Obsidian Flame (53 page)

James winced then nodded.

Three women appeared, hooded in a way that led Endelle to believe they were being kept from seeing her.

He will need blood,
one of the healers sent.

Endelle didn’t give it a second thought. She dropped to her knees and offered her wrist. The healer closest to her moved to the top of Thorne’s head and gestured with a draped arm for her to take up the position on Thorne’s left.

She leaned down and put her hand on his face. “Come back to me, my friend, my companion. Please. I can’t go forward without you. Second Earth needs you. We’ve always needed you. Forgive me for being the scorpion queen. Just please come back.”

When the healing began, she closed her eyes and let the healers work. One of them took her arm. After half a minute when Thorne latched onto her arm, trashed her skin, then began to suck, she began to weep.

*   *   *

Marguerite knelt between two of the healers, reaching forward to touch the tips of Thorne’s ice-cold fingers. With her free hand she kept wiping at her face. Havily’s blood had restored her thoroughly. She felt more alive than she had in a long time, drugged almost.

And thank God for that, because having seen Thorne in this state, as in deceased, kept sharp claws tearing on the insides of her chest.

Worse. She kept looking at Endelle, whose face was a stream of tears over reddened cheeks. Her black hair hung in a heavy grieving mass down her back, quiet now as opposed to writhing with fury as it had been earlier.

She was an incredible ascender, so powerful and so passionate. Endelle loved Thorne, that much was clear to Marguerite, and the taste of that love felt passionate yet not romantic, which made no sense and yet every sense. They had never been lovers. Thorne had once said that it just would have been too weird even though at various times he said he’d been tempted. Endelle as well.

And why wouldn’t either of them? They were both magnificent.

But Endelle loved him with a passion that transcended romance and sex. She would die for him.

Marguerite shifted her gaze back to Thorne. His fingers were warmer now. She gave thanks. The man she loved was being restored and returned to her. She felt humbled and changed.

Everything felt different to her now, but maybe that always happened when death was met head-on and somehow vanquished.

She leaned forward and slid her fingers farther down his palm. Did his hand twitch?

The stream of power emanating from the healers tingled the hairs on her arm. She looked down the length of his legs. His kilt was hanging partially off him, sliced through. His weapons harness was gone. The shallowest cuts were gone and the deepest ones were simply closing up. His skin wasn’t nearly so pale. Some of the golden color had returned.

Endelle leaned back and drew her bleeding, torn up arm to her chest. Her eyes were bloodshot.

“Endelle, did you do this for me?” The gravelly voice hit the air, striking Marguerite’s heart like a deftly swung mallet.

Thorne.

Marguerite drew in a long deep breath. He was alive. Sobs jerked her chest several times, but she kept them quiet. She just had a feeling.

“You’re back,” Endelle said, wiping at her face.

“Thank you.” He turned to look at her.

Marguerite could hardly keep from pushing the healer next to her aside so that she could throw herself on Thorne, but she couldn’t move, not with Endelle’s face so contorted in grief and pain. The Amazon seemed hardly able to breathe.

Her lips however, did move, as though she was trying to say something, but couldn’t.

She turned and met Marguerite’s gaze. So much pain in those ancient, lined eyes. Her mouth moved once more, but nothing came from between her lips. Finally, she sent,
I give him to you, Marguerite. Take good care of him. He was the sun to my earth. I just didn’t know it.

Marguerite nodded.

Endelle turned back to Thorne, her mouth moving again so strangely, her still-bleeding wrist held against her chest. Finally, she just vanished.

Marguerite heard Thorne groan as though he was in pain. She knew he couldn’t see her because of the robed figures but she could sense that he needed a minute.

This time, his stomach jerked uncontrollably.

She couldn’t imagine what he was experiencing, but that it had to do with Endelle restrained her.

*   *   *

Thorne stared straight up into the ceiling of Endelle’s office. He felt as though his heart had been ripped out of his chest; he just didn’t exactly understand why. But when he’d reawakened to life, he’d turned to look into Endelle’s eyes and it was as though he could see straight into her soul, into every thought she’d ever had, into the absolute depths of her suffering.

Jesus. He hadn’t known, he hadn’t understood what her life had been like all these millennia. She was old, so old, and now, because he’d forced her to sever the mind-link, she was truly alone.

That was what he had seen, the painful breadth of her loneliness, that she’d been battling to keep Second and Mortal Earth safe for thousands of years, long before his arrival two thousand years ago, and that his willingness to serve as her second-in-command for centuries had made him her rock, the anchor that had kept her sane.

And now, he’d done the unthinkable to her: He’d abandoned her.

And yet he’d had to. In order to move forward in his life, perhaps even to save Second Earth, there was nothing he could do but break with her. Marguerite’s presence in his life alone would have demanded it, but even if his
breh
hadn’t shown up as she had, he’d have broken with her. New powers had emerged, and with those powers a new, larger purpose that moved him out of his role as her main support.

Yeah, he had a new role, and as he awoke to a new life, he saw it as clearly as if a vision had taken hold of his mind: He had to build an army and he had to build it fast. In addition, he could feel that his obsidian flame power was meant to serve as a sort of new anchor, but not for one woman this time. Instead, he would support three, and somewhere in all that support he might just be able to defeat Greaves.

He saw and understood all of this as the three hooded figures continued to work on his wounds, to heal him, to restore his life completely.

What a complete miracle life was, this arrival in a body, replete with every emotion and sensation imaginable. To grow from infancy to maturity and to set a path, to walk that path, to stumble and fall on that path, to get distracted from that path, to face death on that path … yes, this was life.

