Wings of Fire (23 page)

She glanced up at him again, her eyes flying open. “That’s not true.”

“There is a current thought that suggests our mental shields reflect our life in some way. Maybe you need to ask yourself why your shields are like steel.”

Parisa had to admit it made some sense. She met Antony’s gaze again, but this time she smiled. “Do all preternatural powers have some basis in neuroses?”

At that he laughed. “You’d have to ask Alison. She’s the psychologist, but it’s an interesting theory. A more accurate word, I think, might be personality. You have something of an analytical mind. Your tendency to shield like a citizen of the third dimension and not Second Earth might have something to do with that.”

She sighed and focused not on her fear or her disinclination to lower her shields or whatever the hell this was, but instead on the woman who had come running out of Rith’s house begging for her help. She couldn’t be of use to Fiona if she didn’t learn some battle skills. She had to be ready to defend herself, even in a limited way. As soon as Central got a fix on Fiona’s location, the warriors would need her voyeur skills on-site, and she would be there.

Maybe it was remembering Fiona’s desperation or her terrible death and resurrection, but she took Antony’s hands and placed them on her cheeks. “Let’s just do this,” she said, her jaw tight. And without debating the damn subject one more second, she let her shields fall, like gravity tugging apples straight down.

Antony’s battle memories didn’t rush at her. Instead, they came in a long slow glide. When the first image hit, of standing beneath a starlit sky at the Superstition Mountains, of Jean-Pierre beside him, of three death vampires in the air and four on the ground, she breathed in each passing frame like a sweet breeze.

She lived the battle with him and felt the strength of his emotional web, the pure adrenaline of a Warrior of the Blood, of his simple intention of making all the horrible monsters in front of him very dead. She felt all his expertise of having wielded a sword and a dagger for thirteen centuries. She experienced exactly how his body reacted while facing the enemy, the flexing of all the powerful muscles of his arms, back, shoulders, thighs, and calves; how he performed impossible feats of speed, of dematerialization, of whirling, of levitation, of strength. How he worked in tandem with Jean-Pierre, always marking the brother warrior’s location to keep both of them safe and battling at peak performance. She saw the ground in front of him run red. She saw bodies and severed parts and feathers and wings scattered across the desert, a painting on a macabre canvas worthy of the worst of horror films.

She drew in deep breaths as though she were running a race, inhaling along with him in the memory, sucking in air.

Within the memory, she felt Antony fold a cloth from the villa, a stack that he kept next to his weapons locker, and with it he wiped down his sword as well as his dagger. She felt him call Jeannie and heard the woman’s matter-of-fact voice repeating his commands to remove the battle debris. She closed her eyes with him, saw the flash behind her closed eyelids, opened her eyes,
his eyes,
and marveled at the clean earth.

The memory ended, almost too abruptly. Antony began to withdraw from her mind, which felt like a long pull of taffy until the stretch thinned, then broke. She stepped back and bobbed her head. “That was so strange.”

When he didn’t say anything, she looked up at him. His lips were parted, swollen. “I liked being in there,” he murmured, his voice like tumbling into a deep well.

She drew in a soft breath as sage surrounded her, pelted her, touched her in deep private places.

“I’d like to be there again.” He moved closer, less than an inch away.

She shivered and felt her body respond to this very sensual invitation, but she had other concerns on her mind. “Hold that thought, Warrior.”

“Right, right.”

She understood. He couldn’t exactly control all that was happening to him because of the
breh-hedden.

She took a small step back and met his gaze. She even put her hand on his chest as though holding him back.

“Are you all right?” he asked. Just like that the sage receded.

“I’m not sure. It was amazing. I experienced what you felt while battling, and I’m not even upset about what I saw.”

“But you’re distressed. I can feel it.”

She blinked a few times. How could she tell him that what bothered her had to do not with the battle images but with how close he was standing to her, that he had already expressed how much he’d like to be inside her head again.

