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Yeah, that’s right. Keep thinking that way, ass**le.
But why shouldn’t he be allowed some peace of mind, some relief? Marguerite had eased his twitches when his head spun hard, when Darian’s heinous plans piled up on him, when Endelle griped at him for hours on end, when he had to account for another batch of dead Militia Warriors, when years of loneliness stretched before him like a vast ocean of f**king cactus-infested desert. Yeah, Marguerite kept him loose. She almost made him believe in a divine plan.
He threw back a hefty shot of his Ketel One and poured another two fingers.
So now his woman was locked up in the Fortress.
He took his Droid from the deep pocket of his kilt and checked the time. Ten forty-five and Endelle still hadn’t given him a mental shout. He shared a mind-link with her. Why the hell hadn’t she contacted him?
He sipped again. He hated waiting.
Then he felt the vibration deep within his mind.
Yo, Thorne. Endelle kept things simple.
I’m here. Fucking waiting, Endelle.
You sound slurred, even in your head. You need to cut back.
How about you cut the shit and tell me what happened.
Nothing happened, not a goddam thing. I’m still locked out and the bastard won’t even show his face at the door.
He felt her anger like a white-hot stream of fire through his head. He sat back on his stool. The woman was pissed and sometimes all that rage gave him a headache. What are you going to do?
Fuck if I know.
Then his rage kicked in, meeting her fury with an answering flaming bolt of his own.
Settle down, she snapped, which felt like a boomerang flying through his head.
The hell I will. The hell if I can. He’s going to hurt her. You know he will.
I’m contacting Daniel Harding.
What? He shouted the word through her head. Greaves owned Harding, and as head of COPASS he was about as useful as a bug on a windshield.
I have to go through channels. Don’t have a choice.
And neither did he.
Apparently, Endelle knew that as well, because she sent, Just give me a few more hours, that’s all I ask, then—here she offered a mental sigh—well, then you gotta do what you gotta do.
He grew very still, his tumbler poised in the air. Endelle had just given him permission to break the law. The only trouble was, busting into a Seers Fortress could be a death sentence.
On the other hand, right now he didn’t f**king care.
* * *
Jean-Pierre was just a little pissed off. He could not get through Fiona’s very thick skull.
During the most recent training session, in the now familiar room in Militia HQ, he had pushed her … hard. He spoke to her about the need to engage in a full-possession while channeling. He spoke of the advantages: the most certain increase of power and the possibility that she might have great need of possession-based channeling at some point in the immediate future. He reminded her, more quietly, of their recent lovemaking, that she no longer had the same fears of feeling trapped as she once had, even that she could allow him to take her blood. All to no avail.
Fiona was a very stubborn woman, now more than ever it would seem.
She even stood chest-to-chest with him, her arms back, and her face like a fury ready to take his head off. “I won’t do it, Jean-Pierre. I’ve made up my mind about this. I’m keeping this part for myself.”
“You are being ridiculous and very willful, like a child.”
“Like a child? You would say that to me? Simply because I am telling you that I am unwilling to do something, you tell me I’m like a child?”
There was only one response he could give, but it came out like a dog’s bark. “Oui.”
“Oui?”
“Oui.”
She planted a finger on his chest. “Let me tell you something, buddy, you’re the one who’s being stubborn and you’re not listening to me. I have spent the past two hours channeling every one of your abilities, from hand-blast to preternatural speed to kinetic movement of objects around this room, and not once did you need to possess me in order for me to get the job done. What do you have to say to that?”
What could he say? She was right. “You are right.” He dropped his hand to his abdomen. “But what I feel here, as a man who has battled in this war for over two centuries, is a powerful instinct that tells me you are wrong. Very wrong.”
She drew back, maybe three inches. “That’s your opinion.”
“Why will you not trust me, that I might know better in this situation, this circumstance? You have only known your powers for a few months now.”
“I’ve been telepathic since I arrived on Second Earth all those decades ago.”
He nodded. “But you cannot even mount your wings when the doctor said you should. What if your resistance to working your obsidian flame power is connected?”
At that, she stepped back perhaps an entire foot and stared at him, her eyes wide, her lips parted in something like horror. “You know how hard I’ve tried to mount my wings. That is unfair of you, Jean-Pierre.”
He closed the distance between them. “But what if they are connected? Please listen to me, chérie. Take your obsidian power the distance.”
She whirled away from him and put her hands to her face. He hoped she did not cry. He watched her back move up and down as she took very deep breaths but he did not hear the sounds of weeping.
But he also knew that he was right. In this, he was right.
As he watched her, as he thought how hard he pushed her, he felt confident in not just his position, but also exactly how he was treating her, as though he understood very deep things about her.
His gaze shifted to the carpeted floor. He had felt the same way earlier, when speaking with Seriffe, as though he could see into the very core of the man, as though he could understand in what ways the man suffered and what he should say and should not say. This was peculiar. He wondered if there was a meaning to this, something he did not yet perceive.
A wind swept through his mind, leaving him dizzy. Change had come to him, he could feel it, but he did not understand what it meant.
Fiona’s shoulders fell as she turned back toward him. Neither her eyes nor her cheeks were wet as her hands dropped away from her face. Good. This was good.
“Let me think on what you’ve said. And I do trust you, Jean-Pierre, very much. I respect you … infinitely.”
Infinitely. His heart warmed and he put a hand to his chest. To be respected. That was a good thing.
He nodded several times, and once more drew close to her. He took her hands in his and kissed the backs of her fingers, one hand to the next.