And he’d been given a second chance.

He had a world to love and, God help him, a new world to build if … oh, God, if Endelle, the Warriors of the Blood, the Militia Warriors, and unknown allies could somehow bind together to forge an impenetrable wall against Greaves. But, oh, God, that goal seemed impossible.

But then it was impossible that he lay here, that three healers, not of this dimension, had just brought him back from the dead.

He couldn’t exactly remember what had happened. He felt that there was a lapse in time, a few minutes maybe, for which he simply couldn’t account.

For one thing, he didn’t know how he’d gotten here. For another, Endelle had been weeping, the woman who never wept, like Marguerite.

Dammit, his stomach jerked again. So much pain moved through him that had nothing to do with a tiger ripping him to shreds. No, this was all about Endelle.

In a moment of clarity, he realized he was saying good-bye to her, to the strange shared intimacy that the mind-link had created.

Everything was changing.

He would no longer be the leader of the Warriors of the Blood. He would be something more. Much more.

He glanced at the healers, their faces completely cloaked. As one, they drew their hands back, bowed their heads, and disappeared.

Which left him with … Marguerite.

Her face was a mess as she wiped her eyes. Her white-blond hair was matted with blood and bits of straw. But her body was whole.

He’d died and come back to life. But unlike the other two times, he had no recollection of floating in space and experiencing the beauty of the galaxy. There was just a complete blankness.

“How did I get here?” he asked her.

She scooted closer and took his hand in both of hers. Despite the fact that her nose was swollen and her eyes red, she looked so beautiful to him.

“You don’t remember?”

He looked back at the ceiling. “I remember the cage and the tiger. I remember telling you to get Fiona.”

She filled in the blanks, ending with, “You were dead, Thorne.” More tears tracked her cheeks. “But Endelle freaked, I mean she really freaked out.” She told him the rest, leading up to this moment as she knelt beside him.

Only then did he realize he was feeling a whole lot of fresh air flowing through the room. He sat up and glanced around. All the windows had been blown out. “That glass was bulletproof. So Endelle did that.”

“Yep. And she was exactly the woman you told me she was in that moment. She looked like a Greek goddess out for vengeance. I’m pretty sure if James hadn’t shown up, she would have destroyed this dimension.”

So Endelle had made sure he lived, despite the fact that he’d broken with her.

He squeezed Marguerite’s hand. “There’s so much I didn’t understand until now.”

She nodded. “I feel the same way.”

He squeezed her hand. “I love you.”

She nodded. He watched her swallow hard. “I love you, too, Thorne. I didn’t understand just how much until we were trapped with that beast. I … I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“For making your life a misery for the past few weeks.”

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. He kept his eyes closed and pressed their joined hands to his chest. When he opened his eyes he wiped her cheeks, one after the other, and said, “I want to complete the
breh-hedden
with you. I want that more than anything else in the world but I would never force you. Never.”

She put her hand on his cheek. “I know you wouldn’t. That’s something I finally figured out. I have freedom with you, Thorne. I have freedom with Endelle. She tried to tell me that the night you and Jean-Pierre busted me out of the Superstition Seers Fortress. She said she’d give me autonomy. I’d just never had that before and I honestly didn’t believe her, but I know I was wrong. Endelle would have kept her word. And you? In all this time, you’ve never tried to corral me. Not once.”

He leaned into her and kissed her very wet lips. “I love you so much. When we were in that cage together, it finally dawned on me just how much I love you—I mean really love you and need you—and how much wonderful peace you’ve always brought to my life. I was so weighed down with a sense of responsibility about everything that I didn’t see all that I’d been given or how well I’m supported. You’ve been a huge support in my life. I see that now.”

“Ditto,” she murmured.

He kissed her again.

She took a deep breath. “I want to go all the way with you as well, no matter what the
breh-hedden
means. Even if it means we’re joined at the hip.” She lifted up and moved into him, sliding onto his lap until he held her in his arms and she was kissing him. “Even if it meant I had to wear a stupid ankle guard, Thorne, I’d do it for you and you know why? Because I trust you. With all my heart, I trust you.”

He kissed her again but when she pulled back he said, “What is it? You’ve tensed up. A vision?”

She shook her head. “I guess I’m just a little worried about what the
breh-hedden
will mean, what it will be like.”

“I know. I don’t think either of us enjoys the unknown all that much.”

Marcus appeared in the doorway. “Hey.” He stared hard at Thorne, that slash of brows over light brown eyes. “Well, damn my ass, she brought you back.”

Thorne twisted to look at him. Marguerite slid off his lap and he stood up next to her. “Not sure exactly how it happened, but yeah, she did.”

Marguerite said, “Healers from Sixth came and brought Thorne back. Once he was safe, Endelle dematerialized. She was pretty upset.”

“Okay. Okay.” He nodded several times, but he swallowed hard. “Shit, boss … we thought … damn…”

He crossed to Marcus and put his hand on the brother’s shoulder.

Marcus released a rush of air then suddenly Thorne was just being hugged hard. “We thought it was over, all of it. You were so
gone.
”

“I know. I know. But I’m here and Marcus, things are going to change. Let everyone know. Okay? Yeah, we’ve got a shitload of work to do, but things are going to change.”

Marcus pulled back and jerked his head up and down a few times. He sniffed and flared his nostrils. He looked anywhere but at Thorne.

Thorne laughed. Marcus knew how to front. They all did.

“So what time is it? I mean how long was I gone? How long did this whole thing take?”