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“All right, Goldie,” Endelle said. “Let’s do it.”
“Goldie?” Marguerite asked, her eyes once more alive with laughter.
Fiona explained about the color of her variety of obsidian flame.
“That’s right.” Marguerite nodded. “Your ribbon in the future streams is a gold color, really beautiful, vibrant. I get it now.” Almost to herself, she added, “And mine is red.” She even frowned a little.
Fiona had a powerful instinct to follow up on this frown, to coax her to give expression to whatever thoughts might be flitting through her brain, but Endelle intruded. “Enough with the f**king chitchat. Ankle guard. Off. Now.”
As Fiona closed her eyes, she realized that there were many reasons why Endelle’s rule as Supreme High Administrator tended to teeter on its profane, fashion-challenged foundation.
She focused on Endelle, settling herself in a preternatural way, shoulder-to-shoulder, hip-to-hip, so that she could feel the most essential vibrations of the woman’s being.
I’ll take possession, Endelle sent, then we’re going to do a carefully aimed hand-blast.
Ready when you are, Fiona sent.
Power flowed through Fiona as Endelle began to push against her shields and move into her. She had a unique signature to her being, like a warm exotic river, something so comfortable that she was surprised all over again. The earlier possession had been full of such immediacy that she hadn’t really paid attention to the experience.
Now she did.
Instead of feeling crowded, she felt as though a good friend had just sat down in her living room and now shared a glass of wine with her. The sensation was easy, even comfortable, which led her to the simple conclusion that she trusted Endelle. Despite the woman’s fashion choices, her sailor’s mouth, her impatience, the woman could be trusted.
As Fiona settled her gaze on the ankle guard, she looked through both pairs of eyes simultaneously. She moved in concert with Endelle’s thoughts and placed her forefinger on the thick plastic. The energy flowed, white hot and precise, as the highly focused hand-blast began cutting. The only real problem was the stink of the plastic. Good Lord, that was a vile smell. Endelle worked hard to keep the beam aimed right where it was needed, but the final cut also brought Marguerite screaming out of her chair, blood flowing down her foot.
Fiona put both hands on Marguerite’s foot and felt a different kind of energy from Endelle this time. Healing warmth flowed, and Marguerite let out a deep groan of relief. “Thank God,” she whispered. “Wow, that’s power.”
When the wound was completely healed, Marguerite turned around to kneel in the chair, then extended her leg so that Fiona and Endelle could cut through the opposite side of the guard.
* * *
Faced away from Thorne, Marguerite let a few tears slip from her eyes and down her cheeks. But it wasn’t because of the cut from the controlled hand-blast. It was knowing what she was doing to Thorne that was beating the shit out of her.
She had her act down pretending he didn’t exist. At least in that, she was doing the right thing. She needed him to know that she just didn’t have a choice.
She couldn’t stay at administrative HQ. She couldn’t work with Endelle. She couldn’t continue to be Thorne’s Convent whore. She couldn’t remain in Metro Phoenix Two.
In fact, from the moment she’d landed in Madame Endelle’s office, the moment she’d read the woman’s formidable powers and the force of who she was in all her glorious nine thousand years, Marguerite had pretty much decided that the only way she could do what she needed to do was by going rogue. She fully intended to slip through the Trough at one of the Borderlands, so that her power signature would be permanently invisible to the electronic grids of Second Earth.
She wanted freedom, anonymity, and men, lots of men.
She couldn’t have that here, not with Thorne as powerful and as possessive as he was. No f**king way in hell.
So she pretended to have no further interest in him and no need of him. In fact, she had a very strong feeling that he might even be relieved to see her go.
So, it was all good.
Except she couldn’t quite get rid of the knot in her throat.
As for Fiona, she was amazed by the power the woman could create through her obsidian gift and her channeling ability. Completely stunned. But the sure knowledge that she would actually miss her was a new kind of surprise.
Marguerite had never been a woman’s woman. Parisa’s reaction had been more of the usual. But she would miss Fiona, her sister in obsidian flame, and she’d also miss Grace, Thorne’s sister and her Convent roommate.
Part of her, therefore, was sorry about having to take off, and sorry about all the pain and frustration she’d be leaving behind, but she’d envisioned this day for the past hundred years and like hell she was going to let one lover and two friendships alter her plans.
As the final cut scored into the back of her ankle, she screamed long and loud until Fiona, or was that Endelle, gripped her leg and healing flowed.
Once the wound eased up then disappeared, she flipped around in her seat and stared down at the two halves of the guard, at the thing that had kept her bound to both the Creator’s Convent and the Superstition Fortress.
“I’m sure the calluses will disappear in the next twenty-four hours,” Endelle said.
What the f**k did Marguerite care about calluses? She was free.
Free at last.
Free. At. Last.
Free at long f**king last.
But as she looked at the two smoking pieces of stinking plastic, another smell rolled in her direction, a very strong, strange, but quite pleasant smell of cherry tobacco. Her grandfather used to smoke a pipe that smelled similar, only this scent was sweeter and even kind of gave her a buzz. In fact, it actually tightened her ni**les and made her want to put her hand between her legs.
She glanced in the direction of the open door, looking down the hallway. Maybe one of the execs had lit up a pipe.
“Does someone here smoke a pipe?”
She watched Endelle and Fiona exchange a glance, then almost as though they were one person they turned and looked at Thorne. He lifted his head from his hands. “Are you smelling something?”
She shrugged. What did she care for a tobacco smell, or the plastic, or Endelle or Fiona or the red variety of obsidian flame, or gold, or this f**king war? She had some serious dating to do.
She gained her feet and kicked the two pieces of the ankle guard. Both Fiona and Endelle rose as well, but they parted like the Red Sea so that she had a perfect view of Thorne.
