“As for you, Thorne,” Endelle said, cutting into his thoughts. “Looks like we’ve got business to discuss.”

Thorne didn’t meet her gaze. He seemed to stare in the direction of her marble desk at nothing in particular. His shoulders dipped. “Yes, I suppose we do.”

“There’s one more thing,” she said, glancing at Jean-Pierre. “I’ve been thinking this for a long time and I might as well share my thoughts right now. I believe we have a Third or Fourth ascender causing all these fuckups with you men when you’re out fighting. Now that I know about Fiona, it all makes sense. Greaves wouldn’t take chances, not this late in the game. I believe he’s brought someone of power on board to help out.”

“Well how the fuck are we supposed to battle a Third ascender,” Thorne asked. “And don’t even get me started on a Fourth asshole?”

Endelle shrugged. “Beats the shit out of me. Looks like he’s stuck the way Greaves and I are stuck. He may have some Upper ascender babysitters keeping tabs on him, which is a good thing. The bad news is, of course, that this vampire will have a boatload of power and a dozen tricks up his ass. So let the warriors know and we’ll just keep on keepin’ on.” She planted her hands on her bristly skirt. “All right. The rest of you get out of here. I need to talk to my second-in-command.”

Jean-Pierre held the door for Alison and Fiona. He intended to leave the decision up to his woman: whether to go first to Militia Warrior HQ and continue the hunt for Rith throughout the afternoon, or whether they should head straight to his home in Sedona.

Much to his surprise, she chose Sedona, and for a reason that touched his heart. “You haven’t slept enough today. We’re going to take care of that right now.”

He could hardly believe it: After five months, not only was she ordered to stay in his home, but she wanted to. He was in no doubt about that. No restraint, no holding back. Oui, something had most definitely changed for her.

Alison and Fiona discussed when they should meet up for the first training session. With late afternoon settled on, Alison lifted her hand and folded home to be with her baby for the rest of the day.

Jean-Pierre was finally alone with Fiona. “Chérie, I wish to know so much what happened. You seem changed, different.”

Fiona’s lips parted, and that former light entered her eyes. “I am changed but I’m not sure I can explain it.”

“You were screaming, Fiona. Were you aware of that?”

“Oh, it hurt. Endelle had to push through this place deep within my mind, like a barrier between the mind and the soul. I can’t explain it. I really can’t. But when she did, it was like geysers of the most beautiful shimmering gold exploded in my mind. I wish you could see it, Jean-Pierre. It was magnificent. But the beauty was only part of the experience. I felt as though something enormous had been released inside me, as though I could do anything, and what I thought, what went through my mind, was, Now I can really go after Rith. Yes, that’s what I thought, that now I had sufficient power to hunt him down, to find him, to bring him to justice.”

“Your eyes are filled with fire.” When had his arm slid around her waist? When had she put her hand flat on his chest just inside his jacket? He wanted to kiss her, but not here, not in the hall outside Her Supremeness’s office. “Shall we go to my house?”

“Yes.” Just like that, after five months of keeping him so far away, she said yes.

He nodded, and, holding her against him, he lifted his free arm and thought the thought.

The ride through nether-space was smooth as silk, a swift glide, then a touching down on the red-brick patio of his front yard. To the left was a small wooden bridge he had built over a dry wash that directed overflow to Oak Creek; to the right was a curved grassy area.

He looked around and extended his preternatural senses, hearing and vision, hunting for the enemy. But all that returned to him was the sound of a hawk high in the air, beyond the tips of the Arizona sycamores that surrounded his house.

“So this is your home?” Part question, part statement.

“Oui.”

“And you built this, by yourself, over the past two centuries since you have lived in this part of the world.”

He had told her about his house over the course of their dates but she had not seen it before. He was proud of his “rabbit warren,” as Endelle so aptly called his home. He had never had a plan, but just built rooms and stairs and windows, letting his soul guide him. The only thing he had been definite about was that in the very center was a large round room, a type of space meant for meditation, but very large with a glass ceiling open to the sky and a glass floor to allow a view of the creek flowing below.

Beyond the desire for that room, the house was truly a work of impulse year by year.

He loved it.

But would she like what he’d created?

As these doubts twisted his stomach into a knot, his sheer desire for her, to share his home and his bed, overcame everything. He needed to know her thoughts, her reservations, her present wishes.

“Will you come inside? Be with me, Fiona?”

