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He rocked her gently.
A familiar wave washed over him, of the war, and of the despair he’d lived with for so long. The last hundred years in particular had been a supreme shitfest.
He didn’t want to think of her, of Grace’s twin, but for whatever reason the memory descended on him of Patience and the last time he’d seen her. He’d been flying with his sisters through the canyons of Sedona, up and down their favorite inlets, catching the air currents, laughing, enjoying family time.
While the three of them had been airborne, the death vampires were just suddenly there. The attack came from the east, from the Mogollon Rim. There were only two. He’d thought, Piece of cake, because he’d folded his sword into his right hand, a dagger into his left, then flown like lightning in their direction before he’d so much as blinked.
At the same time, he’d communicated with the twins telepathically, ordering them to draw close to each other and to stay behind him as he fought the enemy.
That’s when all hell had broken loose. A light like he’d never seen before flashed through the sky, blinding him for a few precious seconds. He’d turned in a circle, slashing his sword wildly in case either of the vamps got anywhere near him. His blade, however, never struck a thing, of that he was absolutely certain.
But when his vision returned, Grace was in a downward spiral, one of her wings broken, and Patience was nowhere to be seen.
He’d flown like a rocket in Grace’s direction and caught her just before she struck one of the rock outcroppings. He’d steadied her and looked around.
No Patience. No death vampires.
He recalled closing his eyes and having the strangest sensation that he’d touched something bigger than Second Earth—but what, he couldn’t say. Grace kept repeating, “The Creator, the Creator,” as though she’d been caught in a spiritual event. He hadn’t bought that, not even a little. Something had come, or someone, probably from one of the Upper Dimensions and completely without legal sanction.
He had left Grace sitting on the deep red rocks. He flew in an ever-enlarging circle, until he found blood, lots and lots of blood on the side of a gully, so much blood, enough from one person, maybe more. But there had been no feathers, no body parts, nothing like a battle, just blood, a torrent of blood.
He knew then that Patience was gone; taken and probably killed. By whom or by what, or for what reason, he doubted he would ever know.
He had returned to Grace, dropping to sit down beside her. He told her Patience was gone, her twin, the sibling with whom she had shared a womb. He had held Grace in the same way he was now holding Marguerite. Grace had stared up into the sky as though willing Patience to return to her, to draw her blood back into her body, and to come back to life.
But through all that time, Grace had remained adamant that Patience had not been killed; she’d been taken from Second Earth.
Thorne knew the world better. All that blood had spoken the truth to him. He had never argued with Grace. What would the point have been?
He had rocked her, and petted her cheek, and kissed her forehead as he now did with Marguerite.
He loathed the war and he felt something deep inside him begin not just a shift but an upheaval, a strong swell of sensation that started with disgust and ended with something close to determination. Something needed to change. Now. Tonight.
The war had been eating at him for decades, especially since Patience’s death. But this angry sentiment had crystallized a little over a year ago during Alison’s rite of ascension, the night that he’d sat near Endelle in the Tolleson Two arena and watched a frightened, overwhelmed Mortal Earth human woman, Alison, pass through the ropes that divided the black battling mats from the cement floor of the building. He’d watched her, an untried innocent, forced into a battle for which she was in no manner prepared. He had watched Commander Greaves sit so calm, so still, so confident in his plans, the bastard who had orchestrated the event and turned it into a spectacle for all of Second Earth to view. His intention had been for his servant, General Leto, former Warrior of the Blood and supposed traitor, to slay Alison.
Instead Alison had won the contest with amazing feats of power, all for Greaves’s pleasure.
Thorne had come to understand so much that night: that Greaves had been toying with Endelle and the Warriors of the Blood for decades, that he enjoyed the sport of war as much as he intended to one day be victorious, that he didn’t care who suffered, that a woman’s suffering meant nothing to him. Mostly, he’d understood that Endelle and her weak administration would lose this war, that defeat had become inevitable.
When Thorne thought of Endelle, something deep within bucked and raged. He loved her and he respected the sacrifices she had made for millennia. But right now she was part of the problem, a problem that had to be solved or two worlds would fall into slavery. He didn’t have an answer right now, but one thing he knew for certain: Once he got back to Second Earth, once he was assured of Marguerite’s safety, his working relationship with Endelle had to change. He couldn’t go back to the way things were. He’d blocked their shared mind-link and as soon as he was able, he would insist she break it.
He’d had enough. Change needed to happen now.
As for Marguerite, she’d been his only comfort. Yet despite the fact that she was caught in something neither of them understood, she was more determined than ever to live life on her terms.
He didn’t blame her. God knew he didn’t blame her. But she was in danger.
He felt the future crowding him as he had never felt it before, holding his woman in his arms, smelling her rich red-rose scent, until he ached, body and soul.
* * *
Marguerite made a slow pass over the valley. There were dozens of farms and what looked like small homes and cabins, each with an attached vegetable garden, clustered along one portion of a long winding lane near the forest.
As she drew close to the upper portion of the valley, she thought she recognized one of the Warriors of the Blood—Fiona’s breh, Jean-Pierre. He’d helped Thorne bust her out of the Superstition Seers Fortress, and later he’d been in Endelle’s office. He was tall like Thorne, well muscled, but leaner.
Was Jean-Pierre in this village?
As she flew lower to the ground, however, she realized that it wasn’t him, but rather someone who was built like him and had similar features. He was also younger than the warriors, not quite a man yet, but neither was he just a teen—somewhere in between.
She hovered in place watching him. He spoke quietly with another man, taller than him, with green eyes, dark skin, and long cornrows dotted with beads. This man’s arms were muscled and bare. He wore a vest made up of some kind of sculpted animal skin. He looked solemn as the young man said, “Death vampires. They’re here. In the forest.”
