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She took one last deep breath and felt her stomach settle back into place. She wiped the blade on her black cargo pants, a movement she’d seen in more than one of Antony’s battle memories.
She rose up. Antony’s gaze seemed to work in a complete circle, the upper half of his body whirling to keep track of the entire 360 panorama. She mimicked him as he moved to the back door, always checking her back trail.
She heard heavy battle sandals on the stairs. She followed the sound.
When she reached the steps, the front door was thrown wide and she had a view of the yard beyond—and of Thorne’s blade slicing through a death vampire. Blood flew. She turned away as another wave of nausea rolled through her.
She ran up the stairs. At the landing, off to her right, Santiago emerged from a room and thrust his chin in the opposite direction. To the left she saw Zacharius in the doorway. He spoke into the room, “Jean-Pierre, you all right? Shit.”
Parisa hurried to the door. Jean-Pierre held Fiona in his arms and he was weeping. “Is she dead?” she asked.
He shook his head rapidly.
“Hurt?”
“I do not know.”
Parisa nodded. He was holding his breh, and overcome. Antony called from behind her. “Jean-Pierre, take her to the palace. Carla has Horace waiting for the women as well as a medical team. We’ll follow. Thorne and his men are finishing up out front.” Jean-Pierre vanished with Fiona. Parisa blinked—just like that, the woman she had met such a short time ago was saved.
Santiago went to the end of the row of cots. The last cot was empty, perhaps originally intended for Dohna.
Paris turned to Medichi. “Where’s Rith and the serving women?”
He looked past her. “Zach, you see Rith?”
He shook his head. He had a woman in his arms. The insides of her elbows were taped up and her face was white, chalk white, ghost white. Oh, God. She struggled against him and cried out, “No … no,” but her voice was slurred. Yep, the women had been drugged.
“Take her to the palace.”
Zach nodded, then he was gone.
“How we doin’?” Thorne’s voice boomed through the room.
Parisa turned back to look at him but Thorne’s gaze shifted just past her shoulder then he cried out, “Fuck!”
Parisa had her dagger in her hand and didn’t hesitate. Whatever was behind her was bad, the enemy. She whirled and thrust and there was Rith, a surprised look on his face as her blade slid into his stomach.
She withdrew, but not because she was squeamish. She withdrew to plunge again, moving into him this time, putting more force behind the blow. She withdrew the blade again. He stumbled backward, turned, and fell onto an empty cot. She followed after him and cried out, a harsh warrior cry. She started plunging the knife over and over and over until she felt gentle hands on her arms and Antony’s voice in her ear. “Ease down, Parisa, he’s gone. Ease down. That’s it … ease down.”
She blinked and realized her blade wasn’t buried in flesh but in the thin padding of a fairly nice camping cot. There was blood, however; Rith’s blood. He may have dematerialized but she’d hurt him.
She held her dagger up, her hand shaking.
Thorne’s voice once more boomed the length of the room. “Luken, take the next one. Santiago, there’s one more past Medichi. Kerrick, okay, you’ve got one. You’re good. Back to the palace. Marcus. Good, you’ve got the last one. At least I think it’s the last one. Do we have all six?”
Antony called back to him. “Yes. Jean-Pierre has Fiona. She went first.”
He nodded. “Let’s get the hell out of here. One of the death vamps sent for reinforcements.”
The next thing Parisa knew, she stood in the middle of a rotunda, the one where she’d had her ascension ceremony. Her hand still shook, but she clutched her dagger hard in her fist.
The dagger was bloody and so was her fist.
The funny thing was … the funny things was … she didn’t react the way she’d expected. She’d thought she would feel dizzy, feel a need to vomit again, become hysterical. Instead her heart had settled down, and little by little her nerves grew steadier.
She held her free hand out and pictured Antony’s sink in his master bathroom. She saw the black washcloth and thought the thought.
A vibration passed first through her mind, then her body. The next moment, like magic, she held the washcloth in her hand. She’d accomplished another first—she’d folded something from one location to another.
“Jesus,” Antony whispered. He now stood next to her. “You just folded that from where? My bathroom?”
“Yes,” she responded. She wiped down the dagger very carefully. Santiago had given her the blade, and it was razor-sharp. She wiped until there wasn’t a speck of blood on either edge or the point of the blade, then shoved it back into the space on her weapons harness. She stared at the hilt. The dagger had Santiago’s signature, a small ruby embedded near the base of the hilt. She touched it, rubbed it, and was so glad she’d taken the time to learn a skill that apparently she was really good at.
But there was more, and she drew her shoulders back. She looked up at Antony. He stared at her hard.
“You aren’t upset, are you?”
She shook her head. “No. I’d like to think that it will hit me later but I don’t think it will.”
“I’ve trained a lot of Militia Warriors over the centuries, tens of thousands of them. I’ve been with most of them after battle. Shit, Parisa, you’re a goddamn warrior.”
She nodded. She smiled. “Even though I almost threw up?”
“As I said, we’ve all done that a few times.”
“Over the centuries.”
“Yes.” He took her hands in his and held them aloft, glancing from one set of fingers to the other then back. “You’re as calm as anything right now.”
“I know. Is it because I downloaded your battle memories? Am I feeling what you feel?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so … but I would never have thought this of you. You’re a goddamn librarian.”
She chuckled. “I know. With too big a chest to handle weapons with ease.”
He laughed and then he drew her into his arms and hugged her. She released a sigh. Was this possible?
But as he kept his arms around her and she shifted her head, she caught sight of Fiona, who met her gaze. The woman’s expression was … blank. She had her arms around another of the blood slaves, a small woman whose stomach … oh, God, she was pregnant. Maybe five or six months by the look of her. Tears streamed down her face.
