Wings of Fire

He sat down beside her. He put a hand on her nape, a very controlling gesture. Rith must have pinned her hair in loops to give him access. For a moment, she wondered if he meant to take her blood.

“So beautiful,” Greaves whispered. His left hand brushed over her left arm.

She tried not to breathe through her nose because, for all of Greaves’s finery, he smelled strange. It was lemon furniture polish—or at least that was the closest she could come to approximating his scent. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, just odd.

She drew a shallow breath and tried to relax. Unfortunately, she felt his mind against hers. She could sense his desire to penetrate her head in what she had heard described as deep-mind engagement. But with each breath, she slammed her shields in place, one mental steel wall sliding down over another, working hard to keep him out.

He groaned. Your shields are magnificent.

She closed her eyes.

Let me in, he whispered through her brain. Please, lovely Parisa. Let me in, or I shall have to hurt you.

But she held fast.

The pain began as she felt him hammering against her shields, the sound like a sledgehammer striking against an enormous brass bell. Her teeth ached.

She didn’t want this.

More pain. More pounding. Oh, God, slicing now.

Tears flowed. She couldn’t have held them back if she’d wanted to. In some distant part of her mind she knew she was screaming.

Release your shields.

No. She might have to endure a captivity she didn’t understand, she might have to do as she was told and follow Rith’s schedule, she might have to fear that at any moment she could be killed. But by God she would keep her mind sacrosanct.

I need to be inside your head.

He eased his efforts, but it was only a respite.

Parisa sobbed at the sudden release from pain. Did he enjoy her suffering? She turned to look at him, his hand still a weight on the back of her neck. He dipped down toward her very suddenly and his lips were on hers, a soft, cool, dry touch.

Her thoughts slid strangely to Antony … and it happened. As though the mere thought of him was enough, her shields fell away, a kind of quick shimmering of leaves. She rose to her feet even though she couldn’t quite see. She ran forward but collided with something hard. She fell … then … nothing.

***

Darian Greaves was absolutely fascinated with the woman lying at his feet. She was a mortal-with-wings. Incredible. He had read of her powers and now understood that she had the ability to voyeur, which was also astounding. To his knowledge only Endelle had the ability to make use of preternatural voyeurism.

But what intrigued him the most was that this woman was evidently the breh of Warrior Medichi. The mythical breh-hedden seemed to be happening to the Warriors of the Blood at light speed. It reeked of Upper Dimension involvement. Yes, at the very least the arrival of so many preternaturally powerful women, all in the space of a few short months and intended for the most powerful men on Second Earth, smelled of Third Earth involvement, perhaps even higher.

If he’d been suspicious of Endelle, he would have said he was the victim of her diabolical plotting, but She Who Would Live did not possess a complicated mind. He smiled. No, Madame Endelle had a warrior’s mind. She would have performed much better at the head of an army than as Supreme High Administrator of Second Earth. Her inadequacies and failings had been a blessing to his ongoing efforts at world domination: candy from a baby. And if truth be known, up until Alison’s ascension seven months ago—dear pregnant Alison—he’d been rather bored.

“Rith,” he called out.

“Yes, master.” Rith’s voice was elegant, serene.

“I would like more tea, please.” Somewhere in Parisa’s stumblings the table had been overturned and the saucer broken.

Pity. The white Ironware was quite old.

“Shall I remove her?”

Parisa lay between his chair and the bench. A light rain had begun to fall, and he created a shield over his head and her body.

“No, that won’t be necessary. I am not quite finished with her.” He rounded her prone body to sit back down, stretching out his arms on the wide armrests. Parisa’s back was to him. The green silk dress clung to her curves. She had a very small waist; the dip below her ribs looked like it would fit one of his feet.

He understood the real danger Parisa was to him even though she was oblivious and would be for a long time. The real danger was the silent warrior behind her. If it weren’t for Medichi, Greaves would have killed her outright. But to do so now would put all his plans at risk.

Yes, Greaves felt the hand of a master in the sudden eruption of the breh-hedden among the Warriors of the Blood, a master not of Second Earth, but of an Upper Dimension, though he couldn’t prove it. Like everyone else on Second, he had thought the mate-bonding ritual a thing out of ascension mythology, something written in fables to charm the feminine heart and to make men strong and lusty with their women.

But here it was, at his feet, real and dangerous. He felt the danger as a writhing fierce wind all around him. He still didn’t know how to combat it, but today he’d made progress. He’d forged a voyeur’s link with Parisa. Anytime she opened that link, he would be able to see and hear everything she saw and heard.

