Wings of Fire (Guardians of Ascension #3)(51)
Author: Caris Roane

She went inside and closed the door behind her. A second suite of guest rooms separated Antony’s vast master suite from Marcus and Havily’s rooms so she couldn’t hear them anymore. She took several deep breaths, forcing her body to calm the hell down.

She pushed away from the wall and moved into the bathroom suite, which contained two enormous closets. She just hoped she had something suitable to wear that would allow her a little modesty.

***

Jean-Pierre had felt trapped in the kitchen. Even though Medichi was the third warrior to be struck by the breh-hedden, the varied ways the obnoxious ritual affected the lives of the men involved was getting on his nerves. Mon Dieu, Parisa’s ni**les had been ripe as plums, ready to be plucked, and Medichi stared at her like he was most willing to do the plucking.

All Jean-Pierre had been able to do was get out of the way. He was surprised, however, when Parisa left the kitchen. Surprised even more when Medichi did not follow.

Of course, that left Medichi bent over the island, his elbows holding up his head. He’d dragged the cadroen from his hair, which hung in thick straight walls on either side of his face. Jean-Pierre could not see any part of his face, but he understood his suffering. The breh-hedden was nothing less than torture.

Jean-Pierre remained by the window overlooking the front lawn. Marcus and Havily were no longer there. He was not certain where they had gone. Right now, he did not know what to do so he crossed his arms over his chest and stared out at the front landscaping.

“Sorry about that,” Medichi said at last.

Jean-Pierre shrugged. “It must be very difficult.”

“Oui,” Medichi responded.

Jean-Pierre glanced at him. “Oui?”

“Oui.” Medichi’s smile broadened, then dimmed. “Hey, I’ve been around you a long time. I know a little French. And I am sorry.”

The sounds of quick footsteps could be heard in the foyer. A moment later Parisa, now wearing a long, loose blouse, appeared in the doorway. She cast each man a quick smile. Though her shoulders looked tight, she said, “I’d like to be in the library when I first voyeur Fiona. Will you both come with me?”

***

Rith seethed. An unusual state for him.

Even though the Seers had predicted Parisa’s escape, he had not meant for her to leave; he had meant for her to die. But just when he’d folded to her bedroom to get the job done, he’d found the bed empty. After a quick search through the house, he’d discovered her nude in the backyard. Disgusting. He still couldn’t believe she had escaped. He still couldn’t believe she’d cared so little for modesty that she’d flown into the air with nothing on.

Worse, of course, now Greaves had a link with the woman, a very intimate mind-link. Rith despised her for it.

He was in France now. He had several emergency transfer locations. This one was just outside Toulouse Two, in the south of the country. The blood donors were situated quite nicely in three bedrooms at the end of the hall. Drugged, of course. The necessity of moving them had created a great deal of anxiety and more chatter than he could tolerate.

He sat very still in front of his desk, in his Herman Miller Embody Chair, his feet flat on the floor, his shoulders relaxed, and his spine perfectly aligned. His computer was in front of him.

He’d developed a program to track the predictions from the Seers Fortresses of the highest-performing groups, Mumbai, Johannesburg, and Bogotá. The program ran constantly. He could watch it stream; anytime two or three Fortresses delivered the same prediction, the various reports were automatically shuffled into a separate document.

But the information that came through was always the same—Greaves would make use of the newly forged mind-link to his advantage.

He couldn’t let that happen. Not if he could help it. But he was nothing if not a great believer in acting on Seer information.

From the time he had learned of Parisa Lovejoy, the mortal-with-wings, he had wanted to capture her for the Commander. Greaves would have use of her, and he would do anything for his master. There had just never been a hint from the Seers about a possible mind-link. If he’d known, he would never have abducted her.

He stared at the streaming reports and found the movement comforting. When it came to an end, he started from the beginning just to watch the documents flit by.

He trembled, a long shudder down his body. He had a very simple problem. He needed to get Parisa back. Well, the truth was that he needed her dead, but clearly that meant first he needed to kidnap her again.

He took a deep breath, but another shudder traveled the length of him. He was not a sexual man; he did not have that capacity because of a certain unfortunate event several hundred years ago. But he believed his desire to have Parisa back came very close to that sort of base need and drive. He craved to have her once more under his control.

He had almost succeeded during the woman’s ascension ceremony. He’d teased her mind with an image of himself, and she’d folded to him. He shook his head. So very close.

What a coup that would have been … except for the fact that he didn’t have permission from Greaves to go after Parisa again. He was playing with fire.

What no one knew was that because Rith also had limited voyeur ability, he was able to find Parisa anytime he wished to. He had but to open what he called his little window, think of her, and there she was. Right now, she was seated in the library of Warrior Medichi’s villa. He listened for a few minutes and realized she was attempting to voyeur Fiona. What a coincidence, but not a surprise.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t share this information with Greaves—for the simple reason that Greaves didn’t know he had the ability to voyeur. Indeed, he’d only been able to voyeur two people so far, one of them being Parisa. The other was Greaves himself.

What a tightrope he walked.

The phone on his desk rang, a soft chime. He answered it quickly. “Yes, master.”

Greaves’s deep, pleasant voice filled the space. “Good evening, Rith. I hope your day has fared well. How are the donors doing?” He was always polite. Just hearing from his master made Rith smile.

He put the phone on speaker then shifted slightly to his right. He had a bank of monitors, with cameras fixed on each slave, just as he’d had in the Burma location. All the donors were asleep. “The sedative is working quite well. All shipments should proceed as usual.”

“Excellent, but then I would expect nothing less of you. I just checked my messages and discovered that you had called. I trust nothing is amiss.”