Burning Skies (Guardians of Ascension #2)(64)
Author: Caris Roane

Crace couldn’t turn his neck far enough to see anything more than the lowest button of the Commander’s coat. If he dared to move even one centimeter more, the blade, which had already broken skin, would slice deep, too deep. As it was he could feel the blood weep down both sides of his neck. His heart beat like a jackhammer.

Fuck. He had so many beautiful plans. Was he really going to die now?

He heard the heavy sigh. “What am I to do with you, my dear Crace?” Greaves’s long-suffering voice had split-resonance and at the same time rattled through Crace’s mind. He closed his eyes and moaned. Voice and mind-speak combined, especially weighted with resonance, caused so much searing pain, like knives whirling through his head and slicing the whole time.

“I fear you’ve gotten a little ahead of yourself here, especially with me. Since when do you decide, ever, that I must come to you?”

He wanted to bleat his apologies, to retract his words, his request for an audience, but he couldn’t make his lips move.

“So impatient. I thought you had grown a little at the end of our last adventure with ascender Wells, but I do believe you’ve actually regressed. I am so very disappointed, although this I believe is my fault. I should never have given you dying blood. And yet how could I have known you would take to it with such fervor?”

The blade disappeared, and Crace took his first normal breath. He remained, however, in the prone position.

“You may rise.”

As Crace pushed up from the patio, his arms shook. Christ, his powerful, muscled arms actually shook.

Even so, he wanted to argue, but as he rose to his height and looked down at his still-seated master, he felt very small and insignificant, a cockroach that the sleek Italian shoes could squish with just a thought.

“You will do as you are told, Crace. My servant, Mr. Rith, has done as I have asked him to and you will respect his position in relation to me. Are we in agreement?” The last phrase was spoken both aloud with resonance and telepathically, which meant the knives started whirling through his head again. Crace fell forward straight onto the pavers once more, his cheek yet again pressed into the rough cement-formed, terra-cotta surface.

He lay prostrate until, after several minutes, he realized he was also alone and he wasn’t held fast to his position.

He drew back to his knees. He took several deep breaths until his heart settled down, his head didn’t hurt quite so much, and his hands stopped shaking.

He tried to take Greaves’s rebuke to heart, he really did, but all he felt was enraged and the object of his rage had a wide forehead, a broad nose, black hair and came from somewhere east of the Caucasus. Bastard.

He gained his feet. He shifted his attention to the north. After all, from this position Medichi’s villa was only a few miles away. Greaves and Rith could go f**k themselves for all he cared. He knew Havily Morgan was there, waiting for him. Even if Endelle’s mist did protect the property from detection, GPS could at least put him at the boundaries, where he would wait.

Yes, goddammit, he’d wait, with three squadrons of death vampires. Then he’d take what he had already claimed for himself.

* * *

The only thing that ever really wearied Greaves was the moment a servant rebeled. Only then did he feel a sense of failure that very infrequently accompanied his efforts to subdue Second Earth. He did not mind a verbal battle with Endelle or even the effort to travel to various Territories through the night in order to secure new squads of death vampires to send to Phoenix Two. Nor did he mind the serious diplomatic twists and turns required to get a High Administrator to abandon Endelle’s administration and join his forces. He even tended to enjoy the farcical COPASS hearings.

But when one of those allied with him made these ridiculous power plays, like summoning him from other parts of the world, only then did he feel the desire to maim and kill.

He’d come close to taking Crace’s life, but for decades now he’d had a serious policy in place of always letting others do his dirty work. He needed his record clean, so clean it would be. Besides, he strongly suspected that Eldon Crace, despite his growth in surprising preternatural power as well as physical strength, would be his own undoing. If the vampire could get himself killed by stealing from the nest of a Warrior of the Blood, so much the better.

He folded back to Rio de Janeiro Two and begged the Brazilian High Administrator’s apologies for his lapse in manners at having to leave the negotiations so abruptly. He spoke Portuguese, of course. Fluently.

He had already maneuvered the woman from behind her desk, that seat of authority behind which he could not allow her to continue addressing her concerns. Some things were very simple when it came to managing a Coming Order.

She now sat in a chair and he stood in front of her. “As I was saying,” he said, noting again the large ruby she wore on the ring finger of her left hand, “I have a top-functioning mine in Burma near Mogok, which I would be only too happy to offer as a token of good faith. I want all my High Administrators to understand their importance to me personally as well as to my Geneva Round Table.” She was actually quite lovely and he sensed her … arousal. Very good.

He also saw the flash of light in her eye as he spoke of the ruby mine he owned. He shared that flash of light, of greed, of hunger, and he knew negotiations over the next few weeks, perhaps even days, would fare extremely well.

“You are most greatly generous,” she responded, her English less than perfect, but he appreciated the effort. His gaze drifted down the silk blouse she wore, unbuttoned at the third button. The signal was not lost to him, but he never mixed business with pleasure—unless of course he could put the High Administrator in thrall and slice her memories later, something he might just do. He was still irritated by the interview with Crace. A little relief would be welcome. She would find herself bruised afterward, inexplicably, but some things couldn’t be helped.

He tested her shields and was both stunned and pleased that, though she had many powers, shielding capacity was almost nonexistent. Well, it seemed he had just found a soothing balm for his recent encounter.

“May I sit down?” he asked.

She inclined her head. “Nothing would please me more.”

He smiled.

* * *

As Havily opened the door to the office, Marcus moved up the hall in her direction. He was a welcome sight after the usual harrowing encounter with Endelle.

She held the door for Alison and Parisa, the former talking in low tones to the ascendiate, her arm around her shoulders.