing. Endelle had said this was the latest threat, that an Upper ascender had been causing all the inexplicable bruising and cuts among the warriors over the past five months.

And the monster was here.

Invisible.

“Show yourself.” He drew both his daggers, one in each hand. He took a hard kick to his left wrist. He heard the crack of bone breaking and his dagger flew.

Mon Dieu, he was in fucking trouble.

* * *

Fiona leaned over the grid as she listened to the battle, every muscle tense as though she had a part in the fighting as well.

She recognized Gideon’s voice through the transmitter on his weapons harness as he called out to his various squads. She heard the shouting, the grunting, the victorious screams, the clang and rasp of metal against metal as swords clashed.

But she did not hear Jean-Pierre.

She extended her telepathy the distance of two thousand miles and reached him. She heard his mind in her mind, Mon Dieu. He was in pain.

She rose upright. She pressed her newly discovered channeling ability, that part of her that was obsidian flame, and as she had experienced with Alison earlier and even Marguerite before that, she was just suddenly with him, next to him, her being pressed alongside his.

Jean-Pierre, she sent.

Fiona?

I’m here. You’re hurt.

Oui.

He moved. She could feel his body, feel him roll, feel the kick now to his sternum. He writhed in pain.

Then she heard the church bells. The Upper ascender is hurting you.

Yes. How can you tell?

I hear the church bells. Tell me what to do. What can I do?

My left wrist is broken.

I can have Bev fold you out of there.

No. Not yet. Fiona, think. Maybe if we worked together, we could wound him. He’s been hurting the Warriors of the Blood all these months.

She heard the church bells off to his right shoulder. Right shoulder, she sent.

He struck my right shoulder.

I think I’m tracking his location and intent. Wait for it.

The bells boomed. Big one coming … your left knee.

Aw, shit. Sheet.

Jean-Pierre, get ready to use your hand-blast, on my mark and in the direction I tell you, got it?

She could feel him breathing. Hard.

She waited. Tense.

Finally, she heard him. Ready.

The church bells sounded right behind his head. Behind your head, now!

She felt the blast leave his hand. She felt him flip over and sit up, his body contorted in pain. We hit the mark. I can see him, our Upper ascender. I hit both legs. His image is flickering. He is gone.

Did you kill him?

Non, pas du tout. But I hurt him. We hurt him. That was magnifique.

Jean-Pierre, I can feel that he is no longer there. How is that possible?

You have power, chérie. Much power. He gasped for breath.