Wings of Fire

Now here she was looking at the Sonoran Desert and thousands of stars overhead. Rith had allowed television once a month for half an hour, selected at random. Last month, the slaves saw a really weird cartoon featuring a character called SpongeBob; the previous month, half an hour in the middle of a movie starring a very handsome young man—On the Waterfront. She would like to see more movies, complete movies and definitely more television.

She heard a soft scrape of marble underfoot just behind her. She turned and hunched, her hands outstretched, ready to fight … but it was the warrior, the one called Jean-Pierre, the one who seemed so angry, the one who had brought her to the palace. Yes, she remembered now. She’d been dizzy with drugs, but now she remembered.

He held up his hands as if in surrender. “I would not harm you,” he said.

He had a beautiful French accent.

She lowered her hands and straightened. “No, of course not. I’m not quite myself. I’m sorry.”

She wanted coffee suddenly, a very strong cup of coffee with milk, maybe even cream. She shifted to stand beside him so that she could see his face. The light from the rotunda revealed the most beautiful eyes, not gray, not green, but a blend. He had thick dark lashes as well that enhanced the color of his eyes. His lips were very unusual. The lower was full and sensual and the upper came to exotic points. She had the strangest urge to run a finger over his lips, and for some reason the thought lit her body in a way she had not experienced in a very, very long time.

Oh, God. She desired this man, this warrior. She began to ache very low and a blush warmed her cheeks.

His nostrils flared and his lips parted. “Mon Dieu,” he whispered.

She returned to stand by the balustrade, afraid of what she was feeling. More than anything, such a reaction seemed completely inappropriate. She shifted her gaze back to the desert, the dark sky, and the stars. The air was very dry, which was so different from both Burma and New Zealand.

“Fiona,” he said very softly, his voice a caress. He had moved closer. She could feel the heat of his body behind her. “I have something for you. At least, I am almost certain it belongs to you.”

She turned back to him. The light from the rotunda cast his face in shadow. His hand was outstretched, and as he turned so that the light would cross his arm, something small and gold glinted in his palm. She drew in a soft breath. He held the one thing, the only thing she’d been able to keep, all these years, from her life in Boston in the late 1800s. She couldn’t withhold a small cry.

Her gold locket.

She knew where she’d hidden it—behind the armoire, on the carpet. But she had been drugged when she left that house. When she awoke on the cot in the unfamiliar house, her first thought had been that she would never see her locket again. She had wept.

Now as if by some extraordinary miracle, the warrior called Jean-Pierre, who had a lovely French accent, held her only cherished possession.

She took it from him with trembling fingers. “Merci,” she murmured.

She opened the locket and there they were, portraits of her lost family, long since dead after so many decades: husband, daughter, son.

For a reason she could not explain, she drew close to Jean-Pierre, shifting to stand in the shadow of his shoulder. She flattened the locket on her palm and held it slanted toward the light so that he could see.

“My husband. He gave this to me the day before I was abducted. Our eleventh anniversary. These were my children. My son Peter—oh, that’s your name, Pierre, isn’t it? And this was my daughter, Carolyn.” Her heart felt as if a stone had formed at the very base. She hurt.

“I always regretted that I did not have a family,” he said. “I was married once, but it was not a good marriage. Then the revolution came.”

“The French Revolution?”

He nodded, smiling faintly. “Oui.”

“You’re very old then.”

He laughed and the gleam in his eyes, the humor, eased something in her chest, made the stone in her heart not quite so heavy. He turned back to look into the rotunda. “Do you see the warrior there, with hair just past his shoulders, dark brown hair, his eyebrows slashed over his eyes? Yes?”

Fiona saw him. “Oui,” she said.

He met her gaze and smiled. “Thank you for saying oui.”

She smiled as well. She nodded. “I’ve always loved the French language. My grandfather was French, but I’m not fluent, unfortunately.”

He held her gaze for a very long time, and for some reason a desire for coffee once more drifted through her. A very strange sensation. He seemed to give himself a little shake then said, “That man is Warrior Marcus. He is four thousand years old.”

“No,” she whispered. “How is that possible?”

Jean-Pierre shrugged. “Warrior Medichi, standing with his arms around Parisa, is out of Italy in the 700s. Warrior Thorne, who has his fist wrapped around a tumbler of vodka, is two thousand years old. I am the youngest of them all.”