He smelled Rith before he came into view. The Oriental had an unusual body odor, like rust that somehow lived in the air and could be tasted on the tongue. Rith took a lot of Chinese herbs. Maybe some of them leaked through his pores.

Two of the females were with him. Greaves didn’t like these women, but he couldn’t say why. Rith had them completely under control, but there was a meanness to them he disapproved of. They were the kind of women who, if they caught mice in a trap, would cut their feet off before killing them. He disapproved of such traits in women. He liked their general submissiveness, but there was nothing gentle in any of them. He felt certain each would have made an excellent assassin.

The woman with the narrowest gaze righted the table then spread a fresh white linen over the top. The second woman set a tray down, a very pretty silver tray that held a Wedgwood set, an homage to the time of British rule in Burma on Mortal Earth over a hundred years ago.

He smiled as Rith prepared the sweet Burmese tea. Some traditions ought to be maintained just to remind everyone of the nature and necessity of dominance.

He dismissed Rith and his servants. Holding the cup and saucer in his hands, he sipped the aromatic sweetened tea, letting the creamy texture and bitter flavor roll around on his tongue.

He smiled. Yes, dominance was his favorite thing.

Savoring that dominance was another.

Okay, so he was a mere vampire and couldn’t resist the temptation, but with Parisa unconscious, who would ever know?

He folded off his right shoe, sending it to rest next to the leg of his chair. He took a deep breath then settled his foot, encased in Bresciani, on that lovely deep curve of Parisa’s waist. A sense of peace flowed within his chest. He left his foot in that position until he’d finished the last of the tea.

He had one small conundrum to resolve at this point. Given his suspicions of Upper Dimension involvement on behalf of Madame Endelle, should he strike now and attempt a takeover of Second Earth? Or should he wait?

He sipped his tea.

Problems, problems.

***

The next thing Parisa knew, she was on the grass, her cheek cool against the carefully cut blades. She faced the bench and the tree. Slowly, she rolled over onto her other side, trying to make sense of where she was and what had happened to her. She felt very dizzy.

Her view was obstructed by the legs of the small side table. Beyond it, she saw Rith’s house. Pilings beneath the structure made the house seem to float on a lake—except that there was no water, only a strange-looking flat-headed cat that Rith called his fire cat. The animal stared at her. He was feral and alert. His fur was a beautiful gold and rust, maybe like fire. He had slightly webbed feet and preferred eating frogs to birds.

Why was she on her side on the grass?

Oh, yes. She sighed. She managed a small smile. Antony had kissed her. But how was that possible? Had she fallen asleep in the garden again? Had she been dreaming?

She rolled onto her back. She stared up through the feathery leaves of the tamarind tree. She wanted to go home. Why couldn’t she go home?

She sat up. She felt certain she should remember something but couldn’t. She rose to her feet and turned to look at the teak bench. She had been sitting there. She was sure of that. But how had she gotten several feet away? The chair set out for Commander Greaves was in position, as well as the side table meant to hold a tea service. She wondered when Greaves would arrive. She shuddered. He was a monster. He had the manners of a prince but he was a monster.

Or had he been here already?

She shuddered again. A vague memory arose—flashes of him sipping his tea then sitting beside her. So, yes, he had come and gone.

For no reason at all, her head began to hurt.

***

From the slatted blinds within his house, Rith stared at the woman now risen from her prone position on the lawn. He had hoped she would die, but he’d had no such good fortune.

The woman lived.

And Greaves had accomplished what he’d set out to accomplish—he’d forged a mind-link with her. He’d also told Rith that he was to allow the woman to leave.

Rith found it hard to blink. He had received more prophecies that the woman would escape, but as always he believed the Seers existed to help him shape the future, not simply to predict it.

He didn’t know the method yet, but he knew this woman would be dead long before she had a chance to leave his home.

Death is but a journey.

Yet to return from the brink of the grave

Is a powerful call to service, to life, to love.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 5

Medichi’s phone buzzed. He was at the north end of the White Tanks. Jeannie had just done cleanup on five, five, fucking death vampires—and the night was young.

He slid his slim warrior phone from the pocket of his battle kilt. Tonight he was mounting his wings and learning to battle while in the air. It was only nine thirty, and this last squadron had about done him in. He’d flown for centuries, but not while battling, and right now muscles burned that he didn’t even know he had.