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And she was so tired. She lowered back down to the floor so that her head rested on the cool marble. Yeah, the marble felt cool. Her eyes were so heavy and now she was dizzy.
She made a strong effort to reach for her phone and after a couple of tries brought it into her hand. Another round of serious effort had Thorne barking into her ear. “Where the f**k are you?”
“Sorry, ass**le,” she said. “This time you get to clean up the mess. You’re on your own.” She had meant to explain about Braulio and her neck and that something was wrong with her, but she forgot.
She lay there, trying to get her head clear. She had to. She had a sudden deep instinct that she would be needed.
She forced herself to sit up. One by one, she began clearing the cobwebs from her mind.
* * *
Thorne stared at his phone and frowned. Great. He was on his own. Well, didn’t this feel familiar?
“What happened?” Marguerite asked.
He stared at his woman who wasn’t really his woman and his irritation mounted. “Endelle’s not coming and don’t ask me why because I don’t know. Guess she’s still mad at me.”
“And I guess you’re still mad at me.”
“Guess I am.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“What I’ve always done. I’m going to take care of business.”
Suddenly Thorne felt Grace close by. He turned in a circle.
“What is it?” Marguerite asked. “Shit, you’re glowing again.”
“It’s Grace. I can feel her.” He opened his obsidian flame power and let it flow. As the power released, Grace appeared in front of him. He could see her in an ethereal form. “Where are you?”
“Greaves has me in a cage, but it’s a trap. Don’t follow after me. Do you understand? I’ll survive this.” Her eyes closed. “I can feel Greaves. He’s blocking my power.” She vanished.
Thorne felt her trace and it was free of the block, but like hell was he not going after her. He had to. She was his sister and if he could get her back now, he could keep her from Casimir as well. Greaves wasn’t her only enemy in this f**ked-up situation.
He turned to Marguerite. “I have to go to her.”
“I’ll go with. Grace and I are sisters in obsidian flame. We’ll have power together.”
Thorne hesitated. As he stared into her eyes, he had a sudden sense of foreboding. “Maybe you should try reaching pure vision. We could call for Brynna.”
But Marguerite shook her head. “I don’t think it’s necessary. We’ve already seen proof of the vision. We know where Grace is and we can get to her.”
“Thorne.”
He jerked his head in Leto’s direction. “What?”
“I’m coming. Two swords would be better, much better.”
Thorne shook his head. “I can’t allow it. What if you have a relapse?” It was that simple.
Leto nodded. His shoulders slumped. “Tell me what I can do.”
“Contact Marcus. Fill him in. See if he can get to Endelle. We’re going to need her. That much I do know. She’s in her rooms at the palace, but she didn’t sound right just now.”
“Got it.”
He focused on the trace, but he hesitated a second time. That deep intuitive sense once more reached through his mind, touching him, warning him. He should wait, maybe contact Luken, get backup
He almost reached for his phone, but suddenly Grace appeared once more in her ethereal form. As she did, she started to scream.
That ended all discussion.
He didn’t have f**king time and besides, this was on him, like everything else was. “The hell with it,” he said aloud. He turned to Marguerite. “I need you to stay put. This doesn’t feel right.”
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. She nodded.
But at the last moment, as he began to fold she touched his shoulder.
The ride through nether-space, even with Marguerite attached to him, was swift.
The moment he touched down on the straw of the cage, he didn’t have time to yell at his woman. He took in several details at once: the cage was moving, fireworks boomed on both sides, geese and swans flew overhead, he could hear boots marching like thunder down the avenue, and Greaves held a very limp Grace against his chest.
In the next split second Greaves flung an insanely powerful hand-blast at him. He was shoved hard against the side rails of the cage.
Greaves vanished. In his place an enormous white tiger appeared.
What happened next was a blur of tiger fur, Marguerite’s screams, his sword too long to be of any use, and his dagger struggling to find a vulnerable mortal spot in the tiger’s torso.
He was able to get the tiger away from her, but how do you wrestle with all that muscle? At least he was vampire-strong, but in this Greaves-controlled space, he had no power to finish the beast off with a hand-blast. All he could do, as the claws shredded his arms and legs, was jab the dagger in repeatedly searching for the heart.
* * *
Greaves held Grace in his arms. He hovered outside the cage and watched the show. He had cloaked himself and the entire battle in mist.
He felt dizzy with pleasure on so many levels. It was hard to pinpoint which felt the best: that he was watching the formidable Thorne being overcome at last by a creature he couldn’t subdue—or maybe it was the sight of Marguerite lying facedown in the straw, bleeding out.
“And there goes obsidian flame,” he said quietly, smiling.
He heard Thorne’s grunts. He vowed he would savor the sound as long as he lived.
He wanted to wait for the exact moment of death, but he needed to be back on the platform since the cameras were still rolling.
He folded with Thorne’s sister, however, into the bunker below the stage where Casimir waited. His servant deserved his reward.
“I didn’t think you would return her to me.”
“I wasn’t going to, but she’s no threat now. Marguerite is dying. Thorne will not survive this attack, either. You may take your prize back to Paris.”
He held Grace out to him.
Casimir took her. Before Greaves had even blinked, the pair vanished.
But a chill went through Greaves, a prescience that all was not well, and suddenly he wanted his act of generosity undone.
Well, too late for that. He shook off the uneasy sensation, dismissed his concerns, and returned in a swift glide through nether-space to his preeminent throne-like seat on the platform.
As he stared down the long avenue, as his well-trained troops marched in rigid formation, as the handlers drove their squadrons of DNA-altered swans and geese along the route, and as the fireworks boomed, oh, yes, life could be magnificent.