It occurred to her in a swift flash that her life had never been about
again,
but more like
never-again.
For whatever reason, a collage of her own memories shot in front of her eyes, of being a child and later a teenager, the number of times she’d been taken out of school, right in the middle of class, and moved across country. In her entire life, she’d never been in a situation where she could develop long-term friendships, except at work. Even then she kept her personal life separate.

Later, when she’d fallen in love, she was convinced her college sweetheart, Jason, was the one; whatever her life had been before, love had found her and she would build a new life with him. Then he’d walked out that last night. He’d called her inaccessible, which had made no sense to her. She had opened her heart to him and he’d left. So, yeah,
never again.

But why was she thinking of this now?

“Parisa, what is it?” He frowned now, heavily.

She shook her head. She didn’t know what to say to him. “I’m not sure.”

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I … it’s just it was such a strange experience.” She couldn’t tell him the truth: that sharing his memory like that had left her frightened of something she couldn’t explain. She just didn’t want to be that close … to anyone.

So she ordered her mind and walked away from him, swinging her arms about and focusing on the feel of the memory. In other words, she changed the subject. “Even when I walk, I’m feeling your muscles in my arms and legs. It’s extraordinary, Antony. Do you think I could try wielding a sword now? And I’d like to practice throwing a dagger as well.”

***

Medichi stared at Parisa, at
his woman.
He had never felt as far from her as he did now. For him the sharing of his battle memories had been sexy as hell, and he wanted more. In fact he wanted it so much he could taste it, but was it him or just the horrible demand of the
breh-hedden
?

It hardly mattered. Parisa had shut him down. She’d closed up her mind and shut him down.

On the other hand, maybe it was for the best. What was he to her, anyway, but her Guardian of Ascension, the warrior assigned to keep her safe? Yes, he was her
breh,
just as she was his. But wasn’t that all just destiny bullshit?

Parisa would be wise to keep her distance, shore up her defenses, turn him down. This was war. One long horrible war.

Fine. Then he’d teach her to make war.

He had several swords in his weapons locker. Only one was identified, which meant the rest would be perfectly safe for Parisa to handle. Identified swords were deadly weapons designed specifically for battling death vampires. If anyone but the swords owner touched the hilt or cross-guard, it would result in death.

The only exception was Alison, who had endured a one-on-one battle with Warrior Leto, a former Warrior of the Blood. Alison had brought
his
sword into her hand and somehow, through power he had never seen before on Second Earth, recalibrated the identification before the grip touched her palm.

He wasn’t taking the chance that Parisa had that power. She was clearly a preternaturally exceptional ascender, but yeah, he wasn’t taking chances.

For practice, therefore, he brought two unidentified swords and a dagger into his hands.

The swords were warrior-big and because Parisa had much smaller hands than even most Militia Warriors, the sword seemed disproportionate.

But the moment he gave it to her, she fell easily into the rhythm of his battle moves. She stepped away from him and went through a series of thrusts and blocks. He shook his head and smiled. Sometimes the vampire abilities astonished him, even after living on Second Earth for over thirteen hundred years. To receive his memories as she had and make use of them like this was simply amazing.

***

Jean-Pierre stood on the lawn beside Havily, but at a discreet distance from Medichi and Parisa. The newly created ascender was determined to become a warrior as quickly as possible. She had asked her Guardian of Ascension therefore to give her some of his memories, mind-to-mind, and by the way Parisa now swung her sword in large perfect arcs, the experiment was quite successful.

Havily ground her teeth. “Do you see how simple this could be?” She held the practice sword in her right hand, the tip aimed at the dirt.

He turned to her and smiled. “I take it Marcus does not know you are here?”

She snorted. “He would skin me alive.”

“So, you did not tell him. Instead, you asked me to accompany you, but your
breh
does not know?”

She had the good grace to blush.

He continued, “
Soeurette,
your man will not wish me to show you how to throw the dagger or hold a sword. He does not approve.”

She sighed. “I don’t care anymore, Jean-Pierre. I must learn how to fight. He can’t be with me every minute of the day, and we’re at war.”

