She lifted her chin. “I will not go with you,” she stated.
Casimir smiled. “I’m not exactly giving you a choice.” He put his hand on her shoulder, and she half expected to feel herself whisked away from the Convent. Instead he leaned close and sniffed her skin right at her temple.
Shivers chased down her neck and over her shoulders. His spiced wine scent cascaded over her so that she breathed him in deeply. His lips, which were moist, ran in a line of slow kisses over her cheekbone heading toward her lips.
She couldn’t help the desire she felt. Her mind was clogged with a heady aroma of mulled wine and her thoughts dissipated, spreading out and becoming very loose so that all she could think about was how heavenly his lips were. She began to turn her face into him and up so that with two more kisses, his lips were on hers.
Heaven.
Absolute heaven.
There are numerous detailed stories about the occasional, but rare, visitation of Third Earth entities to Second Society. The decoration of hair with long, narrow braids, studded with ceramic and glass beads, is a persistent theme within these anecdotes.
—Treatise on Ascension, Philippe Reynard
Chapter 12
Thorne rarely fought in such tight spaces, and he’d never fought when the mist could twist and turn so abruptly. He’d had his sword lifted high ready to strike down a pretty-boy; then the mist shifted and suddenly his sword met Luken’s. His arm vibrated from the strike so badly that his bicep cramped.
Luken was one big motherfucker. He grinned as he said, “Sorry, boss, but looks like we’re right on schedule.”
At least it gave them a break, the ability to breathe for a minute, to wait. Thorne bent over at the waist and planted his hands on his knees. Damn, there were a lot of death vampires in this f**king hallway. Sweat poured from him.
But honest to God, the waiting was worse. Or maybe it was the lack of sound from anywhere else in this compacted battleground. Nor could he reach anyone telepathically. The mist had that effect as well.
He’d tried to reach the other warriors but nothing returned to him.
His arms and legs shook. He had so much battle adrenaline in his system that he could have puked. The only thing he knew was that the mist shifted when it shifted, and nothing could happen until it did.
He rose. “I was afraid I’d find death vamps inside the Convent cells, but I haven’t, have you?”
Luken’s mouth was a grim line. “No. I found one pounding on a locked door and laughing. He didn’t giggle for long.”
Thorne smiled. “No f**king doubt.”
“You got that right.” Luken had large light blue eyes, but his somewhat angelic appearance with his mass of long wavy blond hair was completely misguiding. The man was a massive killing machine with heavier, meatier muscle than any of the warriors. Luken had been the one, just a few weeks ago, to knock Thorne unconscious in Endelle’s office when the breh-hedden had taken possession of Thorne’s mental faculties. That was the exact moment he’d caught Marguerite’s rose scent for the first time, an event that had coincided with her disappearance from Second Earth and the beginning of her bid for freedom.
Luken glanced up the hall then down. “If I remember the vision correctly, I should be on this side of the mist when it shifts. There will be three death vampires in this location”—he grinned at Thorne—“and two for you. After your little vacay, think you’re up to it?”
Thorne laughed and as the mist shifted, he flipped him off. Luken grinned a little more.
Thorne turned and two death vampires were on him, long black hair gleaming, dark eyes glittering, and that pale almost bluish skin a beacon in the dimly lit Convent halls. They both came from his left.
He turned and, with his left hand, grabbed a dagger from his weapons harness. In a single smooth stroke he jammed it into the throat of the pretty-boy whose sword was high, inches away, and ready to cleave Thorne’s head in two.
Thorne dropped and with preternatural speed rolled beneath the second death vamp, then thrust his sword up. He caught the second bastard in the gut. The momentum of both death vamps, one with a knife in his throat, one with his stomach slit open, forced them into a collision. They bounced off one wall and fell into a writhing heap.
Thorne did what he had to do.
He took the head of the pretty-boy he’d gutted. The other one, trapped beneath his buddy, stared up at him, the hilt bobbing as he tried to swallow or breathe or maybe both.
Thorne reached down and grabbed the dagger, pulling it out. Blood spurted with each thump of the bastard’s heart. It wasn’t long before his eyes glazed over.
Two more down. His tally was already at five. The vision had shown about thirty death vampires in all. Casimir wasn’t taking any chances. Too bad he hadn’t known that Marguerite would be able to reach pure vision.
He had half a minute or so before the mist shifted again. Sweat dripped down his face. He folded a cloth into his hand from his Sedona house, wiping his face then his knife. He slid the dagger back into its sheath on his weapons harness. He really hated this fourth dimension shit and all this silence.
He withdrew his phone from the pocket at his waist and thumbed. Ten seconds later Jeannie began her cleanup job. He couldn’t imagine trying to battle on these stone floors, all slippery with pretty-boy blood—not to mention the sheer gymnastics it would take to circumvent these big bodies while trying to wield a sword.
“Close your peepers,” Jeannie said.
He did. The light flashed. Thank God for Jeannie and the women at Central.
The mist would shift soon. He could feel it now, a very faint vibration in precise timing with Marguerite’s vision. He dropped into a half crouch, his sword in both hands and upright.
But when the mist shifted again, he faced one huge-ass death vampire, bigger than any he’d ever seen on Second Earth. In the vision, the bastard had looked smaller. What the hell? He had to be at least as tall as Medichi, maybe even taller.
As he engaged the first sword-strike, however, he caught the scent of rose. Shit, that meant Marguerite was somewhere nearby. Was she safe?
If he hadn’t been battling for centuries, his worry for his woman might have caused him to falter, but he wasn’t a Warrior of the Blood for nothing.
* * *
Leto sat on the edge of the bed, breathing hard, spots still dancing in front of his eyes. What the f**k was going on? Where was Grace? He had to get to her. But he couldn’t hear anything.
He stared at a wall of mist that kept shifting and changing its location in the cell. He’d never seen anything like this before.