Born of Ashes (Guardians of Ascension #4)(101)
Author: Caris Roane

Marguerite shifted her gaze between Medichi and Jean-Pierre. “So these two are spoken for?”

“Yes.”

At that, however, Thorne turned back to Marguerite. If ever a man’s ego had just been flattened into the flattest point on the face of the goddam flat earth, Thorne’s was crêpe-thin right now. Worse, Marguerite didn’t even seem to notice—which begged the question, what the hell was wrong with this scarlet variety of obsidian flame? Sweet Jesus, what a goddam f**king mess that her beloved Thorne had somehow gotten tangled up with a horn dog female like Marguerite.

Oh, goody! More fun times ahead.

Marguerite dropped down into her seat and started to examine her nails. “Fine,” she said. “No mated warriors. Whatever.”

“Fine,” Endelle said.

She finally set Parisa on her feet, but held her pinned against her side. Parisa’s face was dark red but it wasn’t from embarrassment. Whatever had just happened had tripped some internal mechanism of warning in her woman’s instinctive heart and she wasn’t going down without, apparently, a battle to the death over this one. “You gonna be good for me?” she asked, trying to catch Parisa’s gaze.

But Parisa was breathing hard and glared at Marguerite.

Endelle looked at Medichi, wondering how the hell this warrior was taking everything. But the moment she saw the look on his face, his eyes at half-mast as he watched Parisa, and the flush on his cheeks, and his lips actually swollen with lust, she knew how to resolve the whole situation. “Medichi, I think you’d better take Parisa to your villa … right now.”

“Oh, yeah.” His voice rolled through the room, deep, resonant, and with almost as much gravel to the timbre as Thorne employed.

The sound of his voice, however, had a very powerful effect on Parisa. She jerked her head in his direction and her body stilled, then relaxed. Endelle wasn’t sure, but she thought Parisa might have murmured, “Sage.”

Medichi crossed the few feet that separated him from his woman, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her, a demonstration of interest that honest-to-God sent shivers down all of Endelle’s wing-locks. The couple vanished, and the tension in the room just fell away.

Jean-Pierre said, “If you do not have need of me, I believe I will excuse myself. I wish to speak with Seriffe.”

“I’ll send Fiona to you when we’re finished here.”

He nodded. He leaned down and kissed Fiona as well, but he didn’t just put his lips to hers; he settled his hand on her face as well, which made Endelle sigh. Then he was gone.

Endelle waved Fiona forward and told Thorne to take a chill-pill. Thorne retired once more to the east window.

To Fiona, she said, “I believe you know Marguerite, but you haven’t met her. But first, I guess I should ask: Fiona, are you going to behave for me?”

At that, Fiona laughed. “Yes, of course. I didn’t quite have the same reaction that Parisa did, but then”—she looked at Marguerite—“Parisa hasn’t had the advantage of having Marguerite pull her ass out of the fire a couple of times. I have.”

“Well, good. Now make friends, because we’ve got one motherfucker of an ankle guard to bust through.”

In the mythical stories of the breh-hedden, the precipice preceding the union of body, mind, and blood was considered as significant as the act itself. But then all life-altering decisions are made while standing on a precipice.

Only the view is different.

—Treatise on Ascension, by Philippe Reynard

Chapter 22

As Fiona met Marguerite’s laughing gaze, the gold of her obsidian flame vibrated very gently deep within her, the recognition of a kindred power.

Marguerite’s brows rose. “Do you feel that?”

Fiona nodded.

Endelle looked from Fiona to Marguerite. “Feel what?”

“A connection,” Fiona said. “Obsidian connection.”

Endelle clapped her hands together. “Oh, shit, yes.”

Marguerite stood up. “I’m Marguerite Desplat, Twoling out of Iowa 1891.”

“Fiona Gaines, mortal out of Boston, ascended 1886. Sort of. I didn’t complete my ascension until a few months ago.”

Marguerite nodded. “I hear you got Rith.”

“We did. Jean-Pierre and I.”

“And you’re sure the Upper ascender got away from the arena theater?”

“There’s no doubt that he escaped. I watched him dematerialize before I contacted Endelle.”

“Good.” Her expression grew clouded, even distant, as though she was sifting through her memories. She was at least five inches shorter than Fiona, which seemed strange because all the women who surrounded Endelle approached six feet.

But she had every confidence that what Marguerite lacked in relative stature she made up for in sheer force of personality.

“So, what are your plans,” Fiona asked, “now that you’re free?”

Marguerite’s gaze shifted only the tiniest bit in Endelle’s direction, a sly glance she wasn’t sure Endelle even noticed. Then Marguerite shrugged, a delicate almost flirtatious movement of her shoulders. “I have very strong Seer abilities and I want to help out with the war effort as much as I can. I’m very much beholden to Madame Endelle.”

Endelle slapped her hand against her red-feathered thigh and gave a shout. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Marguerite, I’ll treat you right. You can live wherever you want to live, just do a good job for me in the future streams, that’s all I ask.”

Marguerite turned very liquid brown eyes on Endelle. “That sounds wonderful.” From across the room, Thorne groaned.

Fiona thought she understood why. Marguerite was saying all the right things. She even looked like the model of sincerity, which itself sent warning sirens shrieking through her head. But Fiona hadn’t dealt with hundreds of women over the years without knowing when the column of numbers didn’t add up.

The thing was, she understood what Marguerite had suffered because of a hundred years of incarceration, so if the woman was lying, she so got that. She did wonder, however, if she ought to alert Endelle.

Endelle, however, was a big girl, a feathered big girl right now, and she could take care of herself.

“So, how about we get this goddam ankle guard off you.”

Marguerite smiled once more. “And that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

A grunt-like groan now slid through the air from the east side of the room. Fiona glanced at Thorne. His gaze was fixed on Marguerite and there was so much pain in his expression, so much anticipated loss and grief, that Fiona once more felt an urgency to warn Endelle that something wasn’t right. She even looked in her direction, but Endelle’s eyes glittered as she waved Marguerite back into her seat. Then she knelt in front of her. Fiona joined her.