Obsidian Flame (41 page)

“No. I think it
is
the myth.” He held his hands out to her. She took them, and he drew her back into the tub to rinse off.

Marguerite splashed in the water, then floated. He pushed on her shoulder, hip, or ankle and spun in her circles, moving away from her as necessary. She giggled and released very deep sighs. She looked happy.

The bathroom had a grotto-like appearance, with all the dark, rough gray stone and deeply inset ceiling lights.

“Do you know what I’d like?” she asked.

“No. What?”

“A nap. Maybe all afternoon until Alison’s dinner.”

Some great happiness within Thorne’s chest pushed at two thousand years of defensive bulwarks. An ease began to flow through him and he could breathe, really breathe. He helped her step out of the pool, followed after her, then folded a huge fluffy bath sheet into his hands to wrap her up.

She stood with her eyelids hanging low, but she was smiling. Her short blond hair was pushed straight back, which made her brown eyes appear huge in her face.

He dried off as well, then he led her to the bed, folding the covers back with his mind.

She looked around. “I need something to wear.”

“Why?”

Her gaze snapped to his face, then she laughed. “A hundred years of Convent training. Well, fuck that.” She dropped the towel and dove into bed, which gave him a fine view of her ass. He followed her.

Funny how she opened her arms and grabbed him, latching onto his neck with her mouth and sucking over his vein hard. At the same time, she pushed him onto his back, which was very easy for her to do since he sensed the direction of her thoughts and had no will to resist her.

Within a minute, he slid into all her beautiful rose wetness as she moaned and once more took his blood down her throat. He held on to her waist as he pumped into her, keeping her seated and enjoying the ride all over again.

Because he had come so recently, and all the nerve endings of his cock were still beautifully enflamed, this orgasm was almost more exquisite than the last two, which seemed impossible.

He held her for a long, long time afterward, keeping himself inside her and savoring that in such a position she simply fell asleep in his arms, satisfied and content.

He could stay this way forever, his woman in his arms, his maleness keeping his essence inside her, the soft mounds of her breasts warm against his chest.

He fell asleep and dreamed.

He led an army of thousands. No … millions.

Militia Warriors and a group he didn’t recognize but he thought,
Underground.

He flew at the head of this army that covered the skies for miles and miles both in depth and breadth.

He flew holding his sword aloft and in front, away from the vast sweep of his enormous silver wings. But the wings had flames now, dark iridescent gray against the silver.

He woke up with a start. He was now on his side, spooning Marguerite. He glanced at the clock on the dresser opposite. He’d been asleep for several hours; it was just after four.

He tried to recall the dream in its particulars, but he could only capture the images in brief flashes. All that he could really remember was the size of the army—vast—and the feeling that it was one of several armies all in flight, all at the same time, some under a dark night sky, others in full daylight.

The end of everything.

Or the beginning of peace and the eradication of all death vampires from two dimensions.

Purpose began to flow through his veins, a very deep abiding purpose, something large that filled his chest with fire and made the muscles of his limbs tense and release, tense and release.

Marguerite awoke with a start and pushed away from him, sliding from bed and staring at him. “What’s happening to you? I suddenly felt like I was being burned.”

He didn’t know. The sensation was acute, however, and full of heat. He slid to the side of the bed but remained seated, his feet flat on the cool stone floor. He put his head in his hands and took deep breaths. He felt sick to his stomach, and a pain began to build within his head.

Marguerite drew close and put a hand on his shoulder. “Thorne, what’s wrong. Look at me. Talk to me.”

He met her gaze through a veil of pain. “I don’t know.”

She put her hand on his forehead, then said, “Oh, God, I’m having a vision.”

*   *   *

Marguerite felt the vision press in on her, but then stop and remain outside of what she now knew was her obsidian flame power. She called her power forth, as though wrapping it around her shoulders.

She saw the ribbon and knew that it belonged to Thorne, an elegant silver and gray, but iridescent. It rose to a vast height, something that generally the ribbons never did. She intuited that Thorne was in the process of change, big change, enormous change. She wondered suddenly if he was destined to ascend to Third Earth. He had been on Second Earth a long time, and he was very powerful. It was possible, but for the moment she set that aside.

Without hesitating, she dove inside the ribbon to see what the future streams were shouting about.

The vision came in slow steady images, of Thorne leading a huge army, in the sky, in the lead, his sword outstretched.

The vision shifted and there was Greaves’s army led by a man she didn’t know, who had waves of red hair flowing behind him. His eyes were a light blue, and power radiated from him in dark waves. She felt the weight of his darkness like a suffocating blanket in the future streams.

The image shifted back to Thorne and this time she saw the gray flame markings on his wings, and his wings had become enormous. They even billowed with what looked like silver flames from the tips.

Then she understood.

Obsidian flame.

By the time she pulled out of the vision, Thorne had dropped to the floor and was rolling in pain.

Thorne.

Oh, God. My head. There’s so much pain.

Thorne, can you hear me?

Yes.

Thorne, I have to break through to your obsidian flame power.

What … the fuck?

You’re obsidian flame, not the triad but some other kind. I need to pierce you and to release your power or you’ll die.

A long pause, then,
Do … it.

She pushed against his mind but couldn’t get in. She shouted telepathically,
Release your shields.

The shields began to lower and as soon as they did she felt what he was feeling. She recoiled. He was in so much pain.

