The Ruler of Second Earth stood outside his Fortress and had no legal way to breach his front door.
Hallelujah! Sometimes the heavens answered his prayers.
But the pounding stopped and the obscenities trailed off, and then she was gone.
Which meant that the next part of his life’s nightmare was getting ready to heat up.
He needed to get into the future streams to see what battles he had to face next. He really did. For one thing, though he had always known that one day Marguerite would reside within his Fortress, she was completely unpredictable, both in life and in the future streams. So he was at something of a loss as to what to do with her.
Besides, she’d hurt him. Though he was no longer in pain, the mere thought of getting near her again brought his nuts once more tight up against his ass, quivering in fear. In whatever way he moved forward with her, she would have to be knocked out, something he’d certainly be able to do within the next day or so.
She wasn’t eating, which of course meant she suspected he’d drugged her food. He had.
But that was not his only recourse. He could simply have a couple of his minions hold her down while he injected her. He was always amazed how far a little brute force could take a man. Although he shouldn’t have been since he’d been on the receiving end a few centuries ago.
He waved a hand in the air, pushing all his troubles to the side. For the moment, he sipped and savored a little more. The future would come whether he wanted it to or not, but for now, the pleasure of having this much power, having the most powerful Seer in the world under his thumb, and of having refused entrance to the most powerful vampire on earth—yes, these things satisfied his soul.
* * *
Thorne sat on a stool at the Cave, a half-emptied bottle of Ketel One sitting within fingers’ reach.
He waited for Endelle’s call. She’d promised to try to get into the Fortress, to make sure Marguerite was okay. He had little hope, but f**k, he couldn’t do anything, not legally. By COPASS’s decree, no one could go into the Superstition Fortress unless given permission by the High Administrator, and he believed Stannett would cut off his dick before he allowed Endelle or any of the Warriors of the Blood on his property.
At least that was one thing he respected about the bastard. He’d staked out his territory and he protected it like a man should.
Unfortunately, he had sociopath written all over him, so on a very instinctive level Thorne knew that evil resided in that facility. He knew it the way he knew that a death vampire’s complexion always paled to a faint bluish state once he started drinking dying blood.
Thorne was bleary-eyed, dizzy, almost completely drunk, and mad at the world. Yet he was anything but sleepy.
In fact, he couldn’t recall having had much sleep in the past forty-eight hours. Even when he went home, the longest he could keep his eyes closed was maybe two hours. Then he’d wake up.
This had been going on for so long, for so many years, that he couldn’t recall a time when he knew what it was to sleep.
But today felt like a ton of boulders had landed on each shoulder and he wasn’t bearing the load very well. Fuck. But then, when had he ever carried his burdens well?
Maybe in the beginning, when he’d taken on the responsibility as Endelle’s second-in-command. He’d been young in ascended terms, hopeful, full of enthusiasm like anyone starting out in a field of endeavor. His field had been war, battling death vampires, a noble one and he was built for it. Surely, with just enough diligence, he’d be able to end the struggle, hunt the last death vampire down to earth, slay him, then move on, maybe have a family, a real life.
That had been so long ago; he couldn’t even remember which century. And he sure as hell couldn’t remember the day he’d lost hope, all hope, that things would change.
Then he’d met Marguerite.
He sipped his tumbler and smiled. These memories at least still had the power to give him some ease.
You ready for me, Warrior? Those had been the first words she’d ever spoken to him, right after, How happy I am to meet Grace’s brother. Imagine meeting a beautiful woman for the first time, in a f**king Convent, and that’s what she says, You ready for me, Warrior?
What he’d done after still smote his goddam conscience because as soon as Grace left to do Sister Quena’s bidding, he’d taken Marguerite. He’d taken a goddam devotiate in a goddam Convent.
He was going to hell, no two ways around that. But then he was in hell, so what was the difference?
Somehow he’d lost his innocence along the way. Any man who’d lived for a couple of millennia had a lot of skeletons in his outbuildings, but this had to be his worst yet.
But Marguerite had been a willing, panting, back-scratching participant. When he’d met her, she’d been half hidden behind the door. When his sister had turned away, Marguerite had bared a breast to him.
The image of that breast had become forever fixed in his head, burned there like a silver cross against the bare skin of a fictional vampire. There had been such perfection in that shape, beautifully round but with the slightest hint of teardrop, sloped inward at the top and weighted at the bottom. The nipple had been hard and puckered, as though she’d just had an orgasm. That’s when it hit him and that’s what had done him in. Sister Marguerite had just shown him her orgasm.
He jerked off to that breast almost every night and any other time the mood struck him, which was often.
He loved and hated this obsession. She hadn’t lived long enough to really know her mind—not even thirteen decades. And for at least a century she’d been trapped inside a Convent. But he just couldn’t keep away from her.
Another memory returned, the first time they’d made love. You gonna talk to me, Warrior? Use that f**king voice of yours? The one that makes me come?
Shit, yeah.
He’d split his resonance twice. He’d work up to fifteen through the decades, just for her. She’d be screaming against the palm of his hand at fifteen, shaking, convulsing. God, he loved f**king her.
Her family had discovered her excessive love of males and had put her away in the Convent for rehabilitation. That’s when the sisters had detected her Seer gift and called in Stannett to monitor her progress. Thorne still didn’t know why Stannett hadn’t done it sooner. But thank God for whatever reason the bastard had.
But that’s when Thorne’s treachery had begun because he could have told Endelle about Marguerite, and her Seer powers, a century ago, maybe even altered the course of the war. But he’d feared losing her. She was the only thing in all this time that had kept him sane and loose so he could keep on saving the world.