Burning Skies (Guardians of Ascension #2)(73)
Author: Caris Roane

Marcus snorted. He was very old and he knew one significant truth about Luchianne: She brought peace to the land by battling death vampires from the time the first vampire used his fangs to take dying blood. So, yeah, Luchianne had brought peace, through her ability to wield a sword.

Whatever.

Well, Parisa’s wings weren’t exactly his concern and certainly not what kept his gaze fixed on the women. Yeah, he was a man. He enjoyed watching the women move, backs arched in short climbs or dives, br**sts thrust forward.

But more often than not, his gaze was fixed to Havily, whether she was in flight showing Parisa the basic movements of the wings or steadying the ascendiate with one hand while Parisa practiced a downward flap. It was like watching someone beginning to swim, learning which movements kept you afloat instead of sending you to the depths, which kept you from rolling or pitching left or right.

For the most part Havily kept the mortal just a few feet off the ground.

Yeah, she was a good teacher, patient, encouraging. How many times had she clapped her hands at something Parisa did? Fuck. His admiration for Havily was growing. That’s all he needed, to admire the hell out of her. Great.

Parisa was an interesting woman to watch as well, despite that occasionally his gaze drifted to her … yeah, well, he was trying not to be such a guy. When he was able to keep his attention elsewhere, the woman’s concentration was so fierce she barely blinked, as though she wanted to learn everything about working the air in the next three minutes.

He’d ascended such a goddamn long time ago that he’d forgotten the wonder of it all, the pleasure of flight, of wings, of soaring through the air high above the earth. The sight of Parisa’s sheer joy at the process warmed his heart, his ascended heart, that part of him that belonged here on Second Earth.

His gaze drifted up to the shield of mist over the property. He frowned. He thought he saw something. Yep. There it was. He sat forward as shadows passed straight overhead. He sharpened and lengthened his vision. Shit. Squads of death vampires, already in the air, hunting no doubt for the mortal-with-wings. Which of course meant that Greaves had a legion of his warriors out searching for her.

He eased back and forced himself to relax. Both Parisa and Havily were completely safe beneath Endelle’s monumental creation of mist.

He thought back to the attack on Parisa’s home. If Marcus understood the workings of that bureaucratic mess called, appropriately, COPASS, Endelle had to file a complaint with the committee about the attack. Leto and Crace showing up, armed, had to be a major violation. But like any good bureaucracy, filing complaints, then having those complaints acted upon took time, usually lots of it and rarely with an acceptable outcome.

There was only one crime on Second Earth that COPASS acted upon with speed—assassination. Justice was always served within hours. Unfortunately, assassination was narrowly defined as the taking of a life whose designation involved an official, government capacity. The mere slaying of an ascender by a death vampire was considered a homicide, which in turn would take months going through the process of Second Earth’s criminal justice system, not too different from Mortal Earth.

Marcus had always preferred warrior justice—a sword straight through the neck, the head separated from the body samurai-style.

Oh … yeah.

Shadows once more moved beyond the mist.

“Havily,” he called out as she took Parisa higher into the air.

Havily took Parisa’s hand and steadied her, both women flapping their wings in a slow movement and hanging suspended in the air. She called down to Marcus. “What is it? Everything okay?”

“Don’t go beyond the mist.”

“We won’t.”

When he saw Parisa nod, he relaxed and released a deep breath.

Okay. The women were safe.

That was good.

Good.

* * *

Medichi held a hot plate of pasta in his hand and from the vantage of the steps leading to the front lawns from the pool side of the estate, he watched the women flying. He was grateful for the distance. He needed the distance.

Parisa’s wings had stopped him dead in his tracks. In all his thirteen hundred years, he’d only seen wings like them once. They were very, very familiar and he didn’t know what to make of it, or if there even was any significance to the similarity.

Whatever.

Damn, but this was good pasta. He’d have to thank whoever had cooked it—probably Havily, who was comfortable in his kitchen.

He lifted a goblet of Cabernet from off the stone handrailing then sipped. The bottle had been left on the dark soapstone counter to breathe. Good wine, good pasta, and one helluva fine view.

He sharpened his vision, preternatural-style, and had a good clear look at … his breh. Jesus H. Christ, even saying the word in his head gave him the shakes. He returned the glass to the stone rail and picked up his fork again.

Parisa was beautiful, tall, with dark brown hair. And her eyes, violet and so intense.

And her body … the fork stopped just short of his parted lips. She had a narrow waist he wanted his hands around and full br**sts that made his jeans shrink.

He put the fork in his mouth and dropped his gaze to the plate.

Even at that distance, her exotic tangerine scent reached him, small wafts of scent meant just for him, which plucked at the sensitive nerves all along the insides of his thighs.

The call on his body was ridiculously strong and resulted at the very least in the incessant pounding of his heart. Parisa Lovejoy—even her name got to him—was a pull on his soul that felt like strong fingers working in his chest, kneading and tugging. He wanted more than anything in the world to be right next to her.

Suddenly she cried out.

His gaze shifted. He watched her tumble high in the sky a few feet from the dome of mist. He dropped his plate to the cement step at his feet, and the jerk of his arm knocked the goblet off the railing.

He was ready to sprint forward, his wing-locks humming, but Havily caught her hand and give her a quick, skilled jerk and the tumbling ceased. As practiced, Parisa made scoops of her wings and floated back to earth. She drew her wings in close-mount and, as she had done earlier, she leaned over, no doubt calming her heart and catching her breath.

He bent over the railing, also catching his breath. He retrieved the goblet, which had fallen on a spread of natal plum and wasn’t even chipped. He rose up and looked at the shattered dark blue stoneware. There were clumps of pasta here and there that would leave oil stains. The resident ants in his garden would be all over it within the next few hours.