Born of Ashes (Guardians of Ascension #4)

Endelle shook her head. “Marguerite’s fine but we just learned Stannett’s been busy making babies. Apparently, that’s his plan with Marguerite.” She wasn’t thinking when she said this.

After nine thousand years, Endelle knew she should have learned some restraint, a little perception, something close to discretion. Instead, she felt a wave of heat flow from Thorne.

“Babies?” Thorne blended all the gravel in his voice with his resonance so that Endelle took a step backward.

Fiona covered her ears. “No, Thorne! Please don’t start this.”

Jean-Pierre jumped in front of Fiona and got in Thorne’s face. “Would you please not use your resonance when Fiona is near? Dammit, Thorne!”

But Thorne’s nostrils flared. “Move it,” he shouted. His eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed.

Endelle knew exactly where this would end, so, shit.

“Settle down, boys.” She put a hand on each shoulder then gripped them hard, painfully hard, until both Jean-Pierre and Thorne dipped in her direction and spewed a few profanities.

Fiona sighed and moved back to the fireplace. She rubbed both of her ears, though. So damn sensitive.

Once her warriors had settled down, she released them. Thorne returned to the window, Jean-Pierre to stand next to Fiona. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Thorne.

Fine. Whatever.

She glanced at the tickets. The spectacle event was tonight so what the hell was she supposed to do? And what the hell was she supposed to do about Marguerite?

The only event I’ve ever stolen down to Second Earth to watch was Dark Spectacle. I consider this a true aberration in my spiritual development. But as is supremely human, I could not resist the event year after year, despite my annual vows to set aside such foolishness.

—Memoirs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 18

Fiona rubbed her ears a little more. At least they weren’t bleeding this time.

She looked at the tickets splayed in Endelle’s right hand. She thought she understood her dilemma. If it was a trap, and what else could it be, then Endelle would be sending people she cared about into an extremely dangerous, possibly even deadly, situation.

But Fiona didn’t have the same dilemma. “I intend to go,” she called across the room. “If that’s what you’re wondering. Call it a date with destiny.”

“You cannot go,” Jean-Pierre said.

“Why not?”

“Because it would be madness.”

Fiona shrugged. “I think it would be madness not to go. Besides, aren’t you just a little curious?”

“To find out what your friend Casimir has in store for you? No, not at all.”

“You’re being stubborn again.”

“As are you.” But he looked down at her and she thought she saw his lips twitch.

She put her hand on his forearm, the muscles taut from having crossed his arms. “Don’t you see? If Rith is there, if Rith intends to be there, then I must go. I don’t know why or how he escaped from Prague, but I have no doubt that if he can find me he will hurt me. And I believe Casimir spoke truly. I believe Rith is more powerful than any of us know.”

“I do not think you are ready, Fiona.”

She rubbed over his arm and stared at his chest, his broad beautiful chest. A terrible feeling descended on her—that if she went tonight, it was possible she would never know Jean-Pierre again as she had, in bed with him, locked in ecstasy, crying out his name, weeping because he was so beautiful. She might not survive. He might not, either.

But Casimir’s presence had changed the game. As had Rith’s sudden escape.

“I have to go. Not one more woman is to be harmed by Rith’s hands, and I don’t care if you tell me that Greaves probably already has another organization set up to handle the supply and demand. We’ll take this one step at a time. First Rith, then whatever else we have to deal with.”

“What about me?” Endelle called out. “Don’t I get a say?”

Fiona met Endelle’s gaze. She saw the knowing look in her eye. “Of course,” she said. But she already knew the answer.

“You have to go. No, Jean-Pierre, you don’t get a say in this one. I want you to take Santiago and Zacharius with you. Thorne, are you in agreement?”

Thorne glanced back at her over his shoulder. Fiona had never seen him look quite this wrecked before. “You have to go. This is war.”

An hour before showtime, Fiona finished getting dressed. She once more stood in front of the mirror in the guest room at Carolyn’s house. Her daughter had dressed her hair in waves and curls that hung over her arms and down her back. Since Dark Spectacle was essentially the Super Bowl of events for Second Earth, and tickets were incredibly expensive and hard to get, the cream of Second Earth society attended from all over the world. For that reason, she wore an evening gown despite the fact that she had every reason to believe she’d be facing the enemy tonight.