He meant the question to be frank, even obvious. How much better to know what he could expect than to stumble and offend her by a careless kiss or embrace.

He watched the most exquisite blush climb her cheeks. He knew her past, that she had only known one other man in her life, her husband of many decades ago.

She had been born in a different time, in old Boston, which would have had very strict ideas about sex. And sex would never have been discussed, probably not even between husband and wife.

“I do not mean to push you, chérie.”

She met his gaze at last. “I just need you to know that whatever we do together, during this strange time of transition as I learn what it is to be an obsidian flame, I can’t guarantee that it will lead to anything permanent between us. I know the breh-hedden has us locked into these really terrifying but wonderful sensations, but my heart is fixed on a different path. Do you understand?”

“Finding and prosecuting Rith. Serving this new world.”

She nodded. “I am determined, Jean-Pierre.”

These thoughts did have the wonderful effect of calming him down, at least sufficiently that he could pivot and offer his arm to her.

She took it, but she said, “I want to sleep with you.”

His eyes closed as though he could not keep them open. He released a soft sound, something like a sigh and a gasp at the same time. More than anything in the world, he wanted to take her to his bed and keep her there, slide over her body, into her secret places, feel her, experience her wetness, the taste of her.

She laughed. “You smell like a Starbucks right now.”

He huffed a small piece of laughter. “No doubt an entire plantation of coffee beans, a factory, smokestacks billowing my scent.”

“Yes. But it pleases me so very much.”

He squeezed her arm. “Come. Let me show you my house.”

He moved forward with her, but her steps slowed. He stopped and turned to watch her. She seemed surprised, her brows high on her forehead. “What is it?”

“When you told me about your house, how you had built it, I didn’t realize you’d used so much glass. I had come to think of it like a cabin in the woods, but it’s not at all like that.”

“Ah, oui. But if you look around, you can see the why of it, that I put the house in the middle of a woodland of sycamores. And on the opposite side of the house is Oak Creek, which you can hear from this place. I wanted views of it all.”

“It’s … beautiful.” She spoke the words slowly as though she savored each syllable, which of course made his heart swell.

The front entrance was set at an angle to the body of the house and had a steepled porch that served as protection from the weather. Sometimes there was snow in Sedona and during the summer, heavy monsoon rains.

He released her to slide his arm about her waist and held her close. Only then did she move forward with him.

He opened the front door and swung it wide, letting her precede him.

When she crossed the threshold, something powerful inside him opened and spilled out, leaving behind a pit of relief—as though he had been holding his breath all these months and now he could finally breathe.

Oui, the breh-hedden was a terrible master.

But she was here, in his home, with him, and she was safe.

“A piano,” she cried. She turned to look at him over her shoulder. “Of all the things I expected to see here, this wasn’t one of them. Do you play?”

Such astonishment. He shrugged. He knew he should not be offended but somehow he was. “Oui. Bien sûr. Of course.”

She closed her eyes briefly. “That sounded so … wrong and I apologize. But I haven’t seen a piano yet on Second Earth, not that I’ve been in many ascended homes.”

Of course she had not. Perhaps only a handful, since he kept her close and she only had encounters with Madame Endelle’s administrative headquarters, Militia Warrior HQ, her daughter’s home, or Alison and Kerrick’s. Once she had been to Medichi and Parisa’s villa. But that was all … and no pianos in any of these homes. Perhaps one day.

She turned back to the small grand piano situated in the angled foyer, and said, “It’s just that all of the warriors battle so hard. Even Seriffe is gone so much working with the Militia Warriors. I didn’t think anyone had time for such things, for even a modest hobby.”

She had a lovely shape; her shoulders were neither narrow nor too broad and she had a small waist. He longed to put his hands around her waist and see if his fingers met. He had long fingers. He thought they might touch, fingertip-to-fingertip, but such thoughts put a trembling in his thighs.

He drew close to her from behind and fingered the lavender silk of her blouse. Her hair hung just a few inches from her waist, so thick and beautiful, chestnut streaked with dark golds and reds.

He worked to set aside the trembling and the desire. “There was a time when we did not fight as we do now. We were called to service by Central throughout the night, at different hours, but not every hour until dawn as we do now. We were able to do many things when I first ascended; that is how Medichi built his villa and vineyard and how I built this house. But the war has changed in recent decades, grown much more intense. Yes, at one time we were able to do many things.”