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“What gives, Santiago?”
“What the f**k do you care?”
And there it was. He was about to address the heart of the matter, when Zach’s voice shot across the room “Are you going to f**king bust his chops, you ass**le?”
Thorne turned. Zach had a fair complexion, but right now it was ruddy.
“He had to leave. Everybody else gets that but you. He didn’t have a choice. His woman was in danger. He had to go after her.”
Beyond Luken and Zach, the ladies flowed into the room, every expression somber.
Thorne felt his responsibility acutely. He’d caused this. He’d caused best friends to be at each other’s throats. It was just one more cause-and-effect of his desertion.
“The trouble is,” Thorne said, meeting Zach’s gaze squarely, “Santiago has every right to be pissed. All of you do, because I did have a choice. Yes, I experienced a tremendous drive to follow Marguerite because she is my breh, but that’s not the only reason why I left Second Earth.”
Every eye was fixed on him, every expression dark; some worried, some hostile. Santiago moved up next to him, but his glare was accusing, a demand that Thorne man up and explain himself.
But how could he offer a reasonable defense? His thoughts hadn’t exactly run deep on the subject. Just strong and unrelenting.
He crossed slowly in front of Santiago and sat in one of the many large antique chairs that flanked the room. Others sat as well. Fiona dropped down next to Jean-Pierre on the same couch as Havily and Marcus. Medichi sat down in a chair, held one arm out to Parisa, and she settled down on his lap like she’d always been there. Kerrick, Alison, and Marguerite remained standing.
Marguerite swayed from side to side, with the baby nestled on her shoulder. Her brow was furrowed as she watched him.
Luken looked a little grim as he leaned against the doorjamb.
Zach, however, didn’t move as he stared down at Thorne. “What the f**k are you saying?”
“That Endelle or any of you has the right to try my ass in a COPASS court for desertion.” He took a deep breath. “I left because I was sick of the war, or at least the direction the war was heading.” There, he’d said it out loud.
A low rumbling flowed from couch to chair to doorjamb and ended up settling on Santiago. A stream of Spanish flowed from his mouth, words and meanings that he punctuated with a repeated toss of his arms.
Thorne leaned back in the chair and turned to watch him in these theatrics.
The man had style, even when he was enraged, a kind of loose Hispanic rhythm and movement that made the women swoon. His thick wavy black hair was combed straight back and caught tight in the cadroen, emphasizing all that dark masculine beauty. His brown eyes flashed. “And you, the leader of us all, to have betrayed us. We look to you for everything, jefe, for character, for purpose, for sacrifice, for what is noble and good in our ranks.”
Thorne shifted once more and met Marguerite’s gaze. She still looked serious, her brow furrowed. She rubbed Helena’s back in a slow rhythm up and down the baby’s spine. He was struck again how short she was compared with everyone else present.
But not in spirit, he thought. The woman had presence, something she probably didn’t even know she had. She filled the space around her with her energy, her essential goodness.
He thought about what he’d said to her when he’d returned to his body earlier.
As he turned to Santiago, looking up at him, at the self-righteous fury on his face, he now asked the question he’d been asking himself: “Why are you here, my brother? That is the only real question you must ask and answer. You must be your own guide and model for what you value—because what if I die? What if this had been my death as opposed to my departure? What then? What would you have done differently?”
Suddenly Santiago’s sword was in his hand, the ruby in the crossguard winking as he swiped the sword twice through the air. He swished it finally in a long strike in front of Thorne so that the point touched the carpet at his feet. “My fealty is with the Warriors of the Blood. I would never leave them or desert them.”
Thorne nodded and a smile eased over his lips. “Well said, except for one thing: Man will always let you down. Even you might have to make decisions that will seem wrong to you.”
Zacharius came forward to stand beside Santiago. He put his hand on Santiago’s wrist. “This is what I’ve been trying to say to you. We are none of us perfect, and when one falters, the rest of us rise up and do what we must. You can’t be so pigheaded about this. You’ve only served for a few hundred years. Thorne has served for two thousand years and look what Marcus went through.” Marcus had left the brotherhood for two centuries because his sister had been killed by death vampires and he’d blamed Kerrick for the death. The war had taken its toll—and how was that a surprise? Marcus had fought death vampires as a Warrior of the Blood for four thousand years.
Alison spoke up. “Thorne, I think after battling for two millennia, you’re allowed a few weeks off.”
For some reason, the room seemed to settle down at her words. Even Santiago didn’t look quite so mulish. But then this was Alison’s primary gift, her empathy and her ability to give ease just by her presence.
Marcus’s voice filled the space, which caused Zach and Santiago to turn in the direction of the couch. “Zach’s right. None of us is perfect, and each has a breaking point when things must change, or the future feels intolerable.
“But I do know this. I wasn’t idle while I was away. I built an empire, and that has helped me to change Endelle’s administration’s profile to all of Second Earth.” Marcus’s efforts had slowly gained the confidence of the High Administrators still aligned with Endelle. For the past fifteen years, High Administrators had been leaving her alliance at an alarming rate thanks to Greaves’s advanced PR methods. He was a genius at propaganda and as the owner of most of the mineral wealth of Second Earth, he had a monstrous fortune to throw at the heads of those wavering in their loyalty to Endelle.
Marcus had slowed the process of defection to barely a trickle.
Marcus met Thorne’s gaze and asked, “What did you gain by being away?”
But it was Marguerite who spoke. “Thorne has emerging powers. We both do.” All eyes shifted in her direction.
“What powers?” Kerrick asked, leaning to look around his wife so that he could see Marguerite.
Marguerite shifted. Baby Helena’s hand now hung beside Marguerite’s arm. She was fast asleep. Despite the subject at hand, a tremor went through Thorne, a quickening that stunned him, not of his groin, but of his heart. He felt a profound need to get children by Marguerite, as though this was part of his destiny.
