Obsidian Flame

Through all the decades locked up in the Convent, her dream of a new life on Mortal Earth had kept her going. She’d always seen herself this way, living free and hooking up with as many men as she wanted, hitting the road at dawn every morning, and travelling to the ends of the earth, then starting all over again. She didn’t want to be accountable to anyone or anything.

On the other hand, Thorne didn’t deserve to be put through this. Maybe her dreams of freedom had kept her going, but Thorne’s presence in her life had kept her sane. But why had he followed her? He knew what she’d intended. She’d never made it a secret that once she got free, she was going on a prolonged man-hunt, maybe for a millennium.

She spread her towel on the toilet seat and sat down. She leaned over, put her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. The trouble was, she kinda felt like two people and torn right down the middle. She wanted Thorne. Aw, hell, she craved him.

But there was another part of her that also craved freedom and self-determination the way her lungs craved air, as though she would die without it.

Then there was Owen Stannett and Commander Greaves. Either of those major pricks would be oh-so-happy to strap a new ankle guard on her leg, hook her up to a Seer milking machine, and never let her see the light of day again. So what the hell would she do if Greaves or Stannett started a major campaign to acquire her?

There was nothing about her current predicament that was simple. Above all, she wished she could get rid of her obsidian flame ability. Unfortunately, once a preternatural power arrived, it was just there, forever.

At least her obsiddy power, as she liked to call it, seemed to be sleeping for now, thank you, God. She and Fiona were sisters in obsidian flame, and supposedly one day there would be another. Once they joined powers, they would be able to make some kind of cosmic orchestral music together—not literally, but something as yet undefined.

The night she’d left Second Earth, Madame Endelle had promised her all sorts of freedom if she would stay and help out her administration. But Marguerite hadn’t been tempted, not even a little. Her experience thus far with administrators of any kind was that they would say one thing then do another, usually with the help of, yeah, an ankle guard.

A promise of freedom? Nothing in her experience told her she could count on that promise, from anyone.

So she’d left and here she was, feeling guilty as hell because she’d just cheated on Thorne even though she wasn’t even with him anymore.

She let go of a really big sigh then heard whistling from the other room. At the same, she caught a whiff of cherry tobacco.

Thorne.

Her first reaction involved a slight jumping of her spirit so that she rose to her feet and almost smiled. Thorne would never have told her to just get out of his room. Never.

Thorne.

But the moment she let his name drift through her head, guilt powered down so hard she nearly fell to her knees. She’d just had some amazing sex with José, some of the best of her life, but now her vampire boyfriend of the past century was in her hotel room.

She cared about Thorne, she really did. But he needed to move on, get his own life, get back to the war.

She dried off her hair in rapid swipes of the towel over her head, shuffled her fingers through to even the strands out, then shrugged into her white terry robe.

When she left the bathroom, her heart lurched at the sight of him. He was sprawled on the bed, no shirt, looking as yummy as ever. He had on jeans and she knew he would be commando because that was his style. He reclined on his side facing her.

“Aw, you’re wearing a robe.” He clucked his tongue a couple of times.

She sighed again. She hated being this torn. And she really did need him to move on.

“What are you doing here?” She turned away from him and hunted through her suitcase. She had a bunch of new clothes. Shoplifting was just plain fun. She’d even let herself be cuffed and put in the back of a police car. When neither of the officers responded to her overtures, she’d just wiped their memories and folded to the Holiday Inn.

She smelled his cherry tobacco again. Dammit, she liked that scent way too much, and it liked her, right between her legs. For a long hard moment she thought about jumping his bones, just for old times’ sake. But in the end, she needed Thorne to quit following her around. He needed to stop with all the protective bullshit and get on with gettin’ on.

“You’re beautiful,” Thorne said.

At that, she stopped pushing all the mixed-up crap around in her suitcase and turned toward him. “I guess we need to have this out.”

But he just smiled. He had an ease to his eyes that was very familiar.

Her mouth popped wide. “You just had sex.”

“I did.” He grinned. The bastard had the nerve to grin.

Marguerite closed the distance to the bed preternaturally fast so that before she knew what she was doing, or even intended to do, she straddled him, her robe falling open, which only made him grin some more.

“Who was she?” She thumped his chest with her fist. “Tell me her name. Did you find her in one of the local dives or maybe out there in the lobby?”

