His gaze slid to the carpet of needles. “Shit,” he murmured.

“I feel compelled to try to contact her right now,” Fiona said. “With your permission.”

He gave a small shake of his head then stopped himself. “By all means.”

With all the men still watching her, she closed her eyes and focused on the Convent once more. She lowered her telepathic shields and at first was bombarded by the thoughts of every woman within the building. One by one, she shut them down, searching for Marguerite, until the last mind disappeared. Then there was nothing. Just nothing.

She shook her head. “I can’t find her. I don’t hear her.”

“But you communicated with her mind-to-mind before?” Thorne asked.

“Yes.”

He whistled. “That’s a helluva lot of power, Fiona. But as you know, my sister, Grace, lives here in this Convent. She’s said that not only is telepathic communication forbidden, but if it’s discovered by one of the administrators, punishment can follow.”

“You think that’s what happened to … this woman? The one called Marguerite?” She’d spoken her name before and felt compelled to say it now.

“Given all that Grace has told me over the years, yes, I believe that’s what happened. The Convent has numerous barbaric policies, and a band of enforcement sisters called regulators administer justice for every infraction.”

Fiona felt ill, her stomach turning over. She held Thorne’s gaze. “Is it possible this woman is kept imprisoned here?”

He shook his head. “It’s not as simple as that. Some of the women are placed here by well-meaning relatives. This might have been the case with the woman who contacted you.”

Again her stomach writhed. She had been within the woman’s mind, and though she detected a certain wildness of spirit, there was nothing cruel about her. The fact that she had gone so far as to deliver the warning spoke of her character more than anything else could have. “Whatever the case,” Fiona said, “this woman saved all our lives here this morning.”

“Hear, hear,” Zach said. Each of the men followed suit.

She met Jean-Pierre’s gaze and offered a half smile. “But what I’d really like right now is a drink.” She shifted her gaze to encompass the group. “Any of you boys have an idea where I could get one?”

“Hell, yeah,” Luken said.

“To the Cave.” This time, Santiago lifted his fist in the air.

The warriors all shifted to look at Thorne, since he always had the last word. Fiona knew that generally women weren’t invited to share a drink at what was essentially the private, very male-oriented rec room.

But he met Fiona’s gaze for a long tense moment, then nodded. “To the Cave.”

After the warriors folded their swords back to protected lockers, the men one by one lifted arms and vanished.

Jean-Pierre took Fiona’s hand. She met his gaze and nodded to him. His ocean-blue eyes were lit with fire. “Shall I do the honors?” he asked.

He was polite, and she valued that. “Yes, please.”

He returned her half smile and the vibration began.

Once at the Cave, a large building in downtown Metro Phoenix Two, Fiona accepted a vodka and tonic from Santiago.

She took a deep breath and let the tension of the recent battle go.

* * *

Casimir held a chilled martini glass by the stem; Dubonnet, London dry gin, a slice of lemon. He struggled to understand exactly what he was feeling.

He held the mass of his hair back and sipped. He stood on the balcony of his room at the Plaza Athénée and since it was already night in Paris he had a view of the Eiffel Tower, glittering like a diamond. He loved the noise of the Mortal Earth city below. Nothing like this existed on Fourth Earth Paris. The population of the fourth dimension did not begin to approach Mortal Earth so there was no need for Paris Four to have this delicious crammed-together sensibility.

He was a vampire of simple emotions. Lust usually led the way. But ever since he’d agreed to assist Commander Greaves in his efforts to take over Second Earth, something within his soul had shifted. In the five thousand years of his absurd life, he’d never been quite this driven to see a task accomplished.

He had to admit he was pissed off by events of an hour ago, in real-time Arizona Two. Eighty death vampires and not one Warrior of the Blood so much as scratched.

He’d been convinced there would be at least one kill, but apparently he was shit out of luck.

Fuck.

Julianna slid her arms around him from behind. “You are very tense. Let me braid your hair.”

“Do you need me to hunt tonight?” Hunting would be a good thing to do given his current state.

“Yes,” she whispered against his shoulder. “I’m hungry for all the prey you bring home and everything we’ll do together. You have seduced me, Caz. Please hunt tonight.”

“Maybe.”

“You’re tense,” she said, biting his bare shoulder. He still wore his leather vest. “Didn’t the slaughter at the Convent go well?”

