She wrinkled up her nose. “How about I just donate some eggs?”

“Can’t justify the medical expense to the committee without them finding out what I’m up to. Now, just to keep you informed, I will need a little oral stimulation to get things firmed up. If you refuse, I must warn you, I have about a dozen different ways to make you willing to do what needs to be done.”

He drew close, which was a good thing, because she just smiled, reached for his left ball, and squeezed. She decided then and there that Owen Stannett must be something of an idiot to have allowed her to get this close and think she would just acquiesce.

His face turned the color of his leather jacket, pants, and briefs fast, much faster than the scream left his throat. She didn’t stop squeezing, either. She just held on and waited. He hit her arm, hard, but she added a little twist to the experience.

Nature had given the physically weaker woman a simple way to sustain balance in any relationship with a man.

She kept holding, squeezing, and twisting until the bastard passed out and dropped to the floor.

She sank down beside him and burrowed into his mind. She found him curled up and sucking his mental thumb, whimpering. She sent, You always were a bit of a lightweight. Now let’s get one thing straight. I’ve been keeping a lot of secrets from you over the years, so I’m going to share a couple of them with you now. I have darkening abilities. You know what those are, right? Which means that if you ever pull this shit on me again, I’m coming after you in the darkening, and I’ll find you because we inhabit the same facility. I also recently discovered that I’m the red variety of obsidian flame. Now, I haven’t begun to explore those abilities, but I suspect there’s enough power somewhere in my mind or my body to make a goddam eunuch out of you.

So what do you say, Stanny? Are you going to leave me alone or is this just going to be the beginning of a long, painful, contentious relationship?

Even though she was just in his mind, she felt him look at her, really look at her. Good.

After a long moment, he nodded. Truce, he sent.

Like hell he’d leave her alone. All she’d done was buy herself some time. He’d probably drug the first meal she ate.

Not to be too cliché, but man did she need to get the hell out of this place. Stannett made sister-bitch look like Mother Teresa.

* * *

Jean-Pierre once more stood near the door in Endelle’s office, his arms over his chest, monitoring Endelle’s actions with Fiona. She had made her apologies and did not wink or smile when she said them so he could only presume she was somewhat sincere. It did not mean that her behavior would remain respectful, but for now she seemed to be very serious with Fiona, asking her many questions about her channeling experiences so far.

While they spoke, Thorne paced in front of the far enormous plate-glass window, the one that overlooked the desert to the east. He stopped in his pacing and turned to face the windows, his hands on his hips. Jean-Pierre observed the slight lowering of the warrior’s shoulders. Despair.

Jean-Pierre knew what was to the east, far to the east: the Superstition Mountain Seers Fortress.

From the moment Jean-Pierre had learned that Thorne had made a devotiate from the Convent his lover, and that he had been with her for a hundred years, Jean-Pierre had questioned what was really happening to his brother. Thorne denied that Marguerite was his breh. He insisted she was too short and did not have a scent that he could perceive. He believed she was just a woman he made love to and cared about, even loved. Oui, he confessed to loving her very much. But he did not believe she was fated to be his vampire bond-mate.

So why then did Thorne once more pace in front of the east window and why did he seem so lost to his surroundings. Jean-Pierre knew those sensations, an almost desperate anxious need to get to his woman. He felt certain these were Thorne’s present thoughts.

Because Fiona and Endelle seemed to be conversing without hostility, he crossed the room to join the brother by the window but was not very surprised when Thorne started and stared at him as though he had seen a specter. He even held his right hand up as though to draw his sword into his hand.

“You seem a little tense,” Jean-Pierre said.

Thorne released a terrible huff of air. “You noticed, huh?”

“You are thinking of Marguerite,” he said in a low voice.

“Of course. Stannett—” He paused, blinked a couple of times and huffed another piece of air. “He’s a real shit. He has a long, difficult history in the world. Damn, I knew him when he was kept as a slave in a rogue lair for a century, really bad shit. But he had Seer ability and went into a Fortress after that. He rose in the ranks. His prophecies had a really high accuracy rate, in the high eighties.

He shook his head, then continued, “Greaves is a real bastard. I mean the worst. But you have a pretty good idea what he’s going to do next, like even if he’s devious, he’s out front with it, if that makes sense.

“Stannett, shit, he’s not right in the head. Not that Greaves is either, but Stannett’s just plain old fucked up.”

“And he has your woman.”

