Wings of Fire (Guardians of Ascension #3)

A faint alarm went off. The technician standing to the right of the bed, a man, held the familiar paddles of a defibrillator. Another sweep of the room and Parisa saw that a bag of blood was now flowing into Fiona’s arm, apparently to replenish what had been taken from her. The technician to the left of the bed capped off the drained blood. They were quiet as they worked.

Two more technicians, also wearing scrubs, arrived by an adjoining hallway. They loaded up Fiona’s blood into two separate large Igloo containers. Within a minute they were gone.

Talk about an efficient process.

She panned back to Fiona. The remaining two technicians, a man and a woman, performed basic CPR and occasionally jolted Fiona’s bared white chest with the defibrillator. There was such an air of boredom surrounding the woman that for her it must have been the same-old, same-old. The man was sweating. Not so indifferent.

The woman took a loaded syringe and stuck the needle into a connector to the IV. She waited, glanced at the man with the paddles. She nodded once. Fiona got hit again, hard, her body bouncing on the table.

She had to be dead. Her lips were blue.

Then her chest rose and fell. Parisa could hear a groan. Fiona’s eyes rolled in her head.

The woman still looked bored. The man put the paddles back onto the machine.

The woman struck Fiona a few times across the cheek and yelled at her.

Fiona’s eyes opened, rolled a little more. The woman held a cup to her mouth, the contents of which were red. Fiona tried to fight it and the liquid, very thick, rolled down her chin and onto her bare breasts.

“No,” Fiona whispered. “Please, no.”

The woman slapped her a few more times. The man grabbed her arms and pinned her. They forced her mouth open and succeeded pouring the liquid … had to be blood … down her throat. Fiona coughed and sputtered. They released her.

But the blood was magical. Color returned in a swift wave over Fiona’s body, and within seconds she was the picture of health. A few seconds more and she writhed on the bed and moaned. The woman laughed at her but released the restraints.

Fiona pressed her arm deep between her thighs and turned on her side as she worked her arm back and forth. A few seconds more and she cried out. What had they given her?

Oh. God.

If Parisa understood what had happened, Fiona had just orgasmed, hard. What kind of blood was that?

A few minutes later, the techs gathered up all the medical equipment, turned the lights out, and left her on the table. Parisa drew close to the woman and looked down into her face. The soft light from the hallway lamps revealed dull eyes and no tears.

Parisa waited with Fiona. To leave seemed cruel. She couldn’t converse with her, reach her, or comfort her, but she understood her despair so she stayed.

“I can feel someone there,” Fiona whispered. “I don’t know how, but I can.”

Parisa jumped, and her window flickered. She brought it quickly back in focus.

“I must have startled you. I’m not sure who you are or why you’re watching me, perhaps you’re the woman in the garden. Your name is Parisa, right? I felt your power when we clasped arms. If this is you, please help me. My name is Fiona Gaines and I was taken from Boston in 1902. I was one of the first that Rith experimented on. I’m a D and R slave: death and resurrection. Although, Rith usually calls us blood donors. So clever. Please find me and take me out of here. I’m begging you. Please.” Her eyes closed. “I don’t know if I can do this again. Please.” She released a heavy sigh. Not long after, she fell asleep.

Parisa waited for a few minutes then explored the space a little more. Opposite the large glass-enclosed room was a staircase that probably led up to Rith’s home. She was sure of it when the door at the top of the stairs opened and Rith appeared. He looked down into the room. He waited for a moment, then, apparently satisfied with what he saw, he closed the door.

Parisa in turn closed her preternatural window. Fully back in her room, she stared at the wall opposite her bed. The familiar statue of Buddha greeted her. She had come to love the gentle, peaceful expression on the man’s face. Rith had told her that the statue was from Mandalay and very old, over a hundred years now, and made of brass. This Buddha was lean, peaceful, intelligent looking. She always felt calmer when she looked at him.

What would Buddha do?

The thought made her laugh. Still, inherent in the absurd question was something she needed to know.

Yes, what would Buddha do?

If Buddha had just witnessed what Parisa had seen through her voyeur’s window, what would he do?

The next question made perfect sense: What would Parisa do?

She kept staring at the statue and thinking of Fiona. She could draw only one conclusion about what she had just witnessed, and the thoughts that now ripped through her mind made her sick. She put a hand to her mouth and took a few deep breaths.