Jean-Pierre had already arrived but she hadn’t seen him yet, although Carolyn said she nearly swooned when she saw all three of the warriors. “And Jean-Pierre is wearing a Brioni tux and looks magnificent. I want Seriffe to buy one. No. I’ll buy it for him myself.”

Carolyn helped her don a pearl-and-diamond necklace, sliding it beneath her curls. She secured the clasp and met Fiona’s gaze in the mirror. “You look beautiful, and I’m so jealous that you get to go to Dark Spectacle.” Carolyn didn’t know the real reason for her attendance, and she had no intention of worrying her.

But Seriffe knew.

“The tickets were such a surprise.”

Fiona caught Carolyn’s hands and, as she had done the morning of baby Helena’s christening, she wrapped Carolyn’s arms around her, pulling her daughter into another awkward back-to-front hug. “You’ll ruin your hair,” Carolyn complained.

“I don’t care. I love you so much.”

But Carolyn pulled away laughing. “And you’re going to ruin your makeup if you start weeping, which I can tell you’re just about to do.”

Fiona took a deep breath. Carolyn was right. Besides, if she dwelled too much on the spiderweb she was walking into, her resolve might falter.

She focused instead on the moment, on appreciating that Carolyn had brought in any number of favors from the higher-end shops in Scottsdale Two, so that over the course of the afternoon they’d had at least a dozen evening gowns to choose from.

At four, they’d found the one. The gown of cream silk, beaded with Austrian crystals, clung to her curves and was cut with a deep V that gave her a beautiful line of cleavage, which Jean-Pierre would love. The skirt of the gown hugged her thighs then flared from the knees down to her heels in generous pleats. Of course what Fiona didn’t say to her daughter was that the loose fabric around her lower legs would allow her a freedom of movement that many of the other gowns simply didn’t.

A knock on the door forced Fiona to turn away from the mirror. “Come in.”

Seriffe opened the door and poked his head in. “I’ve got three WhatBees in my living room, all strung tight as piano wires.” He looked Fiona up and down and smiled. “You look lovely, but I think Jean-Pierre will probably pass out when he sees you.”

That made Fiona’s heart jump. Whatever else this night would be, she wanted Jean-Pierre to see her at her best, just this once.

She left the bedroom and made the long march down the hall. She could hear the men: Santiago’s gorgeous Latin cadence, Zacharius’s strong, bold speech, and then the voice that never failed to turn her knees to water.

“You can never speak of a dagger, mon ami, without making some reference to your … personal assets.”

Men, she thought, but she smiled.

She saw Jean-Pierre in profile first. All his long, blond, wavy, and somewhat unruly hair was slicked back and pulled tight in the cadroen. His cheekbones, one of his finest features, were made more prominent, which gave his face a stronger look.

Nudged by Zach, he turned in her direction so that she saw him from the front. He looked … magnificent.

The coat had a very narrow lapel, but it emphasized the wonderful breadth of his chest and shoulders and the narrowness of hips. His lips were parted and she saw that he was taking in her appearance as well, his gaze falling first to her cleavage then lower and lower until he made his way to her feet, then slowly back up.

He met her gaze and for a moment time fell into a huge hole. She saw only him, the man who was her breh, the man who had carried her out of New Zealand, who had served for so many months as her Guardian of Ascension, who challenged her about her powers, who scratched her wing-locks, and who made love to her so tenderly.

Affection blossomed so sharply that she took a step back and even Carolyn slid an arm around her waist to steady her. “You okay?” she asked.

Was she okay?

She hardly knew.

Jean-Pierre stood very still as though to move would shatter the image before him. Fiona was perfection, the dark of her long hair now curled at the ends, a strong counterpoint to the creamy sparkling shade of her gown.

She looked like a princess, a soft elegant princess who belonged in a court from years ago. All the love he felt for her swelled in his chest and squeezed his heart. He wished more than anything that this was not a world at war. He would ask her to marry him, he would drop on one knee right now, take her hand, kiss her fingers, and beg her to become his wife.

But this was a world at war, and he was this man who had been through too much to ever so simply give his heart, all his trust, to a woman again.

Still, for this moment, as his feet put him in motion before his rational thoughts caught up with him, Fiona belonged to him, tonight and, God willing, tomorrow.

He forgot all about his brother warriors who stood nearby, about Seriffe and his wife, Carolyn. All he could see was Fiona, and her loveliness, all that she had suffered, all that she had overcome, and the woman she was this night.

He took her hands in his and kissed the backs of each. “You look so very beautiful. I thank you for that.”