He was angry and something more. “Not by half.” He turned into her, holding his martini glass aloft. Her hand slid low, right where he wanted it. She squeezed a little too hard, just the way he liked it.

He hissed.

“Tell me everything,” she cooed. “Let me make you feel better.” She rubbed. He kissed her forehead.

“You ease me, Ju-Ju. I didn’t expect this when I bartered for you.” She was the price he had required of Greaves in order to come on board.

She pouted and stopped her ministrations. “Please don’t remind me.”

She walked away. She was still unhappy about having left Greaves, but he didn’t know why. He knew she was relatively content, even satisfied being with him, that she enjoyed him, yet she would express her displeasure and he was always surprised.

She wore a loose white silk top, cut to reveal her perfect cleavage, and matching flowy pants, very wide at the ankle. She had on strappy white heels with little squares of gold down the instep. She curled up on the gold silk couch, her hands clasped around one elevated knee.

“You can’t love Greaves.” He sipped again.

She lifted her chin. “What if I do? What of it? You took me to punish him. But don’t you see, Caz, that you’ve punished me instead? I think it grossly unfair, ungentlemanly.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “I never said I was a gentleman, ma petite idiote.”

She huffed for a moment, then patted the seat next to her. “Come sit beside me and let me braid your hair.” She was a woman of vast appetites. That he’d introduced her to the pleasure of hurting mortals almost to the point of death while taking their blood had given her a new taste that she needed satisfied … often.

He smiled. He was happy to oblige. There was truly so much to like about this woman. For a hedonist, she was a perfect partner. She might pout, but she never truly complained. “Very well.”

She smiled. He joined her on the elegant sofa. Pity. The expensive fabric would be very stained by the end of the night. But then he had resources and could pay for the repairs.

Julianna began pulling his hair back, away from his face. She used her fingers to comb through it, quite soothing. She created a very appropriate French braid. He always wore his hair braided, out of the way, when he hunted.

Just when she’d folded a stretchy band to secure the bottom of the braid, he heard the sound of small running feet.

He set his now empty martini glass on the coffee table and opened his arms wide. His two young boys, Kendrew and Sloane, ran toward him and leaped on him.

He caught them up, rose to his feet, then spun them in a circle, delighting in the chortles that came from their young throats. He loved being a father, a real surprise since this was a first for him in all these millennia.

He had loved their mother as well, a deep love, one that almost made him human. Almost.

He returned to the sofa, holding each boy on a knee. He ignored Julianna who now scowled. She didn’t like his children, but he didn’t care.

“Tell me what you did today?”

Kendrew, recently turned five, talked about the park, having a pastry and café au lait. Sloane, not quite three, looked at him and asked. “When is Mama coming home?”

He kissed Sloane on the cheek. “She had an accident, remember? A car hit her and took her life. She can’t come back to us, ever.”

“Why not?”

Kendrew became impatient and flicked his younger sibling on the cheek. “Because she’s dead, stupid. Dead people don’t come back. Ever.”

Sloane started to cry. Caz gathered him up close, holding him over his shoulder, the way Warrior Kerrick had so lovingly held his daughter, Helena.

Kendrew didn’t cry. He just stared off into space and sucked on his lower lip.

“Remember, mes enfants, life is very difficult and sometimes bad things happen to wonderful people. But your papa will always make certain that you are well loved. Do you understand?”

Sloane nodded against his shoulder.

“Kendrew?” The five-year-old looked up at him, his eyes wet, his lips pressed together hard. He nodded as well.

Caz drew the older boy up over his empty shoulder and hugged them both.

A sliver of fear, a prescience, a knowing, passed through him, that the bargain he had made with Greaves in haste and out of sheer boredom would cost him something very precious in the coming months.

He took deep breaths and held his boys harder still. Something had happened in Arizona that he still didn’t quite understand. How did the woman Fiona, breh to Warrior Jean-Pierre and former blood slave, know to give the warriors a warning that death vampires were in the forest?

It would appear he had a mystery to solve, and at that he smiled. Mysteries were a good thing to hedonistic, easily bored Fourth ascenders. As for the sense of approaching doom, he mentally set it on fire until it turned to ashes. A Fourth ascender could always direct his path away from danger.