She felt her palm folding around the locket and glanced at her fist, the gold chain dangling down. The stone felt heavy again. “What am I supposed to do now?” she asked. She looked at the marble and saw splashes of water, single drops one after the next. It couldn’t be raining. She hadn’t seen a cloud in the sky. Oh, the drops were her tears. When had she started to weep?

She felt his arm slide around her shoulders. He pulled her close to his chest and she let him, though she couldn’t say why. It just felt so right.

He smelled so wonderful, as though he had spilled some coffee on the leather of his weapons harness or on his skin. She was tall for a woman, and her nose nestled against his neck. How odd that she trusted him like this, without knowing him. But then he’d carried her away from that house of torture, away from Rith, and death, and slavery. Why wouldn’t she trust him?

And he had brought her the thing she cherished most in the world—her locket.

She wept anew.

***

Jean-Pierre held heaven in his arms. His heart pounded in his ears. All he heard was thump, thump, thump. Desire flowed over his body, waves one after the other, washing over him, receding, only to crash again.

Was he holding her too tightly?

Was she falling out of his arms because he wasn’t holding her tightly enough?

He could not tell.

He was lost in the sensation of her nearness, her quiet sobs, the grief she had lived with for over a century.

He heard voices behind him, gentle voices, the kind that belonged to healers. He wasn’t surprised when Alison addressed him. “Jean-Pierre, Horace and I think the women should go to the hospital for a day or so. I’ve contacted Colonel Seriffe and he’s going to send several squads of Militia Warriors to guard them in case Rith tries to reacquire them.”

“Bon,” he murmured. But he did not want to let the woman go.

Alison put a hand on Fiona’s back. “We think you should go as well, Fiona.”

“Of course.”

Without another word, Fiona withdrew from him and moved back inside. She did not look back, which was just as well. She must still be in shock. Both Horace and Alison followed behind her. He did not wait too long before returning to the rotunda as well.

His gaze, however, remained fixed on the back of Fiona’s head. He watched her like a hawk after prey, except that she was not prey. She was the woman meant for him, his breh. Already the bonds were forming, tightening. He could feel them, and for a moment he could not breathe.

She returned to Kaitlyn, the young one pregnant with child. She helped her to her feet but the woman collapsed. They were both surrounded very quickly, healers anxious to help. Within less than a minute, a medical team had the pregnant woman on a gurney and was rolling her in the direction of the east entrance, where a long, long drive led to the valley floor below.

He did not attempt to follow. He remained in the center of the rotunda, alone, bereft, and angry, such a strange combination of emotions. But above all he did not wish to be with the woman Fiona, he did not wish for this entanglement and bonding. Whatever the breh-hedden might be, he knew in the depth of his soul that this was not the right path for him. He loved the company of women, a lot of women, and he was a warrior. Why did he need anything else?

Fiona would have a new life here, but that did not mean he had to be part of it. He was a Warrior of the Blood, and his duties would always keep him at the Borderlands, battling death vampires. Fiona’s path lay elsewhere.

The difficulty seemed to be, as he breathed in through flared nostrils, he could scent her on his skin, the sweet smell of croissants, the heady aroma of a boulangerie.

But the scent would fade. In time, as she left his warrior world, he could forget her as well.

***

Medichi had his arm around Parisa’s shoulders. He watched the last of the women being transported to the hospital, not by folding, but by ambulance. He felt peaceful and full, like he’d feasted at a banquet, an odd sensation, but it felt right.

They’d brought the women home. They’d done some good. Six women and a baby would survive now because of Parisa.

The healers departed.

Kerrick had his arm around Alison as they dematerialized together. Then Marcus and Havily. Havily had apparently taken a break from her nightly darkening work with Endelle to meet the survivors and offer what comfort she could.

One by one, the warriors folded away, heading with Thorne to the Blood and Bite for a drink before taking up arms at the Borderlands again.

Endelle never did emerge from her meditation room. She hadn’t stopped working in the darkening long enough to come and see the women.

Jean-Pierre was the only warrior left in the rotunda. He stood off to the side, his expression blank, eyes hollow, lost. He looked like a man with nowhere to go. He’d brought his breh back to safety, and now she was headed to the hospital.

Medichi whispered to Parisa, “Shall we try to comfort him?”

“Yes. Of course.”

He let his arm slide off her shoulder, but not without his fingers catching and pressing her arm. He followed her to the Frenchman.