“I’m a gentleman,” he said, lacing his hands behind his head. “I don’t fuck and tell. You know that.”

She was so mad she couldn’t think straight. She started pounding on his thick muscled pecs with both hands. She let out a strange keening sound she didn’t think could ever have come out of her throat. She hated the thought of Thorne with another woman.

The next second he grabbed her arms and flipped her over, pinning her. He put his mouth on hers and kissed her … hard. She tried to fight him but he was six-five and really built, lean, tough, and hardened by war. It was like struggling against steel.

After a moment, when she’d quieted a little, he pulled back.

“I’m so mad.”

“You? Mad? Impossible. You have the gentlest temperament.”

“Screw you.” But he kissed her again, and because he smelled delicious, like her favorite pipe tobacco, her muscles grew lax and she let him put his tongue in her mouth.

She shouldn’t have done that. She really shouldn’t. She loved Thorne’s tongue. Aw, hell, she loved Thorne, she just didn’t want this, all this closeness and connection, all this future she could feel pressing down on her.

After a moment, he pulled back. She wanted him to understand, she really did. But the truth was, she didn’t understand it herself.

“Isn’t it killing you not to be with the brotherhood? Not to be in charge, although I’d bet just about anything that you’ve been issuing orders all this time.”

His smiled was crooked. “Yeah. I put Kerrick in charge, but he didn’t like that job. I just turned the reins over to Luken.” He frowned slightly. “Santiago and Zach are feuding, something about me, I guess.”

Guilt started piling up again. He was chasing her but he knew where he was needed. “You should go back.”

He searched her eyes. “I will when it’s time, but right now I have something I want to ask you, something I’ve always wanted to know.” She could guess. “You never told me, not in any real detail, why you hated your childhood. I know you said you think we should have this out, but maybe I can’t let go because I don’t get it, not all of it. Tell me something, Marguerite. Let me in a little.”

She looked up at him. He had such a gorgeous face, high pronounced cheekbones in sharp lines, low slightly arched brows in that sandy color that matched his hair. She loved his hair, all that thick, coarse mass, sun-burnished as if it had been painted with gold. His jawline met in a firm chin. But the pad of his chin was raised, round, and soft. She rubbed it now. His lips weren’t full but compressed and strong. His eyes mesmerized her, a thousand different shards of gray and green, gold and light brown that somehow blended to create a smooth hazel look.

She reached behind his neck and removed the pick from his cadroen. She tossed it higher up on the bed and pulled his long warrior hair forward. “I love your hair. It almost has a wave and it’s so thick.”

“You’re not answering my question.”

“I’m thinking.” She wondered what she should tell him that could explain her heart, or in some way help him to understand her drive to be free. “Do you know why I cut my hair?”

“I thought you wanted something new. I love it, by the way.”

She was surprised. “I thought you’d hate it.”

“Well”—he smiled—“when it was long, it did have one advantage.”

Her neck tingled at the reference. He had taken her from behind a lot, wrapping her long, long hair around his forearm, holding her back toward him, constraining her.

Of course those images weren’t helping and she really did need to talk this out with him. “I cut my hair because the fanatical sect that my parents were part of forced all the girls to wear their hair long.”

“You know I was born a Twoling in the good old Midwest, Second Earth, right?”

“Yes, that much I do know.”

“Well, my folks were abusive, I just wasn’t aware of it at the time. I thought what they did in the name of religion was normal. But getting lashed in a barn till the blood ran, all in the name of the Creator’s purpose and discipline, did not endear either my parents or their beliefs to me.”

She felt him stiffen and she was pretty sure she could hear him grinding his molars.

She sighed and twisted a strand of his hair around her finger. “As young girls and teenagers, we were required to keep our hair long and braided down the back, no exceptions.

“But that braid was a torment for years when I was young. In my sect, there was a group of bullies, girls, who would catch me and one of them would take me by the braid and drag me around until I was screaming and crying. Oh, they’d get punished, but the day I started fighting back, hitting and scratching, you wouldn’t believe what the church regulators did to me.

“One of the regulators used a group of three switches bound together that she called, ‘righteousness, purity, and love.’ My father approved although he preferred his whip to anything else. Both my father and the regulators would make me strip to the waist. At least the regulators didn’t bind my wrists and string me up. Beyond that, there wasn’t much of a difference. It was all done in the name of religion.”