Thorne shook his head. His eyes were red-rimmed and pinched as he stared out into the growing morning light of the vast creosote wasteland beyond the window. “She’s not my woman. I mean, she is, but not like Fiona is yours.”

“So you have said.”

At that he turned to scowl at Jean-Pierre. “You don’t believe me?”

Jean-Pierre shrugged. “I do not know what to believe about the breh-hedden except that it is a terrible master.”

“Then I hope I never have to endure it because this is bad enough.”

“You fear for her safety.”

“I do. She may have hated the Convent, but she was safe there. She’s under a man’s thumb now, a very powerful, dangerous man, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “This is hell.”

Endelle called from across the room. “I hate to break up your little tête-à-tête, boys, but I’ve got work to do. Jean-Pierre, take Fiona over to Militia HQ. Thorne, you can head to bed.”

Thorne turned back to her. “But you’re going over to the Fortress, right?”

“Damn straight. Stannett is giving me access, that’s the deal.”

“Fine. Fine.” He pulled the cadroen from his hair and scrubbed the sides of his head until his hair hung loose well past his shoulders. “Fuck. I’m heading to Sedona. Call if you need me.”

He didn’t even lift his arm. He just vanished.

Jean-Pierre glanced at Endelle. She stared into the empty space where Thorne had been. For just a moment, her face began to collapse, the muscles of her cheeks sagging, her lips drooping. Then she gave herself a shake and turned back to Fiona. “I want you working with Jean-Pierre this afternoon. Of all the warriors, he seems to have an ability to assess the powers of others and to draw them out. I’ve often wished he had the Third Earth facilitation power, but I’ve never known a Second ascender who possessed that shit. Whatever.

“As for Alison, she’s been whining about not spending enough time with Helena so I only get her services for about four hours in the afternoon.”

Fiona’s lips quirked. “Hey. I thought you said there’s no whining in ascension. Forgive me, Your Supremeness, but that sounded damn close to a whine.”

Jean-Pierre felt certain he needed to give Fiona a hint about not poking at rattlesnakes or scorpions, but for some reason Endelle laughed. “All right, smart-ass, get the hell out of here and take your boyfriend with you.”

Jean-Pierre did not need to be invited a second time. He crossed the room quickly to Fiona and slid his left arm around her waist. “Ready, chérie?”

She smiled and nodded. He lifted his arm and felt the smooth, swishing glide through nether-space, his heart warm as he held Fiona next to him. For this moment, she was here, she was with him, and she was safe.

* * *

Fiona strove to settle her temper down. Her boyfriend had been working her channeling powers for the past two hours, but now he wanted to attempt something new, something he was certain she could do. But she wasn’t having it, not one little bit.

“Even if I could let a possession occur,” she cried. “The hell I will.”

Jean-Pierre wanted her to see if together they could take her obsidian flame abilities to the next level, one that involved possession, in which he would slide the metaphysical part of his being over hers, possess her, and make use of her powers in concert with his.

No way in hell and all this session had done was taken her temper down to a cold hard place. Her boyfriend, it seemed, took any kind of training seriously, and right now he was really pissing her off. “I won’t do it. I won’t.”

“Having ascended in 1793, I am still young by ascended terms,” he said, his chin low, his eyes glittering in the dim light of the room. “But this I can tell you: Each power you have must be pushed to its limits, its farthest boundaries. This is one of the lessons of our world. To hold back in this way can allow the enemy an advantage, a terrible advantage.”

She pinched her lips together. “I don’t see how.”

“Because the more powerful you are, the more the enemy will want you dead. If your powers are not fully expressed, then do you not see how you are left exposed like a weak flank in an offensive? That is where the enemy will attack, hurting you where you are at your most vulnerable.”

Fiona turned away from him and paced in front of the closed blinds. Seriffe had given them the same room as before, but the door was closed and she was alone with Jean-Pierre. At first, she thought it might be difficult given the I-can’t-keep-my-hands-off-you nature of the breh-hedden, but almost from the beginning Jean-Pierre had browbeaten her with her need to engage more fully with obsidian flame.

What he said sort of made sense. “This is just all so new to me. The day I left the hospital, I was floating because I thought now I could have a life, you know, maybe work as a waitress, something simple, basic, straightforward. Start over.” She chuckled, “You know, fly under the radar.” So much irony since she couldn’t even mount her wings. Whatever. “Now I’m something that I can’t really begin to comprehend, obsidian flame, and you’re here telling me I have to allow a kind of possession in order to truly express my powers.