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“Can you contact Marguerite telepathically?”
“No. And believe me, I’ve tried.”
“Fuck. All right.” She looked up at the clock. “Shit. You’ve got to get out to the Borderlands.”
“This is more important.”
“No. It’s not. Not yet. Let me talk this over with Fiona. She was able to contact Marguerite when no one else could. Marguerite has to be the red variety of obsidian flame.
Thorne shaded his face with his hand. He kept shaking his head, back and forth. “She’s been incarcerated for a hundred years. This isn’t fair to her.” And it wasn’t fair to him. He needed her. He wanted things back the way they were so that he could keep seeing her, keep in control of his demons.
“Then you probably understand what Fiona’s feeling. Her life hasn’t been any different. She was a blood slave for over a hundred years and now she’s saddled with all this gold shit.”
“Then Jean-Pierre must be in hell.”
“Understatement.”
He moved to lean his ass against the edge of the desk as well. He was six-five and weighed in at 260. He was one of the most powerful vampires on the face of Second Earth, but this situation made him feel about as powerful as a f**king cockroach.
He drove a hand through his hair and pulled out his cadroen. “What the hell am I supposed to do now?”
“Are you sure Marguerite isn’t your breh? Because you’re acting like all these other ass**les.”
“She isn’t fragrant, so no, she’s not my breh, but we’ve been lovers for a century and I love her. All that just doesn’t go away because you moved her somewhere else.”
Endelle’s shoulders slumped. “Well, shit, motherfucker.”
Yep, that about summed it up.
* * *
Jean-Pierre extended his preternatural hearing, listening for Fiona. He smiled. He had her back in his house, and Endelle’s mist covered his entire property. He had his woman as safe as he could make her. And … she had kept herself safe as well without his help.
She hummed while she was in the shower, and the sound was très jolie.
He stood in his kitchen preparing a simple meal for her for this early part of the evening. He would grill chicken over mesquite wood chips later, but for now, oui, something simple.
He had taken her to Alison’s for the afternoon then had left her there so that he could purchase a gift for her, something he hoped would please her very much. He did not mean it to be serious at all. He needed to keep their relationship very light, simple, like the food they would eat.
If he could learn to manage things between them, perhaps the next few days or weeks would show them both how to move forward without being so enmeshed in the breh-hedden, without feeling the need to complete it. Perhaps the sensations would pass and he could go back to making war, and she could serve Endelle in the capacity of obsidian flame without needing his constant protection as a Guardian of Ascension.
This was what he wanted, to keep everything simple so that he could continue to make war. Perhaps he would even return to the Blood and Bite and to all the women he once made love to night after night. Oui, now it began to seem as though each of their lives could return to some sort of normalcy.
He rinsed a container of strawberries in a stainless-steel colander. He scooped the little leaves off some and sliced them. Other smaller strawberries he cut in half, while still others he left whole. The largest strawberry, the size of a small fist, he left whole as well.
He extended his hearing and this time heard the blow dryer and more humming. He listened a little harder and realized she was humming “La Vie en Rose.”
He put a hand to his chest. He wished to God that he did not like this woman so very much, that he did not love her.
He believed in many kinds of love. His for Fiona he decided was a soft version of passionate love, very tender. He thought it beautiful in its way and so he had said, Je t’aime.
But tonight, he would not speak of love. Words were not necessary for what he planned for Fiona, the gift he had purchased for her, and the champagne he would pour for her.
Tonight was for celebration because the great evil known as Rith Do’onwa had been caged and taken to COPASS in Prague Two, where he would be tried at the International Court for his crimes against humanity. Thorne had told him of the farce at the landing area, that Greaves had arranged a disgusting ceremony for the supposed capture of Rith, so it was a very questionable success. Marcus had even texted that he’d seen the footage on the evening news. Such complete bullshit.
Or as the Americans liked to say, Whatever.
In March, in high country, the air was cool enough so that he had a fire crackling on the hearth. But he also left the window open to let the moist creek air rise into the living room. The couch was a soft brown leather, and over the lounge portion, he had draped something called a throw, knitted of every color of the rainbow with long fringe. He had put it there for several reasons.
He looked at the throw and one image came to him, full of prescience, so strong that he had to put down the sharp paring knife and plant his hands on the counter to catch his breath. How beautiful Fiona would look on that throw, so close to the fire, the shifting light moving over her golden skin and chestnut hair, catching perhaps the silver-blue of her eyes.
Her scent drifted toward him and he closed his eyes and drank in the light smell of the patisserie.
He was not surprised when she called out to him, “Something particular on your mind, Warrior?”
His chest swelled. He loved her melodic voice, in the lower timbres. He loved that she referred so quickly to the scent he must be giving off. He loved that she called him Warrior.
He rinsed his fingers and dried them on the towel he had sitting on the sink.
He rounded the striated beige granite island and crossed to her. She stood very still, not far from the fireplace, her eyes wide, her lips parted as she took in his hair caught loosely behind, many of the strands now in disarray and curling around his face. Her gaze drifted lower, taking in his bare chest, his abs.
“You’re wearing jeans,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “It’s such a good look for you.”
He rounded the lounge part of the couch and took her hand. He drew her toward the knitted throw. “Please, sit down. I have prepared a meal for you, not too heavy. I have brought you champagne as well because I know you enjoy it.”
Her eyes lit up as she sat on the throw and stretched her legs out. “Yes, I do.”