“Yes, but—” He looked at her. Insight pierced his skull. “
Cherie, non, non, non!
Tell me you do not expect me to share memories with you? If I entered your mind, a most intimate act, then
oui,
he would kill me, a blade straight through my heart. I would not like that.”

The lovely redhead lifted her chin, fire rolling from her eyes. “I must learn to defend myself. You saw what happened to Parisa. Rith found a way to trick her to folding out of the palace.
Out of the palace.
”

“But I am not the one you need to convince.”

“He will not listen to reason and I’m desperate.”

Merde
. What was he supposed to do? Marcus was his friend now. All had been forgiven. The past was as if it had never been, and for that the Warriors of the Blood had Havily to thank.

She had brought Marcus back into the fold three months ago. She had allowed the
breh-hedden
to take her for a magnificent ride and then she had ridden the beast to its knees. She would always be
soeurette
to the Warriors of the Blood.

But this? He could not do it, not to his brother, so he lifted a brow to her. She lifted her chin in response.

He chuckled. There was so much to like about Havily. Even her name was a delight for his hopeless French accent. “He would be very angry with me,
cherie.
I cannot do it.”

She drew a deep breath that swelled her chest. She held that breath for a moment then let it fly out as though carrying her irritation with it. “Marcus has no say in this. We may be bonded but I am not the dirt beneath his shoes.”

Jean-Pierre grinned. “The dirt beneath his shoes? That is very good. I will tell him you said that.”

A shout of triumph drew his attention back to Parisa. While Jean-Pierre had stood arguing with Havily, Antony had folded a target to the front yard. The dagger now rested not far from the bull’s-eye.

“See,” Havily cried, gesturing with a toss of her arm in the direction of the target. “And now, I politely request that you download your battle memories straight into my brain because this sword feels ridiculous in my hands. I might as well be holding a log.”

He shook his head. “I am willing to teach you the skills of the sword but I tell you again, Marcus would put a blade through my heart if he knew I had entered your mind so … intimately.”

Havily rolled her eyes and groaned. She gestured with a slice of her left hand toward Medichi and Parisa. “But that is what I need to be doing right now. Look at her. It’s as though she’s been wielding a sword for centuries.”

His gaze slid to Parisa. It was true. He had seen Kerrick give his memories to Alison all those months ago, and the result had been the same—quite magnificent. It would seem that because both Parisa and Alison were powerful, and could receive the memories from one mind to the next, they could learn the battling skills in the flutter of an eyelash.

He sighed. He wished he could oblige Havily, but he could not.

“Well,” Havily said. “I can see you intend to be as stubborn as my
breh,
so I guess I’ll just have to find Luken. He’ll do it for me. He’d do anything for me.”

Jean-Pierre gasped. “You would not wound him so,” he cried. Luken had been in love with Havily since he’d served as her Guardian of Ascension over a century ago. “To invite such intimacy when you know that his heart calls to you—”

Havily met his gaze. “I was the one trapped in a forge with a madman draining the blood out of me. I know why Parisa has insisted on being trained to fight. Neither you, nor Marcus, nor Antony, knows what it’s like to feel so powerless.”

“But were you not drugged? How could you have fought such a man anyway?”

Havily glared at him. “I have thought about this a lot, Jean-Pierre. There was a split second when Crace grabbed me during the Ambassadors Festival that I could have fought him. Instead I froze, and he carried me away. I didn’t even think to struggle in his arms. Maybe if I’d had a few skills, even how to handle a dagger, I could have folded a blade into my hand, sliced his arm, and escaped. I don’t know. But I didn’t even have the option. That’s what I want here, enough skill to have a chance if another death vampire attacks me. You warriors are so physically big, so powerful, you can’t imagine anything else.”

He stared into her intense light green eyes. He had not considered how impotent she must have felt. He could not imagine what she had endured in Crace’s terrible forge.

After a long moment, he nodded. Finally, he withdrew his Epic phone from the pocket of his jeans. He held a finger up to Havily. “I have an idea but you must be quiet. Will you be silent for a moment?”