Rith had somehow perfected the process of killing these women—in order to harvest dying blood—then bringing them back to life to do it all over again. She did the math. One hundred and twenty-five years. Fiona had given dying blood for 125 years. She’d been kept prisoner, in this house, for over a century, held captive by Rith.

Parisa tried to conceive of an incarceration that long. She had only been held prisoner for three months, and already she saw the signs of her captivity: her lack of appetite, a hateful sense of powerlessness, and a steady diminishing of her will.

That Fiona, after 125 years, had attempted an escape meant something.

Parisa’s heart rate rose. New thoughts began to flow through her mind—of her royle wings, of her preternatural voyeurism, of her emerging powers. Yes, Rith was powerful, but so was she. So it was possible that her sense of helplessness in this situation was an illusion. No one held a knife to her throat, just the threat of one.

Still, if she started down this road, she needed to admit one thing to herself, here and now: She could die. She had felt Rith’s inexplicable rage toward her. She could sense his desire to harm her, and given his belief that slavery was a perfect fit for the female mind and soul, there was no reason to believe he wouldn’t kill her. If only for defying him.

The world began to look different to her. Even the mahogany floor gleamed a little brighter, and the moon pouring through the slatted blinds laid brilliant stripes on the wall.

She put her hand between her breasts. She could feel her heart beating out a strong cadence, tougher than before, more purposeful, more hopeful, resolved.

Something had happened to her while watching Fiona’s terrible ordeal, some internal change she had not planned—but oh, how she welcomed what she felt. Above all, if she could help Fiona, then she would do whatever she had to do … tonight.

She pushed back the tightly secured top sheet then slid her legs over the edge of the bed until she could feel the cool polished wood beneath her bare feet. She looked down and wiggled her toes. Then she flexed her back muscles. Time to fly.

Somewhere among all the events of the day, change had come to Parisa. From this moment forward, her life would be different, whether she lived as an ascended vampire or as a winged mortal.

But where she lived no longer seemed important.

On the other hand, what she did seemed like everything.

She listened for the sounds of the servants. The women were quiet on their mats, hopefully asleep. One of them was snoring, a good sign.

She stood up, slid her nightgown off her shoulders, and let it fall to the floor. For what she was about to do, she needed her back unencumbered. And yes, for what she was about to do, she would be perfectly naked since she couldn’t risk moving around the room or opening armoire doors to find a haltered dress to wear. Any of those noises would awaken the servants, which would be a disaster. She understood their loyalty quite well. If they even discovered she was out of bed, she’d be in for it.

She kept very still as she cleared her mind and began to focus. She opened her voyeur’s window, thought one powerful thought about Antony, and found him at the Cave with the battle-weary Warriors of the Blood. A quick pan around the room told her they were all there, all except Marcus, who probably had the night off. Jean-Pierre sat next to Antony on an enormous brown leather couch against the back wall.

Antony was staring at the floor, and he looked really mad.

Jean-Pierre said, “So we are waiting now to hear from Jeannie for news from Burma.” Jeannie’s name sounded soft and beautiful on Jean-Pierre’s French tongue.

“Yep.” Antony flicked the hilt of the knife on his chest. He’d been battling, she could see that, but to her surprise he wore a kilt and a weapons harness, which meant he’d revealed his scarred-up back to his warrior brothers. Wow. What on earth had shifted in the past few hours to have wrought such a huge change in the warrior?

But the question was, could she communicate with him telepathically? After months of trying and failing, could she do it now?

She smiled. Yes, things had changed within her.

Antony, she sent, hard and forceful.

She watched him sit up. Parisa? he returned. He scowled and looked around.

I’m here. Outside Mandalay. I’m flying through Rith’s double dome of mist and you’d better be here. Now repeat what I just said. Say it to Jean-Pierre who’s sitting next to you.

He turned to Jean-Pierre. “I’ve just heard from Parisa.” He tapped his head. “She’s flying through two domes of mist, she’s near Mandalay, and I’d better get my ass over there.”

Jean-Pierre’s eyes went wide.

Telepathically, Antony sent, When are you doing this?

In about two minutes.

Shit. I’m coming.

“Let’s rumble,” he said aloud, jumping to his feet.

Medichi looked at his warrior brothers. They’d battled all night and everyone was exhausted. Havily had come and gone with some coffee and pastries so they’d tanked up, but still. Were they up for this?

“Parisa’s escaping … now. She just told me, in my head.”

All movement ceased. Bodies rose slowly off stools and leather couches.

“Where?” Zacharius cried. “Where is she?”