She pushed on, however, forging her way through and searching for the source, the center of his mind. She found a pulsing ball of light.

Instinctively she knew what had to be done.

She summoned her obsiddy power, opening her mind and letting it release then sharpen, forging a kind of vast blade.
Now,
she cried.

She let the sword-shaped power release, straight at the enormous round structure. Her power split the membrane, which created a peeling-back effect so that light and power and heat released in a sudden broad stream up and up.

The nature of it catapulted her out of his mind so that she ended up being thrown back on the bed.

She felt disoriented but what went through her mind was:
How can he survive this?

She sat up and saw the back of his head, because he was now sitting on the floor. She scooted off the bed and dropped down beside him. His eyes were wide as he stared at the wall opposite. He didn’t seem to be aware of his surroundings.

She pushed at his shoulder. “Thorne, can you hear me?”

For a good long moment, all she could think was that she needed to get Horace here as quickly as possible.

Thorne’s skin felt cool to the touch.

Way too cool.

She rose up, shaking. He wasn’t present in his body. He had somehow left his body, which could only mean that if he didn’t return pronto, he would die. She could feel it, sense it.

She had to get help.

Thorne kept his warrior phone on his nightstand. She looked around and there it was. She folded it into her hand and thumbed, as she’d seen him thumb.

“Central, how can I help?”

“Is this Jeannie?”

“Jeannie works the night shift, this is Carla. And you are—?”

“Marguerite. Thorne’s in trouble. I broke open his obsiddy power but he’s in some kind of death-like trance. I need Horace, maybe Alison. Endelle, shit, I don’t know.”

“I’m getting a fix on you now. Stay on the com. I’m calling all three entities. Thorne’s house is a protected dwelling. I don’t see any death vampire activity. Were you attacked?”

“No. It’s his emerging power.”

“Stay on the line.”

A blankness began, a quiet that scorched every nerve in her body. She still sat beside him so she rubbed his arm, his shoulder, his chest, but he was getting colder by the second. “No, no, no,” she whispered. “Stay with me.”

“Marguerite,” Carla said. “You have incoming. Horace and Alison. Behind you. Turn around please.”

She whipped around and they both arrived at the same time. Alison’s blond hair was in complete disarray and Horace’s eyes were puffy from sleep.

Neither said anything, they just moved past her close to Thorne. Only as she stood there with the phone still pinned to her ear did she realize she and Thorne were both naked. As if she cared. Thorne sure as hell wouldn’t.

But maybe the others would.

Carla came back on the line again. “Endelle’s coming in three, two, one.”

She shimmered to life right next to Marguerite wearing a very simple long purple gown.

Endelle looked her up and down and lifted her brows. “What happened. You fuck him to death, or what?” But for all that sarcasm, her eyes looked tight.

Marguerite wasn’t certain whether she should reveal the truth about Thorne’s new power to all three ascenders or not, but she finally just said it straight out. “Obsidian flame.”

Endelle frowned, but she kept her gaze on Thorne. “You killed him with your obsidian flame power? I don’t understand.”

“No. Thorne has his own version of obsidian flame power.”

“That’s … not … possible. Wait a minute. When he and I were having our little tiff, and he was flying around, his wings had flames, very faint but they were silvery gray.”

“There, you see?”

“Fine. All right, Alison, what have we got here? Horace, I need a report.”

Alison leaned back. She wore jeans and an enormous T-shirt, probably one of Kerrick’s. She shook her head. “He’s not here.”

“What the fuck do you mean?”

“He’s not in this body.”

Horace turned around. “His body is barely alive. It’s as though his spirit departed. Can you tell us what happened?” His gaze flicked over Marguerite’s body and his cheeks colored up.

She rolled her eyes and folded her leathers on. He released a deep breath. She explained, “Well, we weren’t having sex, if that’s what you’re thinking. We’d done that earlier, of course, then we both fell asleep. The next thing I knew, my skin felt like I’d been torched and I jumped out of bed. Thorne was beginning this whole weird thing. He moved to sit at the edge of the bed and his head started to hurt really bad.

“I received a future stream warning that something big was going down, and this is what was going down. He was coming into his obsidian flame power, which neither of us knew about, and I had to do that thing that he’d already done to me and that Endelle had done to Fiona. I had to break open his power, it’s part of the process. Maybe … maybe I punched too hard.”

“Ya think?” Endelle sniped.

But Marguerite wasn’t offended. She would own up to the truth, even if it meant she’d killed her boyfriend, but she hadn’t. “No, Endelle, I knew what I was doing. And I would do it again. If you want, you can do a mind-dive and see the whole thing for yourself.”

The Supreme High Administrator of Second Earth sighed heavily. “No, you have the smell of truth about you. Alison, you’re up. What do we do? How do we get him back?”

Alison met Endelle’s gaze. “He has to want to come back.”

“What?” Marguerite all but shouted. “Are you saying right in this moment he doesn’t
want
to come back? Oh, no, this is so not happening.”

“You go, girl,” Endelle murmured.

Alison sat back on her heels. She met Marguerite’s gaze. “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. He doesn’t want to come back.”

Marguerite moved to stand in front of Thorne. He was dead. Sitting there, her vampire boyfriend was dead. And Alison was suggesting that it was because he didn’t want to come back.